“Fair enough,” he said. “No hard feelings, Sebastiani, but you’ve been away for a long time. I don’t know if I can trust you yet.”
Bass stared at him coldly for a second longer and then let it slide away as he grinned and shrugged. He spread his hands in a disarming gesture.
“No harm, no foul,” he said easily. “I’m here to do a job, Shepherd, not get an invite to your backyard barbeque. Just pay what you owe me, and we’ll call it square. I won’t even charge you extra for the rough stuff.”
There was a pause as everyone in the bar waited for Shepherd to react before they committed themselves. In the end Shepherd chuckled harshly and grabbed the back of Bass’s neck in a callused hand. He gave him a friendly shake, although there was still something flinty in his eyes.
“Your job was to pick up my shipment, Sebastiani,” he pointed out. “Drugs or guns, whatever the Albanians are running. Since I don’t have my package and you wrecked my goddamn van, I figure that right now, you owe me. Quite a bit.”
Bass scowled but held his tongue. He’d been tapped to drive the van and watch Sonny’s back—scutwork for the club’s designated loser and the new guy. As far as he was concerned, he’d driven there and he’d driven back, so he was owed his money. Unfortunately one of the few drawbacks to a life of crime was that contract negotiations could be… touchy. There was a fine line between being a pushover and landing in a shallow grave with a bullet in your brain.
With a dozen of Plenty’s biggest assholes ready to kick his ass for fun and money if he crossed that line, Bass planned to play it safe.
“You could at least front me a beer,” he said.
Shepherd thought about being pissed but decided to be amused instead. “Help yourself,” he said. “And sit tight. I might need you for something yet.”
It wasn’t the time—or the man—to point out that Bass might have somewhere else to be. Besides, Grindr dates came with a 50 percent chance you’d get stood up for a better offer. He went behind the bar and helped himself to a shot of rotgut whiskey from an expensive bottle. He tossed it back in one. The raw liquor was hot as it hit his stomach, and he grabbed a beer to wash it down.
The amber bottle dangled from his long fingers, old road rash scarred over the backs of his hands, as he leaned on the bar. Ville, who’d put in a good word for him when he got back to Plenty, gave it a minute and then came over.
“You need to learn to mind your manners,” Ville said quietly. He caught the beer that Bass slid over the bar. “If you want in the Brothers, you need Shepherd to like you.”
Bass lifted the bottle to his mouth. “Who says I want in?” he said, mostly just to be contrary. He glanced around the room at the gaunt gray-and-white banshee face of the Corpse Brothers’ logo on every back, with the rockers stitched above and below. As a prospect Bass had the logo stitched on his cut, but if he wanted to be a full Brother, he needed the third patch. And he did want it. It made sense to join the Brothers. Even crooks liked to work for a salary. Still…. He took a draft of cold hops and then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I’ve never been a joiner.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” Ville said with a chuckle as he flicked the cap off his beer. They’d grown up together in the same shit part of town. Bass had fucked off out of the Heights the first chance—well, second—he got, but Ville had stayed and gone into the family business. “It would have made your life easier back then, will now too. It doesn’t hurt to have people to watch your back.”
Bass let a sly smile curve his mouth. “I have plenty of people that like to watch my ass.”
That got him the old uncomfortable look from Ville. The side-eye that he was fine with Bass being gay but wished he wouldn’t talk about it so much. For his own good, of course, because other people might not be so… tolerant.
Fuck tolerance. If Bass wanted to fit in, he’d have a job where he wore a suit and a tie. Or since kids with a GED from juvie didn’t often get into white-shoe law firms, one where he clocked in and got overtime. Maybe he’d have a little house he could lose to the bank and a debt with interest he paid down on once a week, either with most of his pay or a run of broken bones from the loan shark’s heavies.
Just like his dad.
Naw, not for him. He’d rather play the heavy than the doormat.
Ville washed his discomfort away with a swig of beer. “Seriously, though, if you want to me to put a word in—”
A guttural screech of pain from Sonny interrupted him. While they talked, Shepherd had recruited Fat Boone to pin Sonny’s shoulders down on the pool table. Shepherd had taken the legs, one knee braced against Sonny’s jailhouse ripped thigh as he gripped the bloody yellow plastic handle of the screwdriver and twisted.
“Get off,” Sonny howled as he writhed under Fat Boone’s weight. “Sonofabitch! You’re gonna kill me, you bastard!”
Shepherd grunted and let go. He wiped his bloody hand on his leg as he stepped back.
“It’s jammed right in there,” he said. “We’d need a chisel to get it out—”
“Fuck off,” Sonny blurted as he squirmed away from Boone’s grip. He fumbled the bottle up to his mouth and poured whiskey down his throat, gagging around the burn of it. “Get the hell off me. I need a doctor. Take me to the hospital.”
Shepherd took the bottle from Sonny. He wiped the mouth on his T-shirt and took a drink.
“Little problem there,” he said. “Doc’s been inside after that business in New Mexico, and you got…. How many active warrants on you, Sonny?”
Sonny swore and hammered his fist against the baize in a frustrated tattoo. “Fine. Whatever. But do something. You can’t leave me like this. I’m in fucking agony.”
He dropped back onto the baize with a thud and breathed raggedly through his open mouth. Shepherd and Boone looked at each other, the raised eyebrow and shrug the communication of people who’d known each other a long time and didn’t have any current ideas. It was Ville who broke the silence.
“Here,” he said as he turned to look at Bass. “Didn’t you say that guy last week was a doctor? The one you… um….”
