Bandit threw his long leg over his classic slim Le Pera seat and buttoned up his brown leather vest. He liked natural brown leather gauntlet gloves, vests and boots. He shifted his narrow glasses as the officer approached him in the Chowder Barge parking lot.
“Thank you,” she said, and for the first time her tone softened. She pushed a big boob against his shoulder and ran her hand up his inner thigh. “I’ll let you know how this investigation unfolds, and anytime you want to see me unfold, let me know.”
Bandit looked up into her shit-brown eyes, put his hands on his bars and started his chopper. It roared to life and she stepped back, startled. He nodded, dropped the Evo into gear and sped out of the parking lot and back to the Cantina less than 10 miles away along the Port of LA. She was a silky snake in the grass, and he needed to get as far away from her as possible, quick.
As he looked at the cranes and darted between the constantly growing cluster of 18-wheelers, he thought about what had just transpired. Could they be cool and ready to rock again, unencumbered by salty deaths in the dank marinas? He hoped so, but this area was rife with conspiracies, drugs, alcohol, whores and slippery outlaw gangsters.
It was only a matter of time before some other evil scheme surfaced from the oily brine in the harbor. Hell, even the port of LA was packed with notorious officials trying to take advantage of the community. Problems in the community were their fault. They had every opportunity to make Wilmington shine, but they shirked their community responsibilities to grab more land and grow the number of containers slipping in and out of the port, destroying roads, infrastructure and pushing the community away.
Bandit watched the fog begin to lift and the sun shine on the Vincent Thomas suspension bridge as the mist slinked through its angular metal beams. He blasted along Harbor Blvd, his exhaust rumbling against the concrete pillar bridge infrastructure. He slid slightly as he approached his turn and then jammed into the Cantina parking lot, popping a wheelie. He screeched up to the Cantina garages and dismounted. Frankie was immediately at his side, opening the garage door and pushing his bike inside.
Bandit looked up at the massive Vincent Thomas bridge that needed widening for a growing population and harbor business expansion. His gaze dropped to the Spanish tile roof of the Cantina and the Mexican-styled architecture, the gardens and his massive oak door entrance. It was his nirvana and he breathed a sigh of relief as he entered.
Margarete smiled broadly as he approached the bar. “I’m glad it worked out,” she said gleefully. “All is well here, and you have an interesting guest.”
Bandit looked around the bar and the dining room, but then came back to the foot of the stairway leading to his office and apartment. Suddenly, he was caught off guard. A very small Asian girl leaned seductively against the oak staircase railing. Bandit’s eyes met her dark slits. “Her name is,” Margaret said as she picked up a slip of paper off the slick bar top, “Wim Tat Nam.”
Young and frail, she stood less than 5 feet tall but her jet-black hair almost reached the thick wooden deck. Wearing what appeared to be canvas and burlap sacks, Bandit eyed her countenance deeply. On the surface, she looked as if she had been kidnapped and just released from a container in the harbor.
Bandit studied every element of her facial features for a clue before even saying a word to her. He turned to Margaret. “What’s the deal?”
“Not sure. She came in just 30 minutes ago and asked for you. She went to your stairs and didn’t move.”
Bandit turned to the young Chinese girl and looked at the slip of rice paper Margaret handed him and studied it. It contained just her name, neatly printed with Indian ink. In the corner was a small red-inked stamp containing a Chinese symbol, less than 3/8 of an inch square. His green eyes lifted slightly to meet Wim’s when there was a clatter outside.
Another motorcycle blasted into the parking lot and the open fish-tip exhaust assaulted the morning quiet before the Cantina opened. The bike screeched to a stop in front of the entrance and a rider dismounted harshly and ran for the door.
The oak doors burst open. And a mountain man covered in beard and leather burst in the doors. “She’s mine, yippee.”
Bandit stepped to a secure angle to witness Wim’s response to the accusation. For some reason she seemed unphased. “Are you hungry?” Bandit asked.
She looked at Margaret with a questioning look. Margaret was such a sweetie and so full of joy, which she embraced in every movement. She smiled and acted as it she was eating something from a bowl. Wim nodded and Bandit watched her every move.
Tina darted into the kitchen and out strolled the Chinaman with a bowl of Posole soup, full of fresh vegetables and chicken. The round man looked at Bandit who nodded to the diminutive woman still standing by the railing. She looked up the stairs, but Bandit led her to a booth in the corner of the dining room and the Chinaman followed.
Bandit watched the Chinaman’s body language and facial expressions. He seemed to be as curious as Bandit.
“Wait a goddamn minute,” Mountain man shouted. “She doesn’t need to eat. She’s coming with me!”
Bandit turned from the girl and his study of the interaction between the Chinaman and the recent immigrant to face the grizzly bear snarling. He was maybe 6’ 2” and thick, but he wore a sweat shirt, heavy flannel and a rugged, worn, brown leather vest sans any pins or badges.
His faced was scared and his nose broken and out of alignment. “I’m burnin’ daylight,” he snapped and reached under his leather vest. Immediately he was faced with two loaded and cocked 9mm Brownings and one sawed-off shotgun.
“Not a good move here,” Bandit said.
The mountain man wearing badly worn leather chaps and well-worn brown leather Justin boots, withdrew his gloved hand slowly. “Listen, I paid for that broad and she was supposed to be delivered here, today. Done deal,” he said. “I have the papers.”
“Fuck your papers,” Bandit said. “Let’s see what she has to say.” He nodded to the Chinaman.
Just then another motorcycle approached. It sounded like Jeremiah on his Dyna, but he’s rarely up before noon and he knows the Cantina hours. It sounded like a fast bike, but there wasn’t just one. Three Dynas pulled up out front, all club guys.
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Their bikes had the Sons of Anarchy touch, all black from the frames and sheet metal to the grips and seats. The leader or longtime member was muscled, tattooed Hispanic and evil looking. He pushed open the doors to the Cantina and his smaller, more wiry prospects followed.
They all wore black from their boots to their bandanas and all the vests were shiny black leather. The leader was maybe 6 foot and his long Fu Manchu mustache made him look even more evil, along with teardrops tattooed under one eye running down the side of his face. He must have done a lot of time. He had more black drops than Bandit had ever seen on any outlaw mug.
Bandit and his crew still had their weapons out and it startled this bunch. They instinctively started to reach for whatever they were packing but stopped. “What the fuck?” the leader said. “Did we come at a bad time?”
“Could be,” Bandit said, “especially if you’re here to pick up a Chinese immigrant.”
“How the fuck did you know?” The leader snapped and started to puff up. “Spread out,” he said to his brothers then turned to Bandit. “I’m not leaving without her!”
Bandit glanced at Marko and then back at the Chinaman. “Now, we need to know even more.”
The Chinaman turned to Wim who sat in the booth sorta relaxed and ate her most delicious Cantina soup. He spoke to her and Bandit tried to watch the interchange and keep his eye on the brothers, but not much seemed to be going on.
“This is bullshit,” the mountain man said. “I have the papers and the broad is mine. I rode from Wyoming to fetch her and we’re getting married in Vegas on the way back to my ranch.”
“I also have papers,” The club leader said and started to reach into his vest.
“Leave ‘em,” Bandit said to him. “We don’t give a fuck about your papers. And I’m beginning to sense Wim whatever doesn’t either.”
The Chinaman who bent to listen to Wim Tat Nam respond stood up and turned toward Bandit. The Chinaman, the longtime Cantina chef, who was big and round and a man of few words, except when it came to describing his next dish, strode passed Bandit toward the galley. He didn’t say a word, but they made eye contact. His expression said everything.
Suddenly there was the chirp of a police cruiser outside and it seemed to screech to a stop. Frankie slipped the shotgun into its hidden resting place behind the door jam. Bandit and Marko put their weapons away and waited. The brothers looked tentative and the mountain man got even more impatient, stomping one of his worn boots against the deck, “Fuck!” He said, “what now?”
What bothered Bandit was the Chinese broad in the booth, still gently eating the soup. She seemed in an entirely different world. She didn’t indicate any knowledge of the two bikers and didn’t seem to give a shit. The Chinaman confirmed the bad news.
In walked the female detective. She spotted Wim immediately and made a bee-line toward the booth. “Wim,” Mary Olsen said. “Finally, you’re here and out of communist China.” She glowed with the look of a long-lost lover found.
Wim lifted her gaze from her near empty bowl of the Chinaman’s amazing soup, pushed the bowl back and sat comfortably back in her richly cushioned booth and lifted her gaze to the female Lieutenant who seemed to be salivating. Her massive boobs pumped with her passionate breathing as she leaned over the table.
“I’m not a fucking lesbian, sucker,” Wim said in perfect English and the cop was stunned. Bandit thought she might faint. She staggered back like a pregnant mother learning that her 25-year husband was walking out and leaving her penniless.
Bandit glanced across the room toward the Chinaman who was just about to walk through the metal sleeved galley swinging doors sporting highly polished brass portholes. The Chinaman turned toward Bandit, while pushing one of the doors open. A smirk crossed his face, but then he gestured to Bandit.
The tall female cop started to regroup. “I told you how I would drive to San Francisco every weekend for as long as it took, just to lick your pussy…”
Wim said nothing but made a fatal mistake. She rolled her eyes. Suddenly Lt. Olsen stood erect. She reached into her gray business suit inner breast pocket, slid her hand over one of her delicious massive boobs and her nipple responded and pushed against her sheer white blouse. She wrapped her fingers around her breast .38 stub-nosed special and yanked it out of her ballistic-nylon holster.
“No one fucks with me,” she said, her face as red as the 4-Ball on Bandit’s pool table. As she fumed, she spread her legs and moved into a shooting stance.
Bandit looked at Marko and they both stepped back toward their adjacent thick lathe and plaster exterior walls. Every other brother in the joint pulled their weapons. The triggers sounded like a typewriter hammered by an angry editor facing a strident deadline.
“She’s a cop!” Bandit shouted as four pistols were immediately aimed at Detective Slut. One went off. The detective was hit, but she fired, and it punctured the thick padding in the booth less than two inches from Wim’s head. She spun and fired at the first biker she saw. One of the club member’s guardians was hit square in the center of his chest and he went down hard and fast.
Everyone else froze. Bandit and Marko never drew weapons. Frankie made a move to the wounded prospect on the wood deck.
Bandit raced to the officer on the deck at the other end of the dining room and twisted the .38 from her angry grasp. Margaret came running to her aid.
Bandit looked at startled Wim Tat Nam and wondered, “What the fuck?” He snapped. “You’re about a stupid cunt.”
“You don’t know shit,” Wim spat.
“Yeah, yeah,” Bandit said. “We don’t know who we’re messing with, right? Bullshit. You’re in America now. You could have been dead in a hot flash two seconds ago. I don’t care if you’re the queen of a cartel or the empress of whores; it only takes one bullet.”
“Marko,” Bandit said, “you know this drill. Search her and strip her naked.”
Bandit turned toward the brothers who stood dismayed. They didn’t know what the hell to do.
“Listen guys. This isn’t over,” Bandit said. “She’s connected to something and they will arrive shortly and then there’s the cops. They can’t be far away.”
Marko yanked the little Chinese woman from the booth, patted her down and stripped her of her tattered clothes. The outer layer of canvas and burlap looked worn, but it was lined with silk and insulated with small baggies of cocaine. She carried three stiletto knives.
Under the outer garment was a gold thread embroidered traditional cheongsam crimson silk dress. It was also laced with precious gems. Finally, she started to react as he removed the dress. She wore silk panties and a tightly wrapped chest cover to conceal substantial tits, to make her look small and boyish.
Marko pushed her into a Cantina wooden chair and tie-wrapped her small wrists behind her, after lacing her thin arms through the chair.
The club prospect lay dead on the deck and Frankie covered him with a white sheet from the Cantina linen cabinet.
“There’s your prize,” Bandit said to the tattooed club member, to the mountain man and to the detective being bandaged on the floor. “She’s a drug smuggler, gem thief, an internet rip-off artist, a cold heart-breaker and who knows what else.”
“Here’s the drill,” Bandit continued from his well-positioned corner of the room. “The cops will GPS her unit soon and come looking for her. She’s probably not popular, so they may take their sweet time. But silky smooth over there has a deadline. Someone is coming for the drugs, the gems or for her. You’ve got a choice. You could venture out those doors and get the hell out of here, or we need to buckle down for the next round.”
