“Watch out,” Bandit?s gravely voice warned over the phone. “It’s the season.”
Marko hung up the Cantina hot line in wonderment. He only spoke to Bandit on rare occasions or during an emergency. Marko handled security, Bandit ordered inventory and he checked in the shit when it arrived. Marko could never figure out how Bandit knew toilet paper was low, or that the Chinaman needed cilantro for his salsa.
It seemed ironic to Marko, the master of security, close quarters combat, surveillance and communications. Bandit was once his number 1 student for a few years, but that was the extent of his training. Marko trained consistently for 30 years, studied mountain rescue, high altitude jumps, deep water diving, marksmanship with a variety of weapons, etc. He was a noted author of training and security manuals and worked for two years in Iraq, training security forces. Yet he still couldn’t figure Bandit out.
The Cantina was cooking. The staff got along and the lesbians didn’t fight. Even drug use around the Cantina diminished. The drunks settled into a reasonable routine and there?d been no barroom brawls for two months. Marko fished after hours on the oiled wharf behind the Cantina and he met a couple of girls who took care of him without constant demands. Life sparkled on the water at sunset. Hell, even his stretched FXR was running like a champ.
Bandit’s warning alerted his senses as he moved around the Cantina on this Friday night. But all seemed well as he watched a group of local riders enjoying Margaritas and the Chinaman’s special of Salmon tacos and shrimp quesadillas. It was a good group, including longshoremen and hardworking construction workers. Jerry Streamer was one of the crew, a stocky biker with a recently finished bobber. Bandit had helped with a couple of aspects of the build and recommended an engraver from Canada, Heather New.
The little old Shovelhead looked tight and killer with the brass engraved jockey shift knob, engraved brass Knucklehead footboards and Bandit-built air cleaner, also engraved. It was generally blacked out, with gold leaf scallops, very little chrome and lots of flat black powder. He didn’t drink but sat with his brothers and shot the shit. His every feature was round, from his nearly shaved head, strange long mustache, young man’s potbelly and puffy cheeks.
“These motherfuckers ain’t got nothin’ on me,” Jerry said joking with a longshoreman who prided himself in his union job.
Jerry’s cell phones rang constantly. “Hello,” he said and grimaced as one ol’ lady, Carla, lit into him with a vengeance. He set his cell phone on the thick oak table so the brothers could hear.
“You’re no good, you sonuvabitch,? she screeched. ?Bring me some money or I’ll turn you in for child abuse,” she screamed relentlessly.
He hung up on her, but she continued to call back, text him and belabor him with the phone messages. He had a phone with a voice ring that shouted, “Where you at,” in a black dialect.
“Why can’t I get a break?” he said to no one in particular, and shut the phone down. He was barely 33 and stumbled into one offspring with one woman and two with another.
Another phone rang immediately and the ring sounded like a sweet melody. It was ex number two and he answered it quickly. “Hello?”
“Hey,” the voice came over the phone like pancake batter poured out of a pitcher. It was smooth.
“What’s up?” Jerry asked.
“I’m buying little Charlie’s school clothes,” She said calmly. “Can you throw me a couple of extra bucks?”
“Of course,” Jerry said. “I’ll bring you one hundred tomorrow. Will that work?”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll talk at you tomorrow.”
Jerry hung up and immediately his other phone screamed at him, “Where you at?”
“Yeah?” he answered it without thinking.
“Who are you seeing,” Carla screamed? “Some two-bit whore, I bet. You don’t have money for your kids, but you have it for the broads. I’ll have your bank account frozen again, you sonuvabitch.”
“I paid you child support,” he said, struggling to remain calm in front of his pals.
“I don’t give a shit,” she snapped. “I’m thinking about calling child protection and telling them you molested your son,” she snapped.
She wasn’t bad-looking for a psycho who hadn’t worked in four years, worked three lawsuits, (including one against Jesse James, her last job) and lived off of welfare, handouts, and television soap operas.
Just then Tina stepped up to Jerry. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.
Her voice was like a morphine shot to a wounded man. It had a silken nature and was as sincere as a nun counseling a raped woman.
“Who the hell was that?” ex number one barked.
“The waitress,” Jerry said.
“Fuck you, you liar,” she snapped. “You sonuvabitch!”
The phone went dead.
“Brother,” Larry said, “You’ve got a case on your hands.”
“I’ll take a Corona,” Jerry said to the waitress, “with lime.”
“I didn’t think you drank,” Freddy, the longshoreman said as he tossed down the backwash in his Bud and signaled Tina for another.
“I don’t normally,” Jerry said. “But there’s only so much a man can take.”
Jerry’s phone rattled against the table top again. “Where you at?”
Like a fool he answered it.
“You’re an idiot,” she squealed. “I’m calling child services, freezing your accounts, you faggot. You’ll never see your kids again.”
“Pound sand,” Jerry said. “I pay you right on time each month. Get a life.” He was about to hang up when Tina approached with his drink.
“Here you go sweetness,” she said like soft melting butter sliding off a sizzling stack of hot pancakes.
“That does it, you sonuvabitch,” Carla said and threw her cell phone against the kitchen wall.
Jerry looked at his cell phone, raised his eyebrows slightly and flipped it shut.
“What’s up?” Indian John asked through his surgically removed vocal cords, while pulling on his long gray goatee.
“Fuckin’ woman,” Jerry said and sipped his Corona.
“Somethin’s naggin’ you, mate” Glenn said and pulled on his Bud. Glenn was a short, thin Australian rider with long sideburns and a trimmed mustache
The phone didn’t ring. Five minutes passed and it still didn’t ring, then it did and Jerry jumped.
“Hello?” he said with trepidation.
Glenn took another slug from his beer and leaned close to Indian John.
“He’s nervous,” he said. “I don’t get it, the way that broad treats Jerry. He needs to put some distance there. Cut a dusty trail for a while.”
John started to say something through all his hair, beard and mustache, but he was interrupted by squealing tires in the parking lot.
A five-year-old SUV skidded into the parking lot past motorcycles to the awning at the front of the building and screeched to a stop, leaving the acrid odor of burning rubber in its wake. Frankie, the Cantina?s janitor, scrambled to the car as the driver door snapped open and squeaked against the steel hinges.
Carla heaved herself out of the driver’s seat in a dead run for the door, knocking scrawny Frankie back. He stumbled and fell to the adobe tiles at the entrance, busting his lip against the raise bricks.
Carla wasn’t bad looking, but on the heavy side and worn from three childbirths and two abortions. She wasn’t careful. She threw open the distressed oak door leading into the Cantina dining area and turned immediately toward the sprawling bar.
Jerry spotted her through the massive stucco archway and his eyes grew like saucers. Indian John recognized abject fear and pushed away from the table. All hell was about to break loose.
“Hit the deck,” he warned.
?Say what, mate?? Glenn asked quizzically.
Two other riders, Bad Brad and Slim Pickens, sat up and looked around. Carla was coming full steam and reaching in her purse to yank out a stainless .32 Browning semi-auto with ivory handles. Her tan Hispanic hand blistered against the cold surface and her index finger grabbed at the trigger.
The first round went off in her purse and yanked the contents out of her hand, spilling make-up, cell phones, tissues, lipstick and a crack pipe on the deck. Shit scattered and shattered.
Tina stood behind Jerry bent slightly at the waist in the process of delivering his next Corona. As she set it on the thick carved wooded table, her ample ivory tits jiggled tauntingly in their soft cotton, south-of-the-border haltertop. Over half of their heavenly orbs were revealed as Carla attempted to gather her composure, from the first blast, and take aim. She didn’t know whether to point the shaking weapon at Jerry, or the object of her rage, or both.
The gun went off again prematurely and split Indian John’s rum-filled insulated coffee canister, which he carried constantly. He liked the spun stainless container, ’cause it looked like a coffee urn and he could carry it on his bike.
Bad Brad had history with Carla and Jerry and hated all no- count, baby-makin’ broads. Brad was bad, taught martial arts and sparred with the best of them. He jumped to his feet, grabbed a barstool, and prepared for the worst.
Carla was startled by the unplanned discharges, and tried to aim again, still confused. Tina dropped her tray and Glenn reached for her wrist to yank her to safety. Jerry didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. He was trapped behind the heavy table. He knew Tina was at his back; he could smell her fragrance, sensed her delightful bubbly nature and questioned whether to stand and protect her or dive under the table.
Carla raised the weapon level with Jerry’s eyes, just 6 inches beneath Tina’s ample cleavage. Her eyes focused on a spot in the center of Jerry’s forehead. She knew she had four hollow point rounds left and a plan formed as she squeezed the trigger. She could execute her ex and lift the weapon 7 lucky inches and take out the broad.
The blue steel trigger moved back in fluid motion and the firing pin was released to stamp the back of the next round and set into motion a loud but precise explosion.
Carla realized her hand was hanging in the air sans the weapon, but she could swear the gun fired. With bullwhip-like accuracy Marko stepped up behind her and relieved her of the weapon with a deft upward wrist motion. The gun fired and the small caliber bullet slammed into a foot-thick rough-hewn beam in the Cantina ceiling.
As quickly as he relieved Carla of the weapon, he returned the ivory handle to the bridge of her nose and shattered the cartilage. Suddenly the weapon was covered in Carla’s blood and she staggered in his arms, but he held her fast.
“What the hell!” Jerry shouted. “She didn’t do anything to you!” He leaped to his feet and started to scramble around the table.
Bad Brad dropped his stool and grabbed Jerry. “What gives? She came here to kill you.”
“I don’t care,” Jerry said pushing against Brad’s iron grip. “She didn’t mean it.”
“Fuck it,” Brad snapped, spun Jerry around and broke his nose with a single palm-heel strike. “Let’s get rid of both of them.”
Brad drug Jerry outside to the SUV and shoved him in the driver’s seat. Marko and Slim loaded Carla in the back.
“You love her so much,” Marko said, “Get her the fuck out of here before the cops show up. I’ll stow your bike. Come and get it when you’re ready, but you’re not welcome in the Cantina until you can control your women and your feelings. Later.”
Marko returned to the bar and picked up the hotline phone.
“Thanks for the warning,” he said to Bandit.
