Hot Leathers® Riding Gear

Despite this, he was actually quite a good-natured fellow; a hard-assbrawler and a multiple felon, true, but nevertheless a quiet, dependablesort (as outlaws go), holding fewer grudges against the world at large thandoes, say, the average postal worker.

At the moment, Buzzard was cruising up Route 842 in rural Pennsylvania,feeling the sunshine on his shoulders and easing his ’53 Panhead choppercarefully around the hairpin turns. The telegram was a tiny, crumpled ballin his pocket. Buzzard had no idea how they had located him, and thetelegram offered no explanation. It said, simply, come home, stop, fatherdying, stop, Uncle Roy, stop.

The Reverend Wolfgang Amadeus Toozfetz was a hard and uncompromising man.He didn’t like many things, but he knew what he hated, and he had no doubtwhatsoever that God hated the same things. He was The Man in Charge ofStraightening Out The Universe (trumpets, please), and he bore hisGod-given burden upon his broad shoulders with unflagging tenacity.

How and why Horace’s mother had chosen the reverend for a husband hadalways been a mystery to Horace. She was a small, pretty, delicate woman,patient and quiet, honest and uncomplicated. The reverend’s bulldog actoverwhelmed her completely; he forbade her everything he could think of and berated her mercilessly for the smallest infractions, such as going tothe market without her luxurious, blond hair tied in the mandatory sexlessbun. He would inexplicably relent at random intervals, suddenly becomingpleasant and kind, but no sooner would she let down her guard than thereverend would revert to his former self, berating her in his mostterrible fire-and-brimstone voice about how God hated disobedient wives.Horace had always reviled himself for not protecting his mother, but he was only a small boy, and his courage wilted instantly before the reverend’s 6-foot, 4-inch frame.

The farmhouses and lush, green fields rolled lazily by. Cows and horsesmeandered around, occasionally pausing to munch on a green tuft of grass.Buzzard eased the long, lean bike to a halt at the stop sign, then turnedleft onto 82 north. Route 82 was a much straighter road, so he eased thethrottle open and accelerated to a leisurely 45 mph.

Horace’s mother had always shielded him from the reverend’s wrath by taking the heat upon herself. Horace mostly stayed out of his father’s way,performing his chores to the reverend’s exacting specifications and therebyavoiding attention. This continued until Horace was 16, when his mother took ill.

From the corner of his eye, Buzzard saw a German shepherd launch itselffrom the porch of a small, white house and bound across the lawn toward him. He slowed down a bit and whacked the shifter down into third. When the dog was about 10 feet away, he let out the clutch and rolled the throttle, throwing off the dog’s planned point of interception and rattling the window panes with a blast from his upswept fishtail drag pipes.

The doctors had been unable to find anything specifically wrong with Mrs.Toozfetz, but her condition continued to worsen daily. On a bitter fallday, under a steely gray sky, Horace’s mother finally died. The countycoroner had explained the cause of her death with the ambiguous phrase”natural causes,” but Horace knew that there was nothing natural about it;she had died of a broken heart. And he knew without a doubt who thereverend’s next target would be, now that he had been deprived of hisfavorite victim.

After the funeral, Horace had snuck out to his Uncle Roy’s barn, whereRoy’s son, Johnny, had secretly helped him restore an ancient 45 ciFlathead, which Horace had bought from an old widow for $150. (Uncle Royknew about the Flathead, but kept Horace’s secret. Being the reverend’syounger brother, Roy was aware of Horace’s harassed and abusive home lifeand took pity on him.) Horace had snuck out to work on the bike at everyopportunity, using the money that he?d earned by working at the hardwarestore after school. This had been a risky endeavor. Motorcycles were thework of the devil, and if the reverend had discovered it, he would havebeaten Horace to within an inch of his life.

Now that Horace’s mother was dead, there was nothing to keep him in SouthCarolina any longer. He hastily packed all of his belongings onto the bike — a duffel bag full of clothes, some extra ignition points and spark plugs, aworn and dirty tool roll and $122.47 in small bills. He straddled the bike,kicked it to life, then eased it out of the barn and onto the main road. Henever looked back. The road ahead beckoned with promises of adventure andinfinite possibilities; his new life as a scooter gypsy had begun.

By the time Buzzard reached Coatesville, he decided to respect Uncle Roy’srequest and go back home. This would not be a happy run; the reverend,being the town preacher, had been a revered and respected figure in thecommunity. In small towns, everybody knows everybody else’s business, andpeople have long memories. Not being privy to all of the facts, everybodywould assume that Buzzard was guilty of the foulest betrayal — deserting hisloving father in his hour of need, an outlaw biker who deserved nothingless than 12 hours on the rack. Nevertheless, Buzzard decided to go. Hehad lived for 34 years with the strange burden of his unresolvedrelationship with his father, and he was determined to seize this lastopportunity for closure.

Early the next morning, Buzzard was in his garage, strapping a large Armysurplus duffel bag to the chopper’s tall, dagger-shaped sissy bar, crisscrossing the bungee cords back and forth. Having decided to go, he was eager to get started as early as possible. He made a last-minute mechanical check of the bike, then began stuffing tools into the weather beaten leather fork bag.

In high school, Horace’s chief tormentor had been Bobby Plachette, starquarterback and captain of the football team. Horace had never been taughthow to fight, nor would it have mattered if he had been. Plachette wasthree years older than he was, and was significantly taller, stronger andfaster. No matter how discreetly Horace had tried to sneak home fromschool, at least twice per week he would hear, “Hey whore-ass, you can run,but you can’t hide!” coming from behind him. Then the inevitableass-whipping would begin. Horace lived in constant fear of it. It hadutterly destroyed his self-esteem, making it impossible for him to havefriends or date girls. It ruined his performance in school and made himyet more miserable at home. Horace dared not tell his father, though,because the reverend had a strict policy of non-violence (which heparadoxically enforced with a leather strap), and to let the reverend findout that he had been fighting would only have compounded Horace’s miseries.

Plachette had graduated just as Horace finished his freshman year.Although a star quarterback in his small-town high school, Plachette hadnot been quite good enough to win a college athletic scholarship. Becausethe teachers had breezed him through the system, Plachette’s poor academicperformance made it impossible for him to get into college on his ownmerit. At the ripe old age of 18, the erstwhile pampered star,beloved by all, had become just another penniless nobody, a washed-uphas been with no marketable skills and no future. He seemed poised tobecome either the town bully or the town drunk, (both positions for whichhe was eminently qualified), when something happened to change hislife. He became a cop.

Buzzard straddled the chopper and jumped hard on the starter pedal. Theperfectly tuned Panhead rumbled to life on the first kick. He backed thechoke off slightly and waited for a few minutes while the engine warmed up.

Horace was glad to have left town before having any serious run-ins withDeputy Plachette. A long series of lateral drifts had eventually led himto a small apartment in New Jersey and a reasonably steady job as alongshoreman at the port. He put plenty of miles on the Flathead, it beinghis only means of transportation, and the antique scoot soon began toattract the attention of the local motorcycle aficionados. Within a year,he was riding with the Jersey Renegades and had earned the name Buzzard,since by this time he was over 6 feet tall and lanky, with a prominent beak ofa nose protruding from underneath his long, ragged hair. It was through hisassociation with the Renegades that he eventually hooked up with his firstreal friend, an infamous young outlaw by the name of Ace Calhoun. Buzzardwould soon sell the Flathead to a local Harley dealership that wanted todisplay it out on the floor. He got enough money from the sale to buy anold Panhead, still a classic scoot, but a bike whose larger engine had morepossibilities than the already overworked 45.

When the engine’s cooling fins were warm to the touch, Buzzard eased thebike out of the driveway and onto the road. Interstate 95 was the straightest shot down to South Carolina. Although it was a crowded and unpleasant highway,this was a Monday and most of the lemmings were at work. He decided that itwould be OK as long as he stayed off of the road during rush hour. And withthat, he sped away.

Buzzard roared down the mostly empty interstate. The traffic petered outonce he got past the airport, and he screwed it on through Maryland andinto Virginia.

In Virginia, an ugly storm was massing. From the east, a crescent lineslashed the sky, a telltale parabolic border delimiting the boundarybetween cool and warm air, clear sky in front and dark clouds behind. Acold front was moving in. Buzzard twisted the wick, hoping to outrun thestorm, but to no avail. Soon the sky was bible-black, and threatened toregurgitate itself upon man and beast. A cold wind picked up and small bits of highway trash danced across the road, caught in tiny, invisible whirlwinds. The thunder began to rumble, drowning out even the blast of the chrome drag pipes. By the time Buzzard got to Richmond, the rain was pouring down. A million tiny needles pelted his soaking leathers and stung his face and neck. It was all his poor headlight could do to penetrate the gray murk and feebly illuminate a few square feet of rain-drenched pavement. Buzzard grimly pressed on, left hand wiping the rain from his wraparound glasses, determined to make North Carolina by nightfall. But cold fronts pass quickly; within a half hour the wind dieddown and the storm dissipated as suddenly as it had appeared. The sun cameout, for which Buzzard was eternally grateful, warming his cold and clammyflesh.

Buzzard crossed the border into North Carolina by dusk. He checked into asmall motel, hungrily devoured a burger and fries at the hamburger standacross the street, then retired to his room. It was a cheesy little motel. The paint job was piss yellow and the Art Deco furniture was straight outof the ?50s, but it was comfortable and dry, and that was all he wanted.He hung his leathers from a coat hanger in front of the window to dry, thenslept the exhausted sleep that awaits every rider at the end of a long,hard road.

The next day he awoke full of enthusiasm. The sun was out and the birdswere singing. It was the kind of day made by God especially for riding. The coldfront had brought with it a mass of cool, dry air, lowering the temperatureto a comfortable 70 degrees. The leathers were stiff and hard but dry, andBuzzard pulled them on quickly, eager to get started. He checked out at thefront desk, ate an omelet at a local diner and blasted off onto thehighway, heading south once again.

Markham, South Carolina, remained a one-horse town, for the most partuntouched by time. Old people sat on rocking chairs on porches, looking asthough they had sat there since the beginning of time and would continue tosit there until the sun grew cold. Main Street consisted of a generalstore, a gas station, a tiny bar and grill and a small church where, untilrecently, the Reverend Wolfgang A. Toozfetz had preached every Sunday. Thetown was small enough that everyone knew everyone else, and since Markhamdidn’t connect anywhere with anywhere, the appearance of any strange face(let alone Buzzard’s) was enough to cause a stir.

Buzzard rumbled over the horizon like a ragged and bearded messiah, a madprophet from the mountains covered in leather and tattoos, riding upon aterrible chrome steed that drank gasoline and belched flames from theblackened depths of its fiery asshole, a grim harbinger come to deliver TheWord. His appearance on the scene was as disruptive as Attila the Hunriding his horse into the middle of the New York Stock Exchange. Housewivesstopped and stared, children pointed excitedly, old people scowled indisapproval from their rockers. Buzzard ignored all of this, casuallyblasting down Main Street toward Uncle Roy’s house (assuming, of course,that Uncle Roy still lived there), rattling windows on either side of thestreet and setting off car alarms.

Buzzard hadn’t been sure that he would be able to remember the way, but now that he was there, everything came back to him in a rush. Within minutes,he was cruising down Uncle Roy’s tree-lined street, and damn if that wasn’told Roy himself out in the front yard! The little brick house with thegreen shutters was just as Buzzard remembered. Uncle Roy was older, ofcourse, and grayer, and he looked much smaller than Buzzard remembered, buthe was definitely Uncle Roy. Roy heard the chopper roaring up the streetand stiffened apprehensively as he turned around, then took two full stepsbackward when he saw the grim figure bearing down upon him. Buzzard waved,and Roy stared, nonplussed. Buzzard pulled into the driveway, flicked thekickstand down and killed the engine. He felt a lump rise suddenly in histhroat; here before him was the only man who had ever shown him anyaffection or kindness. All Buzzard managed to say, somewhat lamely, was,”Uncle Roy… I got your telegram… I came right away.”

Roy was stunned. That cute little boy, so fresh in his memory, had turnedinto this big hairy monster, some half-human werewolf in greasy leathersand muddy boots. But he was that boy, home at last. After a long pause, Roygasped, “Horace! Horace, my boy! I… I didn’t think you would come…”Buzzard dismounted and stepped squarely into a bear hug. “Horace, it’s beenso long, we have so much to catch up on. Come on in, your cousin John’sinside.”

That evening, Buzzard was sitting at a small, round table near the back ofthe Markham Road House Pub, drinking a beer and talking excitedly with hiscousin about all that had transpired in the past 18 years. John wasmarried with two kids and had settled down to a quiet life as a countrymechanic, the only one in Markham. The reverend had stoically borne hispublic humiliation after Buzzard ran away, and neither Roy nor John hadever mentioned the Flathead. There didn’t seem to be any point. Thereverend had continued preaching at the church until he was diagnosed withbone cancer at the age of 64. He had managed to live a fairly normal lifefor 18 months after that, but the treatments soon stopped working and hisincreasingly ill health forced him into early retirement. They had sent himhome from the hospital once it became apparent that there was nothing morethey could do, and the reverend, at present, was in his own home, under thecare of a nurse, slipping in and out of consciousness and awaiting theinevitable end. Roy had hired a private investigator to find Buzzard’saddress and had then sent the telegram that was still crumpled up inBuzzard’s pocket.

“Well,” said Buzzard, “I came this far, so I guess the only right thing tado is stick around a while and hope I get at least one chance ta set thingsstraight before he goes.”

John nodded in silent agreement and took a sip from his beer. “Of course,you can stay with me or my dad as long as you want.”

“Thanks cuz,” Buzzard replied, “that means a lot to me.”

Then, from over his left shoulder, Buzzard heard something that he thought he?d never hear again. “Hey whore-ass! You can run, but you can’t hide!”

Buzzard whirled around and stood up in one fluid motion, fists clenched and teeth bared. Standing before him was a pudgy, middle-aged man in a uniform, armed, swaggering and arrogant. He was older and out of shape, but he was definitely Bobby Plachette. And he had a gold, star-shaped badgepinned to the breast pocket of his uniform…

Holy creeping shit. Sheriff Plachette.

Buzzard stood a half-head taller than Plachette, and his hard, knottedmuscles were wrapped like bundles of steel cable around his lanky frame from years of working at the docks. Plachette, by contrast, had obviouslyspent those years sitting in his cruiser eating donuts. Buzzard could easily break him in half now.

And here was the final absurdity: In spite of all this, Buzzard could still feel that old fear knotting his stomach and rising in his throat. It was as if Plachette’s very voice had the power to yank him backward in time andturn him into Horace Toozfetz again, a scared little boy being stomped intothe dirt.

The sheriff stuck his thumbs into his gun belt and swaggered around. “Yessiree,” he said, “when one of my men saw that motor-sickle parked outsideRoy Toozfetz’ house, I went in there an’ I sez, ‘Roy, we don’t cotton tooutlaws an’ drifters ’round these parts. Whoever owns this hunka junk, I’mgonna lock ‘im up fer vagrancy.’ Then ol’ Roy sez, ‘You ain’t gotta dothat, sheriff. It belongs to my nephew Horace.’ That’s how I knowed you wuzback in town, an’ I figgered I’d find you here.”

All eyes were upon Buzzard and the sheriff. Buzzard looked around, thenback at the sheriff and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “I’m hereto see my father, so why don’t you just fuck off?”

“Don’t get smart with me, boy, I’ll whip yer ass good. If ya wanted ta seeyer father, ya coulda seed him long before now. Like I sez, we don’t likedrifters around these parts. If you’re not outta here before the sun comesup tomorra morning, I’ll lock ya up fer vagrancy.”

Buzzard’s face twisted into a lethal snarl. The fact was, Plachette was armed and Buzzard wasn’t. “I ain’t goin’ noplace until I get ta talk to myfather,” Buzzard spat.

“Just remember, whore-ass,” Plachette replied, “sunrise tomorra.” Then heturned around and, chuckling to himself, swaggered out.

Buzzard deflated back into his seat and the other patrons went back totheir business. “How the hell did that asshole become sheriff?” Buzzard asked.

“Well,” said John, “you remember when he became a deputy?”Buzzard nodded.

Once in uniform, Plachette had discovered that he had a great affinity forthat line of work. All those years he’d been bullying people for free, andnow that he had a gun and a badge, he was getting paid to do it.

Not many years later, a small-time drug ring had moved its operation toMarkham to escape the heat that the new police chief of Charlotte wasbringing down in the city. The theory was this: Since drug problems weremore or less unheard of in small towns, the gangsters would have moreleeway to operate, free of the threat of a large, well-funded police force.This theory proved to be correct. Then-Sheriff Ed Channing was getting oninto his 60s and had little stomach for getting shot right before hewas due to retire.

Deputy Plachette and another deputy with the ironic name of Fred Manley had taken matters into their own hands, initiating a two-man crusade againstthe gang. They ticketed the gangsters’ cars from one end of the county tothe other, obtained search warrants on any pretense, and even sent thecounty building inspector to cite them for numerous trumped-upbuilding code violations. Within a year the gangsters decided thatthere was even more heat in Markham than there had been in Charlotte. Theirgoal, after all, was to make money, not to lock horns with redneck cops, sothey folded up shop one day and left Markham for good.

Plachette had once again become a town hero. Even those who disapproved ofhis methods had to admit that they were pleased with his results. Plachettewas elected sheriff by a landslide the following year, and Ed Channingquietly retired. Plachette, of course, was still a bully, and there werethose in town who called him a thug and worse, but in the end the people ofMarkham chose to cast their chips with a man who knew how to get thingsdone. He had been the sheriff ever since.

Buzzard had no respect for the badge as a symbol. Long years on the outlawcircuit had instilled in him that a cop’s authority, like that of any otherthug, is measured solely by his power to enforce it. Fortunately forBuzzard, Markham’s entire police force at present consisted of only twodeputies, plus the sheriff. Still not good odds, though, especially withall three of them armed. What Buzzard needed now was an equalizer, andthere was only one equalizer currently available…Ace Calhoun.

Buzzard was absolutely certain that Ace would come, that wasn’t whatworried him. He was in a quandary because it would be easier to call Acethan it would be to restrain him, and there was no way to predict what sortof savage hell might break loose once the genie was out of the bottle. Acewas a force of nature, inexorable and swift, and Buzzard was like a shamanwho knows that he can summon a storm but is not at all confident of hisability to control it once it arrives. Finally, however, desperation wonout over prudence. Buzzard excused himself and went to the pay phone at theback of the bar, dropped in several quarters and dialed a number.

“Hey, Ace? Buzzard… Yeah, I’m in Markham. Listen, I’m in a bind here. Ican’t stay on too long, but I’ll give you the story real quick…”

It seemed to Buzzard that he had hardly closed his eyes when he wassuddenly awakened by that sound he knew so well. It was Ace, rumbling slowly up the street. Buzzard could tell that Ace was going easy on the throttle to keep his fiberglass-baffled pipes from barking and waking up the neighborhood. He?d probably eaten a fistful of cartwheels and then ridden like a maniac all night to get to Markham before the citizens (and cops) woke up. Buzzard swung his legs over the side of Roy’s couch and levered himself upright. He banged one shin against the wooden coffee table in the dark and whispered a stream of obscenities under his breath. Pausing momentarily to rub his injured leg, he stumbled hastily through the front door. Outside it was cool and dark, with the first red rays of dawn just beginning to streak the eastern sky. Buzzard waved to flag Ace down, and Ace coasted the last 20 feet, tires crunching softly on the gravel-covered driveway. He killed the engine and dismounted, staggering alittle. Even in the dark, he looked stiff and exhausted. Buzzard claspedhis friend’s shoulder warmly. “You OK, bro?”

“Yeah,” replied Ace. “I just need some sleep.”

“OK, let’s get yer bike outta sight and then you can crash inside.”

Buzzard swung open the door of the little red barn. He got behind Ace’sbike and together they pushed it inside next to Buzzard’s on the hay-strewndirt floor. Ace clicked a padlock into place on the bike’s triple tree,then followed Buzzard inside the house. Buzzard decided to take the floorand let Ace have the couch, and Ace collapsed like a marionette whosestrings have been cut. He would sleep like a dead man until at least noon.

Buzzard went back to sleep himself and was awakened again by the phone. Itstopped after two rings, meaning that Uncle Roy had probably answered it inthe bedroom. The clock on the wall said 10. Buzzard looked over at Ace,who was still sound asleep. Good, Buzzard thought, he was glad that thephone hadn’t disturbed Ace. He would need the rest.

A few minutes later, Roy came creaking down the old wooden steps. He wasabout to say something to Buzzard when he stopped, mouth open, surprised tosee that his living room now contained not one but two outlaws, as thoughnew ones had sprouted from the floor like mushrooms during the night.Buzzard put his finger to his lips, then motioned Roy into the kitchen where they could talk without waking Ace.

In a whisper, Buzzard hastily described his run-in with the sheriff andexplained that Ace was a friend who had come to help him get out of Markhamin one piece.

“You boys aren’t gonna do anything foolish, are you?” Roy asked worriedly.

“No, of course not. I didn’t come here lookin’ for trouble, you know that. But I’m a grown man now, and badge or no badge, I ain’t about ta take no crap from the likes of Bobby Plachette.”

“OK,” said Roy, “just be careful. Anyway, that was the nurse on the phone.She says your father’s awake and feels good enough to take visitors.”

This was the moment that Buzzard had simultaneously hoped for and dreadedmuch of his adult life. He took a deep breath and said, “Alright, let’sgo.”

“What about your friend?”

“He’s had a long night. Let him sleep it off.”

Buzzard followed Roy to his battered old pickup truck and slipped intothe passenger seat. He hoped they wouldn’t have the ill fortune to getpulled over by one of the sheriff’s men during the short ride to thereverend’s house. The sun was, after all, up, and Buzzard had missed hisdeadline. Roy didn’t look at all worried, which probably meant that thethought had not even occurred to him. Being a respectable tax-payingcitizen, Roy was not accustomed to worrying about things like being stalkedby cops, and Buzzard decided not to disturb his peace of mind by mentioningit. Roy threw the old rattletrap in gear and eased it gently onto theroad.

Within minutes they were at the reverend’s house. Buzzard knew the waywell; as a boy he had walked the short distance countless times to meetJohnny in the barn and work on the old Flathead. Roy parked the truck infront of the gray stone house, then walked up the short flagstone path tothe front door, with Buzzard following two steps behind. Roy pulled thestorm door open and knocked on the weathered oak door behind it. Buzzardwas vaguely surprised that everything looked so much smaller than heremembered. The door was eventually opened by a stocky, middle-aged womanin a nurse’s uniform. She seemed momentarily taken aback by Buzzard’suncivilized appearance, but she knew Roy, and so said nothing. The nurseled Roy and Buzzard down a short hallway that looked exactly the same asit had when Buzzard was a boy. The faded floral wallpaper had not beenchanged in 18 years, and pictures of all-but-forgotten relativeslined the walls. She led them up the stairs to the reverend’s bedroom andsaid through the door, “Reverend, your brother is here to see you.”

A raspy voice croaked, “Send him in, send him in.” The nurse stepped aside, and Roy led Buzzard into the room.

Buzzard couldn’t believe his eyes. The father he remembered had been ahuge, terrifying mountain of a man — tall, broad and built like a bull. Theman before him was an emaciated scarecrow, wrinkled and gray, old and sick.But that was nothing compared to the shock the reverend received whenRoy put his hand on the huge, hairy outlaw’s grimy shoulder and said,”Wolf, Horace is here to see you…your son. I’ll leave you two alone.”Then he turned and left the room.

The bedroom was as unchanged as the rest of the house. The bed with itswooden headboard was positioned between two antique wooden night tables,under a window that had been opened to admit the warm sun and a pleasantbreeze. Both night tables were strewn with all sorts of pills, and the roomhad the vaguely antiseptic odor of a hospital. “Horace?” the old mancroaked. He sounded as if there were loose nuts and bolts rattling aroundinside his shrunken chest. “How can you be Horace? Horace was a goodChristian boy.”

“No, it’s me, dad.”

“It’s really you?” The reverend paused, then scowled. “I suppose you’ve got a motor-sickle or some such damned contraption to go with those rags you’rewearing.”

“It’s parked at Uncle Roy’s house,” Buzzard replied.

“Well, I don’t know if you’re really Horace or not,” said the reverend,”but it doesn’t matter anyhow. You may be the son of the devil, but you’reno son of mine.”

“Nothing’s changed, then, in all this time?”

“I raised my son to be faithful and obedient. He would never have abandoned me to join some…some heathen homosexual leather cult.” The reverendlooked at Buzzard with the most profound loathing that Buzzard had everseen. “Go back to whatever hell hole you crawled out of…back to yourdope-smoking, fornicating friends. That’s where you belong, not here,worrying God-fearing folk. Don’t come back to darken my doorway any more.God hates disobedient sons most of all.”

Buzzard cursed silently at a life that he had long ago left behind. Hegrowled, “My mother was sweet and beautiful and kind. You killed her, youbastard, just as surely as if you’d stabbed her in the heart. You wouldhave done the same to me too, and we both know it. So now you’re going todie an old man, lonely and bitter, and no one will mourn you. Was it worthit? Is this the way you want to end your life? No, don’t bother answering.I hope whatever God you believe in has mercy on your soul.” Without waitingfor a reply, Buzzard turned his back on the reverend and walked out.

By mid-afternoon, Ace had revived. He ate a ravenous meal (which Roygraciously supplied), then went out to the barn to talk strategy withBuzzard. A confrontation with the sheriff seemed inevitable, since therewas only one road in and out of town. It was possible that they could sneakout under cover of darkness, but that would be difficult with Buzzard’sopen pipes, and would also expose them to the possibility of an ambush onsome back country road. Ace had packed a small arsenal, but it would stillbe three against two. Besides, Buzzard was not eager to get into ashoot out with the cops; it was just too risky. In addition, beating up a copis one thing, but shooting a cop is quite another. Even if Buzzard andAce won the shoot out, they would still lose in the long run. They wouldbecome cop killers, America’s most wanted, with their faces plastered onthe walls of every post office in the country.

No, it would be better to keep the guns out of it. The outlaws at least had the advantage of being able to stage the confrontation on their own terms,to choose the time and terrain. The best place would be somewhere withplenty of innocent bystanders. Then the cops wouldn’t be able to use theirguns, either. The odds would still be three to two against, but the outlawshad the element of surprise. The cops were looking for Buzzard, and theyhad never seen Ace.

So now Buzzard and Ace were back in the Road House, nervously sipping beerand waiting for the show to begin. Buzzard had parked his chopper outfront as bait. Ace had parked his out back, hidden between two largedelivery trucks. Initially the bartender had protested, but he saw thelight when Ace offered to rearrange his dental work for him. He decided tolet the law handle it, which was what was going to happen anyway as soon asthe sheriff saw the chopper parked out front. Buzzard sat at the bar whileAce hid in the shadows at a table in the corner. It was shortly after 5 and the after work crowd was starting to fill the small pub; store managersin starched shirts and ties, working men in jeans and boots. Soon the barwas bustling with activity. People were talking, smoking, laughing andeating, ordering mugs and pitchers of beer.

Buzzard suddenly saw the bartender crane his neck to look out the window at something, and he could see the red and blue lights reflecting off themirror behind the bar. Show time. The sheriff burst in, flanked by twoyoung-looking deputies, and shouted at Buzzard, “I thought I told you tagit outta town!” The room was suddenly deathly quiet.

“I don’t want no trouble sheriff,” Buzzard said. “I got what I came for.I’ll hit the road just as soon as I finish my beer, and you’ll never see mehere again.”

The sheriff smiled a shark-toothed smile. “Too late, whore-ass,” he said.”I told ya ta hit the road last night. Now yer gonna get what’s comin’ toya.”

Buzzard smiled. “OK, don’t say I didn’t give ya no chance.”

They never even saw Ace coming. He moved like lightning, melting out of the shadows like a lizard and swinging a small, shot-filled sap. He struck eachdeputy a precise blow on the base of the skull; just enough force to causeunconsciousness but not enough to do any permanent damage. They crumpled tothe floor like paper dolls. This threw the room into confusion. Somewanted to help the sheriff, others wanted to flee and a few just wanted towatch the show like gawkers at a traffic accident. Between them, there wastoo much chaos for anyone to do anything. The sheriff looked over hisshoulder, then back again, and fumbled for his gun. But the bar was packedwith patrons and there was no way to get a clear shot. Before he knew whatwas happening, he was hit simultaneously from the front and the rear, andhis gun and nightstick had both been wrestled away from him.

Ace took the weapons and stepped away, leaving Buzzard alone with thesheriff. Plachette realized with horror that he was not facing a frightenedboy named Horace. He was facing a huge, savage outlaw named Buzzard, andhis knees felt suddenly weak. Buzzard’s hairy lips parted, exposing sharp,white teeth, and he said, very quietly, “You can run but you can’t hide.”

There is a strange thing that sometimes happens to even the most savage ofmen when they see their nemesis brought low, and realize that he ispathetic and small. They are suddenly filled not with anger but with anawful, towering pity, and they realize that to sink to the level of theiradversary would be wrong, that the right thing to do is to be the biggerman. Unfortunately for the sheriff, none of these things happened toBuzzard.

Buzzard kicked his ass all the way out the door, then grabbed him by thehair and dragged him back inside. He kicked his ass up the bar, then kickedit back down the bar. He beat Plachette until he was exhausted fromswinging his arms. Then he let his adversary fall face down into thespilled beer, spit and cigarette butts that covered the sticky floor.

When he finally looked up from his work, he saw that Ace had been busyhandcuffing the deputies to the shiny brass bar rail and stuffing theirservice revolvers into the various pockets of his riding jacket, keepingone handy just to make sure that none of the patrons would decide to try tobe a hero. Buzzard handcuffed the unconscious sheriff to the bar railbeside his men, and Ace went to work severing the telephone line. This wasprobably unnecessary since all the law there was to summon was at presentlying unconscious on the floor, but better safe than sorry. The outlawsthen ran for the door and the crowd parted to make way. Once outside,Buzzard tapped Ace on the shoulder and said, “We better take the scenicroute. Bastards’ll be lookin’ for us.”

Ace nodded in agreement. Then he smiled and said, “Lead the way, Horace.”

Buzzard smiled back and replied, “You better not break my balls about that, Francis.”

Ace ran around the back of the building while Buzzard ran out front. Thegawkers in the bar were crowding around the windows to watch Buzzardstraddle his bike and kick it to life. Seconds later, he heard the sound ofAce’s Evo starting up. Buzzard pulled out of the parking lot, rear tirescreeching, and Ace blasted out right behind him. Together they roared away into the reddening dusk, under the cloudless sky, in the wind and glad to be free.

Ace sat at a booth near the back of the bar and sipped his beer. The Midnite Club, a private club in the French quarter of New Orleans, was where he liked to go when he had to lay low. Right now, Ace was laying lower than a snake’s belly, at least until the heat died down. He’d had a terrible run-in with the sheriff of a small town in South Carolina that had resulted in a heinous whirlwind of felonies and violence. He had even stowed his beloved chopper in a garage at a self-storage facility. The damn thing was a cop magnet even when every cop in the country wasn’t looking for it.

The Midnite Club was swanky, upscale and very, very private. The highly coveted membership was by invitation only, and all new applicants had to be vouched for by a current member in good standing. It was, needless to say, very expensive.

The club’s patrons were the hippest of the hip; 24-year-old millionaires from Silicon Valley, Wall Street power brokers, East Coast mobsters and Hollywood stars, with the occasional outlaw type thrown into the mix to add just a touch of danger, completing the scene of wild and erotic mystery. The Midnite Club was a place where the well-heeled could relax, unwind and be entertained by everything from jazz bands to live sex shows.

The club was owned and run by the strange and mysterious Papa Senegal. Papa was, in fact, not from Senegal. He was Jamaican, but Ace supposed that “Papa Senegal” had a better ring to it than “Papa Jamaica,” and none of the patrons gave a damn anyway. Papa Senegal had a fine sense of drama and played the New Orleans voodoo thing to the hilt. The club was decorated in occult black, with plenty of candelabras, skulls, mirrors and stuffed ravens sprinkled about. He was always fashionably late; just late enough to make the club’s newer members wonder whether he was going to show up at all. Then he would suddenly appear, long dreadlocks flying from beneath a tall top hat, wearing a tuxedo with tails and no shirt or cummerbund underneath, washboard abs rippling, carrying an ebony walking stick topped by a small ivory skull, smiling, shaking hands and passing out samples of everything from Cuban cigars to premium cocaine.

Ace worked sporadically for Papa as a procurer of the various commodities that were necessary to keep the club running, and he had negotiated some of his pay in credit, which was the only way he could have afforded to be there at all. Now Ace was watching the band set up and waiting for Papa to make one of his classy appearances.

Suddenly, there he was in the middle of the room as though he’d appeared out of thin air, smiling, milling around and pouring shots of 100-year-old scotch. A murmur of satisfaction went up from the crowd and Papa was temporarily hidden from view again. Ace waited until the crowd died down a bit, then he got up and walked toward Papa. Papa squinted at Ace, who was moving toward him in the dark, before his face broke into a wide grin of recognition. “Ess, my friend!” (When Papa said “Ace,” it came out sounding like “Ess.”) “Eet’s been a long time!”

Ace clasped Papa’s hand warmly and agreed, “Too long, too long.”

“Ahh Esss!” Papa screamed, “thee wan and onlee in-dee-spen-sable Ess!” clapping him on the shoulder. “Eet’s always a pleasure to see you! Tomorrow we talk business, ah? But tonight, tonight we have a good time!” That was fine with Ace; a good time was just what his jangled nerves needed, and it was widely agreed that nobody in New Orleans knew how to have a better time than Papa did.

As if on cue, the stage lights flared to life and the band started up — a wild jazz act with a swinging beat. Mostly-naked waitresses circulated between the small round tables taking food and drink orders, $20 bills sticking out of their G-strings like the plumage of some strange and exotic bird. The tenor man, a tall, gangly white guy with a protruding Adam’s apple, was blowing his horn like his life depended on it, jumping up and down, writhing, twitching and sweating, and the crowd was rising to an almost erotic frenzy as the tenor man struggled to grasp the elusive it, because they knew. An old man in a blue suit sat in a chair by the stage, stomping his feet and yelling, “Blow, man, blow!” at the top of his lungs. Papa tapped Ace on the shoulder and placed a glass of amber liquid into his hand. Ace nodded and smiled, and Papa went off to mill around in the crowd. Ace took a small sip; after all, it’s not often that a man has the opportunity to drink 100-year-old scotch. It went down smoother than silk, with no harsh bite at all. In fact, oddly enough, Ace thought that it almost reminded him of butterscotch. He looked over at the bar and smiled at a pretty young blonde who appeared to be by herself. She looked over and smiled back.

In a garbage-strewn alley in another part of town, the air was crackling faintly as before a storm, even though the sky was perfectly clear. A faint breeze kicked up, stirring scraps of newspaper around in circles and making a rustling sound. Then suddenly there was a body in the alley where there had been none a moment before. If anyone had been there, they would have felt the dull, sub-sonic thud of a concussion wave radiating outward from the figure, whose instantaneous appearance had displaced an amount of air equal to its own volume. The demon gasped for its first breath, then began panting like a wolf. It slowly uncurled from its crouch, painfully and awkwardly, like an infant struggling to learn control of its new physical shell. It tensed, then sprang and took off down the alley, covering 8 feet at a shot with its awkward, loping strides.

Ace slowly cracked one eye open, exposing his throbbing brain to the bright daggers of daylight that were stabbing in through the window. For one terrifying moment he had no idea where the hell he was or how he had gotten there. Then he remembered, New Orleans… Papa Senegal… Business. The long smear in front of him slowly focused into the hourglass form of a woman. Of course, the blonde from the club. That was why the tips of his fingers were tingling; she was lying on his left arm. For a long moment he wondered whether he should wake her or simply chew his arm off like an animal caught in a trap. Then he had an idea. He rolled over and pushed the mattress down with his right hand, slipping his left arm out through the indentation. She stirred faintly but didn’t wake. Ace dressed hastily, then quietly slipped out of the apartment, clicking the door softly shut behind him.

Ace handed the cabbie a $5 bill and stepped out of the cab in front of the Midnite Club. Seeing the club in the light of day, without its neon pizzazz, reminded Ace of an old coat that had hung on a hook on the back of his bedroom door as a child. In the dark of night, the coat had always loomed huge and terrible, casting menacing shadows across the wall like a vampire, but every morning when he awoke it would again become an ordinary, lifeless coat. The Midnite Club seemed to acquire the same sort of drab lifelessness when the city awoke in the morning like a whore, hacking, coughing and blowing trash around in the streets.

Ace made his way through a narrow alley and around to the service entrance in the back. He rapped on a beat-up sheet metal door, which was opened a moment later by a gigantic white man in a tux. Ace smiled and said, “Hey, Tiny, long time no see! How’s it hangin’, big guy?”

Tiny smiled back. “Ahh, same shit, different day, you know how it is, Ace. Heh heh… Papa’s waiting for you in the office.” he said, pointing with a thumb that was more than an inch in diameter.

A narrow spiral staircase, made of welded sheet metal and painted black, led from the service entrance to an office on the upper floor. The stairway was dark and the walls were bare cinder block, as gray and forbidding as any prison. But once you stepped past the threshold of Papa’s office, you stepped into a different world. All of the woodwork was polished mahogany, and the carpet was the color of red wine, which shone like blood against the white walls. Expensive paintings lined the walls, each in an antique, hand-carved frame, and a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, such as one might expect to see in a ballroom. The door was open and Papa sat behind a gold table lamp, which threw a small circle of light onto a large mahogany desk, which was rather like a banker’s. This room was Papa’s concept of luxury, much more so than the club itself; not vulgar ostentation, but tasteful elegance. Papa looked up from his laptop computer when he heard Ace’s boot heels punishing the staircase with a dull clang, clang, clang that echoed around the stairwell. He stood up and smiled, stepping around the desk with his right hand extended. Papa was dressed casually (for Papa) in expensive gray slacks and white shirt sleeves… Come to think of it, Ace couldn’t remember ever having seen him wear jeans. Ace clasped Papa’s right hand warmly. He was genuinely glad to see the old bastard again.

They chatted for a while, a ritual to which Ace had grown accustomed. Papa thought it rude to open a conversation with business, as is the American habit. After a while he leaned forward with his elbows on the desk, making a steeple with his fingers, which Ace recognized as the sign that Papa was ready to come to the point.

“I have a small job for you, my friend,” said Papa. “I need you to go to a man across town and peeck up a small vial for me. Thee pay is wan-thousand dollars.”

“Wow,” Ace replied, “that must be one hell of an expensive drug. How ’bout a tiny sample for the courier? Like my grandma used to say, those who handle honey always lick their fingers.”

Papa shook his head. “Not thees time. Eet ees not a drug in the sense which you are theenking; eet ees a component for use in magick.” His eyes became very intense. “Eet’s powerful magick, eet geeve powerful visions! One must be equeeped to handle eet; a drop thee size of a match head would turn you into sometheeng out of a medeecal encyclopedia!”

Ace smiled. “All right, all right, I get the message. Jeez, I think you’re starting to take your own hype too seriously. Anyway, where is this guy?”

Papa handed Ace a slip of paper with a name and an address. Ace nodded, took the paper and started to go. Papa stopped him at the threshold and said, “Remember, no tasteeng!”

“Right,” Ace replied, “got it. No tasting.”

Ace had waited until after dark to get the chopper out of storage. It was probably a bad idea to be seen on it again so soon, but Ace had been taking buses and cabs everywhere for two entire weeks and he was dying to get his knees in the wind. He rationalized the decision by reasoning that he could stay on the back roads where it was dark and avoid attracting attention. His pipes were fiberglass-baffled and they weren’t obnoxiously loud if you were gentle with the throttle.

Ace putted slowly down the small commercial street, scanning the storefronts for Harry’s Occult Shop. The bottle, whatever it was, was already paid for; all Ace had to do was pick it up and take it back to the Midnite Club.

Presently, Ace spotted a small shop with skulls and jars of colored powder in the window. Bingo. Ace stopped in front of the store, killed the engine and leaned the bike over on its kickstand.

A small bell jingled on the door when Ace opened it. Harry’s Occult Shop was lit by dozens of candles that burned on candelabras throughout the store. Every wall was covered with shelves, which were crammed full of skulls, powders, candles, daggers and old leather-bound books covered in strange symbols. There was a gnarled old tree stump in the corner of the shop that made Ace jump when it moved and he realized that the stump was, in fact, a man.

“Uh, Harry, I presume?” asked Ace.

“Yeah,” the man replied. Hack, cough, wheeze. “What can I do for you, young man?”

“Papa sent me,” replied Ace. “I’m here for the pick up”.

Harry squinted at Ace for a moment, then said, “Yeah, yeah, hold on.” He shuffled into the back room, which was hidden behind a black velvet curtain. He emerged a moment later carrying a glass vial. He put the vial into a brown paper bag and handed it to Ace, who took it with a nod. “Interest you in some powdered bat wing?” asked Harry. “It’s on sale this week.”

“No thanks,” Ace replied, “I’m trying to cut down.” Harry chuckled in a most unpleasant way, and Ace was suddenly glad to be leaving. Harry made his skin crawl.

Once outside, Ace stood on the curb next to the chopper and peered into the bag. The vial was bulb-shaped, about the size of a baseball, with a long stem sealed by a cork stopper. He pulled the bottle out and held it up to the street light. The liquid inside was a faintly shimmering sapphire blue, which, from certain angles, appeared to be green. What the hell is it? Ace wondered. He had never seen or heard of anything like it before. Finally, curiosity got the best of him. Hell, there was no way Papa would be able to tell if he took just one little tiny taste. Remembering Papa’s warning about the dosage, Ace tore off a paper match and just barely touched the butt-end of it to the surface of the liquid. Then, with slight apprehension, he put the match in his mouth and waited for…

Nothing. It tasted faintly like almonds, but it didn’t do a damn thing. Ace replaced the stopper and put the bottle back in the bag. He wondered if he should tell Papa that he’d been ripped off, but then thought, better of it. Papa would find out soon enough anyway and there was no point in pissing him off by admitting to disobeying orders.

Ace straddled the chopper, thumbed the starter and the big engine roared to life. He eased the bike out of the parking space, whacked the shifter into first and headed for the highway. He was relatively sure that he wasn’t carrying anything illegal and he was eager to get back to the Midnite Club quickly in case the stuff had some kind of hellish delayed reaction.

The highway was mostly empty and Ace didn’t have far to go anyway. The cool night air was a welcome relief from the daytime heat and swamp-like humidity of Louisiana. The sky was clear, the stars twinkled brightly and the crescent sliver of the moon seemed to flash him a conspiratorial wink. Ace suddenly felt that this was the America that Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper had searched for in “Easy Rider” but had been unable to find. This was the real America, land of endless skies and wide-open roads, not the other America, the one where they made you piss in a jar if you wanted a job and threw you in jail if you didn’t pay your taxes.

The exit appeared like a specter, materializing out of the inky darkness. Ace slid the bike around the off-ramp and stopped behind a short line of cars waiting for the tolls.

It began faintly at first, quickly growing louder, a shrill scream like the rending of metal, accompanied by a loud, sibilant hiss, which nearly made Ace jump straight off of his seat. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw a tractor-trailer slowing down, pumping its air brakes as it approached the tolls. The trailer was a cattle car made of gray metal slats, and Ace could smell the faint but rising odor of shit. The brakes screeched and squealed as the truck approached. The din rose to a deafening roar and the brakes gave one long, last hiss as the truck stopped right next to Ace.

The goddamn smell was nauseating. Ace imagined that this was what it must be like to drown in an ocean of shit. He tried to breathe shallow breaths to avoid puking all over his bike. Then, a soft, wet sound emerged from the bowels of the truck. A sludge of greenish-brown shit oozed from between two of the slats, then poured sickeningly to the pavement, splat, splat, splat. The shit was coming in torrents now, splattering all over the ground and spraying drops of filth everywhere. Ace was gagging. Fuck the tolls, he thought, I’m getting out of here.

Then he saw two red points of light winking in the darkness inside the truck like a pair of burning eyes, right above the source of the shit. Cow eyes don’t glow like that, he thought, and even if they did, cows don’t have eyes in their assholes. Ace was transfixed by horror and nausea, like a gawker at a traffic accident, unable to look away. Then the eyes flared up and he could almost see inside the truck; the source of the shit was not an asshole, but a mouth, like a frog’s, but bigger than a basketball hoop, with small, pointed teeth. The demon belched one last torrent of shit onto the pavement, then wiped its befouled lips with a long, thin arm. It turned its baleful gaze slowly upon Ace and laughed, hrf, hrf, hrf.

His mind fused by panic, Ace whacked the bike into gear and twisted the throttle, squeezing through the space between a small hatchback car and the side of the booth, then he roared away into the night. In the rear view mirror, two tiny points of light followed his movements as he sped away.

Ace awoke the next morning not at all rested, having spent most of the night thrashing and sweating through nightmares about giant frogs and shit. He had washed the bike, laundered his clothes and taken no less than three showers before going to bed, an attempt to erase the indelible stink from his skin and hair. Even after all that scrubbing he imagined that he could still smell it, even though he knew that it was all in his head. Fucking hallucinogens, he thought; I’m getting too old for this. Indeed, and there was no time for it either. Papa was waiting for his delivery with $1,000 burning a hole in his pocket.

Ace pulled his jeans on and grabbed his shoplifted wraparound Ray-Bans. He suddenly had new doubts about the legality of whatever the hell was in that bottle, and it simply would not do to be seen by the cops, staggering around the streets of New Orleans with pale skin and bloodshot eyes, cringing from the light of the sun like a sick mole.

Right. Keep a low profile, he thought; get in a cab, give Papa his bottle of Satan-juice, get your thousand bucks, and then we’ll find out if there’s enough whiskey in New Orleans to drown out the memory of that goddamn horror show in the truck…

The short cab ride to the Midnite Club gave Ace the opportunity to somewhat regain his composure. The bright sunshine of a brand new day already made that horror in the truck seem silly and distant, no more than a cobweb to be casually swept away by the omnipotent hand of Good Old Reality. Papa had not yet arrived at the club when Ace knocked on the service door, but Tiny was there to take the bottle, and he had been authorized to pay Ace what he was owed.

So now Ace was walking down the street with $1,000 worth of bounce in his step, feeling the warm sunshine and whistling a little tune. He was, in fact, so preoccupied with the thoughts of how he would spend the money that when he turned the corner, he nearly ran straight into the angel.

It stood nearly 6 feet tall with long raven-black hair, eyes with no pupils at all and pale white skin like a corpse. The feathers in its wings shone like metal, all sharp points and lethal razor edges. It was an automaton, as lifeless as any killing machine. Behind its eyes lurked a terrible intellect that knew neither anger nor pity, a ruthless logic that always calculated the shortest distance between two points, and woe betide the man or beast foolish enough to stand between the angel and its goal. A maelstrom of energy swirled and crackled around the figure. Every primal instinct inside Ace’s skull screamed “run” but his limbs somehow refused to obey, and for one terrible moment, he was certain that he would be charred to a cinder, immolated right there on the sidewalk, leaving nothing behind but a pair of smoldering boot prints melted into the pavement like an obscene mockery of an Arthur Murray dance diagram. The angel turned its withering gaze upon Ace. Its dusty lips cracked open and a hot desert wind blasted forth. It spoke with a voice that made no impression upon Ace’s ears, but seemed instead to implant itself directly into his mind. Nonetheless, the voice was terrible to hear; it sounded like the dry grating of metal-on-metal.

A demon is loose in the city, said the angel. Thou hast been chosen to drive it out.

Not me, Ace protested in his mind. I’m a thief and a drunk, I haven’t been to church since I was 12 years old, I’m not any kind of a prophet.

The angel’s eyes flared to life, smoldering like two coals. “Do not give me that ‘I’m not worthy’ crap”, it shouted with a harsh new timbre in its voice, like bags of nails being dumped onto sheet metal. “Have thee any idea how many times I have had to listen to that rotten old swill?”

Sorry, Ace replied. But still, it’s a valid question. Of all the sinners in New Orleans, why me? You’re the freakin angel, why don’t you do it?

I cannot risk provoking a war, the angel replied. Therefore I have obtained permission to choose a man to act in my stead. Thou art the only one in the city who can see the demon for what it is; by tasting the sacrament, thou hast put thyself upon the threshold of their world. A chosen one is not always a saint, Ace. Sometimes, when something must be done, one is chosen simply because no other is able do it.

“I don’t believe it!” Ace shouted. “You’re not real! You’re just another goddamn hallucination!” He was dimly aware on some level that it made no sense to scream at a hallucination.

I haven’t the time to argue, the angel replied. With a lightning-fast motion, it whirled around and struck Ace in the middle of his chest with its open palm. The force of the blow swept Ace off of his feet and smashed him into the brick wall of the alley, knocking the breath out of him and pinning him against the wall. Its palm felt like ice, but Ace could smell a smoldering odor like the smell of burning chicken, and he knew that he was smelling his own flesh.

A few seconds later, the angel released him and Ace slumped to the pavement like a rag doll. His vision began to grow dark and the silhouette of the angel, towering above him, was beginning to dissolve like smoke. Fear not, it said. Thy hand shall be made strong by the hand of the Lord. Then Ace blacked out as the figure vanished, but he wasn’t really sure which happened first.

Newspaper. Big newspaper, filling his entire field of vision. Smell of newsprint. As Ace’s vision swam groggily into focus, he realized that he was lying on his back in an alley with sheets of newspaper covering his face. What the hell am I doing here? Right, the angel. Just another bad trip; don’t sweat it, you’ve seen worse on acid. Just get up, before anyone notices you and calls the cops; dammit, get up.

Ace swept the newspapers from his face and struggled to his feet. His whole body felt sore and there was a sunburn-like pain in the center of his chest… Oh, no. With trembling hands, Ace lifted his shirt. In the center of his chest was a red, hand-shaped welt, except that there were four fingers instead of five, and at the end of each fingertip was a small laceration right where the angel’s talons would have been. Holy creeping shit, he thought, I have to talk to Papa.

Papa examined the welt on Ace’s chest with great interest and a grave expression on his face. “What the hell is happening to me?” Ace asked.

“I have already told you,” Papa replied, “that thee drug is not really a drug in thee ordinary sense of thee word. Eet ees a holy sacrament; an instrument of magick which opens thee door between thee seen and unseen worlds. Many sorcerers would geeve everytheeng they own for that bottle.”

“Yeah, well, I would give everything I own never to see it again. OK, so the door’s been opened. How do I shut it?”

“You don’t,” Papa replied. “Thees ees not like returning a pair of pants. Eet cannot simply be undone. You have been chosen. Now you must see eet through.”

“Great, so now I’m an exorcist, too. I think I’ll put that on my card: Ace Calhoun – Obtainer of Rare Commodities and Banisher of the Undead – no job too small, no zombie too ugly. Call for special introductory offer.”

“Bee serious!” Papa snapped. “Thees ees no laughing matter!”

“OK,” Ace replied. “Fine. How do I get rid of a demon then? Crosses? Garlic? A silver bullet in the heart?”

“You have been watching too many Bela Lugosi films. Demons are powerful, but they are bound by certain rules. They are obligated to abide by their own contracts. They are clever but greedy, and their greed makes them careless. Eef you are patient and astute, the demon may be treecked”.

“Trick it? I don’t even know where to find it!”

Papa leaned forward on his elbows and smiled in a very unpleasant way. “Do not worry,” he said, “eet will find you.”

Although certainly no scientist, Ace did consider himself a rational man. As such, he had always lived his life comfortably sure of certain facts — the earth is round, there is no Santa Claus and demons don’t run around New Orleans like baboons that escaped from the Bronx zoo. Now he was experiencing the same kind of mental inversion that bedeviled the medieval Catholic clergy when Galileo informed them that the earth revolves around the sun; his basic a priori presumptions of the world were being turned inside out. However, Ace was a man who was well accustomed to rolling with life’s punches, so he chose neither to believe nor disbelieve the evidence of his senses, but instead to simply ride this strange torpedo to its conclusion. At some point, maybe he would wake up. Or maybe not.

At any rate, he now sat in a back storeroom in the Midnite club, munching a salami sandwich and reading intensely. He had read more in the past four hours than he had in the previous four years. He was, in fact, reading as though his life depended on it, which it very likely did. Tiny had set up a small table for him amid the shelves and boxes, and the table was piled shoulder high with books from Papa’s library; books like “The Necronomicon”‘ Malleus Malificarum” and dozens of tomes that defied description, except to say that they were bound in cracked, dusty leather and they were very, very old. Ace had never been aware that there was so much to say about demons, but what the hell, live and learn.

Ace leaned back in his chair, swirling the ice around in his drink and trying to relax. It was nearly midnight, which meant that the Midnite Club was in full swing, band and all. This band was a mellower affair than the previous one had been; four elderly black gentlemen smartly dressed in suits and ties, playing cool jazz with an easy virtuosity that came with many decades of experience. All around the club, crowds of people were eating, drinking and smoking, with an occasional card game here and there at the tables near the back. Ace impatiently scanned the milling crowd for a sign of anything unusual. He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for, but Papa had assured him that he would know it when he saw it. At any rate, he had been orbiting around the crowd once every 20 minutes for the past three hours or so, and he was relatively sure that he hadn’t seen it yet. It was an effort of will not to pace the club like a caged animal. He was actually getting impatient for something to happen, even though he knew that he probably wouldn’t like it when it did.

Ace got up and elbowed his way through the crowd. He moved slowly, like a sleepwalker, peering into peoples’ eyes as he passed. He was aware that he was making people nervous, but he felt fairly certain that the demon would betray its presence through its eyes, which are, they say, the windows to the soul.

Ace was near the back of the club now, where the gamblers were playing cards and smoking cigars at little round tables, each with a lava lamp in the center which threw a circle of sickly yellow radiance around the players. One table was filled with Southern gentlemen who looked like Texas oil tycoons with white suits and 10-gallon hats. Another table was occupied by Mafioso. And another…

Ace’s heart stopped. The third table was populated by two geeky-looking fellows who were probably software tycoons, (one of whom looked remarkably like a fatter version of Bill Gates), and a biker type with long brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard. The biker was facing Ace, and his skin seemed to pulsate and wriggle as though it were alive. As he got closer, Ace saw that what looked like skin was actually a mass of crawling maggots. In fact, it looked to Ace like there was really no head there at all, just a pulsing horror of little white worms, pushed together by some unseen force into the shape of a human head. If you were to hit it with a baseball bat, the bat would encounter no bone, no blood, just a pile of insects that would splatter everywhere like a watermelon being shot with a .300 Weatherby magnum.

The demon looked up at Ace and smiled, its eyes flashing red. Its skin looked normal now as it said, “Gentlemen, I believe we have another player. Deal you in?”

It took considerable self-control for Ace to hold his voice steady and reply, “What are you playing?”

“Five card draw, fifty dollar ante, jokers wild,” the demon replied as it shuffled the deck with a card-shark flourish.

“Fine. I’m in.”

Ace flagged down one of the g-stringed waitresses and tried to look nonchalant as he bought $1,000 worth of chips. He sat down at the table facing the demon, with one programmer on either side. Each player threw a $50 chip into the pot, and the demon deftly dealt each player five cards with a snapping flick of its wrist.

Ace examined his hand with a stony poker face that had been carefully perfected in more taverns than he cared to count. He had a 3, 4, 5 and 6, all spades, plus a jack of diamonds. Four parts toward a straight flush and open ended to boot. That gave him about one chance in four of completing the hand as either a straight or a flush, pretty good odds but still a risky proposition. If it didn’t pan out, he would be left holding nothing.

The programmer to the demon’s left sneered in a disgusted way, then tossed his hand face down on the table to indicate that he was holding nothing and would not open the betting. Ace opened by throwing a $100 chip into the pot. ‘Bill Gates,’ who was sitting to Ace’s left, eyeballed his hand, then tossed it on the table with a grunt. That left only the demon, who smiled and raised Ace by tossing in two $100 chips.

Ace was not rattled because Providence was on his side. After all, hadn’t the angel said that his hand would be made strong by the hand of the Lord? He smiled cockily and did something an experienced player never does, he threw in $700 worth of chips. Hmmph, that oughta make the ugly bastard back down.

The demon looked at Ace and chuckled, then it tossed in a fistful of chips, seeing Ace’s $600. It paused, locked eyes with Ace and hissed, very quietly, “It’s not the money I want.” The software tycoons looked at each other nervously. “Are you a religious man, Ace?”

“Never have been.”

The demon flashed a predatory grin and rasped, “Then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind betting me your soul.”

OK, thought Ace, this is it, the showdown, High Noon. “You’re on,” he replied. “You win, you get my soul. I win, you go back to wherever the hell you came from.”

“It’s a deal,” the demon replied. Ace wondered whether he ought to shake the demon’s hand to make it official, but the thought of touching that pulsating white skin filled Ace with unspeakable revulsion. The demon smiled, licked its lips and said, “Draw!”

Ace discarded the jack, flicking it face down onto the table. The demon also discarded one card, which meant that it was either trying to fill a flush or a straight, or else it was holding a pair or three-of-a-kind and was trying to make its hand look stronger than it really was. The demon dealt two cards, one to itself and one to Ace, deftly flicking Ace’s card across the length of the table. Ace reached over confidently, scooping up his card, then felt his heart sink into his boots when he picked it up and looked at it — 10 of hearts. He was holding a big, fat bust. Shit! Shit! Shit! Trying desperately to stave off internal panic, Ace threw his last $50 into the pot, delaying the inevitable for a few more seconds. Think, dammit, think! The demon smiled as it scrutinized Ace’s poker face, which Ace sincerely hoped was really as good as he thought. The demon called Ace’s bet and paused, savoring the moment. “Do you know what hell is like, Ace?” the demon whispered. It leaned in closer and Ace could see orange flames smoldering behind the empty facade of its eyes. “I’m going to tie you down to a bed of razor blades with a roll of barbed wire. Then I’m going to use a pair of rusty pliers to pull out all the bones in your feet.”

Ace leaned back in his chair, flashing his biggest, cockiest grin, and replied, “You’re pretty damn sure of your hand. What about your wrist?”

“What?”

“You got a bike?” The demon nodded affirmative. “I’ll race you for the whole enchilada, from here to the court house, winner takes all.”

The demon sized Ace up for a moment, then shouted “You’re on!” It threw its cards face-up on the table and laughed triumphantly. “Pair of threes! Ha! I bluffed you out!”

Ace smiled back. He showed his own worthless hand and replied with a bad Crocodile Dundee accent, “That’s not a bluff, mate. This is a bluff!” The demon cursed and sputtered, incoherent with rage. Ace flagged the waitress down again and said, “Hey, darlin’, would you mind watching my winnings for me? I’ll be back for ’em soon.” Ignoring the flabbergasted expressions on the faces of the waitress and the software tycoons, Ace stomped out of the Midnite Club with the demon hot on his heels.

On the curb outside the club, parked right next to Ace’s chopper, was a gleaming yellow sport bike, a hot-rodded Buell. It was obviously built with the singular purpose of speed in mind, and there was no doubt that the demon would have the advantage in the turns. However, Ace had picked the courthouse for a reason; a good bit of the ride would be comprised of straight-aways. The chopper, with its raked front end, couldn’t corner worth a damn, but in a straightaway its huge engine and long wheelbase made it a speeding missile. As Ace saddled up, it occurred to him that if the cops caught him racing, he would really be screwed, but the thought failed to land with any impact. It was a thought from another lifetime, a thought that seemed pale and insignificant when hell itself was breathing down his neck.

Ace straddled the chopper, pulled the enrichener knob all the way out and fired it up. The rich mixture forced the engine into the high rpm range, which made a staccato machine-gun sound that ricocheted off the stone face of the Midnite Club and echoed down the empty streets. He pushed the knob a quarter of the way in and the machine-gun tempo slowed to a loping potato potato potato, like a drummer playing paradiddles. Ace found the sound soothing. The demon fired up its bike as well, and the two of them sat there until both bikes were completely off choke. Ace pointed to the closest traffic light, which had just turned red, and shouted over the roar of the cycles, “When it turns green, we go!” The demon nodded affirmative and did a burnout to heat the rear tire, blackening the pavement and filling the street with acrid smoke. Ace didn’t bother; he knew that the demon would beat him off the line anyway. The speed of Ace’s takeoff would be limited by the fact that he couldn’t risk a power-wheelie; if the front wheel came off the ground, the impact when it landed again would bend the 12-inch-over forks, and that would be the end of the race. Ace wasn’t worried about it, though. He was betting that the chopper’s 50-to-100 time was far shorter than the Buell’s. The race was long enough that giving up a few seconds off the line wouldn’t ultimately matter.

The light that was aimed at the opposing traffic turned yellow, then red, and the demon gunned the Buell’s engine mercilessly. When the light turned green the demon popped the clutch and took off, lifting the front wheel 24 inches off the ground and instantly gaining a three-second lead.

Ace took off smoothly, quickly up-shifting into fifth. There were lines of tar across the pavement where some road crew had covered the thermal expansion joints in the concrete. As Ace accelerated, the sound of the tires rolling over the bumps sped up from a slow gadump… gadump… gadump to a loping wumpwumpwumpwump and finally to a singular sort of braaaap, all within about three seconds. At 3000 rpm, the high-lift cam turned on hard, and the chopper responded to the throttle like a bucking horse to a whip. Ace leaned his body forward and clutched the handlebars fiercely to prevent his ass from sliding off the seat and onto the rear fender. The wind scream in his ears rose to a deafening pitch, and tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. The demon also had its throttle pegged, but the Buell wasn’t designed to be a drag bike. Ace shot forward like a rocket, quickly closing the gap.

Traffic lights and street lamps sped by in a luminous blur as the racers blew every red light in their path at speeds in excess of 100 mph. If a car happened to pull out in front of them, there would be no time to stop. Both bikes would strike the car broadside, erupting in a volcanic ball of fire, showering the street with bright orange sparks and spraying bits of hot metal everywhere. There would be no need for body bags; there would be nothing left for the fire department to clean up except for a big red smear on the pavement and the occasional ear or finger hanging in the bushes or splattered against the curb. Ace desperately hoped that the highway on-ramp would appear soon.

After what seemed like the longest 60 seconds of his life, the big, green sign for the on-ramp appeared. The demon hit the clover-leaf interchange at 100 mph, leaning way over into the turn and dragging its leather-padded right knee on the ground. Ace maintained his speed until the last possible second, then braked hard and slowed to 50. Even so, the chopper’s low-slung frame only had about 4 inches of ground clearance. The right foot peg touched down when Ace hit the ramp, spraying a shower of white sparks behind him and costing him even more time.

By the time Ace had merged onto the highway proper, the Buell had gained a lot of ground, but the highway was where the chopper was at home. Ace nailed the throttle and braced for the acceleration. The chopper responded like a guided missile, with a massive surge of power. The needle of the speedometer quickly rose to 140 mph, and the gap began to close once again.

The road was long and straight, which was perfect for Ace, since the Buell topped out around 145, while the chopper still had plenty of top end left. The Buell’s taillight grew quickly from a tiny red point of light in the distance, until the demon was clearly visible again. The wind blast was nearly unbearable. Ace put his feet back on the passenger pegs and leaned forward with his chest on the tank, trying to escape the vicious slipstream. Gradually, the chopper pulled ahead of the Buell; Ace was finally in the lead.

Everything screamed by in a blur. Insects sand blasted Ace’s face and neck, stinging like hell and plastering his face and glasses with guts. The speedometer was vibrating so badly that it was barely readable, but the needle seemed to be shaking somewhere around 155. The exit for the courthouse was coming up too quickly. Ace had hoped to put more distance between himself and the demon, but there wasn’t going to be enough time. He began to slow the chopper down. It would be suicide to try to take the off-ramp any faster than 50 mph.

As Ace eased the chopper around the clover-leaf, the demon roared up from behind and slipped around him, once again seizing the lead with one knee dragging. The off-ramp let out onto a city street, straight and full of traffic lights. The courthouse was visible in the distance, no more than four or five blocks away.

As Ace wrapped the throttle around, he realized that he wasn’t going to make it. The demon had once again gained about three seconds worth of lead, and there wasn’t enough distance left to make it up. There was only one option left. Ace flipped the switch that armed the nitrous oxide. The last time he had used the nitrous, the force of the exploding gas had caused the front connecting rod to snap the Evo’s skimpy crank pin. The rod had then piled down through the crankcase, destroying the motor’s bottom end and dumping oil out all over the road. Of all of the bad ideas Ace had tried out on the chopper over the years, the goddamn nitrous was definitely the worst, but if he didn’t use it, this race was lost. The courthouse was two blocks away now. He silently prayed that the bottom end would hold, then he hit the button.

The acceleration was comparable to the Batman ride at Great Adventure. The G-force pulled the flesh of Ace’s face back, turning it into a grotesque, grimacing mask. Ace could feel his internal organs being pressed against the back of his rib cage, and it took all of the strength left in his exhausted arms to cling to the handlebars and not fly off the back of the bike. The chopper blew by the Buell like it was standing still, flying into the courthouse’s huge, empty parking lot, beating the Buell by about 20 feet. Ace hit the brakes, rode in a big loop around the lot and came back around to face the demon.

The Buell had stopped dead, frozen in time, as though it had hit an invisible brick wall. The bike stood up, flexing its limbs, and Ace suddenly realized that it was not really a bike at all. How could he have ever mistaken that abomination for a bike? The steed writhed and thrashed, spitting and gnashing its long yellow fangs before dissolving into a cloud of yellow smoke. The demon, meanwhile, was raging and screaming in some language that Ace couldn’t understand. It wanted nothing more than to tear Ace to shreds, to mash him into a pile of bloody hamburger and bone splinters, but it had lost the race, and a deal is, after all, a deal. The life force that had held the demon’s body together was being drained out, and the body was losing the cohesion that had held it together. It was, in fact, turning into a pile of little white worms that fell in heaps upon the ground and crawled away. Within minutes, the Buell and its rider were no more.

In the days and weeks that followed, Ace spent a great deal of time mulling over the recent events, trying to decide if they were real, wondering for the first time in his life, what is reality? But Ace was a man who had always survived by rolling with life’s punches, and sometimes the wisest course of action was not to think. Sometimes, it was better to just ride.

Sticky shards of beer bottle splashed against his face as Harrison rolled in the soiled sawdust to escape a worn, pointed cowboy boot. His troubled mind whirled. What was he doing diving towards the cigarette butt-strewn deck of the cowboy bar anyway?

Less than a half hour before he pulled his ’78 Shovelhead up to the litter-infested curb in front of the hick bar in the backwater town of Tombstone, Arizona, Harrison was cruising along without a thought in the world.

A pool cue slammed against the concrete next to his head. His eyes expanded to the size of the tops of Harley oil cans and he rolled to avoid he splintering cue stick shattering against the sawdust and cement. Jumping to his feet a fist made a catcher’s mitt out of his stomach.

He thought, when he pulled up to the curb alongside two other shovelheads, that he’d found the only biker bar in a couple hundred miles. The town seemed deserted except for the bar, with its Bud and Miller neon flashing outside, and floodlights sporting the harmless name, “Maggie’s Place.”

Another fist struck him solidly. Harrison grabbed his guts and buckled onto the cold floor again.

He hadn’t been in the joint two minutes when he discovered something wasn’t right. The warm, sexy looking woman at the end of the bar looked up at the rugged stranger as he came in, their eyes meeting as if they had been connected at birth. However, the black and blue shadow under her left eye was a billboard displaying abuse.

Stepping up to the bar, two cowboys strode up behind him. “Hey Chuck, we gonna add another Harley to your collection,” a big, lumbering, beer-bellied boy shouted over Harrison’s shoulder to someone behind a poorly lit pool table.

“Suppose so, if he don’t get the message real quick and hit the road,” the voice was ominous. Harrison couldn’t make out the stranger in the dark corner. He did catch the hint and was beginning to turn for the door when the girl at the bar stood up.

“You’re not going to turn this bar into another war zone while I’m here.” She pivoted on slender legs toward the dark corner.

As her voice quaked out the last syllable, it was as if someone had sounded an alarm. Patrons began to rise and depart to the walls and doors. The small passageway to the heads became as congested as a downtown freeway at rush hour. Though Harrison was tall and well built, a cloud of doom was filling the honky-tonk like an Arizona flash flood. Smacking like a jackhammer, his heart beat against his chest. Knees as slippery as 60-weight quivered beneath him.

A hamhock-sized fist slapped his back, shaking every fragile vertebrae. “Guess you ain’t gonna have that beer after all, boy,” a fat man with bib overalls shouted at Harrison, while launching a right. Harrison was prepared, but off balance. With the speed of a rattlesnake, he blocked the first blow. But the following flurry of punches and kicks got the best of him.

He rolled under the pool table, while four men kicked at him. He hadn’t seen the man in the corner yet, but whoever he was, he called the shots. Harrison drew his knife and stabbed at a stationary boot, he heard the girl scream. Another rancher was dragging the screaming redhead to the corner of the bar.

All Harrison could see were her small refined ankles and petite shoes as she struggled. His mind flashed on the image of the defiant girl as she stood in protest-the tight Levi’s on the narrow waist, snugly gripping her perfect hips and long legs. Her checkered Western shirt fit snugly at the waist and flowed up over her heaving chest, accented by an unbuttoned V below a delicate neck. She was either a vision of traditional Western beauty, or the form he had examined before the first punch had landed was merely a fantasy.

He could still see her delicate shoes being dragged, her feet kicking like a young pony’s, as the man screamed. The knife was buried through the arch of his foot into the sole of his boot. “He’s gonna die, now,” one cowboy shouted, and Harrison heard the sound of a gun cocking. Pulling the knife free and rolling, he cut the Achilles tendon of another kicker and the man immediately fell to the sawdust floor. The first bullet splintered the wood to his side as he spun toward the opposite side of the table.

“Get him, Joe,” the fat farmer shouted, and the cowboy with the 9mm Browning fired again, missing him. Harrison was covered in sawdust and sweat as he wrapped his arms around the cowboy boots belonging to a man who had stomped the knuckles of his left hand less than 30 seconds before. He leveraged his legs against the pool table legs and thrust the man up and over the table. Looking up, the gunman saw this figure diving for him, and he instinctively shot at him. The tackled man fell in his own growing pool of blood on the scarred green felt.

Struggling to stand, Harrison found himself face to face across the table from the smoldering automatic. A fat farmer moved to his right and the young, burly ranch hand grabbed a pool cue to his left. The light above the pool table swung, throwing bits of light in odd directions, and Harrison caught a glimpse of a small sweaty man in the corner slapping the girl while another man held her.

“I own this town, bitch, and you’re mine,” he hissed. The slap made Harrison flinch.

“What the fuck are you waiting for? Kill the sonuvabitch,” the slimy little man in the slick leather jacket in the corner shouted.

“But I just shot Billy.”

“All cuz of that fucking biker. Now do him.”

Harrison wasn’t waiting for a decision. He stuck his blade into the fat man’s belly and, yanking the knife upward, spilled the man’s guts onto the table. The horrified cowboy grimaced and stepped back, lifting the auto to aim. Harrison jumped behind the fat farmer just in time, as a bullet spit the fat man’s shoulder socket all over the room. The balding farmer with three days of stubble looked like a thick peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a large bite taken out of the corner. He screamed, as one of the arms he was using to keep his entrails in place fell limp to his side.

Harrison grabbed the half empty beer bottle on the ledge next to the cue chalk and threw it at the gunman, splitting his left cheek, exposing a slashed jawbone.

The girl screamed as the 225-pound ranch hand swung a pool cue like a baseball bat against Harrison’s lower back. He tried to focus on the girl as rivers of pain shot down his legs and up through his spine. His legs went limp and he collapsed. Moving his arms he shoved off the gurgling farmer, slouched against the coin dispenser, and stumbled over the side of the table into the now crimson felt. He reached for the cue rack, the fingers of his right hand barely encircling a couple of the holes. With his left hand he lunged for a chair, and with all his might he prayed for the feeling to return to his legs.

Rounding the corner of the table into the gunman’s sights again, the rancher caught his dragging calves with another sharp blow cracking the cue mid-impact. “I don’t need no gun to take this biker down,” he taunted, recoiling.

The strike shot lightning bolts of pain in the opposite direction. His legs were immediately sensitized again and jerked instinctively under his torso. The pain caused Harrison to flinch. He tore the old wood rack loose from the wall, sending a half dozen cues into the path of the oncoming rancher.

Harrison’s adrenaline was pumping too fast to comprehend. He knew, just as in the jungles of ‘Nam, that this was it. He had no chance. The next bullet would split his skull like a shot through a beer can.

Putting both bleeding hands on the chair, he pushed up, forcing his legs beneath him. They held. Stepping left, he picked up a scarred wooden chair and launched it in the direction of the gunman who had regained some composure.

“Kill the sonuvabitch, you stupid muthafucker,” the shout came screeching from the corner. The cowboy ducked the oncoming chair and fired, taking out the corner pocket in a shower of felt and wood. Fending the chair off with his left arm, his left eye blinded by blood and swelling, he shot again. This time the bullet penetrated Harrison’s Levi’s and the fleshy part of his thigh. He thought he was going down, but the leg stayed strong and held up under him. He charged, head-butting the big man and grabbing the gun. They spun and Harrison’s fingers found the trigger slot. He shoved in a bloody digit over the other man’s, pointed, and squeezed.

The grease ball in the corner stood, dropping the girl to the floor, and stepped into the light. “You dumb . . .” he began, before leaning on the pool table in full view. He was a slight man glittering with gold chains and rings too big for his fingers. His face was pale and pockmarked. A tattoo crept up his neck, over his collar, and between the lapels of the shiny leather trench coat, a red wave began to cover his white satin pocket.

“If you can’t kill him, I will,” he said, reaching into his waistband for the stainless steel 25 caliber automatic while Harrison and the rancher struggled. Pulling it free from behind his belt he released the safety and aimed. Harrison rocked the rancher and the bullet entered his chest. “That’s okay,” the slimeball said, leaning heavily on one arm. “I wanted him out of the way, so I could take my time with you.”

His silver blue eyes glared at Harrison as if he were the dessert after a helluva good meal. As the rancher fell, the slimeball aimed again. Harrison grabbed the heavy automatic with both hands and unloaded the last two rounds into the slicker. The heavier load slapped the already dying body away from the pool table and into the darkness beyond. He heard the body crash against the wall and slide into the debris on the deck.

Harrison pulled free of the cold hand holding the auto and fell to the side of the table, gasping with fear, adrenaline, and fatigue. It was quiet for the first time. A handful of onlookers stood paralyzed against the walls. He glanced around, looking for more assailants. Seeing none, he quickly pulled himself to the other side of the table to check on the sobbing girl. She was tucked in a ball, her face buried in her hands. He lifted her gently, “Are you all right?” he asked.

Raising her face into the light, even with the streaks of tears streaming down her rosy cheeks, her beauty was breathtaking. The pain in Harrison’s leg disappeared as her deep blue eyes met his. His hand melted against her young waist as a hint of a smile crossed her face.

“Thank you . . .,” she murmured. Harrison’s heart swelled as her scent filled his nostrils. As he reached across her middle his forearm brushed the points of her breasts and he sensed their soft fullness. Turning her toward him, she smiled again, only this time with a sly hint of larceny.

” . . . for nothing,” she said as she plunged a stainless dagger under his ribs, slicing the arteries beneath his heart.

Up here in the great northland known as Minnesota, we know it’s time to fire up the beast when the Donnie Smith/American Thunder Motorcycle Show and Swap Meet comes around. For the third year in a row it was held at the Xcel Energy Center home to the Minnesota Wild hockey team. I only mention that because my buddy Willy got the coach’s autograph/picture at the show. It wasn’t hard to pick him out, as three-piece suits tend to stand out among as bunch of beer swigging bikers.

The swap meet had its usual club representation and the dirty bins of old parts. Nothing special, I guess I wasn’t on the search of any specific component.The highlight of the day was getting an autographed poster from Dave Perewitz of his new Discovery bike. It’s a right side drive, 124-inch motor with a cool swingarm, red with Perewitz flames. It took 900 hours to build. It doesn’t look comfortable to ride, but who am I to say. He rode it from the East coast of Florida to Dallas.

I like rigids. My favorite show bike was an evil rigid, raked and stretched, rattle-can flat black with shiny black flames. Cool

The night before, Willy and I had a chance to hang out at the hospitality gathering at Whisky Junction (A local biker hangout) and ask Donnie and Dave a few questions. I got to tell you, it was pretty cool getting a chance to congratulate Dave on his recent induction into the national hall of fame, and awarded the VQ fabricated bike builder of the year. We chatted about some of the bikes he’s built for NASCAR celebrities. It turned out that his tattoo artist is mine as well. We talked about the Discovery Ride and he offered a terrific perspective. It’s not really about the competition, but furthering the biker cause. Dave, my hats of to you and all you do. I agree. By the way, Bandit, Dave was looking for you.

I spoke to Donnie Smith as well. He was excited about the success of the bike show. It has grown from 70 or so bikes entrants three years ago to about 170 today. Business was brisk for Donnie and he was pumped. He also built a sharp blue chopper for the Discovery Ride. His thoughts of the current up and coming bike builders included, ” Young builders need to have stamina. You’re not going to be millionaires tomorrow, but stick it out.” On his current projects he would only say, “a super secret project bike.” I am sure it will be sharp.

I did learn two lessons this weekend:

1. Keep a cooler in your trunk, park in the garage next to the building for 10 bucks and drink your beer in the parking lot. It paid for my parking.

2. Do not try to install ape hangers the weekend of big show. All the local shops were out of brake line fittings.

Until the next ride,Have a drink on me,–Troy (Rigid) Toensing

Bikernet correspondent Troy or Rigid.