Page 27 of Outlaw Xmas
“Fuck!” Banger’s voice echoed between the trees.
It was a gloomy afternoon, and Rock looked around the empty park. It was as quiet as a mausoleum, and the bare trees with just ice and a dusting of snow clinging to their branches looked grotesquely eerie against the backdrop of lethal violence.
“We gonna move him out?” Jax asked.
Hawk pursed his lips, shaking his head.
“The fuckin’ badges will find him. Eventually. I heard his mom was staying with a sick friend,” Rock said.
“More like she was in detox,” Hawk retorted, turning away from Sketcher.
“Probably. I know she’s had a rough time of it. Should be home now. I’ll go by her place tomorrow and tell her about her boy,” Banger replied.
“Unless the fuckin’ badges beat you to it,” Rock said, putting his gloves on.
“Then I’ll offer her the sympathy of the club. We gotta find who the fuck did this, slice off his balls and cock, and feed them to him.”
Rock went down on his haunches and rifled through Sketcher’s pockets, making sure there was nothing in them that was incriminating against the Insurgents. All he found was some spare change and a crinkled photograph of Sketcher with his arm around a young woman. He shoved the picture back in and stood up.
“Nothing. We’ll find out who did this, and I’m gonna enjoy killin’ his ass.” Rock clenched his jaw, rammed his hands into his pockets, and followed Hawk, Jax, and Banger to their cars. He glanced one last time at the lifeless body, then drove away.
When they entered the clubhouse, anger and sadness crackled in the air; the brothers had a soft spot for the likable twenty-six-year-old.
“Who the fuck snuffed the kid?” Bear asked as he shuffled behind Rock to the meeting room.
“Not sure yet, but I’m gonna find out,” Rock answered.
Banger had called an emergency church regarding Sketcher and the encroaching threat of hard-core drugs in Pinewood Springs. The Insurgents knew meth was the drug of choice for some of the residents in town, but dealing coke, acid, and H in the county just didn’t sit well with the brothers. There was no way in hell they were going to allow that shit to come through; they didn’t want to blow their tacit agreement with law enforcement that they’d keep that shit out of Pinewood Springs in exchange for the badges looking the other way at some of the club’s indiscretions.
As the brothers let their rage over what happened to their informant spill out, Skinless came in and went over to Banger. The president looked at the group. “The prospect says the fuckin’ badges are in the great room.”
“I’m surprised they found Sketcher so fast. They usually can’t find their ass with both hands,” Chas said, and several members chortled and grunted.
“Tell them we’re in church and they need to wait,” Banger told Skinless. The young man nodded and left the room.
“Hold up. I’ll go out and stall the fucks,” Rock said.
When he entered the great room, he saw two assholes in uniform and one in a suit. He went over to the bar and leaned against it, his foot propped up on a chair. The one in the suit came over.
“I’m Detective McCue, and I have a few questions about Tommy Horace.”
Rock jutted his jaw out, smoothed down his cut, and snapped his fingers at Skinless, who promptly placed a shot of whiskey in front of him. Curling his fingers around the shot glass, he threw back the dark amber liquid, then crossed his arms. “I don’t know who the fuck you’re talkin’ about.” He motioned to Skinless for another.
“His street name is Sketcher. Know him now?” McCue shifted from one foot to the other.
Rock shrugged.
Putting his pad back inside his suit jacket, McCue stared at Rock. “The word is he was an informant for the Insurgents. He was found murdered in Crenshaw Park.”
Rock stared deadpan at him and didn’t say a word.
“We can do things the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is that you and your fellow club members cooperate and tell me what you all know about the killing. And the hard way is that I tear your clubhouse apart.”
“I’ve never done easy in my whole fuckin’ life. And good luck in getting a search warrant, ’cause that’s the only damn way you’re gonna get past where you’re standing right now.”
“Did Sketcher piss you guys off, betray you?”
Rock just stared at the detective until he heard Banger’s and Hawk’s voices behind him.
