“Came back to spend time with Bobby Lee and his mom?”
Remy snorted. “Not likely. Bobby Lee’s mother had already divorced Victor back in the seventies.”
“Any special reason?”
“Maggie didn’t dig deep into this. She stayed with Victor Gant’s crime side. It was intense enough. Besides that, he’s not the focus of our little trip. Not long after Victor Gant mustered out, he got into a bar fight and killed a man.”
“Why?”
“It was part of a turf war. Maggie’s notes indicate that the police investigating the homicide thought Gant should have taken a fall for murder one. The DA couldn’t make premeditation stick, so he didn’t try. Gant was convicted of manslaughter and spent seven years inside. He did his whole bit, so there’s not even a parole office in his life.”
“Not much father-son time there,” Shel observed.
“No. But Bobby Lee started hanging around anyway.”
“Is Bobby Lee a Purple Royal?”
“No. They don’t have an interest in him.”
“Except that Victor Gant’s his daddy.”
“That’s about the size of it.” Remy looked at Shel. “So what is it you hate about Father’s Day?”
4
›› Tawny Kitty’s Bar and Grill
›› South End
›› Charlotte, North Carolina
›› 1705 Hours
“You ask me, Victor, this is just wrong.”
Victor Gant glanced at Fat Mike Wiley and said, “Ain’t asking you, am I, Fat Mike?”
Fat Mike shrugged and sighed. His broad, beefy face turned down into sadness only a basset hound could show. “No, I guess you ain’t. But if you woulda asked, I’d have told you I didn’t like this none.”
“Don’t expect you to like it. Just keep my back covered while we’re having this little set-to.”
“Ain’t got no problems with that. I been there for you over thirty years.”
Victor knew that was true. He’d met Fat Mike in Vietnam. They’d hunted Charlie in the bush, blew him up when they found him, and partied hard in the DMZ next to Charlie. Those had been some crazy times. Some days-in a weird way he didn’t quite understand-he missed them.
In those days Fat Mike hadn’t been fat. Lately the man was starting to earn his name. He stood an inch or two over six feet and tipped the scales at nearly three hundred pounds. Back in the day, Fat Mike had been called Fat Mike because he rolled his marijuana joints thick as sausages when he blazed.
Now his biker leathers didn’t fit him quite so well. But he wore his hair long and sported a Fu Manchu mustache like he’d done when they’d been in the bush, even though the first lieutenant they’d had at the time had tried to keep his troops disciplined and clean-shaven.
One night, while the lieutenant was sleeping and probably dreaming up new ways for his men to risk their lives out in the jungle, Fat Mike and one of his buddies had rolled a grenade into the lieutenant’s tent. Three seconds later, they’d needed a new lieutenant. The one they’d gotten had been a little smarter than the last one and knew to stay out of their way.
Victor was gaunt and hard-bodied. No spare flesh hung on his six-foot-two-inch frame. He was sixty-seven years old and was still whipcord tough. He wore a full, short beard that had turned to pewter over the last few years, but he’d kept his hair, and it hung down to his shoulders in greasy locks.
He wore his colors, and his jacket covered the two Glock. 45s he carried in shoulder holsters. His jeans were clean but held old mud, blood, and oil stains. Under the jacket he wore a sleeveless black concert T-shirt featuring Steppenwolf. Square-toed biker’s boots encased his feet.
Fat Mike sat astride his Harley next to Victor. There were a lot of other sleds in the gravel parking lot. Tawny Kitty was a biker bar and not a tourist attraction.
There were a few cars there too. Victor swept them with his gaze. Some of the vehicles belonged to college kids still in town for summer classes who thought slumming would be cool. Or they belonged to young women looking for bad boys.
The bar was a rough-cut square of stone and wood. Neon lights promising “Beer” and “Live Entertainment” hung in the windows. Another sign advertised Open. The sign advertising Tawny Kitty showed a young blonde in revealing clothing with a saucy glint in her eyes. The years had faded the colors of the sign, but it still drew salacious attention.
Victor stretched and reached into his jeans pocket. After a moment of digging, he brought out a crumpled cigarette pack. He unfolded it and stuck a cigarette in his mouth, then lit it with a skull-embossed Zippo lighter.
Without another word, he swung his leg over the motorcycle and stepped toward the bar. As always, Fat Mike was right behind him.
›› 1707 Hours
The interior of the bar was a little better than the exterior but not by much. Tawny Kitty was twenty years out of date. Two dance stages equipped with brass poles and backed by mirrors divided the large room into distinct areas. The long bar serviced both areas.
The stench of beer, cigarettes, reefer, sweat, nachos, and cheap perfume hung in the turgid air. Victor barely noticed it. He’d spent more time inside places like this than he had outside of them.
Young women-their bodies hollowed out by drugs and years of having their pride stripped out of them to leave only hard-edged anger or dulled acceptance-gyrated on the stages to an old 38 Special song. Nearly two dozen men and a handful of women sat around the stages. None of them appeared especially entertained.
Victor swept the bar with his gaze and didn’t see the man he was looking for. He wasn’t surprised. He and Fat Mike had arrived a little early. Victor did that when he was meeting with people he didn’t particularly trust. Staking out the terrain first was important. That had been one of the first lessons he’d learned in Vietnam.
A petite hostess approached them. She wore immodestly cut jean shorts and a chambray shirt with the sleeves hacked off and tied well above her waist. Her dishwater blonde hair held a green tint under the weak light. Tattoos covered her arms and legs and ringed her navel.
“Can I get you boys something?” the waitress asked.
“Beers,” Victor said.
“Domestic or imported?” the waitress asked.
“American,” Victor said. “I fought for this country. I’ll drink the beer that’s made here too.”
“You want me to take you to a table?” the young woman asked. “Or do you want to pick one out for yourselves? It’s early yet. Got plenty of room.”
Victor waved her off. “When you get those beers, we’ll look just like this.” He walked through the tables and took one against the back wall that gave him a good view of the room. Then he dropped into a chair.
Fat Mike sat at another table nearby and to one side. They always left each other clear fields of fire in case they needed it. If the waitress thought the seating arrangement was odd when she returned with the drinks, she didn’t mention it.
›› 1717 Hours
Minutes passed as rock and roll pounded the bar’s walls.
Victor drank his beer and gazed around the bar. Other bikers lounged nearby, but none of them were Purple Royals. The Tawny Kitty was a neutral zone, a lot like the DMZ back in Nam.
“You seen your boy today?” Fat Mike asked from his table.
“A little.”
“A little?” Fat Mike shook his head sadly. “Don’t he know it’s Father’s Day? He should be hanging with you. A boy should be with his daddy on Father’s Day.”
“This ain’t exactly something I want Bobby Lee hanging around for.” Victor took another sip of beer. “Boy’s got enough problems.”
“That beef with them jarheads down in Camp Lejeune?” Fat Mike waved the possibility away. “If they was gonna do something, they’d have done it by now.”