The biker who’d dragged them out and set them on the floor pointed his M16 at the chain.
Clay yelled, “Hold it. Hold it you, dumbass. Haven’t you been paying attention to what’s going on here? Never mind. Jesus! I’m surrounded by idiots. Sandman, deal with that, would you please?”
Sandman went over, took a key from a key ring in his pocket, and undid the cuffs. Then he slapped Roy Boy until he came around, his face pink, his eyes going wide when he saw who had slapped him. Sandman jerked him to his feet.
Clay grabbed the rifle from the closest biker and shoved it into Roy Boy’s hands. “Now, you do exactly as I say when I say it. Do you understand?”
Roy Boy nodded. Clay said, “These three who desecrated our revered clubhouse don’t think I possess the brains or the balls to shoot them because the cops are right outside watching. Do you understand?”
Roy Boy again nodded as he held the gun, uncomfortable, as if it were an alien ray gun. Like Drago had said, he hadn’t made his bones and hadn’t been trained yet. Maybe he was about to get both accomplished at the same time.
“They’re burglars, you understand?” said Clay. “If I say shoot them, you shoot them. We’ll all leave in the plumbing van the same way we came in. You wait for the cops. You’ll get three years for manslaughter and be out in eighteen months, you got it?”
Roy Boy nodded. The truly scary thing about it, Clay was right.
“When you get out in three, you’ll have earned your patch,” said Clay. Roy Boy stood straighter, pulling back his shoulders.
“Right,” said Mack, “shoot us with an illegal machine gun, because that’s what that gun is classified as, and you’ll get life, guaranteed.”
That quick, Roy Boy lost motivation. His shoulders slumped. He looked at Clay for confirmation.
“Son of a bitch,” said Clay. He reached inside his denim jacket and pulled out a beautiful H &K P9 from a shoulder holster. He jerked the M16 from Roy Boy’s hands and shoved the P9 into them. He spun on Mack. “Who the hell are you?”
“Like you said, I’m a burglar.”
“Chickenshit, sneak thief burglars don’t know the law. Not like that.”
Mack shrugged.
Clay turned back to Drago. “Drago, you want outta this mess? I’ll give you one chance. You tell me true, I’ll reinstate you with full privileges.”
Reinstate him? He’d said he was never an SS.
Drago sneered. “Not a chance in hell. You killed Willy. No, you assassinated Willy. Gunned him in cold blood. Walked right up and put the gun to the back of his head and pulled the trigger. And for no good reason other than you just didn’t want to cut the money three ways. He was with us. He told us which armored car to hit. He was my friend. No, Mr. President, you’re going to have to kill me first.”
Willy. That name sounded only vaguely familiar until Drago said the part about the armored car job, then it locked in. Willy Frakes. Drago hadn’t killed the guard after all-Clay had. Clay had been in on the armored car heist all those years ago. Now it all made sense. Drago lived by the code that you did not rat. He couldn’t get even with Clay, not by ratting him out. But he could rub it in Clay’s face by hiding the money from the job right under Clay’s nose. The gold protected by the club to whom he’d sworn his oath and an allegiance. I realized my jaw had dropped open.
“What’s the matter with you?” Clay asked me.
I turned to Drago. “You didn’t shoot that guard.”
Drago didn’t acknowledge that I had said anything at all.
“You went to prison for twenty-five to life for something you didn’t do.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Bruno,” Mack said. “He’s not some darling angel. He was in violation of the felony murder rule. Someone died during the course of a felony, whether he pulled the trigger or not. That’s twenty-five to life, too.”
“Very good,” said Clay. “You’re not some kind of sneak thief. Now I know that for sure. You’re a cop. Who do you work for?”
“Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. They know I’m here. You shoot me and you know what will happen? All hell’s going to break loose. It’ll drop right down on top of you like a hot pile of dog shit.”
“Not if you just quietly disappear.” Clay turned to Drago. “You had time to think about my offer? Full reinstatement. You went to prison without saying a word. For your loyalty, I’ll give you half the money from the armored car job.”
Drago’s eyes bulged and spittle flew from his mouth. “Half? That’s big of you, asshole, considering you don’t even know where I hid it. Cause it’s all mine. And guess what? I’m not afraid of you. I know you for the greedy bastard you are. You’re not going to kill me. Not till you find your precious money.”
Clay remained calm and collected. “This is true, I don’t know exactly where. My mystery caller,” he looked at me, “according to you, this Jonas Mabry didn’t give me all the necessary details. He just said there was a million point two in gold. That’s why we didn’t roll right in. We gave you some time, but as you can see, that didn’t work out. I have to hand it to you, Drago, my man, hiding it here was truly a piece of advanced thinking.”
“Fuck you and the plumbing truck you rode in on.”
Clay looked to Roy Boy. “Before we rolled up, did you hear anything about what they were doing, where the gold’s hidden?”
Rob Roy shook his head. “They came right in, went right to the safe, and started working on it.”
“What good are you?” Clay turned to Sandman. “That doesn’t make sense. How could he hide that much gold in a safe without expecting me to see it?”
Sandman shrugged.
Clay said, “What good are you? We’ll take them somewhere else and have a little chat until we find out. Zip-tie their hands.”
“The fuck you will!” yelled Drago. He took a giant step toward the already scared Roy Boy, who jumped back, his eyes wild with fear and indecision, the gun jittering in his hand. Drago did it on purpose to solicit a gunshot. Did he hate Clay enough to sacrifice his life to bring the cops down on him? In the short time we’d been together, I’d gotten to know Drago a little better.
“Hold it,” Clay yelled. “Looks like this whole damn thing’s going to get screwed up if I don’t take a personal hand in it.” He said this looking up at the ceiling, as if talking to himself, a sure sign of mental instability. “Watch them for one minute. Can you assholes do that much? Huh?” He hurried down the hall and disappeared into the office. Something scraped on the floor. The desk. And then another scraping noise. He returned with a second H &K P9 while screwing on a silencer. He finished tightening it. From three feet away he shot Drago in the foot. Drago went down without a sound. “Now zip-tie them like I said, and do it quickly before I lose my cool and decide I need new prospects.” Prospects always did the dirty work, the menial labor, no matter what their physical condition, until they made their bones and earned their patch.
The prospects put the plastic zip-ties on our hands behind our backs. They had to use three on Drago, one on each hand, and then one to link the two hands together.
Clay’s phone rang. He answered it and listened. “Okay, hold on.” He put his phone on speaker. “Go ahead. Deputy Bruno Johnson can hear you now.”
Jonas Mabry said, “Hello, Deputy Johnson.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Bruno, what did you do to this guy?” asked Mack.
“I guess I made the mistake of saving his life,” I replied angrily.
“Now that sounds like a story I gotta hear,” said Clay.
Jonas, on the phone, yelled, “Hey, pay attention, or I’m going to hang up.”
Drago lay on his back, writhing silently in pain. He tried to reach his foot bending backward, his hands cuffed together, but he wasn’t flexible enough. He’d been shot in the foot on the same leg where I’d shot him in the thigh. I moved over to help him. No one stopped me. I sat down, slid my hands down past my feet and around to the front.