"Cool names," Bear said. "You guys have a tree fort out back, too?"
The two shuffled off to take their place in the train, clearing Tim's view of the far wall, where leather jackets were strung like game fish, crude placards affixed to them. Most of them featured Cholo originals, stripped from ass-kicked members. Outlaws who lost their colors-but survived-had to reclaim them to return to their clubs or, in some cases, to keep their lives; the bold display was a virtual advertisement to their rivals for a clubhouse raid. Tim thought of Chooch Millan's jacket, stripped from his dead body only hours ago, and figured that the Sinners destroyed stolen colors that doubled as evidence. Only two Sinner originals were in the mix, Nigger Steve's barely visible through the gloom.
Tim pointed to the other jacket featuring the Sinner flaming skull. "Did Lash get killed, too?"
"Nah, good ol' Lash couldn't behave himself. He had his patch taken back."
Tim looked over, catching Bear's eye. A guy who got kicked out of the club was a guy who might talk.
"For what?"
"Nosy fucker, aren't you?"
Bear put his feet up on the coffin, and Diamond Dog shoved them off with a boot. "Don't you got no respect?"
Bear drew himself to his full height, a head above Diamond Dog. Whelp jogged over, and a moment later Toe-Tag followed, buttoning his pants. Guerrera stood quickly, then Tim, and then eight or ten outlaws pulled behind the other bikers as if magnetically. Annie was in the doorway, cloaking her body with a jacket, breathing hard.
Bear's eyes stayed locked on Diamond Dog's as if the others didn't exist.
A knocking of boots on stairs, and then a woman with feathered brown hair and a leather jacket appeared. "Uncle Pete'll see you now."
The bikers' posture loosened a bit, and Tim, Bear, and Guerrera backed away from the standoff. They followed the woman, her PROPERTY OF UNCLE bottom rocker tilting back and forth as she made her way upstairs. The pinkie on her left hand was missing.
They threaded their way through dark halls on the second floor. A teenage girl popped into view, startling Tim. Her head was down, her arms tightly crossed above her breasts to hold together a ripped shirt. She flashed past, almost colliding with their nine-fingered escort, mumbling to herself. Her tangled blond hair clung to her moist cheeks, and one eye was swollen.
The woman in the leather jacket pointed at the double doors through which the crying girl had emerged. "In there."
The three men stepped through the door into a large room-the original master suite?-where an enormous figure sat on a bowed king-size bed. A standard poodle lying at the foot of the mattress bared his teeth silently at them, black skin showing beneath the white hair where it was shaved close. The windows were shuttered; it took a moment for Tim's vision to adjust.
Uncle Pete held a spotted rag poised over his flabby arm. He returned to dabbing blood from a meaty biceps, applying himself to the undertaking with the silent contentment of a retired general painting model tanks. Three deep streaks, the kind left by fingernails. A hank of long blond hair lay on the carpet at his feet. The sheets were mussed.
"Frisky cunt. I like 'em that way." Uncle Pete folded the rag and reapplied it, his flat eyes never leaving his task. A rubber-banded thatch of beard poked out from his chin like a stiff rope. "You the ones behind all the sudden interest from the heat? We're catching a lot of static on the streets."
"Yup," Tim said. "That'd be us."
Uncle Pete shook his head. "Some mornings, it just ain't worth chewin' through the four-point restraints." He raised his head, and his eyes sharpened. "Get that Mexican outta here."
Guerrera's voice came out a little tighter than usual. "I'm Cuban."
"Oh. Well, then…" Pete laughed, his chest rippling beneath the undershirt. "Don't want no spics of any kind in here. Just born-and-bred Americans."
"Okay, Pocahontas."
Uncle Pete stared at Tim, figuring him for the front man. "Get that spic out of here or no conversation."
Guerrera started for the biker, sharply, but Tim stepped in front of him, cutting off his advance while keeping his eyes on Pete. Guerrera stayed pressed against Tim's back but didn't move to brush past him.
Pete seemed invigorated by Guerrera's reaction. "Get the spic out of my clubhouse."
"You want him out, you get him out," Tim said. Bear ostentatiously took up position beside Guerrera.
Uncle Pete squinted through the dim light, no doubt debating an escalation, but then he smiled. "I recognize you. Vigilante guy, right? You're the one who croaked all those motherfuckers back when. You need a nickname."
"Use my real name, thanks."
"Sorry, pal, everyone gets a nickname." Uncle Pete rolled his head back on his neck, appraising Tim. The rag disappeared in the swirled sheets, Pete's thick hand in the pouf of hair at the dog's hindquarters. "I'm gonna call you Troubleshooter."
"Original," Bear said. "You might want to take out a trademark."
"Right. I thought I heard it somewhere. Fox News, maybe."
"You know why we're here?" Tim asked.
"Does a crack baby shake?"
"Den's your go-to guy, your hard charger. He and Kaner don't get sprung without word from the top."
"Den don't take no orders. And there is no top. Us Sinners, we're grass-roots all the way."
"What do you need him out for?"
"I don't have to talk to you."
"What am I gonna say?"
"Huh?"
"You're a bright guy, Uncle Pete. What am I gonna say?"
The furrow between Pete's eyebrows disappeared. He didn't smile, but his expression held amusement, almost delight. "You'll get a warrant and you'll make my life hell."
"Right. So."
Uncle Pete lifted his obese frame from the mattress; even Bear looked narrow by comparison. Pete rooted in a drawer, pulled out a digital recorder, and set it on top of the bureau beside a Z-shaped piece of metal. The bed groaned under his weight when he settled back onto it. He lit up a cigarette, inhaled with obvious satisfaction, and beckoned for the next question.
"Where are they?"
"I have no idea. That's why they're nomads, ya see. No-mads. Look it up."
"How about Goat, Tom-Tom, and Chief? We want to chat with them, too. Know where they are?"
"Sure. Follow the asphalt to the PCH turn by Point Dume. The twenty-foot skid mark? That's Goat's face." Pete's booming laugh ended in a coughing fit. "You're welcome to see if it'll talk back." He tugged at his protuberance of a beard, his smile fading. "You citizens don't got no sense of humor. That's what I hate about you. You and the whole citizens' world. I am so far lost from what this fuckin' nation represents. I read the papers, watch the TV. It disgusts me. It don't reflect me. So I say, fuck it. I won't reflect it." He was winding up, a man used to being listened to. "This country's all about what you can't do. Can't speed, can't buy a whore, can't smoke a joint. We can't even ride our hogs without helmets now. We got a funeral tomorrow for Nigger Steve-we can't see him off like warriors."
"Warriors don't wear helmets?"
"Not our brand."
"Most real warriors understand that their head's worth more than their hairdo."
"Think of it as a show of respect for the fallen."
"We've got a couple of funerals of our own tomorrow." Tim bobbed his head, wearing an appropriately thoughtful expression. "I'll tell you what-I'll let you guys do your funeral run without helmets."
"I want it in writing. I don't want a boatload of bullshit when we pull out of here."
"I'll get you a municipal permission."
Bear shot Tim an unveiled look of angry incredulity.
"Yeah, well, I'll believe it when I see it." Uncle Pete studied Tim, then Bear's quite genuine reaction, and the distrust faded gradually from his face. "Maybe you got some class after all, Trouble. We're not bad guys. We're just tired of all the bullshit. We never get anything but the rules-nothin' like a little raping and pillaging to stir things up."