Monk by Ivy Black
Chapter Four
Monk
The chrome exhaust pipes on my bike gleam in the sunlight, making them glitter almost blindingly as I wipe off the last of the water spots. After yesterday’s run to Sacramento, my bike needed some attention. A little tune-up and a good washing, and she’s good as new. I like losing myself in small projects like these. It helps keep me focused and calm.
“You know, we’ve got prospects for that.”
I look up to see the tall, thick frame of Troy Banks, also known as Poe, striding toward me, smiling. He’s the MC’s secretary and has the build of a pro linebacker, but strangely enough, the mind of a literature professor. Aside from me, he might be the only other Pharaoh that reads regularly. His self-proclaimed favorite is Edgar Allen Poe, hence the nickname.
“Like I’d trust a prospect with my bike,” I say.
He shrugs his massive shoulders. “If they ding your ride, you kick their ass. It’s the circle of life, kid.”
“Seems easier just to do it myself,” I tell him. “Besides, I like the monotony of it. Helps me think.”
“Some of us think you do too much of that. Thinking, I mean.”
I shrug. “You can never really think too much, can you?”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“Seems like some of the guys don’t do enough thinking, if you ask me.”
He nods. “You aren’t wrong about that, brother.”
He pulls his sandy blond hair back into a tight tail and wraps a rubber band around it. Poe pulls his sunglasses out of his kutte’s pocket and slips them on.
“You on a run today?” I ask.
“Yeah. Nothin’ heavy,” he replies. “Speaking of which, I heard you tuned up some guy at Randy’s.”
A small smirk starts to form on my lips. “Cosmo needs to stop runnin’ his mouth.”
I hear him mutter a “tsk”. “Shouldn’t be tellin’ a club officer what he can and can’t talk about. You know better than that. We can take your patch as easily as we gave it to you.”
I scoff. “You think getting my patch was easy?”
“Relax. I’m just bustin’ your balls, kid. More or less,” Poe says.
He looks at me evenly, reinforcing his point. They’ve talked to me about my temper and keeping it in check before. What can I say? I’m a work in progress.
“I let it get away from me. I’m working on it,” I tell him.
“Work on it harder.”
I nod and wipe away a couple of water spots on the gas tank I missed earlier. He’s right. I shouldn’t talk about club officers like that. But Cosmo and I have a relationship that’s different from most others. I can say things to him I’ll never say to Poe or Prophet—the founder and President of the MC.
I smile at him. I know he’s already heard Cosmo tell the story, and now he’s probing for my version of events. Though I’m surprised it’s not Trig—Mick Spears, the MC’s sergeant at arms—out here questioning me. I know I can get myself into trouble if I represent the club poorly. We already don’t have the greatest of reputations in Blue Rock Bay, so we try to keep our noses clean and don’t need any more bad publicity.
I look over and see our pair of prospects loading boxes of canned goods and other items into one of the club’s vans. They’re laughing and joking with each other before Rusty, one of our guys, walks over and starts giving them both a ration of shit, yelling and screaming at them in a performance worthy of the nastiest drill sergeant I ever had back in the service.
“Rusty takes his prospect hazing pretty seriously,” I note.
Poe nods. “I remember he was particularly hard on you.”
I shrug. “Only because I was the only prospect at the time. Nobody to act as a buffer and kind of share the load of his bullshit.”
Poe laughs and hands me a sheet of paper, so I take a look, amazed that three months have already gone by when I read the advertisement for St. Agnes’ quarterly food drive.
“That time already?” I say.
He nods. “It is. So, I can expect to see you taking a shift at the booth tomorrow, yeah?”
“Of course,” I reply. “But why do we do this? I mean, the people in town hate us. Act like we’re a bunch of uncivilized animals.”
Poe says with a smug look on his face, “Because we are uncivilized animals. But let me ask you this: why did you beat the shit out of that kid at Randy’s?”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t beat the shit out of him. I gave him a bloody nose.”
“Fine, whatever. Why’d you do it?”
“Because he put his hands on Maggie.”
Poe nods. “Sure, but why did that bother you?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t like the idea of that guy coming into our town, thinking he can put his hands on Maggie like that.”
“Exactly. Our town. We’re as much a part of this community as anybody, kid. People don’t have to like or respect us. What they think of us is ultimately irrelevant,” he says. “But we take care of our own. We take care of our community. And there are people who are hurtin’ and need the help we provide, whether they thank us for it or not. Get it?”
I nod. “Yeah. That makes sense.”
He claps me on the shoulder. “Good lad.”
The sound of a car coming through the gates in the wall that surrounds the clubhouse draws our attention. I let out a groan when I see the Sheriff’s Ford Interceptor pulling into our yard. He parks near the garage and climbs out of the SUV. Poe gives me a friendly clap on the shoulder.
“Got a feelin’ he’s here for you,” he says.
“Yeah, me too.”
“Have fun with that.”
Poe heads back to the clubhouse, giving a wave to the sheriff. All around the yard, the guys are eyeballing Sheriff Singer as he strides across the yard toward me. I didn’t hear him approaching, but Cosmo appears at my side, a happy expression on his face.
“Thought you could use a little moral support,” he says.
“Appreciate it.”
Sheriff Milton Singer—Milt to people who actually like the guy—looks like he’s just walked out of central casting for the role of “small town sheriff.” With his silver hair, narrow eyes, deep lines etched into his face, and a jaw that seems to be permanently clenched, he’s also got a bit of an aging gunslinger look about him as well.
He used to play football at Stanford back in the day and has retained that tall, strong frame that’s thick with muscle. Time’s caught up with him, and he’s carrying a bit more paunch than I assume he had back in his playing days.
“Afternoon, Milt,” Cosmo greets him.
Singer gives him a nod. “Cosmo.”
He turns to me with eyes the color of dull jade that are so familiar to me, it sends a sharp pain through my heart. I look down for a moment to collect myself, then raise my gaze to his.
“Can I help you with somethin’, Sheriff?” I ask.
“Yeah. Think you can,” he says. “Heard there was a dust up down at Randy’s yesterday.”
“That right?”
He nods. “Yeah. That’s right. Thought you might know somethin’ about it.”
One thing I’ve learned from dealing with the cops as often as I have since I rotated home is that you do not offer up information. About anything. You make them work for every single syllable you utter. Some are more persistent than others and will drag you for anything and everything. But if you give them nothing, and they have nothing on you, eventually, they give up.
“Why would you think I knew anything about it?” I ask.
“Description of the guy who beat the snot out of some Sac State student passin’ through sounded awfully familiar,” Singer replies.
I laugh to myself and shake my head. Singer’s face suddenly darkens, and his eyes flash dangerously.
“Somethin’ funny?” he asks, his voice deep and gruff.
“Just that some things never change.”
“How’s that?”
“Whenever somethin’ bad happens around here, I’m the first one you hassle. How long’s it been now? More than a decade? Time to let some things go, man.”
“In my experience, dirtbags don’t change,” he snaps. “You were a dirtbag as a kid, and you’re still a dirtbag.”
“Glad to know our police force, tasked with protecting and servin’ us, keeps such a clear and unbiased mind.”
Singer’s been on my ass since I was a kid. He’s had it out for me for a long time, and I’ve had more than my fair share of run-ins with him. For a long time, every time something bad happens in Blue Rock, Singer has always come looking for me first. Despite the fact that there are plenty of bad guys in our town—as there always have been—I’ve always been the baddest. The top of his “most wanted” list.
I cut a glance at Cosmo, who’s standing off to the side, an amused smirk on his face. Obviously, nobody at Randy’s has given me up. Not the employees because they’re loyal, and certainly not the tourists because they don’t know me. It tells me the best Singer has gotten is a description, so he’s here rattling my cage because he’s got nothing.
Looking back at the sheriff, I give him a shrug. “Somebody beat up a Sac State kid. Damn shame.”
“You want to tell me why this kid got a busted nose and had two teeth knocked out when according to him, he and his buddy were just passin’ through and stopped for a beer?”
I squat down and run my rag over the tailpipe of my bike again. “I don’t know what happened, so I can’t speak for this mysterious guy. Obviously.”
“Don’t jerk me off, Tulowisky.”
“Sorry, Sheriff, you’re not really my type,” I say. “But, hypothetically speaking, I’d say this Sac State kid—frat brat, probably—had it comin’. Can’t say for sure, but I’d imagine that this kid probably got a little too handsy with the waitress.”
Singer stood there, his eyes boring into me, his jaw clenched hard enough to shatter rock.
“I should haul your ass in for assault,” he sneers.
“With what evidence, Sheriff? I’m pretty sure I could beat this accusation even without a lawyer from legal aid. But how about we spare the taxpayers a few bucks so that we don’t have to find out, huh?” I say to him.
“You know why I don’t like you, Tulowisky? Why I’ve never liked you?”
I don’t say anything except hold my head high. I’m sure he’s about to give me the same speech he’s given me a thousand times over the years.
“It’s because you’ve got a shitty attitude and a smart mouth. You think you can do whatever the hell you want and never suffer the consequences.”
Sometimes, I hate being right all the time. The first time I ever heard that little screed was when I was seventeen years old. I look at him and drop the rag onto the seat of my bike.
“Are you taking me in? Going to charge me?” I ask.
His frown deepens the lines in his face and the light of his fury makes his eyes sparkle, but he says nothing. I have to look away again as I stare at that piercing green gaze of his, the familiarity of it making my heart hurt. Turning my eyes back to him is a Herculean effort, but I manage it anyway.
“Well, if you’re not going to charge me or haul me down to the station just to slap me around where there are no witnesses, then I need to go. Things to do and people to see. I’m sure you can see yourself out?”
He lets out a low, deep breath, the sound of it filled with frustration and rage. And if looks could kill, I’d be dead ten times over already. But he knows I’m right and that he can’t touch me since he’s got nothing on me.
“One of these days, you’re going to fuck up, Tulowisky. You’re going to fuck up huge, and I’m going to be there to rub your face in it.”
I nod, maintaining eye contact. “Looking forward to it.”
He turns and stomps off, muttering to himself under his breath. Cosmo and I exchange glances as we watch him get in and slam the door behind him. He fires up the engine on his Interceptor SUV and guns the engine in a wide U-turn, spraying dirt and gravel all over the yard as he tears out of our clubhouse.
“That man has got a very special hard on for you,” Cosmo says.
I nod, feeling a stab of guilt blended in with the pain that courses through me as her fiery red hair and those familiar green eyes—always in that young, feminine face—float through my mind. It’s been years, and I feel stupid for not having cleansed my memories of her… the one who got away. I have a feeling I’m always going to be haunted by the memory of her.
Although the memories of her and of our time together are still fresh in my mind, I realize Cosmo doesn’t really know the full story. None of the guys do. It’s one of those things I keep to myself for the most part, simply because they’re my memories and I guard them jealously. Cosmo only knows her name because I’ve talked to him about her before.
It occurs to me then that because I’ve never filled them in on why Singer hates my guts, they’re in the dark as far as why he’s always rousting us. Part of it, I know, is simply because we’re bikers and he doesn’t like us as a matter of principle. The other part is that my presence and my history with him—and her—gives him a little extra motivation to be an asshole.
I don’t know for sure if the guys even know Singer has a daughter, or who she is, but it will be a surprise if they do. She’s been gone from Blue Rock for a while anyway, so even if she was a blip on their radar back then, I’m sure she’s faded from their memories by now. But singer hasn’t forgotten. Singer never forgets.
“That happens when you date his teenage daughter, then ghost her and break her heart,” I tell him.
