Chalk by Lily J. Adams
Chapter Fifteen: Confusion
Chalk
After Lucy and I were busted, I had some explaining to do to Sarah. The first conversation didn’t go over so well. “You know Mom lives near the hospital. It’s closer to her work. She can’t just come and live here now. She has to do her job.”
“Why? She’s here all the time. She can bring her toothbrush here. Can’t she? We have to get a toothbrush for her, Dad, so she can brush her teeth.”
“Why do you keep talking about this toothbrush thing? I don’t even know what show this was on. You’re still talking about it.”
“Dad, don’t be silly, she should come here. Mom was in your room. She can sleep in your room. Or she can sleep in mine!”
“Ah no, she can’t, sweetness. She’s staying right where she is. It’s okay, you can see her on the weekend. Come on, I need to get you to school. You have that science project you’re getting ready to do next week, so you wanna be ready, right?”
Sarah nodded her head firmly. “Sure do. I want to do a project on frogs. Did you know there are five different species of frogs in Holbeck? Did you know that, Dad?”
I stared at my kid in awe. Every day she got a little bit smarter, and that made me anxious. She was too smart sometimes. “Wow. I did not know that. That’s amazing.” I picked up her book bag and dropped her lunchbox in, then we went out the door. As always, the threat was there. I was on the lookout for whoever thought it was okay to show up at my door. No sign and I was beginning to think I saw a ghost.
“Love you, Dad. See you after school.”
I waited in the car, watching her meet with one of her other playmates linking arms and skipping in. Get inside. Get inside.
Every morning my muscles bunched up tight, coiled and ready to strike should I need to. I touched my gun. Still there. My eyes clocked the cars on the street.
A dark sedan was parked a few blocks back and a man with an olive complexion was leaning out of the window.
I stuck my key in the ignition with gritted teeth, so I could drive over and get a closer look. My heart knocked in my chest as I watched the guy throw a cigarette butt out the window.
One of the teachers saw me and waved, jogging over to the car.
Dammit! The very same teacher who tried to tell me what to do about my kid the last time. Don’t come over here. Don’t come over here.
The teacher came over anyway.
I felt obligated to roll down my window. I leaned over from the driver’s side.
She poked her head in with a nosy smile. “I just wanted to tell you that your daughter is doing really well now. She seems so much happier. I don’t know if anything changed, but she is doing super well.” The teacher pumped her fist as if I was one of the kids and she was about to feed me an apple.
“Thank you, I appreciate it.”
“Any reason for the change?” She pried.
I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction and my pride was getting in the way. “Nah, you probably just caught her in bad timing is all. Kids and their phases.”
“Ah, I see. Have a good day.”
The way she smirked at me led me to believe that maybe Sarah had been flapping her gums at school and talking to her teachers about her Mom. Why wouldn’t she? If I was a kid and I hadn’t seen my mother in two to three years, I would definitely want to talk about it. I would be happy. Looking up, I saw that the car with the man was gone.
With a sigh, I drove off to Wheelz. We were all about to meet Angie and see the article she was about to produce before it went out for publication in the morning. The Holbeck morning traffic wasn’t too bad. It was bearable, but the threat of a hot sweltering heat wasn’t. It was barely after nine, and sweat was forming in droplets on the back of my neck already.
I saw Smoke and Bear ahead of me and drove up to idle beside them. “Hey, you grandpas, what are you doing? Speed up.”
Smoke, who was on my left side, gave me the middle finger and stuck out his tongue as I parked in the Wheelz parking lot.
I got out at the same time as Smoke and Bear. Both of them nudged me in good fun as I walked in the door.
Smoke ribbed me. “What’s going on, are you a real biker or what? You’re in the car now?”
“Yep. I had to do the school drop off run with Sarah. I don’t know if she’s ready to ride on the back of the bike with me yet. I’m a little scared to take her. Lucy only just got on there last week with me and that was her first time.”
“Man, I’m sure glad she’s back, because the smile on your face is not moving. You guys – you know, seeing one another, is it going anywhere?” Bear asked.
“It’s definitely going somewhere. We’re doing pretty good right now,” I said. At the back of my mind I wondered if it would be better for us as a family unit if we were all together and not separate. Would that put too much pressure on Lucy with the new job and us adding Sarah into the mix? The swirl of confusion in my head was keeping me from knowing how soon to move forward. Doubts were floating around inside my head as I walked in the door.
I was greeted by Angie, a wide grin on her face and a newspaper in her hand. “Hey, hey if it isn’t my working buddy! Just you wait for this treat.” She held up the rolled up newspaper in her hand.
The rest of the guys were sitting at the back of Wheelz and two boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts were on the table along with coffees in carry trays. There were a few newspaper articles on the table.
I nodded. “You’re really going all out here. This is some show you’re putting on. What did you say in it? Is this going to become national news or something?”
Angie tilted her head as her golden sea of hair dropped over her shoulder. “You never know, it’s pretty juicy. It’s one of my best pieces ever written. Will it win a Pulitzer prize? No, but might it get a case reopened that the police glossed over because they botched the evidence? Well then, yes.”
“Impressive, Angie. Really impressive. What’s your next assignment? Are you going to keep working with Mia to help her? Or do you have some other adventure planned?” I asked.
Angie thought for a moment as we came to the table with the others. “I might stick around for a little bit and look into this case with Mia. I helped with a couple of things on it. We actually make a pretty good team. I know it’s an all boys’ club, but I’ve been working with Mia this whole time, so she’ll be here to celebrate and contribute as well. She’s been a huge help with the story. She really has.”
“That’s a good thing. I guess you’re staying then,” I pointed out with a soft smile. “Are we good, Angie, you know, with everything?” I wanted things to run smoothly between us, especially if she was going to be around.
“Umm, yeah, we are.” She nodded. “I saw you with her and the way you two are together. I get that’s the route you wanna take. I can respect it. I’m not sure I’m the motherly type anyway.” She screwed up her nose at the thought.
Even though she sounded arrogant, I found her to be endearing. “Thanks. We gotta run Rocky outta town as well. After this comes out, it’s going to be interesting to see if he tries to come down here to play pool or explain himself. I’m pretty sure he won’t.” I pulled up a seat.
Mia came in beside me, putting a warm hand on my shoulder. “Hi, Chalk. How are you?”
“Good, Mia. Sounds like your case is evolving.” I took one of the hot coffees out of the carry tray and sipped at it.
Angie coughed and got the attention of all the other guys at the table. “Hi fellas. Thanks for coming down this morning. This is a mini press release of the article that’s going to run tomorrow. If you see anything that you want to talk about then let me know now, so I can put it forward to the editor. Happy reading, pages three to six. Thanks for the photos, Bones!”
“You’re welcome, Angie. From the draft I saw, I know it’s going to be a tear jerker with the community. I love it.”
Tear jerker? This I had to see. I opened the pages up and started to read the article. Bones had given her the original photographs from the club. These included the original members, half of whom were part of the newly formed Devil Riders. Hawk was in it, Numbers in his younger years. Bear looked even more buff than he was now. He was carrying a little more weight these days, but he wasn’t a man you wanted to mess with. Gunner, young and fresh with a big smile. All with their patches on. Angie crafted the story so well, painting the picture of a club that had weathered many storms. The article left out the illegal actions and focused on the community bike activities that brought the youth together.
The way she wrote made me want to keep reading. She touched on Red Stone Casino with our security support and helping keep the drugs out of the area. Jaz was left out of the article name wise but she added mini interviews of her and the influence she had over the casino. Small interviews on each one of us as a unit were there too.
“Bear, I didn’t know you liked Star Trek! Why didn’t I know that?” I called out, trying to embarrass him. Angie had drawn out information that both hid and revealed our identities to the world.
“You didn’t ask, bro,” he responded.
Angie had her hands clasped up to her mouth like a proud parent.
Mia had her glasses on and was poring over the details of the article. She had her pen poised, I guessed to pick up any errors, but it wasn’t landing on the paper.
After about twenty minutes, Bones spoke, “Angie, this is damn good. I didn’t even know this stuff about the club and the region. You are a hell of a writer. You make us sound angelic, this is crazy. And there’s not too much information that’s incriminating to us. Hats off to you. I’m glad we got you to do the article. This is highly accurate. I’m floored. If the community of Holbeck doesn’t get behind this, I don’t know if they ever will.”
“Agreed. This is ace,” Gunner said standing up. “Especially my part. You see that, boys?”
The whole crew laughed at Gunner.
“Gunner, siddown!” Bear claimed, grabbing a doughnut from the box. “My part was the best. Now everybody is gonna come down here. All my trekkies,”
Angie beamed. “I’m so happy you called to let me do the article. You are the best motorcycle crew I’ve ever met. Chalk, I look forward to beating you in a game or two. I have to get one in.”
I grinned right back at her, relieved that we had sorted out our differences. “Not on your life. Stick with journalism and writing, pool hustling is in my blood. That’s a good shot of me with the pink chalk, nice work.”
Angie winked. “I know, pretty good right?”
Bones thumped the table to get everybody’s attention. “Angie, we have to leave you now and head upstairs for club business. Fellas, we have some things to discuss that have cropped up.”
Every man at the table moved and followed Bones upstairs to the meeting room.
With all of us settled into the room, Bones kicked the meeting off, “Unfortunately, we still have to deal with the cartel. They are asking for an increase on the last three payments.”
“Huh? An increase, what the hell for?” Bear asked.
“They are calling in interest payments for being late. Which we weren’t,” Gunner chimed in. “I’m calling you all in here to confirm the agreement we all made at the last meeting about the cartel. Are we still on the same page?”
“Yep. We hold ground,” Numbers claimed. “Keep the same payments. Nothing needs to change. The cartel shouldn’t be able to weasel that money out of us in the first place.”
Bones slapped the table. “Any objections?”
All of us looked at one another, and I was proud to see not a single one of us moved.
Bones nodded. “Good. We hold ground. Start packing heat from now on.”
Low chatter drifted around the room as the brothers went into speculation mode. I had to get a few things done, so I let myself out of the meeting and headed out.
Paranoia kicked in again, as I scouted out both sides of the street when I got outside. How am I going to tell Lucy about the cartel threat? We promised to have no secrets, but I feared it might send her back into a health crisis.
Later on, I checked the pool roster when I came back to Wheelz. I checked every single name. I looked everyone in the eye. Most were regular players with a couple of new people that I’d never seen before. My eyes were open and so were my ears. As a club, we were now on high alert and I’d personally been on high alert for the last few weeks.
It was eating away at me. How long could we live like this?
