Vic Vaughn is Vicious by J.A. Huss

CHAPTER FOUR - VIC

My sidecar partner giggles the entire ride up to Bellvue. She has the biggest smile on her face. I almost can’t stop looking at her. And she is damn cute too. I found a bunch of cool Shrike shit leftover from when other princesses were this age, so the sis is sporting a mini pair of brown Frye boots and a pair of ripped-up jeans, plus a pair of suede fringe chaps that I’m pretty sure are meant for pony-riding and not bike-riding, but who cares. They’re adorable. A tiny black leather biker jacket that Vann painted with unicorns for someone’s birthday party pulls it all together. And she’s got a cool kiddie helmet on too. This one is white with all kinds of Sick Boyz stickers on it.

The moment we pull into the field where the swap meet is taking place, people start snapping pics of us. Even though I complain about this bike because of the stupid sidecar, it’s still very fucking cool. Spencer made it, after all. It’s got a dragon theme going. So the front fender and headlight look like the head, then there’s scales all down the fat tank, and the back fender has a spoiler that looks like a tail. It’s way over the top even without the sidecar—which is painted to look like an egg—and scooting around town on it is just too much for me.

But we’re at a swap meet now, and these people are eating it up. Especially with the sis all dressed up like a Sick Girl.

This makes me laugh. I wish some of those nieces wanted to be artists instead of pony riders. Sick Girlz has a nice ring to it. We could open another shop one day. All girl artists. That would be cool.

But… they just aren’t into it.

This one, though. She has a sketchbook. So maybe I can get her interested in tattooing. Otherwise, Sick Boyz might die out. None of us have kids. We’re all relying on Ronnie to keep it going, I guess.

I called Bobby before we left, so he follows us in on his bike. We find a spot to park near the entrance, then spend five minutes letting people take pics of us before heading towards the action. Because I’m all decked out in biker attire too.

“Cute!” one lady says. “You two are adorable! And you can definitely tell she’s your daughter. She looks just like you!”

“Niece, actually.” I chuckle. “But yeah. My sister has a whole pack of them and they all look just like this.”

Princess is looking around like this is most amazing scene ever, not paying any attention to the people snapping pictures. The lady snaps another pic, but then her man tells her to leave us alone and pulls her away.

“Ooooo!” Princess has a hold of my hand and she’s jumping up and down as she points to the rollercoaster. It’s not big, but it’s not really for the little kids, either. “Can we go on that?”

“I dunno.”

“Please! Please, please, please!”

“Let her do the rides, Vic,” Bobby says. “Give her a wristband and set her loose. That’s what I do with my kids.”

I mean… I want to do that. I do. I want to get some beer, and wander the aisles looking at chrome, and maybe find a girl to hook up with.

But she’s my niece. And even though this is hometown turf, and almost nothing ever happens out here as far as crime goes, I can’t just turn her loose with all these people. This isn’t the Moran family reunion. This is the general public.

“I can’t, man. Your kids are big and they are boys. She’s a little girl. But I’ll meet you in the beer tent in an hour. Just let me take her on the rides—”

“And win me a teddy bear!”

“—and win her a teddy bear, and then we’ll be good.” I look down at my niece. “Right, sis? You get your fun time, I get mine? Deal?”

She nods. “Deal.”

Bobby gives me a little salute, then wanders off towards the alcohol.

I take her over to the kiddie section to buy a wristband.

“No,” she whines.

And this is really the first time today that she’s complained. So I take notice. “What’s wrong?”

“Not the kiddie ones. Those.” She points to the spider ride, and that bobsled thing, and something with a cage that tips upside down.

“I don’t think you’re tall enough, Princess.”

“Let’s measure me.”

So we walk over there, and sure enough, she’s too short. I shrug. “Sorry, kid. You’re just not ready for the big time yet.”

“Oh, don’t be like that.”

I turn and find a very pretty redhead smirking at me. She’s a carnie girl, you can tell. She’s wearing a brightly-colored scarf over her head and has giant gold hoop earrings, like maybe she moonlights as a fortune teller. “Be like what?” I ask.

“She’s like half an inch too short. Are you afraid of the rides, big boy?”

“What?” I scoff. “No. She’s just… look.” I point to the you-must-be-this-tall sign. “She’s not tall enough.”

Gypsy Girl winks at me. “I’ll put in a good word for her.”

“Yes!” Princess pumps her fist. “Thank you!”

“I dunno.” I rub my hand over my scruffy chin. “Don’t they have these height requirements for safety reasons?”

“She’s not an infant.” Gypsy Girl laughs. “How old are you, sweetie?”

“Six,” Princess answers. “I’m in first grade this year.”

First grade. I think about this for a moment. That can’t be right. Oliver is in kindergarten this year and—

But my thoughts are interrupted by Madam Sexy when she says, “That’s the perfect age, sweets. Go ahead. I’ll let Tiger know she’s good.”

Still, I hesitate. I channel Veronica, trying to figure out which side of the issue she would be on. Here’s the problem with that. They don’t call her Ron the Bomb for nothing. She’s wild. She’s less wild now that she’s a mom six times over, but every now and then she does a Ron the Bomb kind of thing. Like pose nude for one of Spencer’s body-painting competitions. And Spencer’s not that black and white either. On the one hand, he sends these kids to Catholic school. But he also has a whole kids’ clothing section in his biker stores. And all his girls wear the logo.

So how the fuck should I know if they’re for or against rollercoasters?

I throw up my hands. “Fine. We’ll ride.”

“Yay!” The sis starts jumping up and down, clapping her hands.

Gypsy Girl pulls a wristband from her apron and says, “Twenty bucks each. Gets you on all the rides. And look here.” She winks at my niece. “This little tiger tag is special. It means you can get on the big rides.”

“Cooool.” Princess is impressed. She grabs the wristband and trots off to hold our place in line.

But I know better. “Did you just hustle me?”

“What?” Gypsy Girl looks offended. “Your kid wants to have a good time. All I did was make you a hero. She’s gonna go home to her mom tonight and tell her all about how Daddy broke the rules and she had the time of her life.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You’re divorced, right? This little munchkin is your prodigy? She looks just like you. And you…” She clicks her tongue at me. “You’re quite the bad-boy catch, handsome. Ex-wife couldn’t handle you, could she? All that masculine alpha dripping out of your pores like sweat. Now you have joint custody—”

“Are you out of your fucking mind? This is my niece.”

“Oh.” She laughs. “Oops. Close though, right? Your sis is uptight and you’re the asshole older brother—”

“Just give me the fucking wristband.” I shove forty bucks at her and snatch the band, then look over my shoulder as I join Princess in line and say, “And your fortune-telling skills suck ass. So you better not quit the grifter job.”

Gypsy Girl flips me off and turns away with a swing of her hair.

We go on all the rides. Sis puked after the octopus, but she held it in until we got off and the whole SpaghettiOs mess plopped right into a trash can I held her over.

She’s a champion.

And then she was hungry and ready to win prizes. So we got a bag of fried mac and cheese bites and hit the games.

“Ooooh!” She tugs on my hand, pulling me towards a booth that has fifty little goldfish bowls lined up. In the old days, they used to have live goldfish in these things. But now they give out tickets for the local pet store so you can go pick it up and then spend a hundred bucks on the bowl and food.

“Can I try? Please?” Sis puts her hands together like she’s praying and begs up at me with her wide blue eyes. Mmmm. Hold on. Are they blue?

“Hey, when did you get green eyes?”

“What?”

“Green eyes. You don’t have green eyes.”

She makes a face at me. This face says, You are old and crazy. And maybe I am. I must be. Eye color doesn’t change. I must not have been paying attention when this one was born and I refuse to feel guilty about that. Fucking Veronica needs to slow down in the kid department. It’s been one after the other for the last fifteen years.

“Why are you just standing there doing nothing?”

“What?”

“Can I try for a goldfish?”

I glance at the carnie. He’s smiling at me. Not missing any teeth though. He’s young. A lot younger than me, so he’s cocky too. “What do ya say, Gramps? Ya wanna try yer luck?” He spits some chew out the side of his mouth.

“Gramps?” I huff.

“No, no, no, no.” Princess is tugging on my hand. “Not you. Me. I want to try.”

“Yeah. Let her try her luck, old man.”

I shoot him a look that says this old man could kick his ass, but he just laughs. “Five dollars.” I hand it over and he places three pingpong balls in front of the sis. “Do yer best, little girl. Make sure you aim for the—”

But Sis has already thrown her first ball, and it plunks right into the tiny bowl with a plop.

“I did it!” She squeals this. Loud. People turn to look. A few of them clap.

I smirk up at the dumbass carnie. “Do it again, princess. You have two more tries.”

“Nat-ah,” Carnie says. “One win per person.”

“The fuck?” I narrow my eyes down at this little jerk. “Come again, carnie? Because I thought I heard you say ‘one win per person’ when my little girl has two more tries.”

Carnie and I have a little staring contest. But he breaks off first. “Fine. You can throw. But if you win, they ain’t gonna give you more than one goldfish at the pet store. It’s the rule.”

“You let me worry about the rules there, partner.” Then I look down at my niece and nod. “Throw ’em.”

She nods. Throws ’em. And sinks that pingpong two more times. We leave that booth with vouchers for three goldfish in the pet store down the street from Sick Boyz.

“When can we get them? Can we go now?”

“Nah. It’s closed. But I’ll pick them up tomorrow and bring them to ya.”

“No, no, no. I want to pick. And I need a bowl.”

“Oh, of course you do.”

“And a castle. And rocks. And fish food, and a net, and probably a whole bunch of other stuff.”

“All right. When I drop you off tonight, I’ll tell your mom that I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning and we can go get the fish. Deal?”

She hooks her pinky into mine. “Deal. Now let’s go win me a teddy bear.”

“All right.” I crack my knuckles and take a look up and down the midway. “Which bear do you want?”

She looks hard. We walk a little as she studies the biggest prizes in each booth. “That one!”

I nod. “Now that there is a very nice bear. And you’re in luck. It’s a shooting game.”

I hit all the targets first time out. But I do not win the big bear. I win the tiny bear. Because you gotta keep trading in your prize to get the big one. So it actually takes me thirty minutes and seven tries to finally get the giant pink and white bear that is almost as big as my niece.

She is beaming. Like that smile of hers could not get any bigger. “You happy now, sis?” I ask.

She nods. “Yep. This was best day ever.”

“Good. I’m glad you had fun. But now we’re gonna grab a beer and walk up and down those aisles over there and see if I can find myself a new piece of chrome for the bike.”

She doesn’t even complain. Not once. I keep my eye out for Ronnie and Spencer, just in case they made it up here. But I don’t see them. Maybe they’re still at that art exhibit? Or maybe they came up here yesterday?

At any rate, Princess happily totes her giant bear around behind Bobby and me as we check out all the booths. He gets himself a new seat and I pick up some grips and a cool kickstand.

And then it’s late. Bobby and I are kicking back on the grass just listening to the band, and Sis is passed out with her bear on the ground. He’s chomping on popcorn and I’m thinking it’s about time to head home. So I check my phone for a text from Ronnie. Maybe I didn’t hear it?

But that’s when I realize I’ve got no signal. “Shit.”

“What’s up?” Bobby asks.

“I’ve been waiting for Ronnie to call me and tell me to bring the kid home.” I hold up the phone. “No signal.”

“Oops.” He laughs, then pulls his phone out. “Yeah, me too.”

“All right then. I better get her home. Ronnie is probably going nuts wondering where we are.”

“Yep. I’m outtie as well.”

We get up and Bobby hauls the bear while I pick up the princess and carry her back to the bike. She wakes up a little when I put her in the sidecar, but mostly just to hug her bear and let me put her helmet on.

Bobby and I dap. Then we go our separate ways. He heads back to Fort Collins and I go deeper up into the hills where Ronnie’s farm is. But it’s not that far of a ride, so ten minutes later I’m punching in the code to Spencer’s gate and pulling up to the house.

There’s a lot of lights on and both the trucks and Ronnie’s Suburban are here, so I know people are home. A couple of farm dogs appear, then a shadow in the screen door.

I kill the bike, get off, and remove my helmet. “Spence! I got your kid.”

He pushes through the door and steps out onto the massive front porch. “Vic? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“What do ya mean?” I unbuckle the princess and pick her up. She’s still sleeping so I carry her over to the porch. “Dropping the kid off.”

Spencer looks at me.

Spencer looks at the kid.

Spencer looks over his shoulder to an approaching Veronica. “Are we missing a kid?”

“What?” Ronnie wipes her hands on her apron. “What are you talking about?”

“Vic says he’s dropping off a kid. Is she ours?”

I am watching this conversation with fascination. These people. They have so many kids they can’t keep track of them.

“Vic.” Ronnie comes down the steps towards me. “That’s not one of our kids.”

I laugh. “Nice try, sister.”

She puts her hands on her hips. “No. I’m dead fucking serious. Not my kid, Vic. Where did you get this child?”

“What?”

“Where did this kid come from?”

“She… her… you’re wrong. She’s a princess! I mean, look at her!”

“Vic.” Is Spencer using his dad voice on me? “Where did you get this kid?”

“The fucking…” I suddenly can’t breathe. “The shop,” I finally manage. “She came into the shop this morning and sat down.”

“Vic.” Is Ronnie using her mom voice on me? “Please tell me you did not have this kid all day. Please tell me you are not that stupid.”

“Stupid! What are you talking about? She looks just like you! Just like them!” I point to her… one, two, three, four, five, six kids now standing on the porch. Princess Rory is holding the baby, Oliver is snickering like a little asshole, and the bossy one is shaking her head at me, passing judgment with her arms crossed.

And then an alert blares into the peaceful summer night.

I know what that alarm is. Everyone knows what that alarm is. It’s annoying and we all want to turn it off, but we don’t. Because it’s an Amber Alert. And if a kid goes missing, you need to know about that.

Spencer pulls his phone out to check, then holds it up so I can see.

And right there, in full color, is the sis.

Under her is me. The perp.

Under that is a pic from the swap meet.

Both of us all dressed up like bikers.