Black Jack Read online

  “Don’t be that way, Miss Lye,” he purred, now striding into the bar with his two goons in his wake. One of them, the big one walking gingerly, was Jim. The other, I’d seen around but didn’t know his name. He was slender and tall, almost gangly, and when he flashed a wink and a smile at one of the young female customers, I spotted black rotting teeth. Bates slid onto the barstool closest to me and clasped his hands together on the bar, showing off his club ring on one hand and a set of brass knuckles he always wore on the other. “Be a good girl and give us that pitcher.”

  His men sank onto the stools of either side of their boss.

  As soon as the three men had their backs turned to my bar, every single customer got to their feet and made a beeline to the door. I couldn’t blame them for wanting to flee, but I resented them for having the option and for being so willing to leave me behind. I’d dismissed all my kitchen staff well over half an hour ago, and the only other employee in the building was Amber, who came out of the storage room and froze in her tracks when she spotted Bates and his men.

  The gangly man with black teeth looked her up and down. “Hi there, sweetness.”

  I set the beer pitcher down hard in front of them. “Go home, Amber.”

  Amber retreated back down the hall to the storage room and the back exit. The bar shook with silence as I set three glasses down and stood back while Jim poured each of them a drink.

  “Another glass,” Bates said.

  I set one down. Jim topped filled it. Bates slid it to me.

  “Consider yourself off the clock, Miss Lye. It’s about time you and I sat down and had a proper conversation about the future of this establishment and its owner.”

  My pulse echoed in my ears as my heart drummed inside my ribcage like a terrified creature trying to escape. I knew full well there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  So I lifted my chin. “I’m going to let you know now that this will be a very one-sided conversation, Mr. Bates. You know my position. The Well is not up for sale and that’s final.”

  Jim chuckled into his beer glass as he tipped back on his stool. His stomach peeked out from under the hem of his dark gray Harley shirt, and the chain on his belt dangled off to the side. An image of Jackson holding that very chain around Jim’s thick neck flashed in my mind.

  Bates leaned forward on his elbows. “Sweetheart, this is the part where you listen, and I speak.”

  I glared defiantly at him but kept my mouth shut.

  “Very good,” he said. “I want two things from you and two things only. The first, your bar. I want you to sign ownership over right here, right now.”

  My pulse quickened. “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll take more than just your business. I’ll take you, too. Nobody has an ass like yours in Reno, baby. You’d make a great sidepiece.”

  “Go to hell,” I hissed.

  Bates looked at both of his boys, and the three of them shared a smug laugh at my expense. “See? This is why I like you so much. I’ve always preferred a woman with a bit of meat on her bones and some fight in her. So sexy. Especially when they finally give in.”

  My stomach crawled. “And the second thing?”

  Bates’s expression darkened. His lips turned down in a sneer, and his single blue eye peered into the depths of my soul. “I want you to tell me everything you know about Black Jack. I hear you and he spent some quality time in here today after the little shit’s funeral.”

  “I made him a burger,” I said.

  Rotten-Teeth chortled and wiped beer from his upper lip. “Don’t play coy, bitch. We all know you spread your legs for him.”

  Bates rounded on Rotten-Teeth and gathered the front of his shirt. “We don’t speak to a lady like that, Hitch.”

  Jim’s eyes dragged up and down the length of me, pausing at the V-neck of my white shirt. I resisted the urge to wrap my arms around myself and hide.

  Bates released Hitch, nearly shoving him off the other side of his stool in the process, and turned what he might have thought was a pleasant smile back in my direction. It wasn’t pleasant at all. It made my skin itch and my teeth ache. “What is Black Jack doing back in town? How long is he staying? Has he taken up the mantle again?”

  “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?” I said.

  Bates’s good eye flicked back and forth between mine, analyzing. “And what is it you think I want to know, Miss Lye?”

  “Ask me if he knows you’re the one who killed his brother.”

  For a moment, nobody said a word. Bates stared at me and I stared right back. Then, like a man possessed, he threw his head back and roared with laughter.

  I retreated back a step.

  “You see?” He rocked forward and slapped both hands on the bar. I nearly jumped out of my skin. “This is why I like you, Sam! You’ve got fire in you. You have no idea how hot you could burn if you joined me. I could make you into someone you never dreamed you could be.”

  “At what cost?” I breathed. “Listen to me. I want nothing to do with you, Walter. Do you understand? I will never sign this bar over to you. I will never feel anything toward you but hatred, and the only thing you’ll ever get from me is a hand out the door.”

  Bates remained expressionless while his men prickled at my defiance.

  “Show her who’s boss,” Hitch seethed.

  “Remind her who the fuck she’s talking to,” Jim added.

  Bates rose to his feet and towered over me. I held my ground and glared up at him, my hands balled into fists at my side because I was afraid he’d be able to see my hands shaking, and if he did, I wanted him to believe it was out of anger, not fear.

  “Do you think he would protect you the way you’re protecting him?” Bates cocked his head to the side, which might have looked harmless if not for the way his lips were peeled back from his teeth in a smile that looked more like a snarl. “Do you think you owe him something? He’s a rat, Miss Lye. A no good, slimy, washed up nobody. He can’t give you anything. Not like I can.”

  I had to remind myself to breathe when I felt dizzy. “Get out.”

  Bates laughed, but it sounded hollow and threatening. He picked up his glass, drained his beer, and hurled it at the bar behind me.

  I ducked with a startled shriek. Glass shattered behind me and liquor poured down onto the floor, splashing my jeans and sneakers. Broken pieces of bottles shattered at my feet and I covered my head with my hands when Jim and Hitch followed their boss’s lead and threw their glasses too.

  When I finally looked up, the three had walked to the front doors. Bates tied his bandana around his head and paused before stepping out into the night. “I’ll be back soon, Miss Lye. I suggest you have a different answer for me because if I can’t have this bar, nobody can.”

  With that, the three of them left, and I pressed my back to the cupboards behind me and buried my face in my hands as I started sobbing. I hated that he’d made me cry. I hated that he’d made me feel weak.

  I wiped my tears and cursed myself for being so pathetic. “He didn’t even touch you,” I whispered.

  Movement to my right made me scream.

  “It’s just me!” Amber scurried in behind the bar and knelt in front of me. She looked me over, her brow pinched with concern. “Did he hurt you? Are you okay? Oh my gosh, Sam, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you alone up here with them.”

  “Why are you still here? I told you to go home.”

  “I couldn’t leave.” There were tears in her eyes now, too. For a nineteen-year-old, she had balls of steel. “I hid in the storage room in case you needed me. I was a dumbass. I forgot we don’t get cell reception in there. I tried to call for help but I was too scared to come out.”

  I took her hand in mine. “It’s okay. We’re okay. But next time, do as I say, Amber. I know you were just trying to help but tonight could have been a lot worse.”

  She sat down beside me but didn’t let go of my hand. “I think you should give him the
bar.”

  Chapter 14

  Jackson

  Mason pulled up beside me on his bike and killed the engine. He planted one foot on the asphalt to steady his bike and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his gas tank.

  “You still think this is a good idea?” he asked.

  I nodded as we both looked up at the rundown storage facility. The place was a dive. The stucco exterior was in dire need of a power wash, and the metal roof gave way to gutters full of shit spewing rotten leaves down the side of the exterior. Overhead, trees rustled in a hot breeze and a crow cawed.

  “It’s the only idea I’ve got,” I admitted.

  Hogey’s Storage Facility wasn’t really a storage facility at all. It was a front. About a dozen of the seventy-five units were used by real paying customers in Reno, but the rest were used for less savory business mostly associated with smuggling weapons and drugs. It might have looked like a shithole, but it was a shithole packed with wealth.

  Illegal wealth but still.

  Mason and I got off our bikes and approached the front door. The open sign wasn’t on, and the hours weren’t posted, but the door was unlocked.

  We stepped into a small lobby with no air-conditioning. It was humid and smelled like body odor and mayonnaise.

  Mason buried his mouth and nose in the sleeve of his jacket. “Fucking hell, what is that stench?”

  “Hogey,” I said.

  “Fuck me, that’s awful.”

  A small silver bell sat on the counter, so I stepped forward and rang it three times. The chime echoed in the office, but Hogey never came out.

  “Maybe he’s not here?” Mason suggested.

  I hadn’t driven all the way out to this shithole to come up empty. “He’s here,” I said. “He probably heard us pull up and is hiding like the little bitch he is.”

  Mason chuckled.

  Off to the right and behind the counter was an open doorway that led to a small office with no windows. I could see a faded blue couch pressed against one wall and the back of a computer chair facing the opposite way. I moved behind the counter and peered into the office. It smelled even more foul back there, but there was no Hogey.

  A narrow hallway led out of the office down to a locked bathroom, a break room, and the main door into the storage lockers. We paused outside the break room and I stuck my head in.

  There, sitting naked from the waist down, was Hogey Hughes. Between his legs and kneeling in front of him was a woman in a G-string and no top. She leaned forward and started sucking Hogey off.

  Mason reeled backward when he stepped in behind me. “Fuck!”

  Hogey’s bloodshot eyes snapped open and landed on me. He gasped, bucked wildly in a panic, and nearly choked the poor girl. She sputtered and pulled away while shouting a string of curses at him.

  I cleared my throat.

  Tracy Kiss, the stripper I’d seen the other night at the Den, turned and looked over her shoulder with wide blue eyes. “Black Jack,” she whispered.

  I tipped my head to the door and stepped aside. “Get out of here, Tracy. Hogey and I need to have a chat.”

  She gathered her clothes from the floor, covered her breasts with one arm, and hurried past Mason and me while Hogey scrambled to pull his jeans up.

  Mason muttered for me not to touch anything as we stepped into the break room. “This place is a fucking stye,” he said, looking around with disgust. He looked like he was going to gag as he watched Hogey stuff himself back into his jeans. “You’re a foul piece of shit, you know that? Making the poor girl put your junk in her mouth like that. I think I’m gonna puke.”

  Hogey zipped himself up and pulled a shirt on with holes in the armpits. “Real women like a bit of musk.”

  Mason pressed a hand to his stomach. “You’re as foul as you’ve ever been.”

  “And you’re still a condescending prick,” Hogey spat.

  “Enough,” I said.

  Hogey watched me out of the corner of his beady little eyes while I walked around the break room. Two lines of cocaine were set up on a low table beside the couch. An open bottle of vodka sat beside it. There was a window cracked open, but it opened up onto a small courtyard between the storage lockers where Hogey threw his garbage.

  Mason was right. The ex-Devil’s Luck member was as foul as he’d ever been.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Black Jack?” Hogey barked, trying to hide his inner forearm from me by resting it across his stomach.

  He bore the tattoo that all the rest of us did: a symbol of our loyalty and our crew. The skull and shamrocks was the Devil’s crest, and I’d disfigured his when we discovered he was stealing from our treasury almost eight years ago. He’d taken nearly twenty thousand dollars over a three-year stretch and thought he would get away with it. He’d always been pathetic and more of an errand boy really, so I let him off easy by sticking an iron poker in the fire pit in Grant’s backyard and resting the metal across the tattoo.

  He’d been marked as a traitor and all of Reno knew it.

  He’d have to carry his shame with him for the rest of his life.

  “I’m here to talk to you about Walter Bates,” I said.

  Hogey snorted and looked back and forth between Mason and me. “Bates? I can tell you a lot about Bates. He killed your baby brother, you know. Poor William. He deserved better than a bullet in the head. Kid had potential.”

  I was in Hogey’s face before he realized I’d moved. “Keep my brother’s name out of your mouth, you traitorous fuck.”

  Mason put a hand on my shoulder.

  Hogey grinned up at me as Mason pulled me back. “Just trying to sympathize, Black Jack. He used to be my friend too. I wanted to go to the service but I figured you’d run me off the grounds.”

  “You figured right,” I said.

  Hogey crossed his arms over his chest. His nails were dark and gritty and he had white powder around his nose. “So what do you want to know about Bates and his Wolverines? And what do I get in exchange for information?”

  Mason stepped forward. “You get to go home without busted kneecaps, that’s what.”

  Hogey smirked. “I wasn’t talking to you, High Roller. I was talking to Black Jack. What’s in it for me? Selling information about Bates is risky. Why should I put myself on the line for the man who disfigured me?” He held up his scarred, ruined arm.

  I felt no shame or guilt. “I’ll convince the others to let you rejoin.”

  Mason hissed. “What the fuck, Jack? That wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “Quiet,” I said.

  Hogey stroked his chin in mock thoughtfulness. I knew full well he didn’t have a thoughtful brain cell in that thick head of his. “You don’t have to convince them. You call the shots. Either you let me in or I’m not telling you shit.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  Hogey sat up straighter, pleased with himself. “Very well. I’ll answer your questions. But you should know, Jack. Bates isn’t going to go down easy. If you had any sense at all, you’d pack up and leave Reno altogether. I know you don’t want me to say his name, but William picked a fight he couldn’t win, and look where it landed him.”

  “I’m not my brother,” I said.

  Hogey sighed, leaned over the armrest of the couch, and snorted a rail of the cocaine lined up on the side table. He shook his head and slapped his hands on his thighs. “Fuck me. All right. Ask your questions before I get cold feet.”

  For a moment, I considered if this was really the right move. There was nothing stopping Hogey from running straight to Bates after Mason and I left. He had no reason to be loyal to me after what I’d done to him. He didn’t owe me anything.

  But he was a coward, and I doubted he’d have the guts to look Bates in the eye and tell him anything.

  So I took my chances.

  “I know you have connections in this town,” I started, “and I know you know the ins and outs of everyone’s routines and business.”

  Hogey nodde
d eagerly and cast a greedy glance toward the second line of coke. “Yes, yes I do.”

  “I want you to tell me how I can get a hold of Caroline Bates.”

  Hogey’s eyes went wide and he lost all interest in the line of cocaine. “You want his daughter? Are you fucking crazy?”

  “I’m not here for your two cents, Hogey.” The last thing I needed was advice from a backstabbing weasel. “I’m here for info. Plain and simple. Spill it.”

  Hogey licked his lips.

  He knew how I could get my hands on Caroline. “Hogey,” I said, my voice dripping menace.

  He recoiled. “All right, all right. She has a rigid routine she follows on Mondays. She goes to several businesses in the same order to collect payments for her father. She starts at eight o’clock and wraps up around two, and then she heads back to give her father the cash. She usually goes alone. Sometimes, she’ll have an Enforcer there with her. It just depends.”

  “Where does she start?”

  “She hits six spa and beauty salons downtown. She’ll be parked in the lot behind Diva Studio. She drives a white Range Rover.”

  That was all I needed to know. I turned to the door.

  “She carries, Jack,” Hogey added. “A pistol. In her purse. She keeps a knife up her sleeve, too. She’s not someone to be taken lightly.”

  Mason stepped out into the hall and seemed to appreciate the fresher air out there. He took a few deep breaths and watched me move forward to shake Hogey’s hand.

  “Thank you,” I said. “If your information helps us, I’ll be in touch. Things might not move forward right away, but you have my word I’ll get you back into the club once I deal with Bates.”

  Hogey closed his other hand over mine. “Thank you, Black Jack. Thank you.”

  “Don’t tell a soul I was here.”

  “Not even my mama.”