“And they’re probably too dumb to realize that we have connections to clubs in Navesink Bank and Golden Glades,” Sway piped in. “They probably think it is just the seven of us. And these two,” he said, gesturing toward Riff and Raff, “aren’t here full time. They were easier targets to start with.”
“And not getting what they wanted from you is likely just going to piss them off,” Judge added. “If they’re hungry for a score, they are going to strike again.”
“And we have that drop coming up next week,” Detroit said.
It was a big drop, too.
We had to cross over into Nevada to hand them off to some vigilante group who were going after some trafficking ring or some shit like that.
As a whole, we knew our guns typically went to bad guys to use against other bad guys. And we couldn’t judge, being “bad guys” ourselves. But everyone once in a while, it was nice to put guns in the hands of good people on a mission that operated outside of the law.
But it was going to be the biggest drop of the year so far for us. It had to go right.
Being the biggest, though, it also meant it would be the best one to target if someone had the mind to do so.
It was going to be a tense few hour drive to the drop. And then an equally tense ride back, since we would be carting cash from the drop with us then.
“You guys are staying until after the drop,” Slash decided, even though it wasn’t often that Riff and Raff stayed for longer than a long weekend. They were usually back in the south, hitting up old connections, going to gun shows, all that shit that guys did to get guns from down there to run up to the northern cities where it was much harder to get your hands on a gun.
“Wouldn’t mind not being in a car, knocking back on this shoulder for a week,” Riff said, nodding.
“You know what this means,” Raff said, smile wicked.
“Fuck, man, she’s probably sick of you,” Detroit said, shaking his head.
“Lula? Sick of me? Impossible. Why only last month, we were planning our wedding,” Raff declared.
“If I recall correctly,” Delaney, Judge’s girl, piped in, “You were drunkenly telling her that you wanted to have a June wedding because she would look ‘banging’ in a sleeveless dress… while Lula tapped away on her calculator, ignoring you.”
“I mean… it wasn’t a no, though, was it?” Raff asked, smiling.
That was just the kind of guy he was. Easy-going, laid-back, hard to rattle, undeterred, with an almost superhuman amount of confidence. Luckily, he had the charm and good looks that made it attractive instead of threatening.
Detroit’s cousin, Lula, who worked at The Bog and cooked the books for the Murphy brothers, never took his advances seriously, but she never discouraged them either.
“Should we be going out in public after an attack?” Detroit reasoned.
“Think it might be all the more reason to go out,” Sway said, grabbing the clubhouse cat—who had wandered in as a stray and just decided to stay—from off the arm of the chair where it was about to reach out one of his paws and scratch the shit out of Delaney… again.
He hated women.
For reasons none of us knew.
And much to Delaney’s never-ending disappointment, because despite getting torn up a million times, she still tried to reach out and pet his grayish-white fur. Only to immediately regret it.
“What’d I ever do to you, Devil Cat?” she asked.
That was pretty much the poor fucker’s only name. It never occurred to any of us to actually name him, and after Delaney referred to him—usually lovingly—as Devil Cat a couple dozen times, it sort of stuck.
As if sensing the discord, Dell’s corgi Sal got up on the chair and started licking the arm Devil Cat had tried to scratch.
“See? At least somebody loves me,” she said, giving small eyes to the cat as Sway dropped him on the cat tree where he couldn’t get to Dell.
“How so?” Detroit asked.
“Well, if these guys are locals, it would be good to see us out acting like a little ambush was no big fucking deal,” Sway reasoned. “They want us holed up and scared. We don’t give that to them.”
“He’s got a point,” Slash agreed, nodding.
“Dell and I were planning on hanging in tonight,” Judge said, shrugging. “We will keep an eye on shit around here.”
He’d settled comfortably into his new life. Usually when guys get out of prison, they want to fuck and raise hell for years before settling down.
But, I guess, meeting the right woman at that time changed it all for him. He was happier at home with her than he would be at the bar getting plastered with the rest of us.