“And the shipment?”
“Lost.”
“Fuck!” Zeppelin growled. “That’s not good.”
“We tried to hide it. But I’m pretty sure the cops will find it. We didn’t have much time.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky?”
“No. Not this time.”
He pulled out a needle and a pair of weird shaped pliers. “Oh? How so?”
“We also left behind six bodies. Five German, and one rat.”
“Shit. This isn’t good. What happened?”
“Fox turned on us. He was bought off and told Hoax where the drop was. That little weasel purposely volunteered to help us out, just to lead us to the slaughter. If I hadn’t already been shot, I’d have shot the bastard myself.”
“And Sabbath? Where was he in all this?”
“In his head like always. He took care of our rat problem, but we got even bigger problems now.”
“Like pigs?”
“And the DCs. They’re pissed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they retaliated.”
He placed a belt in my mouth. “Bite down on this. It’s going to hurt.”
He spread open my wound and dug around with the pliers, pulling out the slug imbedded in my arm as I cried out in immense pain. “Jesus, this thing is huge.” He threw the bullet into a bowl nearby, dug around again, while I growled and screamed into the belt, then finally put down the pliers.
“You’re going to need a shot of whiskey for the next part.” He shoved the amber liquid my way, and I took a long swig.
“Fucking just do it.”
He placed the belt back in my mouth. For ten agonizing minutes, he sewed up my damn wound, and I swear there were several times I saw spots form in front of my eyes.
“All done. You took that better than I thought.” He started to clean up his tools. “You should probably take it easy the next few weeks. That bullet went into your muscle and it’s going to be weak.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
Zeppelin settled against the table, staring me down. “What now?”
“I don’t know, that’s Sabbath’s call.”
He scrubbed at his bearded chin; the long wispy grey beard was getting rather lengthy. He needed a trim.
“You might want to get ready,” Zeppelin warned.
“What do you mean?”
“People are talking. They’re not happy with what went down today.”
“How can they already be talking? We just got back.”
He shrugged. “They know the money is gone. And now they know why. Sabbath fucked up and I think people just want him gone.”
“Sabbath fucked up, but that doesn’t make him unfit to lead the club. He’s a damn good Prez, one that held his own with Hoax tonight.”