Before I could stop her, Nancy slid her hand over my crotch.
“Oh, baby, it don’t feel like you just want to talk.”
I wasn’t hard. But she did cop a good feel of my cock.
I gently removed her hand.
“Coffee and food. How about it?”
They both thought about it.
“We still get the cash, right?” Rosie asked.
“Yes.”
“The full three hundred?” Nancy gave me a suspicious look.
“The full three hundred, yes.”
They both shrugged.
“Sure thing, baby. It’s your money,” Rosie said as she climbed out of the car.
Nancy waited and then leaned in, whispering in my ear, “If you change your mind, I’ll fuck you for free.”
After detaching her hand from my crotch, again, the three of us entered the diner. Rosie and Nancy both ordered pie and coffee, while I stuck with my black coffee.
“So, what’s your deal, baby? Why’s a hottie like you picking up girls off the street and taking them for coffee and pie in the middle of the night?” Rosie asked, digging into her apple pie. Every time she moved, the bangles on her arms jangled and scraped along the plastic tabletop.
“Yeah. You look like you’ve got a lot going for you. Why you out here in the middle of the night paying two hookers to have coffee with you?” Nancy scooped up a big spoonful of pecan pie and devoured it with her perfect red lips.
I stirred my coffee. “My cousin was murdered.”
Both girls stopped cold.
“Murdered?” Rosie spoke very slowly.
“By who?” Nancy asked, her mouth full of pie.
“I don’t know. But I plan to find out.”
“And how do we fit into it?” Nancy asked suspiciously.
The idea came to me when I was driving. The street. It was a giant network of comings and goings. People talked. People knew things. It was a source of information I hadn’t tapped into yet, but I was going to start with these two.
“You both look like you’re smart ladies. You know what’s going on in every shadow of this town.”
“Doesn’t mean we know who killed your cousin,” Nancy said.
“No. But people talk. And you ladies are in the . . . people business.”
“What was your cousin’s name, honey?” Rosie asked.
I had a feeling Nancy was naturally guarded and defensive, but Rosie could sniff out authenticity when it was sitting opposite her.
“Isaac,” I said. It hurt saying his name. “Isaac Calley.”
“The biker? He was a Kings of Mayhem, wasn’t he?” Rosie asked.
I nodded.
“Does that mean you’re a King?” Nancy asked, her eyes lighting up.
Again, I nodded.
Nancy sat back and toyed with her pie. “I don’t know, man, I mean, I don’t want to get involved in some biker showdown.”
“You say that like you know another club was involved,” I said.
She dropped her spoon on the table. “I don’t know nothin’ and I will deny anything—”
“Oh, shut up, Nancy,” Rosie said. “Stop being so dramatic. He’s only asking us if we’ve heard anything.” Rosie leaned closer as if she was going to tell me a secret. “She’s young and a bit of a drama queen sometimes.”
“You know that I’m sitting right here, right?” Nancy said, picking up her spoon and poking at her pie again. “And that I can hear you.”
Rosie didn’t miss a beat. “See?”
I couldn’t help but smile. Rosie was good-natured. Somewhere in her late thirties, her heavy make-up made her look a decade older. While Nancy, who couldn’t be more than twenty-one, had an air of distrust around her.
“Does that mean you’ll help me out?” I asked.
“Sure, honey,” Rosie replied. “Whatever you need.”
I looked at Nancy who thought for a moment and then rolled her eyes. “Fine. What do you need us to do?”
“Just keep your eyes and ears to the ground. If you hear anything about Isaac’s murder you call me.” I wrote my cell number on two paper napkins. “Anything at all. I don’t care how meaningless it seems to you, if it’s about Isaac’s death, then you call me, okay?”
They both nodded. Rosie tucked the napkin between two massive breasts.
I stood up and put the three-hundred dollars, plus enough for coffee, pie, and a tip on the table. “Thanks. I know this wasn’t what you were expecting. I appreciate it.”
Rosie scooped up the money and started dividing it.
“Oh, honey, it’s not the weirdest thing I’ve been asked to do tonight.” She winked at me. “But it’s certainly been the most delicious.”
INDY
Almost two weeks to the day of Isaac’s funeral, another dark cloud descended upon the Kings of Mayhem MC.
I was in the ER when the call came through. A forty-five-year-old male. Head trauma and carbon monoxide poisoning. Found unresponsive. Resuscitated. Weak pulse.
When they rolled him in on the gurney I caught a glimpse of the Kings of Mayhem cut and my heart went into my throat. Dr. Burdett, our chief of trauma, took the case, but I followed them into Trauma Bay Two, a terrible foreboding creeping up my spine. Cautiously, I moved closer to them, not sure who was on the gurney—not sure how life was about to change.