“Needless to say, you aren’t getting your final paychecks,” Barclay told them. “Vacation will not be paid out. References will obviously not be given. But if you manage to get your asses clear of this mess and think to fuck with me or Josh, don’t. Trust me. As you can see, I have good friends. Now pull your pockets out.”
No one moved.
Dillinger and the black dude, which triggered D and Maddox, all took a step toward the quartet.
“Now!” Barclay bellowed.
The DMs emptied their pockets.
“You too,” Barclay demanded of Beardsley.
“Fuck you,” Beardsley snapped.
Sixx didn’t even catch how he got there. She just saw that suddenly, Dillinger was on Beardsley, bent over him, shoving his cheek viciously to the carpet with a single hand on the back of his neck. Beardsley’s labored breaths could be heard trying to power out.
Impressive.
With icy calm, Dillinger stated, “He asked you to empty your pockets.”
Moving awkwardly since Dillinger didn’t release him, Beardsley complied.
Not surprisingly, of the four of him, old Pete had the most dope.
After he did as instructed, Dillinger let him go and stepped back.
Sixx took that opportunity to look at Stellan, who was standing with his arms crossed on his chest, studying Pete Beardsley like he was a particularly grotesque specimen pinned to a board.
Josh moved forward, ignored the number of little packets of white powder and money clips filled with bills scattering the floor in front of the men, and took up only keyrings. The rest of their possessions he left on the floor.
Josh twisted off what were probably keys to locks somewhere at the Bolt, and once these were freed, he tossed the keyrings randomly to the floor at his side.
Barclay kept talking.
“Josh and I gave you our trust. We needed you to hold that sacred, especially in this house, where the people in it need to understand you, above all others, have their backs. And you sold junk to pollute their bodies and just…” he started losing it, leaning forward, “sold bodies.”
It looked like he had to force himself to lean back, visibly deep-breathed, got his shit tight, and only then carried on.
“You disgust me. I can barely fuckin’ look at you. The state of those girls…” He trailed off, deep-breathed again, then went on, focusing on DM one, the guy who was keeping guard on the rooms. “And you. Standing there. Standing right outside those rooms, letting them be used. How can you fuckin’ sleep? How can you even look at your own face in the mirror?”
The guy opened his mouth to say something, but Barclay wasn’t interested.
“Josh is right now making a call,” Barclay shared, and he wasn’t lying.
Josh had moved to a corner and had his phone to his ear.
“He’s phoning the police,” Barclay continued, setting the room to wired, but he was opening a drawer in the desk, moving casually like he didn’t feel the vibe.
Using a white handkerchief he had in the drawer, he pulled out a heavily used black notebook and tossed it on the desk. He also pulled out two large money rolls and tossed them to the desk. And last, he pulled out a short stack of eight-by-ten, black-and-white pictures, and they slid across the desk.
The revelation of all this made Beardsley look even less happy.
Sixx couldn’t see all of the photos, but what she could see was what she’d already seen the likes of in the pictures on her phone that Tucker took. Snaps of Beardsley out and about in Phoenix being given bills.
And there it was.
It appeared someone had been on the job, and they had a lot more time for it than her.
“My man here,” Barclay said, nodding toward Stellan, Dillinger and the black guy, “is good with facial recognition shit. Those pictures correspond with a lot of footage in stations six and seven, Pete. And he’s gone the extra mile, matched it all up.”
Beardsley, and Sixx, looked to the men standing by the windows, and the black dude raised his hand.
“That would be me,” he said boastfully, having his own merry grin that was quite like D’s, and just as appealing.
“By matching, I mean those men who you’ve met to take money from the last few days to men using your girls the last few nights,” Barclay shared, and got all attention back to him. “We’re handing it and all footage we have of those rooms to the cops when they get here. They’re also getting this book, which matches girls to johns to times to rooms. This money. And those pictures. The drugs will be self-explanatory. And from what we’ve got here. And what we found in those boys’ lockers. And what Branch left in your house for the cops to find. With all that, you’re not gonna plea out of an intent to distribute this time, asshole. And just so you know, my man here also rigged this room, and all of this is being recorded.”
Beardsley’s bruised jaw was working, but he didn’t speak.
“Now here,” Barclay said, putting his hand in his pocket and pulling something out.
He clapped it on the desk in front of him and slid it over with just one finger.
When he lifted that finger away, Sixx saw it was a penny.
“And here,” Barclay carried on, sliding some papers that had been on the desk across it, toward Beardsley.
He also picked up a pen and put it on top of the papers.
“That’s your buyout of the club,” Barclay shared.
A penny.
Nice touch.
Sixx grinned as she heard D and Maddox both fail at swallowing back chuckles.
“Fuck what you say,” Beardsley sneered.
“Sign it,” Barclay demanded.
“No fuckin’ way,” Beardsley snapped.
Barclay slapped a hand on the desk, leaned into it and shouted, “Sign it, motherfucker!”
“You gonna have one of your pieces of meat make me?” Beardsley asked.
“No.” Barclay leaned back. “If you don’t take that penny and sign those papers, I’m going to sue you for every fucking thing I can get an attorney to sue you for in civil court for what you’ve used our club to do. And I’ve spoken to an attorney, Pete. Josh and I have a variety of grounds for a suit. So you won’t just be facing jail time for distribution of narcotics and pandering. In the end, I’ll have the damned club anyway, but I’ll also have everything else you own. So save yourself at least some hassle, asshole. And sign the goddamned papers.”
Beardsley glared at him.
“That kind offer is off the table the minute either one of us walk out of this room. I have all night,” Barclay told him. “But you don’t.”
After a little more glaring, Beardsley moved to get up but thought twice when Dillinger murmured, “Keep your knees.”
He shot a scowl at Dillinger, reached out, grabbed the pen, flipped a page, and signed a line.
“Lucky I have a number of witnesses,” Barclay muttered.
Beardsley tossed the pen moronically, sending it skidding across the desk to land on the floor opposite, like it was going to hurt Barclay to remember it was there eventually and pick it up.
The room descended into silence until Barclay asked his ex-partner, “Do you have anything to say?”
“Just fuck you,” Beardsley spat.
“Anything other than that,” Barclay invited.
“And fuck Josh,” Beardsley added.
“Is that all?” Barclay asked.
“Got him,” he jerked his head backward to Maddox, Diesel and Sixx, “on assault.”
“I’m sorry, didn’t I tell you?” Barclay asked. “When I heard what was happening, I hired Maddox and D as undercover security. They know you and your boys were under suspicion and were instructed to keep you under their watch and act if needed, with force if necessary. The altercation was also filmed, and you were clearly the aggressor. D was just doing his job.”
Sixx looked to D.
He was grinning, felt her eyes, turned his to her and shook his head almost imperceptibly, once.
So Barclay was lying.
He did it well.
When Beardsley fell silent, Barclay looked to Sixx.
“Ms. Marchesa. Thank you for participating in this investigation. After the imminent situation is dealt with, we’ll settle your fee and reimburse expenses. I’ll be in touch.”
She decided not to share she hadn’t exactly earned that fee since someone else did a whole load of the work. Though she and her crew did get their man, in a way, not to the extent the police were going to have their men due to what appeared to be Dillinger and his buddy horning in.