Gareth scoffed and elbowed Val, who was still glaring down at the bar. “That ain’t no southern music I ever heard. Where’s the banjo, or the fiddle? It sounds more like a bunch of retards tryin’ to fuck a doorknob.”
“Maybe it ain’t for you, Gareth,” Val said, still not looking up. “Maybe it’s only for pig-fuckin’ faggots named Pinky.”
“What the hell?” Pinky said, and his face reddened like he’d just gotten slapped. “What did you say, boy?”
“And . . . that makes three,” Gareth said.
Pinky reached under the bar and came back with a wooden baseball bat, but for a big man, Val moved as fast as a cobra. He grabbed the bat with Pinky still attached and effortlessly yanked him into a head butt. The sound of Pinky’s nose breaking made Gareth wince. Pinky let go of the Louisville Slugger and stumbled backward into a row of liquor bottles. A few fell and crashed to the floor. Gareth spun around in his seat, his gun already out and trained on the two bikers, but they already stood holding their own weapons out.
“Well, shit,” Gareth said.
Pinky held his bleeding nose and swayed behind the bar, trying to regain focus. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet grunt.
“You don’t like niggers?” Val asked. “How you like getting your nose broke by one? Now you got a good reason not to like us.” Val spun around and looked at the other two bikers aiming guns at him and Gareth. He was still holding the bat.
“Put your gun down,” the bigger one named Rodd said.
“Not gonna happen,” Gareth said. “Your buddy had that coming. You put your guns down so we can talk about it.”
“Sorry, man,” Val said softly to Gareth. Gareth shot him a terse look but didn’t answer.
“We got you two to one,” Rodd said. “Drop your gun or I’m gonna blow your fuckin’ head off.”
“Nah,” Gareth said. “I bet I take at least one of you. I do this shit all the time, boys. You sure you can hit me from there? You don’t look too sure of yourself. I know I can.”
“He won’t have to,” Pinky said, and racked a shotgun behind them. Val took a deep breath and Gareth had no choice but to give up the ghost and lower his gun. That’s when the front door opened and two more men joined the party.
“What the hell is going on?” Oscar Wilcombe said.
5.
Wilcombe was a small man. Thin and squatty, with thinning sand-colored hair. He wore a dark suit and wire-rimmed glasses. He also carried a metal-reinforced briefcase. The man walking behind him couldn’t have been any more the polar opposite. He was an oak tree, well over six feet tall, shiny bald, with gray-blue eyes. He wore faded blue jeans and a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off. His arms were ripped and vascular, both covered from shoulder to wrist with intricate tattoo work, the kind that takes a lifetime of commitment to finish. His jacket also carried the Jackals’ rocker on the back, along with a patch above the breast pocket that read PRESIDENT.
“Jackals, lower your guns now,” Wilcombe said.
Pinky wiped some of the blood from his enormous mustache onto his shoulder but kept the shotgun in place. “Oscar, these sons of—”
“I said put it down, Pinkerton.”
Pinky was hesitant but lowered the gun. The other two bikers looked to the bigger man behind Wilcombe. He nodded and they lowered their guns as well. Gareth took notice of that. The bald guy had to be the top dog in Wilcombe’s kennel. The order came from Wilcombe, but the men needed the big boy’s approval to obey. That was good to know.
“Mr. Burroughs, I presume,” Wilcombe said.
“That’s right,” Gareth said.
Wilcombe took a few steps into the middle of the room. “Can we all put our weapons away?” he said.
Gareth looked down at the Colt in his hand. “Of course,” he said, and slid it back into his pants. Val tossed the bat to the floor as he and the big man with Wilcombe sized each other up. They looked evenly matched. That only made Gareth more uncomfortable. He’d brought Val for intimidation. The President evened that out.
“I thought we agreed to meet at nine o’clock?” Wilcombe said.
“We did. We were early,” Gareth said. Wilcombe set the briefcase down by one of the tables and introduced himself, first holding his hand out to Gareth and then to Val. They both shook the man’s hand, but Val’s eyes never left the President.
“I’m Oscar Wilcombe, and this is my associate, Bracken Leek.” The bald man didn’t bother to shake any hands, he just turned and clicked the lock on the door.
“It’s a pleasure,” Gareth said.
“What happened, Pinky?” Bracken said.
Val answered that. “Your man was rude.”
“Fuck you, coon,” Pinky barked through a blood-soaked bar rag he held up to his face.
Val looked at Bracken. “See?”
“And you had to straighten him out? Is that what happened?” Bracken moved down the bar to survey the damage. “You always come into a man’s house and beat him bloody like that?”