“You sold me out to those hillbillies in Georgia, Oscar. You talked to the feds and gave up the route. I guess you thought we’d all be killed or locked up, but it didn’t go down that way, and here we are.”
Wilcombe scanned the crowd of bikers. “Bracken, you’ve got it all wrong,” he said, doing his best to look surprised. “I lost a lot of money and a lucrative business partner after that hijacking went down.”
Bracken hammered a left jab to the old man’s jaw. He thought he heard bones break. “The feds shut you down, and you fed them me and my boys plus two hundred thousand in bonus cash to save your own ass.”
“No, Bracken, that isn’t what happened. I swear to you.” Blood covered Wilcombe’s teeth and dripped from his split lip. Bracken tapped out another cigarette and lit it with a flick from a silver Zippo. He held the Marlboro up with two fingers. “Maybe you need a matching reminder on the other side of your face not to lie to me.”
“No. Wait.” Wilcombe paused for dramatic effect. “I thought your man, the Latin one . . .”
“Romeo?” Moe said from the picnic table.
“Yes, that’s it. Romeo. I thought he went AWOL once you got home? I thought he was the one working with the police. I can help you find him. I can hire someone to find him.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course I would. We are family.”
“Wait a minute,” Bracken said, and scratched his head. “You mean this guy?” The bay door of the warehouse slid open and two more members of the Jackals dragged a broken and bloodied Romeo out into the yard. They dropped the barely conscious biker at Bracken’s feet and stood with him.
Bracken rested a leather boot on Romeo’s swollen face and pointed down. “This the piece of shit you’re talking about?”
They weren’t supposed to find him, Wilcombe thought. After he used Romeo to keep Bracken and his men safe during the hijacking, Wilcombe set him up with everything he needed to disappear. A new name, a new ID, money, even a few acres of cattle ranch in South Texas.
“As you can see, Oscar, we already found him.” Bracken ground his boot down on Romeo’s head, causing more blood to ebb down the sides of his beaten face. “You want to know how we found him?”
Wilcombe said nothing.
“I got a call from a friend of yours. A federal agent named Holly. Turns out he hates your guts. He told me exactly what he did to you and how you gave us up inside of two minutes. Then he told me right where to find this wetback sack of shit, who basically organized the whole thing. So tell me again, just one more time, that I got it wrong. Tell me why you shouldn’t die tonight.”
Wilcombe spoke softly and without hope. “Because we are family. And family forgives.”
“No. This is what my family does.” He pointed a gloved hand at Moe, who stood up, walked over, produced a small-caliber pistol, and shot Romeo in the side of the head. Then he sat back down and resumed cleaning his fingernails with a pocketknife.
Bracken pointed again, this time to one of the elder statesmen of the club. A man named Pinkerton Sayles. The rail-thin ex-barkeep had come out of retirement just for tonight’s festivities. He reached down next to a brick barbecue pit and produced a rusted metal gas can.
“Please, Bracken,” Wilcombe said, “don’t do this. You’ve got it wrong. I had Romeo protect you. You were never in any danger. Please!”
“This is how my family protects itself,” Bracken said.
Pinky splashed gasoline into Wilcombe’s face. The acrid taste of it made him gag and gasp for air.
“Please . . . stop . . . gli.”
“You remember me, motherfucker?” Pinky said.
Splash. More gas.
Splash.
“Happy trails, you prick.” Pinky set the can down next to the rubber coffin and took a seat next to Moe and Tilmon on the picnic table.
Bracken tapped out another cigarette. “You were like a father to me, Oscar.”
“I’m . . . still . . .”
“No, you’re not.”
Bracken reached into his pocket and pulled out his Zippo. He looked surprised for a minute, as if he’d just remembered something, and pulled out a roll of cash from his other pocket. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “This is a gift from your special agent friend. He said twenty-five hundred dollars would do it. He said you can keep it.” Bracken tucked the roll of bills down in the barrel, lit his smoke, and tossed the lighter onto the stack of gas-soaked tires. The fire burned for nearly nine hours straight.
CHAPTER
26
SIMON HOLLY
COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA
THREE MONTHS LATER
2015