Helmet Head (4 page)
CHAPTER 7
The Road Dogs
Fagan let his cop’s gaze stop at each. The two in back were salt and pepper, looked like they were in their sixties although they could be anywhere from forty to eighty. The biker lifestyle put the miles on your face. They never looked up from their card game.
The three around the circular table glowed with malice. The man mountain with the knife was obviously the prez followed by a human fist with a shaved skull and inked neck and biceps in his late thirties. Cowlick was a gangly nineteen, pale face a constellation of zits.
Fagan dismissed them and walked to the bar, setting his bifurcated helmet down with a thump. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar. He looked like a child’s toy that had been dragged through broken glass and a coal mine.
“Bullard County Deputy Sheriff,” he croaked. “Do you have a land line?”
The middle-aged bartender was short with bright, inquisitive woodchuck eyes and hedgerow brows. He leaned down and plopped a black plastic rotary on the scarred wood bar. Someone had carved “Road Dogs” into the surface in elegant Gothic script. The wall above the bar was decorated with old license plates and tin signs:
The Wild One
.
Wild Angels
.
Easy Rider
.
Fagan picked up the receiver. All he heard was the rushing in his ears. He turned to the room. “Anybody got a working cell phone?”
His legs gave way and he collapsed to the barroom floor, brushing his helmet off the counter. His helmet rolled a couple feet and stopped.
The Road Hogs roared. Cowlick clapped his hands.
“What’s the matter, Ossifer,” Cowlick sneered getting to his feet. The leader put out an arm and Cowlick resumed his seat. The bartender scurried out from behind the bar with a glass of water. He walked with a limp, right leg with an odd kink.
Fagan felt weak as a baby bird. He half-struggled to a sitting position, leaned against the front of the bar and waited for the world to stop spinning. His luge ride down the highway had scrambled his brains. He might have a concussion. He looked around. There were cig butts on the floor and a quarter inch roach.
“Just relax,” the bartender said softly with a southern accent, handing him the glass. “You had a wipeout.”
Fagan drank thirstily. He nodded.
“We saw your bike slam into that pole. You nearly got your ass fried.”
Fagan tried to say something but couldn’t find the wind. He drained the glass. The bartender helped him to his feet and deposited him on a barstool. “I’m Fred,” he said softly. “You must be the new deputy. You know the Road Dogs?” Just a hint of anxiety.
Fagan nodded. “Officer Fagan,” he said.
“What’s that?” the kid said standing. “Did you say Officer Faggot?!” He doubled up cackling. The others barked. A real knee slapper. Fagan thought Cowlick seemed a little manic. They all did—they all had that artificial stillness speed freaks get when law walks in the room.
By thy long gray beard and glittering eye
.
…
Not that Fagan gave a shit, but they probably had to scrape goods and works off the tables in a hurry when he slid by. He thought he sniffed a telltale chemical tang. Fred went behind the bar and nervously wiped with a white cloth. Fagan pointed to the bottle of Jack Daniels behind Fred and held up two fingers.
“Please,” he croaked.
“Hey Ossifer Faggot!” the kid sang. “Ain’t it against the law to drink while you’re on duty?”
The bikers watched Fagan with barely concealed mirth. This was better than a pole dance. Cowlick scooted forward and scooped up Fagan’s helmet, turning to display it to his comrades like a belt he’d just won. He saw the hole in the helmet and stuck a finger through.
“What the fuck?”
The slab held his hand out. “Hand it over.”
The kid flipped the helmet to the leader. “Here you go, Wild Bill.”
Wild Bill examined the helmet and looked up. “What the fuck happened to you?”
The bartender leaned in. “You need something stronger than Jack, officer.” He dipped below the bar and retrieved an earthenware jug with a cork stopper. Someone had doodled a skull and crossbones on the side with a black felt marker.
“This here’s the real thing—genuine corn liquor. One eighty proof.” He poured two inches of brown liquor into a tumbler. Wild Bill stared in fury and consternation.
Fagan held it up to the light, tossed it back and swiveled to face the room. The liquor hit his gut like a depth bomb. Heat flared in all directions. He waited a second for it to get into his blood. The room tilted and whirled.
We all need it one time or another.
Three pairs of eyes regarded him with undisguised hostility. Salt and Pepper never looked up from their game.
“What kind of pig starts drinking at four in the afternoon?” the skull snarled.
“What happened, officer?” the leader said with exaggerated unction.
“Anyone know a Lawrence Rodell?”
The kid’s jaw dropped and his face twisted in shock and disbelief. Salt and Pepper looked up. They did not radiate hostility. Rather a world-weary cynicism.
“What about him?” Wild Bill said.
“He was decapitated.”
Cowlick turned to the skull. “What’s that mean?” he said softly.
“Means his head was cut off, numb nutz.”
The bartender mouthed something behind the bar.
“Bullshit!” the leader exclaimed.
“Man on a bike,” Fagan said. “Possibly seven feet tall dressed all in black leather. Full face helmet carrying a samurai sword.”
“BULLSHIT!” Wild Bill declared pounding the table. “BULLSHIT! MACY! WHERE THE FUCK’S MY BURGER?!”
The graceful girl/woman sashayed out from behind the bar carrying a platter on which rested the burger, condiments and three shot glasses filled with Jack. She set the shot glasses neatly before Wild Bill, Cowlick and the skull and then slammed the burger down in front of Wild Bill hard enough to make it airborne.
Wild Bill backhanded her with his right hand, the sound of flesh on flesh like a rifle shot. Macy staggered.
Fagan got off the stool with blood in his eye.
***
CHAPTER 8
Helmet Head
Before Fagan could reach the table the skull popped up and shoved him back hard with pile driver arms. Fagan stumbled and grabbed the barstool for support taking it down with him. Fred hurried out from behind the bar and got in the skull’s face as Fagan regained his feet.
“Come on, Chainsaw. I thought you guys weren’t gonna cause me any grief.”
“That was before this pig walked in,” Chainsaw said. “How do we know he didn’t off Larry himself?”
“You heard the man,” Fred wheedled. Fagan felt sorry for the bartender, forced to grovel before this pack of jackals.
“He didn’t do it. He’s a cop for Chrissake!”
“Cops are crooked as your right leg,” Wild Bill said, picking up his burger and chomping a coaster-sized hole.
“Yeah, ya fuckin’ gimp,” Chainsaw said. “Weren’t for us you’da closed this pit long ago.”
Fagan could have arrested Wild Bill for assault right there. But one did not provoke a pack of jackals. He could always charge him later.
Cowlick whipped out a bindle and a balisong and divided some lines on the tabletop. The name “Mad Dog” was stitched over one breast. His blade made a chopping sound against the wood. “You need a bump, Saw.” Mad Dog bent and hoovered a line, sat back and spread his arms bodaciously with a grin of satisfaction, taunting Fagan.
Fagan swallowed. His throat felt like a diesel exhaust. He couldn’t find any spit. Maybe he was having a panic attack. He was at their mercy. He dare not show the slightest sign of fear or they’d crush him. Without the stool to support him he’d collapse. His knees felt like Jell-O. He brushed the pistol at his hip hoping no one noticed.
Chainsaw slowly turned, sat at the table and rotated it on its axis until the meth lines were before him. This rotated Wild Bill’s burger two feet to his left and in irritation Wild Bill grabbed the table like a big steering wheel and twisted it back just as Chainsaw’s straw came down.
Wild Bill picked up his burger and lopped off another quarter. He set it down.
“You done?” Chainsaw said.
“For the moment.”
Chainsaw rotated the line back and snorted. He rotated the hamburger back into place. He got up, scooping the police helmet, strode to the bar and slammed it down on top of Fagan’s tumbler shattering glass everywhere. Quick as a cobra he grabbed Fagan’s leather lapels and jerked him close.
Fagan drew the gun. Chainsaw shoved him back six inches and slapped the pistol out of Fagan’s hand as if he were a child. He grabbed Fagan by his belt and jacket and threw him savagely to the floor.
“Larry was a Road Dog, motherfucker,” he growled. “He was a friend of mine.”
Lightning struck followed almost immediately by the thunderous crack. The lights flickered. Chainsaw jerked forward and kicked Fagan in the ribs with the tip of his steel-toed road boots. Fagan felt it crack.
Fred ran out from behind the bar and grabbed Chainsaw’s arm.
“Chainsaw don’t—!”
Chainsaw shook the bartender off and elbowed him in the face without even looking. Fred fell to the ground groaning. Fagan got to his feet, charged with his head low and took Chainsaw down amid the crunch and scrape of overturning chairs and breaking glass.
“Stop it!” Macy snapped from behind the bar with an edge of hysteria.
Fagan grabbed an empty beer bottle and brought it down base first in the middle of Chainsaw’s forehead whacking the shaved skull onto the wood floor. The thug was stunned. Fagan felt a sick triumph in his gut.
Wild Bill shoved his chair back so hard it skidded into the wall. He yanked the Bowie loose lifting the heavy wooden table an inch in the air. The table banged the floor. Fagan scrambled to his feet, back to the bar, searching for his pistol while keeping his eyes on Wild Bill. Fagan grabbed the red-upholstered bar stool and held it like Jungle Jim in the lion’s den.
“I’m a police officer!” he said.
Wild Bill came on like an angry mountain, lupine fangs gleaming behind his unkempt beard, blade catching bar light as he flipped it hand to hand.
“Bill!” Macy barked.
BLAM
.
For an instant there was stunned silence as ears imploded from the force of the blast. Plaster fell in chunks onto the bar thinning to a steady column of dust as particles continued to trickle from the hole in the ceiling. Fred stood on a chair behind the bar cradling a truncated pump-action Remington twelve gauge.
Another goddamn felony.
Even Wild Bill stopped, blinking stupidly like a pig. His face split into a wide grin.
“Fred. I never knew you had it in you.”
The bartender surveyed the room, shotgun at parade rest. His blue eyes were bright and blazing and his mouth was buttoned shut with extreme emotion.
“We all know what this is about!” he snapped. “Helmet Head.”
***
CHAPTER 9
Here Come De Judge
“BULL. SHIT,” Wild Bill thundered. “I swear, every time you bring that up.…”
“He’s real,” Fagan said. “I saw him.”
The three Road Dogs surrounded him with red faces. Rage, testosterone and a shitload of meth. Wild Bill returned his blade to its sheath.
“Spill it lawman,” Wild Bill said.
Fagan told them about finding Larry’s body, his flight to the bar. “None of you have ever seen him?” he finished. “He’s hard to miss.”
“They been telling that same stupid story for twenty years,” Wild Bill said. “My old man said it was a crock of shit then and it’s a crock of shit now.”
“Cop said he saw him,” rolled up from the back of the room. The old white biker with a prodigious belly and a beard spoke without looking up from his cards.
In the brief silence that followed Fagan heard the black man quietly say, “Gin,” and lay his cards on the table.
“Sheeit.”
“That’s Doc,” Wild Bill said, little pig eyes fixed on Fagan. “That other sorry ass fossil is Curtis. They’re married, ain’t that right boys?”
“Thems was in Nammmm,” Mad Dog said. “Or was it the Civil War?”
Thunder rolled over the Kongo Klub like a line of caissons. Rain poured in through the shotgun hole. Macy came out from behind the bar with a big saucepan, placed it on the floor beneath the leak. She was the brightest thing in the room and clearly didn’t belong there.
What was she doing in this dive? She couldn’t possibly be involved with that ape, could she? Fagan hoped not. Focus, son. He was holed up in a remote roadhouse with five bloodthirsty thugs in tornado weather and a seven foot monster outside chopping off heads. Things always looked better when you put them in perspective. He tried his radio and got white noise. For all he knew Ptolemy had been flattened.
“You have a cellar?” he asked Fred.
Fred shook his head. “This is it.”
“Why’d this fucker chop off Larry’s head?” Chainsaw said.
“Let’s find him and fuck him up!” Mad Dog chimed in.
“You dumb shits,” Wild Bill said. “Can’t you see he’s playin’ you?”
“No he ain’t,” the bartender asserted. He seemed to have gained courage from his shotgun blast. “How do you think my leg got messed up?”
“You told us you hit a deer!” Wild Bill sneered.
“I told you I got this runnin’ from that freak and you insisted I hit a deer! You were so fuckin’ drunk and stoned at the time I can’t believe you even remember.”
Wild Bill pointed a bratwurst-sized finger. “Watch it, old man.”
“He’s out there somewhere holed up in Milton’s Hollow most likely. That’s where he found me.”
“What makes you think that, you old fool?” Bill said.
“You know about Milton’s Hollow! You’ve heard the stories! Christ knows how many bikers he’s killed they never found the bodies.”
Fagan held his hands up. “Gentlemen, I’m not looking to bust anyone for drugs or any of that shit. We have a more serious situation on our hands. Are any of you carrying firearms?”
The Road Dogs looked at one another and broke out laughing. Even Doc and Curtis looked up with grins on their faces.
“They’re all carrying,” Fred said.
“You wanna form a posse, Marshall?” Wild Bill asked in an exaggerated Texas twang.
“A pussy posse!” Mad Dog brayed. Wild Bill and Chainsaw guffawed.
“You gonna swear us in as deputies?” Mad Dog said spraying spittle. Fagan thought he might actually be excited about the idea. “Dig it! There’s five of us! No fuckin’ road freak can stand up to the Road Dogs! Let’s track him down and light him up!”
“Dog, you’re dumber than you look,” Wild Bill said. “Popo what’s the deal? You’re not about to deputize us.”
“Just want to know what I’m dealing with,” Fagan said with a straight face. “I don’t think guns will stop him anyway.”
“You say you gave him five in the chest.”
“I hit him at least three times—I saw the perforations. He must be wearing ballistic armor.”
“Like Doc!” the kid warbled. “Him and Rastus there wear helmets, too!”
Wild Bill’s hand shot out like a bullwhip, smacking Mad Dog in the face and causing him to stagger. He touched the red mark and looked up like a hurt puppy. “I warned you about that shit. Curtis a charter member. You ain’t even a Dog yet. You just a pledge. Don’t go disrespectin’ Curtis. We don’t need that racial shit.”
Mad Dog rubbed his cheek. “Sorry, Bill.” An afterthought: “Sorry, Curtis!”
The old black man did not look up from his game.
Somewhere in the back the generator sputtered. The lights went out.
“Shit!” Wild Bill exclaimed. “What, you run out of gas?”
“Just hang on,” Fred said. “I’ll go check. It has plenty of gas.” He rummaged around in a drawer behind the bar and found a flashlight. Playing the beam on the floor Fred went through a door to the left and behind the bar. A sickly light played through the big front window. Fagan checked his watch. It was five-thirty—it would be light out for a couple hours if the curtain of storm held off. Thunder.
Everyone but Doc and Curtis were on their feet waiting for something. Fred to restore the generator. The lights to come back on. The all clear to sound. The wind blew hard rattling the windows and causing blinds to buzz like a mad locust. Fagan found his gun and returned it to his holster. They heard Fred cursing and shoving things around in the back.
At first it was subliminal, the sound a mosquito makes as it approaches the ear and you feel that first flash of apprehension/irritation. It grew a little and assumed a mechanical aspect, thrashing cams and gears, an intermediate buzz, a dentist’s drill, a weed whacker, pipes bellowing to fill the sky causing the floor to vibrate and bottles to migrate. Wild Bill and Chainsaw exchanged an
Oh Shit!
look. Fred rushed out of the back wild-eyed with grease on his face. He ditched the flashlight behind the bar and picked up the shotgun.
A freight train pulled up to the door as crimson light splashed blood across the walls. The thrashing built to a crescendo and fell silent. Fagan, Wild Bill, Chainsaw and Mad Dog went to the front window and looked out.
Fagan struggled to control the pain in his ribs. He didn’t want them to see weakness. He looked out the window between Mad Dog and Chainsaw.
The bike was big and black, covered with so many designs, runes, plates and covers that its nature remained a mystery. The rider kicked out the stand and got off. He was big, dressed entirely in black leather with a full-face helmet. He unhooked the bungees holding a large black helmet bag to the pillion, picked it up via the top handle like a briefcase and strode toward the club.
“Holy shit,” Mad Dog said, voice cracking.
The rider’s tread was heavy on the steps. The boys backed away from the window unconsciously forming a semi-circle facing the door.
The door swung open.
***