Immortality Is the Suck (24 page)

almost a year. That's the other problem Ozone has to solve. We might have to

have stored food supplies at some future date.”

Images of Waco, Texas, were starting to flash in my head. Only multiply by

one hundred and add bloodsucking fiends.

162

A. M. Riley

“Is that what Freeway was doing? Experimenting with storage?”

He seemed not to hear me. “We'd better get back.”

“So,” I asked him as we walked back through the kitchen. Most of the

crew had left. A couple of women made out with each other in a corner and the

empty cartons filled the recycling container. The smell made me dizzy with

hunger. “If they have so much blood, why are they feeding us this crap?”

Caballo's gaze jerked to the two women, and he made a silencing motion

with his hand. We moved into the living room. Music still thumping from every

corner and masses of bodies writhing and heaving together on every available

surface.

“Feeding hour,” said Caballo. “Soon the sun will set and then we ride.”

The smell of testosterone and blood was hypnotic. Caballo had to slap me

upside the head again. “Shit, man, they'd kill your gay ass.”

“Why?”

“Prospects don't get nothin' man. No blood cows, no pussy.”

Not what I'd been drooling over, but I got the gist. “High motivation for full

patch status.”

“You know it, bro.” Caballo had found a woman who seemed unattended

at the moment. He gripped her chin, studying her face, then pulled her to her

feet, dragged her down the hall behind him.

I figured he was done with the tour, so I reconnoitered a bit and found

myself just around the corner from the doors through which I had been initially

dragged. There is never any reason
not
to try the obvious, so I walked up to the

doors and reached for the handle.

I saw the door handle. I reached for it. And then I was looking at the

ceiling tiles, and a big demonic face with a bloody mouth scowling down at me.

“Ola!” I said, as best I could with a swollen lip. I touched it gingerly with

the back of my hand. “You could have just said 'stop.'”

Immortality is the Suck

163

I rolled before his hand could contact my face again, but the boot of his

friend caught me anyway.

“Stay the fuck where you're told,” said one of them.

I crawled to my feet and was about to make my way down the hallway to

Caballo's room when there was another commotion at the door. A great deal of

activity with walkie-talkies and cell phones ensued and then one of the bikers

worked a series of locks (from where I crouched I could see that they were

locked with individual keys and a fingerprint ID pad) and swung the doors

wide.

A cadre of heavily armed Bandidos and a couple of particularly rough

Mongols carrying assault rifles preceded a small clot of men, one of whom,

wearing a suit and tie and looking impatient, was Stan.

Holy shit.

I recovered so that by the time his room-scanning gaze caught on me, I

was rubbing my face with my hand in a signal that was universal among the

UC, meaning “I see you, don't give me away.”

Stan either didn't know the signal or chose to ignore it, because he hailed

me openly, big hand out. “Adam!”

Holy shit to the tenth power.

“Oh, mierda, you know this SOB, sí?” And behind Stan came Freeway,

looking more like a Tijuana bandit than any of the rest of them. He even had

found a big black sombrero someplace, with half dollar-sized round silver

medallions decorating its band and long braided black horsehair chinstraps

hanging down to either side of his broad tanned face.

“You fucker, you still a homo?” he shouted across the room.

“You still a two-faced lying bag of shit?” We indulged in a lot of

backslapping and such until I grabbed Freeway by his collar and hissed

against his ear. “They think I killed you, you son of a bitch. Where the hell have

you been?”

164

A. M. Riley

Freeway twisted and jerked and pried himself loose, looking a little peeved.

“Ozone, he wanted a man in Tijuana. We have recruits down there. The cartels

are forcing people to stand between them and the
policia
. Nobody's happy. It's

easy to talk a man into it when his family is at risk.”

“So you, what? Line 'em up, drain 'em, and hand 'em their leathers?”

An easy shrug. “The ones that live. Sometimes it don't work.”

Freeway wore the new leathers I'd seen on Caballo and Albert. Other than

that and his new sombrero, he dressed as he always had. There were no logos

on the shirt, but he still wore the black pants with white topstitching, the

oversize shirt and shoes. The thick silver ring in his ear now had a large

diamond swinging from it and his bad skin seemed to have cleared up

somewhat.

What was different about him was his attitude. Freeway was now what he

had always dreamed of becoming. A truly evil motherfucker.

“I saw Betsy around,” I told him.

“'mano, you was right about that puta. She got all freaky on me. And not

in a cool way.” He gestured at Stan. “You know this ugly old cop, sí?”

I looked at Stan. I wondered if my eyes held the same shocky caution as

did his. “I've seen him around the station, yeah. How you doing, man?”

Stan wasn't dead. His blood smelled, surprisingly, just as stale and boring

as I would have expected. But it was warm and healthy and he had to know

that every undead soulless biker in the room was looking at him with lust.

“I've got a lot to discuss with Ozone,” he said to Freeway.

“Oh yeah, sure, man.” Freeway's cadre of bodyguards marched Stan

forward; Freeway turned at the kitchen door to give me a one-fingered salute

and a “See you later, homey. Glad to have you on board.”

I made to follow them, but at that point one of the guards noticed me

again and gave me another mind-bending punch to the head. “Go the fuck to

your room, bitch,” he said, as I crawled slowly back up the wall.

Immortality is the Suck

165

Yes, sir. Can I do anything else for you, sir? Present my hairy ass for your

inspection, sir?
A steel-toed boot connected with my behind and I realized that

the best course of action was to go back to Caballo's room. I didn't bother to

knock, but he didn't seem to care. He was deeply involved in something

between a woman's legs there on the bed.

I thought he was doing what men normally do there, but then I saw that

his mouth was fastened to her inner thigh and his throat was moving

rhythmically. My mouth watered at the smell, and my dick twitched at the

sight of his tight heinie sticking up in the air.

“Can I have some?” I asked.

Caballo withdrew slowly, licking his lips. “It's against the rules, man.”

“You shared last night.”

“That was a special treat. Courtesy of Ozone.”

“Talk about grabbing a man's short and curlies,” I said. “Ozone really has

you whipped.”

Caballo patted the woman's thigh. “Go on now,” he said. He helped her

stand, and, bizarrely courteous, helped her put her long shirtwaist dress back

on. He waited until she'd exited and he'd closed the door again before he said,

“Where have you been?”

“I thought I might take a walk, but the guards dissuaded me. And then I

saw a cop I used to know.”

“No shit?” Caballo reached for the table next to his bed and brought over a

box with weed and a tiny pipe in it.

“What's going on, man?”

“You know all you need to know. You ask too many questions. You sound

like a fed.”

The OMG have been hit by UC agents too many times not to be paranoid.

I'd had to take a lie detector before I'd patched into the Mongols, and the ATF

166

A. M. Riley

crew who set up our identities had told me a PI had been hired by the Mongols

to do a background check on me as well.

“Well, if they haven't killed me for the busts last year, why would they kill

me now?”

“Ozone's first rule is this is the
new
brotherhood. Those old beefs, they

went with the old life. Remember, most of those guys got killed by a brother in

the end.”

I hadn't thought of it that way. “You know who did me?”

“Wouldn't tell you if I did. Ozone's second rule. You don't need to know

who did you, you just need to know that now you belong to
us
. This is big,

Adam. Good thing you're with us now. Ozone says we start with the one

percenters and then we go for the cops.”

“Another gang war? That's all this is? The Angels couldn't even take East

Los from the Mongols,” I said.

“The cops don't think so. That's why we've got LAPD on our side.”

Clearly, I had to find a way to get Stan alone. And maybe get a message to

Peter.

Caballo gave me a discerning look. “Just relax, man. You're still on

probation. And you got all eternity now to figure it out.” He lit his pipe, flame

hovering over it as he sucked half the bowl in on one long inhale. He offered it

to me, but I waved it off.

“I think I'm going to go drink some more of that shitty blood,” I said,

opening the door. “Catch you later.”

“Watch who you talk to, bro, and watch what you ask,” called Caballo as I

went. “Be a shame to have to dust your crazy ass.”

Immortality is the Suck

167

Chapter Sixteen

I found Condor and a few former Mexican Mafia in the kitchen, drinking

the nasty blood. He'd been right; it didn't taste as bad the second time. The

occasional blood cow wandered through, stoned and half-naked, bumping into

counters and cabinet doors, all of them soft as melted cheese, with ghastly,

mealy skin and slack mouths, but still they held the gaze of every prospect as

they stumbled through the galley.

“Soon, my God, I hope,” said Condor, watching a particularly obese

woman, braless and scratching her armpits as she went. “Ozone said I ride

tonight with the Chupacabra, maybe I'll be full patch by morning.”

It had taken me a year to patch into the Mongols, and only because I'd

flown a huge quantity of cash to a bank in Juatulco for them, breaking a

number of national and international laws in the process. “How long you been

here?” I asked him.

He shook his head, tipping the carton of blood back to get the last pink

rivulet into his throat. “Months. I don't know. They don't keep time here, and

there's no way to go outside.”

“How long has Ozone been setting this up?” I asked.

Condor gave me a sharp look. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“Hard habit to break, I guess.” I tossed my empty carton into the recycling

bin. “You see those guys that came through?”

“No. I was minding my own business.” He was not liking me at all now.

He'd turned a shoulder to me, as if trying to avoid me. So I shut up and let an

uncomfortable silence settle over us instead. Thank God, at that moment,

168

A. M. Riley

Freeway came breezing back in from the long hallway that led to the doctor's

labs.

“
Mijo
, you old bastard!” He licked his teeth. The fangs were still extended

and pink. They must be having a hell of a banquet somewhere in the bowels of

the building. I wondered how Stan was faring.

“Hey, Freeway, you have a phone I can use? My old lady is going to cut off

my balls if I don't call her.”

“That bitch with the
tetorras
,and
nalga de angel?
” Freeway wiggled his

eyebrows at me. “Bet she ain't your bitch no more, 'mano. Woman like that you

can't leave alone for long. But, sorry, I can't let you call anywhere.”

“How about I mail her a letter?”

“No way, man.”

“You give me a pen and paper, then, and maybe Ozone will let me mail a

letter later?”

Freeway rolled his eyes, grinning.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, man?” asked Condor. “He told you, it

ain't allowed.”

Freeway's eyes narrowed and a muscle jumped at his temple. “Shut up,

nigga,” he said to Condor.

Condor froze. Muscles tense, breathing though his nose, he glared at

Freeway then, purposely, let it go. Merely shaking his head, as if at Freeway's

foolishness.

Freeway glowered. “Get him a pen and paper,” he snapped.

Condor looked sideways at me. “You kidding.”

“
Gandul
!” Freeway slapped Condor hard, upside the head and said, “You

do what I tell you, bitch.”

When the man had left the room I said to Freeway, “You're pushing it.”

Immortality is the Suck

169

“Fuckers,” said Freeway. “Always thinking they know more than us. He's a

prospect, he needs to learn.”

When Condor came slinking back, I pocketed the items. “Thanks, man.”