Tarnished Steel (7 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Cyn was surprised at the number of members in attendance for a Monday evening. The group wasn’t anything like Friday night or Saturday, but it was still more than Cyn expected. There were at least fifty bikes out front and a group of perhaps ten more on the side. This, with the fifteen or so cars and trucks in the lot, suggested to Cyn that something was going on. Granted, she had never been to the club on a Monday before, so perhaps this was a normal crowd. But as soon as she and Hank crossed the threshold, the air of expectancy was too thick to ignore. The crowd had a purpose for being here, and their attention was determinately focused on Hank, and on her, since she was with Hank.

She looked up at Hank, who appeared not to notice the tension in the room at all. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, and then said, “I’ll be right back. I have to drop in on Knight for a moment.” He took the stairs and she could feel the crowd watch him go.

The expectancy remained the same as their eyes followed him through the room. She could tell where he was by the feeling of everyone’s focus.

She smiled at this, told herself she was getting paranoid, and went to the bar area. Spotting Larry, she gave him a wave and he motioned to the stool beside him.

Conversations were picking back up around the room as she sat down next to Larry.

“It’s not usually this crowded on a Monday night, is it?” she asked casually.

“Perceptive as always, my dear,” Larry agreed.

“What is going on?” she asked him.

“I believe the technical term is ‘witch hunt,’ where Hank is the witch and Derrick has been promoting himself as the man with the burning oil.”

“No peep as to what he’s going to drop?” she asked.

“Not a word, but he has made it sound like it is on the level of pureeing live babies,” Larry told her.

“Oh, shit,” she hissed.

“You know something?”

“Not really, but I feel something, and I’m thinking this could get ugly,” she murmured, and she signaled for a beer.

Hank came down the stairs. The focus of the crowd once again moved with him while he moved unhindered and went to the middle of the bar, ignoring her waved invitation.

He ordered a beer and left cash on the bar for future drinks, letting everyone know that he planned on staying for a while tonight.

Then Derrick was behind him, but distant enough for polite conversation.

“Eight months this time, Hank. That’s a long time,” Derrick began.

Hank turned slowly and leaned casually back on the bar with his elbow. “You’ve got something to say, Derrick, and most of these folks are here for the show, probably at your invite. So, just say it so I can get some dinner and these folks can get back to real life.”

“I know what you’ve been doing,” Derrick said. “You’ve been running drugs.”

“And?” Hank said, extremely bored.

Cyn tensed up. “Oh shit,” she hissed.

Derrick smiled. “You’ve been running them for Orlin Ruiz.”

The bar was suddenly as still as a morgue.

Hank set his bottle down and took out his phone. He speed dialed a number. “Yes, it’s me. You were right all along. I never saw this one coming, but it’s deranged, even for him. I’m asking for tribunal.”

Hank nodded his head twice, listening, and then hung up the phone.

The room was even quieter than before.

“You deny it?” Derrick said, but there was a hint of insecurity in his voice.

“Not only that, Derrick, but I’m saying you are seriously twisted to even think of using that subject for your own petty problem with me.”

“I saw you in daylight at his house!” Derrick swore.

“I don’t know what you saw, and I don’t care. You’re so fucking deranged you could have seen Bugs fucking Bunny there and decided it was me,” Hank said, his body language calm, easy, and completely cool.

“Take hold of the accused,” Knight’s voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs, and the crowd parted for him.

Three men stepped forward and took hold of Derrick. “What the fuck? Let go of me! He’s in bed with god, damn, fucking, Ruiz!”

Knight walked up to Derrick as he struggled. “I don’t care about your current derangements. I have enough, ten times over, to take your patch. You have brought police investigations to this club, to me, to other members. You have incited brother against brother, tearing at the fabric which holds us together. More than once I have heard you say — and I have it on police transcript as well —
Fuck the bros
. Well, Mr. Unger, I say, fuck you.”

Knight turned to the crowd. “I need two officers willing to stand with me.”

“I will,” said Larry, and he rose from his stool beside Cyn.

“I will,” said Ben, the VP, and he came over from the staircase.

“Will anyone stand for the accused?” Knight said, and he waited. Many shuffled their feet, but no one moved. “No one? No patch holder will stand? Larry, doesn’t there need to be at least one to stand with him?”

Halo stepped forward. “Only to serve the purpose of the tribunal, I’ll stand with him.”

Knight nodded. “Then it’s as you say, and do what you can.”

“Yes sir,” Halo said, though obviously not happy about the request.

“Knight, I saw him!” Derrick pleaded. “So did Daphne. Tell them, Daphne!”

Cyn looked for Daphne, who was standing more or less alone behind the gathering crowd with her fists pressed to her mouth as she bawled. Cyn got up from the stool and went to her. She was in so much pain, she couldn’t ignore her, not with this going on.

Daphne was shaking her head violently from side to side and pressing her fists so hard into her teeth when Cyn got there that she was afraid the woman might draw blood.

Knight’s eyes met Cyn’s as she put an arm around Daphne and held her. Was that a look of warning? Of anger? She didn’t know, and at this moment, she didn’t care. Daphne
did
have someone to stand for her, and Cyn wasn’t leaving her side.

“Derrick,” Knight said. “You fail to understand so many things. They are right in front of you and you fail to see them. All you see is your hate. You have no sense of brotherhood at all.”

Then Hank lifted his voice so that everyone could clearly hear him. “I know exactly what you saw, Derrick. The middle of the day, the possible bag of coke. Orlin on the other side of the motorcycle. I will address this once. Only once, and I will hear no more of it! Not only do I know about it, I was there! So was Ben! We watched our plan to gather information. Hank did what he did because I told him to do it.”

Knight sighed. “As it happened, the plan was a failure, and I have apologized to Hank several times for putting him through that with nothing to show for it except opening the wound he carries —  like all of us — for Howey and Margaret.

“But for you, Derrick, that wasn’t even a possibility. No. All you saw was a chance to hurt your brother. All you saw was a way to cause more pain and more strife. So I will hear nothing about what you saw, from anybody, ever again. That is my shame, not Hank’s. And if any of you hold Howey and Margaret’s memory dear, then you will not speak of this to anyone, not even amongst ourselves, for fear or loosing another chance at reprisal.”

Nods and voiced promises came from around the room.

“Good. Now, Halo, I believe it is your turn,” Knight said, and stepped back.

Halo stepped forward, his face a mask of concentration, and Cyn could see his fingers were shaking slightly. From the look in his eyes, they were probably shaking with rage.

When his voice came though, it was clear, and even passionate. And Cyn realized that he really was going to give his position his best shot.

“Derrick has spoken out in the past. Yes. Normally when he’s emotionally charged. He has said some hurtful things at these times — but who hasn’t? Who, in this room, while enraged, or in pain, or hurt the way only love can hurt, has not lashed out and said something they knew they shouldn’t have?”

Derrick eyed the room, and he boldly looked at the trio. “No one? Not a single man or woman in this room has done exactly what we are bringing to Derrick’s door?”

Halo paused, and took a breath. “Because the truth is, Derrick has broken no code. The truth is, he is an asshole, and since coming out of prison, he’s been a serious asshole, but never has he broken a single code. Not once! I defy anyone to name a code that Derrick has broken!”

Again he searched the room and boldly met the tribunal’s eyes. “Again? No one? This man, our brother, is being held like an animal, and he’s broken no code, and though an asshole, who probably needs some serious help, has done nothing more than anyone else in this room has admittedly done.”

Halo finished, and then he turned away from everyone and walked out into the night, and he stood there in the cold air.

“Hang on, baby,” Cyn said, squeezing Daphne a little with her arm.

Daphne shook her head. “It’s not over,” she whimpered.

Knight nodded his head and stepped forward again. With a further nod he said, “No, Derrick never mentioned any names. So, he never actually broke the word of the code. He said, ‘My partner in this crime is tall, with brown hair, green eyes, a stupid spider tat on the side of his neck, rides a blue Lowrider, and he hangs out in a club bar, in rural Lakeside.’ But, no, he used no name.”

Chuckles and laugher broke out throughout the room.

“When he was told that his lawyer was there to sit with him during questioning, he said, ‘Makes a better fence.’ Result? Larry faced possible disbarment for nine months during an investigation which tore his life apart for that whole period of time. But Derrick did not mention his name.

“Derrick did not mention the name of this club bar, but they didn’t seem to need to know the name. They came here, and for almost a year, they harassed, prodded, and searched everything they could. I personally was investigated by the alcohol bureau commission. My liquor license was nearly lost, which would have been a cost to the club of more than the million invested in that one piece of paper. But, Derrick broke no word of code.”

Knight took a few pacing steps, and then said, “Halo asked very good questions, and did a fine job for Derrick. When Halo looked me in the eye and asked me his questions, I felt doubt. I really did. I began to wonder at the trueness of this tribunal, and at the trueness of my own motivations over the last few years to push Hank to have it.”

He stopped his pacing and looked around. “Yes, I too have bad days, and yes, I too have said things in anger, or in pain, or in emotional turmoil, that have hurt and even maimed my brothers and sisters in this club. But afterward, when I recognized what I did, I said I was sorry, and I sought to make amends. Whether those amends were a beer at the bar and a few moments of time to assure my brother or sister than I really did not mean to harm them, or to be there when that brother faced a dark mile so I could ride with him, I did my best to earn back his respect.

“What I did not do,” Knight said, turning back to face Derrick, “is to go home and devise new ways to continue the pain, increase the mayhem, and bring my brothers down even further.

“Ben gave me a sheet not long ago which listed the financial damages done to members of this club as a direct result of Derrick’s actions. The total is over one million. The damages he saw were mostly time taken to deal with audits and investigations, lawyer bills, and loss of income due to loss of business.

“Derrick is not unaware of these damages, but no one on that list has been offered any type of amends or apology.”