Chapter 5

I guess it was a real date so I picked her up at her place. I would have said house but it wasn't; it was a fucking mansion. Not that I would have expected anything less; I'm sure Tink Inc. brought in enough cash annually to buy most of Tampa once or twice over. Actually it was kind of fun rolling up in my leathers and walking up to a front door that was probably wider than the Katherine. Their driver was out front doing chauffeur stuff to the limo and I'm sure he at least got a chuckle out of it. The butler ― that's right a real, live butler ― who answered the door didn't. He was good, I'll admit, but you could almost see the repressed horror in his eyes when he saw me standing in their front entryway. Made me wish I'd grown my hair long enough to put it in a pony tail like the bad-boy bikers of yesteryear instead of keeping it close-cropped like I do. Image is everything you know.

I seriously considered asking if the bitch was in but I doubt he'd have understood the historical context or the humor. In fact I doubted he had a milligram of humor in his whole body; he seemed like the type that took himself far too seriously. I didn't like him. Instead I simply asked if Cynthia was in and was told to wait while he checked. He actually sniffed at me! Somehow I wasn't surprised that he didn't ask me to come inside and wait.

"Hey there, Captain Chaos!" It wasn't Cynthia, it was Tink that found me lounging on their steps. I wouldn't have been surprised if she had been costumed up trying to cadge a ride but she wasn't. Not unless you expected to do some riding in a pretty pink shimmery thing that revealed everything while still hiding it.

"Hey yourself, Tink. Looking good, kiddo." I wasn't just pushing the bull; she did look good. I almost felt guilty thinking the nasty thoughts I did as I looked her over but I didn't. Yeah, she's about the same age as my daughter but looking ain't touching and thinking isn't either. "Out to break hearts today?"

"Thanks," she said plopping down on the steps next to me. "Got a publicity gig today so I had to put on the battle armor. Taking Mom out for a spin on the pig?"

"That's hog, you delinquent, and yes I'm going to see if she scares any easier that you do," I chuckled.

"You don't scare me, old man," she laughed, punching me on the arm.

"Well, that does a world of good for my ego."

"I'm pretty sure your ego can take the shock," she snickered.

"Maybe," I admitted. There was a clicking of heels behind us and I turned to see who it was and my jaw almost hit the ground. It was Cynthia, of course, in the same style of riding outfit that Tink had on before. Skin-tight denims, form-fitting knee-length riding boots (the ten centimeter heels were a bit much but I wasn't going to complain!) and hair pulled back in a ponytail; the only difference was a men's shirt tied beneath her obviously braless breasts.

"You're letting flies in, macho man," Tink smirked as she leaned over and pushed up on my chin closing my mouth.

"Is this appropriate?" Cynthia asked giving me a model's stance.

"Depends," I was finally able to grunt. "Are you going riding or just trying to cause a stampede in the male population?"

"Maybe both," she grinned.

"Then it's perfect," I said finally let out my breath.

"Good." Then she frowned at Tink. "Antigua, don't you have an appointment? Shouldn't you be there now?"

"Just leaving, Mom," Tink jumped up and brushed herself off. "Ralph's ready and we'll be there right on time. Bye now. Have fun kids and don't do anything I wouldn't do. Try to have her back sometime next week, killer. She has work to do." Without waiting for an answer she scurried to the waiting limo, jumped in and it moved away with a hum.

"Children," Cynthia muttered. "I swear she sometimes act like the teenager she's supposed to be. Do you have any kids?"

"Two," I said. "A girl and a boy, twenty one and seventeen. They're living with my wife's sister."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Their choice, not mine," I shrugged. "For some reason they blamed me for Kathy's death, especially Barbara; she's the oldest. They didn't want anything to do with me. I decided to give them their space and let them work it out, which was probably a mistake on my part." I sighed, "But it is what it is. Maybe someday they'll get over it and I'll get to know them again. That's what I hope, anyway."

"That's not fair," she protested. "It was an accident."

"It was no accident," I replied with a touch of bitterness. "But I didn't have anything to do with it." That was true and it took me awhile to realize it myself which was why I agreed to the kids' wishes. The terrorist attack had nothing to do with me or Kathy; she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What I didn't say was that I and the team spent about six months hunting down and killing everyone even remotely associated with that cell of crazies. It turned out to be a cult of fanatic anti-immigrant, religious nuts and the police were highly puzzled when they couldn't find any trace of them even months after the attack. They never will either unless they want to sift through a whole lot of shark shit. I can pretty much guarantee those bodies will never be found.

"Anyway, you ready for a ride?"

"So, this is okay?" she asked letting it drop. I told you she was no dumb blonde.

"I'm going to have to get you a pole if you keep fishing for compliments," I huffed.

"You know perfectly well that you're absolutely perfect. You'd look perfect in a burlap bag."

"An old lady can never have too many compliments," she grinned.

"Old lady!" I barked. "I can spank," I warned her.

"I'll keep that in mind," she answered raising her eyebrows. That was an interesting, and distracting, thought. Instead of replying I led her to the bike and got her outfitted with the headgear. She already had her riding glasses on and they mirrored automatically in the sunlight. I mounted, fired up the beast and she shivered slightly at the rumble. I loved that reaction in women. Some get scared but the others just get hot at the throb of those old Milwaukee pistons. I was hoping Cynthia was one of the latter and I fully expected not to be disappointed.

Without me having to say anything, she threw her leg over and scrunched up against me like she belonged there. Let me tell you, if there is a finer feeling than a gorgeous woman pressed up against your back with nothing between you and her breasts other than two thin layers of fabric I can't think of it. Okay, I can think of something better but it was already tough enough to ride without that thought running around in my brain and my leg sticking straight out to the side. Makes shifting a little more difficult, you understand.

Luckily the mechanics of riding are pretty much automatic once you get used to it and I dropped it into first, let out on the clutch and we were off. We rode for the next four hours with only a couple of stops to stretch our legs. Talking was easy with the integrated intercom and talk we did for practically the whole time we were out but I honestly couldn't tell you exactly what we talked about. Talking with Cynthia was as easy and natural as it had been with Kathy. What we talked about wasn't important; getting to know each other was.

Florida is kind of a boring state to ride in if you know what I mean. Flat as a pancake and vastly overdeveloped even if it was just beginning to recover from the effects of the war on our population. You can't lose over a quarter of your people and not have it leave an impression, that's for sure. When the Jihadists took out New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver with the nukes they got from Iran they almost succeeded in taking us down just like they planned. Initial casualties were over twenty-five million from the blasts alone then you throw in the equal amount that died within the next few months from radiation poisoning, disease, lack of food and clean water it really did seem like the apocalypse was upon us and I suppose in a sense it was.

Not that I personally saw any of it firsthand. I had been selected for the UN Special Forces two months before all hell broke loose and was sequestered in a secret training base in Panama when The Day hit. It was much rougher on Kathy than it was on me. Luckily she was staying with her parents while I was in training. They were, still are, more than moderately wealthy and living in Indianapolis which remained relatively untouched by the disaster. All in all I was reasonably comfortable in thinking that I had lucked out just so long as Kath and the baby were doing well.

Of course that was before that idiot Chavez, president-for-life of Venezuela, declared war on the "imperialist capitalists" in support of his Arab "brothers" in Iran and the new Islamic Democracy of Arabia made up of the former states of Saudi Arabia and the other kingdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. There I was thinking I was going to do some easy time chasing a bunch of stupid drug lords, sex slavers and smugglers through the jungles of Central America and get tossed ass first into one of the bloodiest conflicts since the American Civil war. Christ, what a mess!

Anyway we all know how many we lost fighting the fanatical Chavezites when they tore their way up through Central America, into Mexico and almost into the States themselves and that doesn't even count how many we lost over in "The Sandbox." I've heard some historians are now calling it World War Three and I suppose that's appropriate. All I know is to us it was The War and it made WWI and WWII look like playground scraps in comparison.

One thing it did was leave Florida, and most everywhere else, overdeveloped and under populated which goes back to how boring it can be to ride through klick after klick of partially abandoned housing developments and empty strip malls. At least the Gulf was pretty as we rode along the coast roads.

It was getting to be well into dinner time when we pulled into Bennie's parking lot. It was already pretty full so I hoped at least a few of the team would be there and grabbed a table or booth we could horn in on. I was torn between wanting to keep Cynthia all to myself and hiding away in some secluded booth out of the way or showing her off to anyone who would look. That she would be noticed wasn't even a question, she'd be about as inconspicuous as a golf-ball sized diamond in a pile of dog shit. But what the hell, either through insanity or lack of taste she was here with me and that's all that counted.

"So this is your biker bar?" she asked wrinkling her nose as she stared at Bennie's dilapidated façade. "It doesn't look like much."

"Oh I assure you it's even worse than it looks," I chuckled. "Well, maybe not really worse than it looks. Bennie spends a lot of money to keep the outside looking this bad. He says it's part of the mystique. Actually it's a nice place; the food is decent and Bennie lets us reprobates hang out which is a lot more than most places do, so it's a little like home away from home."

"So this is your gang's hideout?" she grinned as I placed my hand lightly on her back and steered her towards the front door.

"You've been watching too many old vids with Tink," I said shaking my head. "There aren't any biker gangs anymore, not like there used to be, anyway. It's true most of the people who come here are vets and quite a few do ride bikes but we aren't anything like a gang. I guess the closest you could come to that would be my team but we aren't a gang." What I didn't say was that my team was a hell of a lot more dangerous than any biker gang no matter what time you were talking about.

Shoot, even the Hell's Angels from the sixties and seventies wouldn't have lasted more than a few minutes up against my team. Hell, it would have been like putting a puppy up against a fighting pit bull; Mike alone could have probably done more damage to any of the bad old bikers than any number of cops could have. "There are some wannabes out there; punks too young to have been in the war and thinking they're bad asses but they don't come around here."

"And here I was looking for a real adventure and you're spoiling it by telling me I'm perfectly safe," she pouted.

"I didn't say you were safe," I added with a leer. "Just that nobody here is going to hurt you."

"Hmm," she looked up at me with a cocked eyebrow. "And just how 'unsafe' am I?"

"As unsafe as you want to be," I assured her. "And not one bit more."

"I'll keep that in mind," she answered as I pushed open the front door.

The lights were low as usual and there was the semi-permanent haze of cigarette smoke and the extra Bennie adds to keep up the "ambiance," so it took a second or two for our eyes to adjust. Most of the tables were taken already but I was more interested in the booths in the back anyway. Look back toward "our" normal booth I noticed some familiar faces so I took her hand and towed her over that was to see if they had room for two more. Nibs (Mike), Tootles (Weird), Slightly (Top) and Binky (Stanly) were but not Cubby (Brian) or Marmaduke (Sam). Since Sam wasn't there, it left plenty of room for us. I told you Sam's a big boy; he has a tendency to take up a lot of room.

"Hey, guys. How's it going tonight? Got some room for us?" I asked. "I got someone here who I'd like you to meet."

"Cap'n" "Hey, Boss" "Evening Captain," came the chorus.

"Cynthia, this is my team," and I pointed them out while giving each name. Not their Lost Boys name mind you, just their regular everyday names. We try to avoid giving our handles in public; too much baggage is attached to them. Even after ten years the names associated with the Lost Boys elicit some interesting and often violent responses. There are some that treat us like saviors, (Hell, I've even heard there are some villages in SA that have our effigies in shrines that they pray to every day. Christ, is that embarrassing!) and the flip side is there are others that would cut off their own testicles for the outside chance of taking one of us out. Depends on which side they came from, I suppose. Anyway, for good or bad it's not something we advertise. Most of the vets around here know who we are, especially if they were jungle bunnies from the SA theater, and we don't go out of our way to hide who we are but we do try to be circumspect about it.

"Guys, this is Cynthia Delmar, Tinker Bell's mother."

"No fucking way!" Stanly exclaimed shaking his head. "They said Tink was what, seventeen, maybe eighteen. This lady ain't old enough to have a kid out of diapers yet!"

"I like you," Cynthia said with a big grin. Mike excused herself to make a run on the little girl's room so I had Cynthia slide in next to Stanly and I slid in next to her. "I assure you I am her mother and she's nineteen."

"Twenty-one," I corrected.

"Shush," Cynthia put a finger to her lips. "That's a secret. If her fans knew how old she really was, they'd stop listening to her."

"I find that hard to believe," I said. "The kid has a hell of a set of pipes. Voice like an angel. Not the stuff I generally listen to but whatever she sings is good."

"Antigua is very talented," Cynthia conceded. "But having a good voice is only part of being a teen singer ... a rather small part at that. We're already getting pressure from Kimmie Sue; the little bitch is digging into our demographics like you wouldn't believe." There were blank looks all around the table and Cynthia sighed and proceeded to tell us about the little bit of fluff that appeared well on her way to becoming the next teen idol.

"It's inevitable, I'm afraid," she sighed again. "When you target teenage girls you can only go on for so long. We're already exploring other avenues for Antigua's next step in her career." She gave me a strange look and a little smile that to be honest I didn't understand in the least, but I didn't care; the smile was worth it whatever the reason.

The server stopped by ― not Sue thankfully ― and I ordered my iced tea. I'm riding, remember, and Cynthia did the same. Ordering the food wasn't so simple.

"So, what do they have here that's good?" she asked.

"Everything's good," I said winking at the server as she raised one eyebrow. Bennie would have a shit fit if it got back to him I didn't praise his food even if I'd never do it to his face. "But the burgers are kind of a specialty here. Real beef and just as pink as you want them. If you don't want that he has beef steaks, fish, most any other kind of meat and even vegetarian if you want. You ask and I'll bet he can make it or fake it."

"Real beef?" she asked amazed. Yeah, I know they outlawed beef along with trans-fats, donuts, most fried foods and sugared drinks years ago in their effort to protect us from ourselves but you might have noticed we don't generally pay attention to those kinds of laws around here. The FDA goons were about as welcome as the TEA-cops in Bennies; that's to say, not at all. The last time they even tried a combined raid which was just plain stupid. I mean who the hell is dumb enough to come storming into a joint where the clientèle was packing more heat than you are? Luckily nobody was killed but the sheer number of the goons that ended up in the hospital was impressive.

The locals screamed bloody murder at the Feds about "territorial jurisdiction" and other such bullshit loud enough they took the hint and backed off. The locals like us right where we are doing whatever the hell we want regardless of the fact we may be technically bending a few laws now and then. With this many vets hanging around they can pretty much ignore the area since they know nothing is going to happen unless we want it to happen. There hasn't been any crime in this area; I mean real crime like muggings, murders, rapes, etc, since the vets starting hanging out here.

It didn't take the local riff-raff long to figure out it's difficult to intimidate someone whose just spent the last ten years of his life being shot at by someone a whole lot tougher than they are. Shit, you can't even grab a purse from that little bitty woman walking down the street alone because she just might turn out to be an ex-striker from some Forward Recon force and you suddenly find out you've bitten off a whole lot more than you could chew.

We keep our cage clean and the locals do their best to make sure nobody pokes the sleeping bear. Besides most of the local force is made up of vets now and we stick together no matter what color uniform we happen to be wearing at the moment. I mean what other reason could you think of that Mike isn't in the hoosegow for an extended visit?

Thinking of that I looked over to Top and whispered, "Good night?"

"Fair to middling," he responded stoically. About as good as it gets I guess.

I pulled out my pack of cigs and looked at Cynthia for permission to light one up.

"Beef and tobacco," she snorted. "I really have fallen in with desperados. Go ahead, feel free." She decided to be daring and ordered the burger and I made it two with an extra plate of fries. In fact I ordered two extra; I was hungry and didn't want Mike to get all of them. In fact I was wondering if she'd wandered off and into trouble when she showed up at the same time the food did.

"Had to show some newbies how to play darts," she said with only a slight slur as she hip-checked me into sliding over and giving her room to sit down. She hadn't even completely stopped sliding in when she started munching on the fries, the ones from my plate, not the extra plates.

"How much?" Top snorted. It would have to be somebody new to be stupid enough to challenge Mike to a game of darts. Even dead drunk she could hit the bull's-eye at twice the regulation distance about nine out of ten times. The same eye-hand coordination and focused concentration that made her the best sniper I've ever seen worked just as well in darts.

"Just a couple of teners," she said between munches. "He looked kind of down on his luck so I took it easy on him. He didn't look like a sharpie."

Even being richer than god Cynthia must not have had much real beef lately, or even ever, given the way she tore into that burger like a starved lion into a fat antelope. I gather she must have liked it since I've heard fewer moans of pleasure coming from a trooper getting his first fuck after three months in the jungle. She polished off that burger although I have no idea where she put it but ate only a few of the fries. The rest she unobtrusively slid onto my plate when she saw Mike had pretty much decimated mine. I was eating off the spare plates along with Weird and Stan. When she did Mike again attacked them.