Chapter 4

On the night before the funeral and the wake, Rick noticed a new face in the house. The man was filling up his cup from the beer keg in one corner of the dining room. "Hey buddy, are you an out of town member or a new prospect?" Rick asked the unfamiliar man.

"No, I live right down the street." The man slurred. "I saw all of the women over here and the party going on and I just naturally came right on over."

Rick saw Mad Mike was near the door and he yelled to him. "Mike, get the door." Mike opened the door and Rick grabbed the stranger by the nape of the neck and a shoulder, and he headed out the door with him. Rick cleared the door, then he gave the man a hard shove toward the street. The drunk made the bad mistake of veering toward the Harleys parked out in the yard; the nearest one was Mike's! The drunk wobbled over to Mike's bike; he grabbed the brake lever, and then he slowly began to topple over backwards.

Mike was on the man in three long strides. He shoved the bike back up on its stand, then he punched the drunk once in the face with his huge right fist. The drunk flew backwards across the yard; at one point in his flight his body appeared to be flying almost completely horizontal. The man's body fell and rolled limply; his face was an absolute ruin.

When Rick saw the man wouldn't be able to leave under his own power, he grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the next yard over. He thoughtfully laid him on his stomach so he wouldn't drown in his own blood, then he went back to the wild party.

Michelle seemed to be dealing rather well with the situation. As long as she was with Rick she was happy. The days of partying were catching up with them; they finally tired out about three in the morning and Rick found them an unused blanket and an empty corner. They curled up together and fell into an exhausted sleep.

They were on a routine scouting mission. At least the experienced men with him had assured Rick it would be a routine mission; it was his first one. He was trying to stay in the hip pocket of the troop ahead of him who he knew to be a knowledgeable combat veteran. A tremor of sheer terror ran through him. Damn, he was afraid! He'd been trained by the best and he'd made some of the highest scores in his training outfit, but Rick had learned just enough to know there was no substitute for actual combat experience.

Rick instinctively turned toward the sound of a cracking branch. The light was dim, but he could make out the slight figure of what appeared to be a young oriental boy standing behind a bush. They were barely out of the camp, but technically they were supposed to be in a free fire zone as soon as they'd exited the wire. He was damned confused; his stomach felt weird and he wasn't sure what action to take!

From the looks of the boy's face and his small size, this kid in the bushes couldn't be more than twelve years old. He had to be just some dumb village kid who'd blundered into the outbound path of the patrol. Rick paused and he was looking closer at the intruder as his unbelieving eyes saw the muzzle flashes of the kid's AK-47! Two red-hot pokers hit him in his thigh and side as Rick put his M-16 into action and swept the kid into oblivion.

Rick woke up sweating; he'd just relived his first thirty minutes of combat and his first kill over again. "Jesus." Rick thought, "I was nothing but a dumb kid, myself." He snuggled up to Michelle's soft body and willed his mind and body to relax and go back to sleep.

He was the first one to stir that morning and when he woke up he was ravenous. He gave Michelle a good morning kiss; she grumbled something totally incoherent to him and turned over; she pulled the blanket tighter around her and went back to La La Land. Rick got up and wandered toward the kitchen to scout around for some munchies.

He had to carefully step over and around the many bodies strewn around the floor. Larry's house looked like the scene of a terrible massacre. The fridge didn't look very much better. It had long ago been completely decimated by the party. It was not only empty; it looked like a couple of hordes of locusts and maybe a buffalo herd or two had stampeded through it. From all appearances, the buffalo had eaten everything they could find, they'd stomped a large mud hole in everything, and then they'd shit and left! Rick decided to go for a munchies run; it was either that or he'd have to get out and kill something to eat.

He went outside and cranked the Bitch and headed out. On any other normal morning, he would have gone by one of the local stores and bought a few pounds of bacon, several dozen eggs, and a couple of loaves of bread. This morning, he didn't feel much like cooking and he definitely knew none of the old ladies would want to be saddled with the chore when and if they finally stirred.

Rick rode a few blocks across town to Burger World, one of the local drive-through fast food places. He rode his bike right up to the silly monkey figure where you were supposed to order your food, then he stopped and looked over the menu for a moment. His poor abused stomach must have somehow detected the proximity of almost edible food; it was trying valiantly to rumble loudly enough to be heard over the idling Harley engine noises.

The monkey startled him when it asked him helpfully in a young girl's high-pitched voice, "May I take your order?"

Rick told the monkey, "Yeah, give me thirty-five ham and egg delight sandwiches and twenty-five sausage and egg breakfasts, please."

The startled monkey asked him, "What did you say?" Rick tried to be very understanding. They may have had school buses or tour groups stop in and make such a large order but, certainly never one man on a motorcycle at the drive-through window.

Rick repeated his order very clearly and precisely, "I said, I would like for you to sell me thirty-five ham and egg delight sandwiches and twenty-five sausage and egg breakfasts."

The reply the dazzled monkey gave him this time was: "What?"

Rick was growing angrier by the minute. He gave his engine a twist of the throttle and he rode the bike over to the side of the parking lot. He was coming very close to losing the fragile rein on his temper; which had never been very strong at its best. He pulled his biker's wallet from his pocket by its chain, then he opened the snaps as he stomped into the building and strode directly to the counter.

He slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the counter hard! "I said I want you to sell me thirty-five ham and egg delight sandwiches and twenty-five sausage and egg breakfasts, and I want every last one of them delivered out there to my bike just about two minutes ago!"

The astonished Burger World employees panicked; Rick had them scurrying everywhere. A few minutes later the terrified employees began bringing sacks of food to the counter. Rick paid the bill and two of the apprehensive youngsters helped him carry all the sacks of food to his bike. Most of the sacks fit in his saddlebags, but he had to bungee the last few sacks to his bike's seat. He noticed when he rode out, half a dozen of the relieved employees were lined up at the door to watch him ride.

When Rick got back to the scene of the crime more of the torpid bodies that had been lying around had slowly begun to revive. One of the basic laws of physics came to Rick's alcohol befogged mind, something about a body at rest tending to remain at rest. He felt this was one of the very few laws that applied to most of the Desperados.

Bengal Red, Pan head Dan, Dirty Ernie, and Bad Bob were outside drinking their first beer of the day and looking their bikes over. Rick had regained most of his sense of humor and he cheerfully told them, "Here's the breakfast wagon!" All the Bros were amazed at the large amounts of food Rick produced out of his saddlebags.

Rick carried several of the sacks of food into the house; he was pleasantly surprised to find Michelle and Cat had gotten up. They were sitting at the dining room table drinking coffee with Mama Juggs, Dana, and Chunky's old lady, Candy. Rick had a suspicious feeling he'd interrupted something serious. He noticed the women abruptly stopped their lively conversation when he came into the room.

Rick kissed Michelle good morning again, in direct contrast to her earlier reaction, this time she was a willing participant. Then, he cheerfully addressed all of the women in stilted English, "Please excuse me, ladies. I did not interrupt your enlightened conversation intentionally, I simply brought in some gourmet cuisine for your gastronomic enjoyment!" He opened some of the sacks and passed several portions of the food around to the grateful women.

"Hey, Bro." Snowman abruptly spoke to Rick as he entered the room through another door; he interrupted himself to pull his black Harley T-shirt on over his head and powerful upper torso. "You should have heard the 'enlightened conversation' these chicks were having before you came in and interrupted them. I was laying around in there listening to them. They were rating all of us Desperados as bed partners!"

"Hmm." Rick emitted a noncommittal grunt as a delaying tactic to allow himself some time to think. Rick knew Dana had undoubtedly slept with most of the men in the club. Cat, Juggs, and Candy had each been with at least one other member of the club before they'd settled in with their present partners. He hadn't bothered to ask Michelle, and she hadn't volunteered the information, whether she'd been with other members of the club before she'd taken up with Scooter.

"Well, come on, tell me how we made out, Bro." Rick asked impatiently as he continued passing out the food. This sounded like a possibly enlightening, but perhaps also an ego bruising subject to him!

"Don't worry, Bro." Snowman laughed! "Me and you came out sounding like damned good lays, and most of the Brothers didn't rate as half bad, but poor old Mike, he really took a hell of a beating!"

Rick breathed a deep sigh of relief! The women joined them in laughing at poor Mike's expense. This conversation had been both something of a reassurance and a revelation to Rick; maybe that's why Mike never seemed to be able to keep an old lady around him for very long at a time.

Everyone ate what they wanted of the plentiful if not gourmet quality food, then Dan and Ernie used some of the excess to chum in a couple of pretty blonde neighborhood teens, who they later married. Slick's awesome munchies run went down as a thoroughly memorable event in local biker history.

One of the neighbors came over to tell them he'd called an ambulance for another of their neighbors from up the street who had been found unconscious in his yard. He wanted to know if the people at Larry's house had seen anything, because the man was obviously the victim of a terrible hit- and-run auto accident. The insider's joke of the day became "Did anyone get the license number of the fist that hit me?"

Later in the morning everyone who hadn't been there already began to form up at Larry's house. They were due to head to the funeral home at around ten o'clock, so at a quarter till, Mike gave everyone a warning. "Alright, listen up everybody. We head out in thirty minutes. Anyone who needs to gas up their bike had better go do it now. That means you, Dog." Dog had made a serious fuck up and had run out of gas on the way to the last funeral they'd attended as a club.

Everyone wore their colors this morning, along with the black armbands that signified their loss of a Brother. Rick had managed to catch the old ladies out of the bathroom that morning just long enough for him to take a shower. He'd put on a clean set of clothing and underwear he'd had stashed in his saddlebags and he was feeling pretty good despite all of the wild and crazy partying they'd done in the last few days.

Red had already passed around a bottle of premium tequila early on and Rick had scored a big chug of the wonderful stuff that had helped his own spirits to rise. Red had gotten up a pretty good head of steam from the tequila. He asked Michelle, "Hey Foxy, ya wanna fuck? If you ever once go to bed with me, I'll lick your crotch until you scream and you'll never go back to that limp dick Slick!"

Michelle knew exactly what it took to handle Red. "That's alright Red; I'll pass on that offer. Your righteous cussing really turns me on, but I had a bitch-to-bitch talk with that pit bull of yours and she told me you're all mouth and no ass. She says you're a lousy lay!" All the Brothers thought Michelle's snappy comeback was a real pisser! They laughed at Red and goaded him to deny her claims.

"Damn it." Red shouted in sham anger. "I'm gonna kill that lying bitch of mine! She always gets off when we fuck!" Red was a vulgar son of a bitch, especially with the women, but his rude, crude, and socially unacceptable exterior concealed the fact he had a heart of gold. He was another veteran and had once barely survived the helicopter flight to a surgical station after being stitched across his body by a Chi-com AK-47.

Almost before Rick knew it the time had come for them to head out. Most of the men had been hanging out in the front yard with the scoots. When the women all began to come out of the house, Rick immediately saw they'd been accomplishing something in the bathroom and in front of all of the mirrors in the house for the last two solid hours. Rick decided Michelle's natural great looks must have given them something to shoot for.

The ride down to the funeral home was anything but uneventful. They encountered a dimwitted carload of teenagers who'd evidently survived on sheer luck thus far in their short lives. They were totally lacking in even the most basic of survival skills. The unobservant driver of their car somehow managed to turn directly into the Desperado's tight formation as they rode down the road. The bikers dodged everywhere, including the oncoming lane of the road that was blessedly empty at that moment!

When the car stopped among them at the next red light several of the Bros pulled their bikes up close to the car and saw the occupants were only teens. They cut the kids some slack and explained to them, they didn't need anyone run over and killed at the moment; they were already going to a funeral! Luckily for the kids, when the bikes started off again the car obliged them and fell out of their formation without any further motivation being needed.

The attendants at the funeral home had been forewarned a motorcycle escort would be used for the ride to the gravesite. When the formation of bikes pulled in, they were instructed to park directly in line behind the big black hearse at the back of the building. Mike was carrying Scooter's prospect colors he'd recovered from the duffle bag of belongings that had been left at the home of another prospect. He wasn't about to display the disgraced and betrayed colors at the funeral; he was just using them to work up his own anger and he had some very special plans for them later.

When they filed silently into the chapel, they lined up to sign the guest list. Rick noticed Snowman was unable to resist the temptation of writing, "PBAAMF!" on the list. Rick instantly recognized the contemptuous toast his Bro had made during their E&E (evasion and escape) from Chico's house. "Paybacks are a mother fucker!"

Rick decided they had deniability on this little piece of evidence. No one could prove exactly what Snowman had meant by the initials. They went to their seats and Rick leaned in front of Michelle to whisper a question to Snowman. "Plastered Bastards of America ride A.M.F.?" The initials A.M.F. Rick had used in reference to the bowling and sports equipment company that had merged with Harley for several years beginning in 1969. Snowman cracked up at the joke.

A distinguished-looking Protestant minister somberly walked to the front of the chapel; he introduced himself to them and then he performed the long-winded memorial service. He'd been the pastor of Scooter's family's church and he spoke sincerely of watching Scooter grow up in a fine Christian family to be a wonderful young man. Rick wished he could have enlightened the badly deceived minister about some of Scooter's vicious woman beating and disloyal ways!

Michelle held herself together very well through most of the service, though she fiercely held on to Rick's hands during all the praying. Rick hoped he was being a comfort to her. She hadn't shown any signs of her resolve having weakened. Every time the subject of Scooter's death had come up she had professed to still being convinced of the need for it and to be pleased and proud of her own part in it. Rick reflected that's exactly the kind of accomplice in crime he liked to have, one who was as remorselessly unrepentant as he was! Finally, the interminable service came to an end; Rick reflected you got your money's worth of ass chewing with some of these down home Protestant denominations.

He fervently hoped the Bible thumper was right about the kind of place Scooter was bound for. No Harleys, no sex, no booze or drugs, no rock and roll throughout eternity, it would serve that sorry son of a bitch right!

One of the ushers asked for the pallbearers to come forward; Rick and Snowman were among the eight of the men who had been selected for the "honor". Of course, any two of them could have actually moved the coffin. It didn't weigh much at all; most of the body had been thoroughly vaporized by the combination of the generous several ounces of plastic explosives they'd used and the gallon or so of high-octane gasoline in the Sportster's tank.

They quickly transferred the traitor's coffin to the hearse and Rick found out they were all thinking alike, they sat it down roughly with a disrespectful thump. One of the Bros snickered wickedly then several of them quickly coughed to cover the sound. After dropping the coffin onto the floor of the hearse and rolling it in, they went directly to their bikes.

Rick started waving and grinning at the official police photographer who was positioned suspiciously near their bikes. This guy had been trying to appear inconspicuous; he'd worn a new black Harley T-shirt and jeans, but he'd seriously fucked up when he'd changed his clothes. Rick had spotted him quickly because he'd worn his regulation uniform black low-quarter shoes! He knew his cover had been blown when the Brothers and old ladies joined in on razzing him and posing for the camera. Dana and a couple of the other women flashed their tits at him. The embarrassed cop grinned sheepishly and shrugged his shoulders. He was only another lifer trying to get his twenty in so he could retire.

The attendants and drivers of the official cars waited until Mike signaled the bike escort was ready before they started out. Thankfully, everything about the trip to the cemetery went like clockwork. The funeral home was only a short distance from the graveyard and the service at the gravesite was blessedly brief. Within thirty minutes they'd successfully completed their part in the burial for their cover up and they were headed out.

Mike waited until they reached the first red light up the street from the gravesite before he threw his fist in the air and yelled, "Alright; let's party!" The other members responded with cheers, revved engines, and honking horns! The formal combined wake and benefit for Scooter after the funeral started off being a lot of fun. There was no shortage of liquor and food at the party. Mama Juggs had coerced the Erotic Club's management into donating toward it and they'd even allowed the club to hold it in their building.

One of the local rock bands was playing everyone's favorite songs and they were really wailing! Rick and Snowman were treated like guests of honor; their Bros were seriously in awe of them for getting their assignment done so neatly and quickly.

Snowman and Rick stressed Michelle's righteous help to all the Bros who'd listen. They knew if Mike ever thought they weren't united in backing her, he would snuff her like a candle and get his rocks off while doing it! If he ever did hurt her, without first killing the two of them, they'd quickly off him but that wouldn't bring Michelle back.

Michelle was looking fan-fuckin'-tastic. Most of her bruises had faded away, and Rick was doing his fuckin' well best to make sure a lovely smile stayed on her face. She'd changed out of her riding clothes when they'd arrived at the club and her skintight denim cutoffs and a clinging pink bikini top showed off her figure to a really awesome advantage. She was just so fuckin' sexy Rick could hardly keep his poor freaked out mind off her.

The thing that amazed Rick the most about Michelle was not her marvelous femininity and sexuality, but the combination of this with the streak of absolute brilliance she seemed to have. Michelle could match wits with most experts Rick knew when discussing any number of esoteric subjects. They'd known each other only a few days, but he'd already seen her broad knowledge of various fields shock several otherwise intelligent people who'd assumed she was another pretty piece of fluff.

As Scooter's ex-old lady, Michelle took it on herself to greet Scooter's few relatives who'd bothered to come to the wake. She managed to produce a few crocodile tears simply by remembering the brutal beatings Scooter had been subjecting her to for the last several months. She got so good at her acting at one point Rick couldn't resist holding her pretty head on his shoulder, pretending to console her. He whispered in her ear she deserved a fuckin' Oscar for her fantastic performance.