Page 23 of Baker

“I’ll talk to Ghost,” I said. “He can get something big enough to haul everything. Something big and fast.”

I looked at Tito. “What else?”

“That’s it, really. As far as jobs go, this one should be simple. Only problem I see is that night cop. He walks like he’s from Texas.”

I blinked a few times, at a complete loss of what that might have meant. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“He wears boots, and his attitude arrives five minutes before he does.”

“Hell, Reno’s from Texas,” Cash said.

Reno was the club’s explosives expert. A former special forces soldier, he was an adventure-seeking maniac with a colorful personality and a huge attitude.

I laughed. “That explains a lot.”

“I’m serious,” Tito said. “This cop’s a potential problem.”

“Maybe we’ll have to create a diversion,” I said.

“Like Perris?” Cash asked.

Tito shook his head. “Jesus. We don’t need another Perris. Start a fire. Tip over an avocado truck. Stage a drag race on the other side of town. Anything but another Perris.”

In 2014, we were robbing a drug dealer’s mansion in one of Perris, California’s affluent neighborhoods. The community of three dozen homes was sheltered by a fifteen-foot-high concrete fence with one way in and out. A security contractor guarded the entrance twenty-four hours a day, making penetration of the neighborhood difficult, if not impossible.

In broad daylight, five of us scaled the wall immediately behind the home and entered the residence unnoticed. Posing as a city inspector looking for a natural gas leak, Ghost drove past the gate by simply flashing a fake ID card. In ten minutes, we rid the home of eight kilos of cocaine, two hundred thousand dollars, and a cache of illicit firearms. Fearing the van would be searched by the guard as we tried to leave, we decided a diversion was necessary.

Voluntarily, Goose scaled the fence, got undressed, and sauntered toward the guard shack. Naked as the day he was born – with his cock clenched in his fist – he strolled past the guard as if he were a long-time resident. A naked cock-stroking biker on a mid-day stroll through a neighborhood filled with multi-million-dollar homes proved to be more than the guard was willing to excuse. A foot chase ensued.

While Goose streaked through the neighborhood with the guard only a few steps behind, Reno, the club’s self-proclaimed explosives expert, rigged the guard shack with an entire satchel charge of plastic explosives.

It was enough C-4 to flatten the Empire State Building.

The explosion that followed blew the structure to dust, and sent an orange ball of flames a hundred feet into the air. The subsequent concussion from the blast broke windows in more than half the homes in the neighborhood, and, according to the evening news, caused permanent damage to many of the resident’s eardrums. A two-hundred-foot radius surrounding where the guard shack once sat was marked by a blackened landscape and charred palm trees.

In the hour and a half drive home, none of us could hear a thing. Goose was covered in cuts and scratches from running through yards, hurdling shrubs, and climbing the concrete fence naked.

The job was a rewarding one, but went down in our history book as memorable because each of us lost our hearing for roughly a week. That, and the fact that Goose spent the entire ninety-minute drive to the clubhouse doctoring his wounds in our presence.

Naked.

I let out a long breath. “That was one hell of an explosion.”

“The image will forever be burned into my memory,” Tito said.

“Of the fireball?” Cash asked.

“No,” Tito replied. “Of Goose trying to get that gauze taped to his bleeding nut sack.”

I let out a laugh. “We’ll need to plan this one a little better.”

“Maybe get the Ghost to take the Ducati to the other end of town and ride some wheelies through a few yards,” Cash suggested. “That’ll get the cop’s attention.”

I glanced at my watch and then walked to the window. “Ghost is our driver. He’s not doing stunts as a diversion.”

“I was just saying--”

I raised my index finger.