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In fact, Cary kept encouraging me to order food. I knew for certain that he was lying when he claimed he “could eat” each time too.
I was even more sure of that when Dezi spent fifteen minutes telling me about how healthfully Cary ate in his daily life. So he was shoveling grease and processed crap into his “temple”—Dezi’s words, I suspected, not Cary’s—because he wanted me to feel comfortable eating whatever I wanted.
I’d only spent three days with the man, but I felt pretty confident saying he was very likely the best man I’d ever met.
I didn’t care what he did, you know, for work. That didn’t define him.
Maybe he did bad things, but he wasn’t a bad man.
I would know. I’d met many bad men in my life.
He wasn’t one of them.
And as odd as Dezi was, I was pretty sure he might have been one of the good ones too. Even if he did, apparently, have a violent streak.
“Oh, that thing is hopeless,” I told Dezi he grabbed the loom and started messing with it.
“Hm,” he said, flipping it around for a second, then dropping off the edge of the bed and starting to wrap the yarn around the spokes.
And, I kid you not, within five minutes, he’d calmly made more of a scarf coming through the bottom of a loom than I had in hours of frustrated trying.
“You are a man of unusual talents,” I declared, shaking my head at him.
“Never did crafty shit growing up,” he admitted. “Maybe if I had, I’d have been a fucking seamster or some shit.”
“That’s an interesting mental image,” I said, getting a smirk from him.
“But I imagine they’d frown on me decking rude customers.”
“Wouldn’t be great for your reviews,” I agreed, getting a smirk out of him.
“Guess I’m stuck being a biker then, huh?” he asked, sending me a devilish look.
“Were you always a biker? I mean, you know, like Cary?”
“Nah. Just since I came to this area.”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s different than I thought,” he admitted, shrugging.
“In a good or a bad way?”
“Mostly good. It’s like a family. I like having the guys around to hit the bars with. And I like tagging along with the girls.”
“The princesses?” I clarified.
“Yeah. The daughters of the OG members.”
“Are they, you know, bikers too?”
“Nah. No chick bikers yet. They all got their own shit going. Hope does private investigation. Violet chases skips. Layna is a professional gambler. Oh, and then there’s Billie who does all the hippie, new age shit.”
“Do any of them have, you know, normal jobs?”
“Luna is a librarian. Willa is doing the boss bitch shit, making bank. Andi’s a vet. Got a mix.”
“And what about you guys?” I asked, not having really pestered Cary with any questions about being a biker. I mean, I had back in the day. But it seemed like these Navesink Bank bikers were a different kind of breed altogether.
I was sure he would answer, but I didn’t want to be annoying. And, hey, Dezi was in a talking mood. I might as well pick his brain, right?
“What about us?”
“Are you all just… you know… bikers? Or are there other jobs you do too?”
“The club and some of the brothers in the club have side hustles. Make shit look legit for the law, y’know? There’s a shop. Fallon and Malc have the diner. When Fallon locks down his woman, he will have a bar too. Fallon is always on the lookout for new legit businesses to invest in.”
“That makes sense,” I said, nodding.
I knew Raúl didn’t have anything legitimate going on, but I also knew how deep his pockets had been, and how willing he was to corrupt even the highest local officials to turn the other way and ignore his illegal business practices, so he didn’t have to worry about taxes and things like that.
I figured the American IRS was a whole other beast to deal with. If you had a nice house and fancy cars, they were going to look for where that money came from.
“Have you ever thought of getting your own business started?”
“Me? I’m not what you would call entrepreneurial. Sounds like a headache, and the only headaches I want is from too many shots at the bar. Why? You thinking about opening something up?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I have no idea what to do with my life now. Before now I… I had no real choices. Now that I do, they’re kind of overwhelming.”
“Makes sense,” Dezi said, continuing to work the yarn around the spokes of the loom, doing so without really even needing to look. “Dunno. Figure the best way to go about that kind of shit is to figure out what you like. Seth’s dad, Repo, he always liked cars. So he opened the shop. Seth, he likes ‘em, but not that much. Think I heard him say something about opening a shooting range. He’s a good shot,” he added.
