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But they’d been earning absolutelyinsanebank during the Perro years, so ‘solvent’ felt like skinny times, especially for the younger patches, who hadn’t had a chance to build up a nest egg before it all went to hell.
Feast or famine. That was the Bulls’ outlaw life in three words.
“If you need a loan, come talk to me after church,” Simon offered, his eyes on JJ.
Simon had gone completely grey inside and had aged at least fifteen years during his five-year stretch in El Reno, the federal prison in Oklahoma City. He’d been at Becker’s right when he went in; when he got out, just a few months before the Perro fight, Eight would have stepped down and let Simon have the flash again. If he’d taken it, surely Simon would hold the gavel now.
But Simon had wanted to be only a soldier, to sit at the table, ride his miles, do his part, work shifts at the station, and go home to his family at the end of the day.
Eight wondered if there was ever any man who’d come out of prison and still been the same guy as the one who’d gone in.
“I said I got it,” JJ snapped. Then he took a breath and added, “Thanks, though, Si.”
Simon nodded, and Eight took control of the table again.
“Apollo, you’ve got something to say, right?” Apollo was their tech officer, in charge of basically anything that had to do with a computer or any other electronic gizmo.
“Yeah. The clubhouse’ll be shut down for partying for a few days after the weekend—” When a loud rumble of groans and complaints erupted, he raised his voice and carried on. “Jazz and I are installing a new security system, state of the art, with a bug zapper—it can detect any listening devices in the building and jam anything trying to listen from outside, and it does it in a steady state, without us having to watch it. With the Feds crawling every which way, we need to make sure we’re airtight. It’ll take us and the prospects about three days to get it fully installed. So you can come if you need a place to be, but no chicks, no outsiders, no wifi, and if you’re in our way, you’ll have to get out of it.”
Eight looked down the table at JJ. “That’s the kind of shit patch dues handle, Jay. Keeping the clubhouse solid and secure. Do your part to keep us safe.”
“I said I got it,” the kid snapped again, more forcefully this time.
“Watch your mouth, boy,” Maverick snarled. “That’s your president you’re talking to.”
That was some crazy fucking shit, having Maverick Helm demanding respect forhim. Eight had never thought to see that day. Probably nobody else here had, either.
“Sorry,” JJ said, with some sincerity. Eight let him off the hook with a nod.
“Okay,” he said, “that’s standing business. Nothing to report with club work, it’s all holding steady as it’s been. No change to the schedule.”
Mav added, “And I’m about done with the shift schedule for the station for the next three weeks. Last call to let me know if there’s time you want off, or if you want extra hours. If you do, catch me after church. Remember, we got the SoCal run next week, and that’s been a bitch to schedule around, so I will be very unhappy with anybody who tries to jerk that shit around after today. We need to keep the station running while we’re gone.”
From Day One, the Bulls had run the Sinclair station next door to the clubhouse. In fact, that had been the first part of the compound. Back in 2002 or 2003, while Eight was away, there had been a big accident and they’d had to rebuild from the ground up. Now it was a little market as well as a full-service station.
“Still no expansion from the Volkovs?” Gunner Wesson asked, returning to the question of their off-books work. “They’ve been running short for a year now.”
Eight shook his head. “Not yet. Last I heard from Niko, the borders are still too hot, and the Feds are still too hungry. All that bullshit going on at the southern border is fucking everything up. But the Russians are as itchy as we are to get back up to full speed. It’ll happen.”
“We sure we can afford a fun run to SoCal right now?” Simon asked.
Shifting in his seat and stretching out his fucked-up left leg before it got so stiff he couldn’t bend it, Eight said, “Okay, let’s talk a little about the SoCal run. We voted this, but it’s not mandatory. Everybody knows the Horde’s set up a new charter in Southern California, with what’s left of the Scorps out there. Their mother charter is doing a run from Missouri to celebrate the new clubhouse opening, and Hooj and Show asked us to ride in with them, seeing as we all made up the alliance that took Santaveria down. To me, it feels like the right thing. Like the memorial we did for Beck, Terry, and D.C. Ties up the past, I guess you’d say. But yeah, it’s an outlay.” He looked to Fitz Fitzgerald, their Road Captain, a position the Bulls hadn’t had until Becker had suggested it and put it to a vote—and then named Fitz when the vote had gone his way. “Any practical reason that’s a problem?”
Fitz thought for a second. “Weather-wise, we should be fine. It’s fall, but still early. I’ve been reaching out to crews along the way, making sure we’re clear straight through, and have friendly stops. Money-wise, yeah, we’ll drop several thou, but that’s been in the budget. And we’ve already paid for safe passage through some chilly territory. I think we’re good.”
Gargoyle shifted in his seat. “We’ve got a Russian run coming a few weeks later. Any way we can move that up, work it to do both at once? That’ll save some dough.”
“The Horde won’t like riding with us if we’re muling guns at the same time,” Cooper Calderon said.
“The Horde can suck our tailpipes,” Dex Denson, Eight’s Sergeant at Arms, snapped in reply. “They pussied out, so it’s their problem.”
“They lost a shit ton to the Perros, Dex,” Mav rejoined. “Isaac and Len gave themselves up to get Santaveria, and they went down hard. I get why they’d want out of this life.”
“You would,” Dex grumbled.
Dex was snarky, but he wasn’t wrong. Maverick was always the one trying to pull the club back from their dark work, or at least put some limits on it. After the Perros mess, Eight was kind of coming around to Mav’s way of thinking.
Not to get out of running guns or other dark work; they couldn’t do that. They needed the bank. The club fed a lot more mouths than the ones sitting here in the chapel. Gunner, Mav, Simon, Apollo, Caleb, Fitz, and Jazz all had old ladies and kids. And Becker’s old lady and kids were still club. The Delaneys and Jessups were still club. All those people needed to be kept whole, and it was the Bulls’ responsibility to do it. They couldn’t manage that on a thirteen-way split of the legit protection and security work they did, or the service station profits.
