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Duncan, Maverick’s son and the second freshest Tulsa patch, turned to Kai and said, “The take is the sugar to make the medicine go down. We’re getting paid on both ends. Russian king and Mexican queen.”
“Double?” Geno asked.
“More,” Caleb answered. “The shipments are bigger than what we’ve been running north. It works out to almost three times the take.”
Somebody whistled.
“Getting paid like that means the people paying us are making many times more than that—which means the shipments will be huge,” Cooper said. “Getting dead would be better than getting caught with cargo like that.
“Coop’s right.” Eight said. “I don’t want any man in this room getting blinded by dollar signs. It’s dangerous work. The money is good, yeah, and that helps. But it’s like danger pay—the more we get paid, the more dangerous the work. Crossing into Mexico will be easy, so long as you keep your cool, and then when you come back, you won’t have the cargo, and that cross should be smooth, too. You’re gonna earn every cent of your take on those last seventy miles on the other side. Tulsa’s vote to take this on was unanimous, but we’re not the ones crossing into Mexico with a truck full of guns and ordnance. You are. So yeah, have your talk, take your vote, and we’ll see where we all stand.”
“Is that all your interesting news?” Ben asked. His voice was level, but Cooper heard anger rumbling at the bottom.
Eight must have heard it, too, because he frowned at Ben. Cooper realized that Eight was feeling pretty awkward about laying down an ultimatum for Laughlin. That eased his own misgivings some. He was all in, because he’d been a Bull a long time, and he understood the work and its dangers. However, most of the men at his table were new to the Bulls—theirloyaltywas new as well. This change was massive, had come out of nowhere, and affected Laughlin almost exclusively.
Yeah, Laughlin needed to talk among themselves to get right with this. His job would be to get them right.
Before Eight could snap at Ben, Maverick answered. “All our news is tied up with this change to the route. We’ll go north again, too, eventually, but we’ll go up along the coast when we do. We have to find a place for a third charter, and that’s a ways off.”
“Find a club to patch over,” Cooper said, finding his moment to share this advice. “Don’t start from scratch again.”
Every man in the room looked at him, the man who led a from-scratch charter.
“You got somethin’ to say, Coop?” Eight asked.
“Yeah. This, starting from nothing and jumping straight into the deep water, it’s not the way to do it. Everything has to happen too fast, you got new guys who haven’t had a chance to break in their leather yet putting their lives on the line. Our table is a good table, I know every man has every man’s back, but that’s dumb luck as much as anything. Actually, no. It’s Ben. He’s the reason Laughlin is strong. Because he knows the life and knew who to patch. I’m just sayin’ it would be easier, smoother, to patch over a small club that’s running smooth. Hell, maybe if we’d patched the Dragons over, Gargo’d be alive.”
“I agree,” Ben said. “A patch-over would be easier. You got allies in Cali?”
“There’s the Horde,” Apollo said. “Missouri and SoCal are both riding straight now, but most of SoCal were Scorps before they broke ranks after Sam Carpenter pulled his bullshit. I bet SoCal would at least give it a hard think.”
“We can’t patch over a Horde charter,” Eight said. “Missouri’s been an ally from the Bulls’ first day. I won’t stab Isaac and Show in the dick like that.”
“Maybe we just bring SoCal in as allies, then,” Dex said. “I know Missouri won’t be interested, I get it. They were out of their depth in the cartel shit anyway. Missouri’s a small-town club that got caught up in an outlaw tornado. But Apollo’s right. The men wearing the Flaming Mane in SoCal were Scorps—hardcore outlaws—for a very long time. Those guys’ve gotta be chafing at the straight life already.”
“We don’t need to make the call now,” Eight said. He got impatient when too many ideas and opinions started crossing the table. “It’s good to be thinkin’ about it, and talkin’ about it in Tulsa and here, but for now, it’s just a thing on the horizon. Lots can change between now and when that horizon gets close. That’s all I’ve got. Coop, table’s yours.”
Cooper needed another one-on-one with Eight. He needed to understand exactly what Eight thought he’d built in the desert, and exactly what he thought Cooper’s role was—and he meant to tell him what he thought his role was.
He had intended to talk to him about Hoss Harridan and the ‘errand’ he’d given the Laughlin Bulls—not as an underling reporting to his boss, but as a fellow leader keeping a colleague apprised. However, right now, feeling tense, maybe even a little bit pissed, about the changes his club would have to absorb, and how he’d have to get his men on board, he couldn’t think why Eight needed to know about business that frankly concerned only Laughlin.
And that business was done, anyway. Not long after they’d hit that warehouse, Vegas news had reported a grisly murder scene in the desert surrounding the city: nine horrifically burned bodies, all of them covered at head, neck, shoulders, chest in melted heavy-duty rubber. Tire rubber.
The crew they’d lifted the diamonds from, diamonds they’d handed over to the sheriff who’d put them on the job, had been killed cartel style. Well, the Bulls had figured they’d been holding onto that much loot because they owed somebody. Apparently, they’d owed some very bad people.
Not his problem. In fact, it put his problems to rest. Those problems, at least.
But this Mexico thing was a new problem, and listening to Eight describe it here in the Laughlin chapel, Cooper’s earlier misgivings had blossomed to challenges. The presidents needed to talk.
So he smiled and said only, “Anybody got any questions?” Silence answered him, and he wasn’t surprised. His crew would ask their questions in private, as Tulsa already had. “Okay, then. Let’s party.”
As the Bulls stood, Cooper caught Eight’s arm. “I need a minute.”
With an incline of his bald head, Eight accepted that terse invitation.
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~oOo~
