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“Fine, the rest of you keep shaking up your contacts or fucking head down to the 7th Ward again and see what you see,” I said, tense from this shit not being handled. I hit the gavel down on the table to adjourn.
Despite all the shit reigning down on us from the missing shipment, my brain kept conjuring up that night in my office with Ivy. Fucking hell, it was epic. Damn, I needed to remember her name was Bridget. She hadn’t called me out on it yet, so maybe she’d let me keep using it. She was getting under my skin and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but fuck it if I was ready to stop playing with her. As I followed behind my brothers, I snapped my fingers and Whiskey looked back at me in question.
“What’s up, Prez?”
“I need to remember to order this book I heard about,” I said.
“Wow, you read?” Whiskey smarted off and grinned like a loon.
“Fuck off,” I said and smiled. “Don’t act like you’ve ever heard the spine of a book open for the first time.”
***
Riding on I90 was a test of patience as we sat in stop and go traffic for 40 minutes. The culprit was an accident involving multiple cars; the Camaro involved totaled. I’m not sure what happened to the driver, but imagined they were the ones requiring the ambulance that sat to the side of the road. The accident caused only one lane to get by and the wait was making me antsy.
Once we finally got to go and opened our speed, I enjoyed the ride. Off I90, the directions led us down a two-lane road surrounded by the waterway. Bald cypress trees rose out of the dark murky waters. The swamps of Louisiana were an ecologist’s dream, and I wondered how many gators we passed. We turned down a dirt road; unkempt and riddled with potholes. The cacophony around us felt like another world.
The dilapidated cabin sat at a dead end. A shotgun awaited us as we put our boots down. The three of us took off our helmets slowly, keeping our hands in view at all times. Virgil looked like shit. His brown skin was purple and yellow in places, his beard scraggly and his hair grown out and all over the place. The once white shirt was yellow and dingy and his pants torn out at the knees. We weren’t close enough to tell, but I imagined he hadn’t seen a bath in a while.
“Wacha doin’ here,” he rasped like he’d not said anything out loud in a while.
“We want to pay for information,” I said and raised my hands to show him we were here in peace.
The indecision was clear on his face. I wondered if he was more afraid of us or whoever landed the punches.
“Whacha wanna know?”
“How about you put the gun down, and let me pull out the cash we’re offering,” I said.
“Stay where ya are, but you can say what ya came to say,” he said, lowering the shotgun, but still at the ready.
I pulled out the cash and held it so he could see the thickness. I knew I had his attention.
“We hear you know some thugs down in 7th Ward,” I said.
“What thugs?”
“They go by the Rogue Boys,” Bones added.
“What of it?” Something crossed over Virgil’s face, not sure if it was fear or something else.
“Ever hear of a place they’d used to store things. Things that didn’t belong to them?” I asked.
“Maybe. But ratting out them boys ain’t gonna be good for my health,” he said, shifting his feet.
“There’s $20k in my hand, and you’d be owed a favor from the Valhalla Heathens.” I offered.
“I’m betting you already had a run in with them, right? We plan to take care of it,” Whiskey piped up.
“You don’t know shit,” Virgil spat.
“We don’t care about your business, Virgil. I mean, you deal for them right? I have a bonus question for you that will earn you another $10 grand, but that’s entirely up to you.”
“I used to deal for them. Ain’t affiliated with them no more. Striking out on my own soon,” he huffed.
“Just think what $30k could do for your new business?” I fanned out all the edges of the cash..
Virgil’s face said it all. He was still nervous, but the cash was too good to pass up.
