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What I really hate is that I still have four days here and I want to get home. Home for me is Diablo Ridge, and a little desert town somewhat cut off from the rest of the world is a hell of a lot different than the city. I don’t have much of a choice, though. I’m here on club business. In this case, the club is the Ridge Devils Motorcycle Club, and Guardian, who’s essentially the President ever since Shotgun unofficially steps down, wants me in the city.
Let me start by saying most of what you’re thinking right now is probably justified. Yeah, it’s a criminal enterprise. Yes, we can get violent. Yes, there are often people who get hurt because of us. Yes, we make our money in ways that law enforcement agencies won’t be happy about. However, we’re not what you think a biker gang is. We don’t sell methamphetamines or any other drug. We don’t rob anyone, and our business isn’t extortion.
We make a great deal of money with loans, high-interest loans that some people might call loan sharking, and we make a great deal of money running gambling operations. There are other operations as well. We own a number of cash businesses in a number of cities. These cash businesses are where we launder our money. See, when you own a laundromat that works with coins, it doesn’t take much to put a few hundred dollars’ extra in the change machines every day. The change machines record the times they give change, so just like that, the money gets clean. Bars. Strip clubs. Food trucks. We have several different businesses in this particular city, and we can run nine grand a day through them, and paying taxes through those businesses works out to less money than handing the cash to a professional launderer.
Anyway, that’s why I’m here in this godforsaken place waiting in the fucking elevator to get to my hotel room.
Two weeks. Four days left. About a hundred thousand dollars done, fifty to go.
We rotate this duty because everyone hates it. I mean, the duty in this particular city. It’s twelve hours from home. There’s a closer city and that one’s fine because the Ridge Devil Coyotes, an affiliate club, is there so you can just hang out with brothers while you’re there. Here, I’m mostly doing the job or hanging out alone in a hotel room. Let me tell you, room service gets old after a while.
Today was a good day, I guess. I visited nine of the businesses but skipped the tenth because there were a bunch of cops having lunch at the food truck. Tomorrow night I get to hang out with Jacob, our lawyer in town, and he’s a good guy. His grandfather is legendary. Hijack and Shotgun are Ridge Devil royalty. Jacob’s a Ridge Devil even though he never wears a cut. His callsign is Poindexter, of course. That’s the one highlight of this place. I at least get to spend some time with him and talk about ancient history with laughs and beers.
But I want to get home to my little desert town.
“Are you here for the bachelor party?” I’m so lost in thought I don’t even register that I’m already out of the elevator and on my way to my room, the words startle me a little. I turn and see a beautiful girl. She’s young, probably just old enough to drink, and she looks to me like she has the most perfect body in the world. She also has perfect blue eyes with jet-black hair, and that’s something really alluring.
“I’m sorry?” I ask.
“The bachelor party. Are you here for that?” I see now she’s carrying a boom box and a large tote bag. She’s a dancer.”
“No. I didn’t even know there was one.”
“Oh,” she says, and she looks embarrassed. “I thought I recognized you.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, “Because I sure as hell would have recognized you,” I say.
She blushes and smiles and then it hits me. “Wait… Wait I do recognize you. Hang on…” I shake my head. “No punching me if I’m wrong, okay?”
She smiles. “Okay.”
“Promise?”
Now she smiles and giggles. “Promise.”
“I think you dance at a club across town, and I think at the club you go by the name Sapphire.”
“So, I did recognize you. I saw you there.”
“Do they call you Sapphire because of your eyes?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It’s my real name.”
“Pretty name,” I say. She looks surprised when I say that. “What?” I ask
“Most people don’t believe it’s my real name,” she replies. “They think I’m making it up.”
“Well, most guys who go to a strip club are looking for the fantasy and want to feel special, like they get to know something real about a girl nobody else does.”
“But not you?” she asks playfully, “You’re not like all the losers that go to strip clubs? You’re the exception?”
I chuckle and say, “I didn’t say they were losers. It doesn’t make someone a loser to want to feel special.”
“But you never go.”
I chuckle, “I didn’t say I never go. I just wasn’t there to watch the show last night. I’m one of the investors in the club, a quiet but not exactly silent partner.”
She gets nervous and says, “I’m only dancing. I don’t do more than dance.”
