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Peters stared at me in alarm. “Lou? You okay?”
I must’ve looked like I was I was off in another world. In fact, I was. My mind was already assembling a checklist for everything that had to be done.
“Hm? Oh – yeah, I’m good, Dan.”
I started for the door.
“What about this PI bitch?” Peters asked.
“Don’t do a thing. And don’t tell a soul about her.”
Peters got that familiar look on his face – a cross between a stricken conscience and lip-licking greed. “You, uh… you got plans for her?”
“Yeah, but nothing illegal.” I thought of Jack, and chuckled. “Haven’t you heard? The Midnight Riders are legit now. We work inside the law.”
Motherfucker. Jack wanted to live by those words, he could die by them, too.
29
First thing I did after I left Dan’s office, I made a phone call. It was a tough negotiation, but I got what I wanted: a delivery in exactly two hours.
But first I had to go get the payment for that delivery.
Out in the desert was an old ranch I’d picked up for pennies on the dollar. A county tax sale that Dan clued me into. Place was a ramshackle mess, but it had a barn and a house and it was isolated as fuck. Perfect for what I had planned.
Ever see that show Breaking Bad? About that high school chemistry teacher who starts cooking meth and goes from Joe Schmuck to Scarface? One of my regular pieces of ass started raving about it and would not shut the fuck up, so I sat down and watched the first episode with her on Netflix after I banged her one night.
I ended up watching the whole series in one week.
Not because I liked it. I mean, it was good about half the time, except when it got slow as FUCK. But that wasn’t the reason I watched it.
Other people saw a television show; I saw a business plan.
Back in the day when the Riders were running meth, I’d relied on a bunch of dipshit idiots to cook for me. Guys with no front teeth, fuckheads with sixth-grade educations. Meth cookers routinely blew themselves up, so it wasn’t exactly the job your valedictorians were drawn to.
I’d heard the Mexican cartels had slick operations with chemists and shit, but I’d heard Arab sheiks had harems with a thousand hot bitches in them, too. Sounds great, but it’s too far away and not something I’m ever likely to see in my lifetime. Plus I got my own meth operation and my own little harem at the Seven Veils, so what the fuck do I care?
And then I saw Breaking Bad and realized it was time to step my game up.
This all happened a couple of years into President Jack’s Reign of Boredom And No Fuckin’ Money.
Why not have some fun and make a shit-ton of cash at the same time? But do it quiet, and do it smart.
I found a local kid with a masters in chemistry, a mountain of student loans, and a father who owed thirty grand to loan sharks.
The kid was stressed out. Imagine you’re a squeaky-clean college boy, your dad is about to get both arms and legs broken, and suddenly a biker comes knocking at your door.
Little did he know, I was his guardian angel. I stepped in and made peace. Paid off the loan sharks and got his father banned from any more gambling, at least in Richards.
For a price.
The kid was ‘morally flexible,’ shall we say, which worked out to both our advantages.
You ever seen that show Breaking Bad? I’d asked him over a drink in a bar.
He had.
Can you do that shit he does? Cook meth the way he does, and not blow yourself up?
