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I grinned. Pure Sid.
“Gotcha.”
“And take yer .38. Always keep it on ya so you always got it on ya.”
“Already ahead of you, Sid,” I said, yanking up my shirt to show it tucked in the back of my jeans.
That was the last thing I said as I left the shop.
3
Richards, California. Town of roughly 100,000, a couple hours north of LA.
I rolled into town around 6PM. First I stashed my stuff in a no-tell motel for the night and got a bite to eat at a chain restaurant. Then I started driving around the wrong side of the tracks, looking for motorcycles.
I found them, all right – although I didn’t hit the mother lode until after midnight.
The main attraction seemed to be a strip club called the Seven Veils. Boxy brick building all by itself on a corner in an industrial section of the city. Lots of motorcycles out front, and a good number of dudes with leather kuttes. For those of you who don’t know, a kutte is basically a ‘cut-off’ – a leather or denim jacket with the sleeves cut off.
Not all of them sported the Midnight Riders insignia – a skull with two pistols behind it, with a Bowie knife piercing the top of its head – but enough did for me to take notice.
I watched for hours until the place shut down at two in the morning. Then I followed at a safe distance as a dozen Midnight Riders made their way to a dive bar called the Roadhouse, out on a deserted stretch of highway. Two AM was supposed to be last call – but apparently this one wasn’t ‘technically’ in business after 2. Either that or they just didn’t give a shit, because the bikers whooped it up inside for a good couple of hours. They were still going hard when I finally decided to turn in. After all, I had to apply for a job the next day.
4
After sleeping until 10AM, I backtracked to the Seven Veils and waited out front for a sign of life. The first employee didn’t roll in until 11. He was a big, ugly, bald bruiser in a wife beater and jeans.
“Hey,” I said as I walked up.
He eyed me like I was a puddle of vomit in the street. “What do you want?”
“A job.”
Now he looked me up and down like he was inspecting a slab of meat. “You get paid on tips only. $10 to the DJ, $10 per bouncer, $40 house fees – per shift.”
It took me a second to register what he was talking about. “No – not as a dancer. A serving job.”
He laughed, a sound utterly without humor. “Strip or fuck off, bitch.”
I wanted to plant my foot in his crotch at about 60 miles per hour, but I needed an insider’s vantage point of the motorcycle club.
“You don’t have any serving jobs?”
“Strip or fuck OFF, bitch,” he repeated.
Now I wanted to smash his teeth in with the barrel of my .38 – but I kept cool and just walked away.
I don’t judge any woman who wants to earn a living taking her clothes off, but it wasn’t for me.
Especially not with a fucktard like that for a boss.
I wondered if my refusal to be a stripper meant I was less than 100% committed to finding Ali’s killer… but I told myself that it was the first place I’d looked. And that there was no guarantee it was a good recon spot, anyway.
Plus, I still had options.
5
The options quickly ran out. When I went by the Roadhouse, an even uglier dude with a foot-long beard and a bandana around his head told me that there weren’t any jobs – but he’d be happy to fuck me in the bathroom.
