Troubleshooter Read Online Free PDF Page B

ain't screwin' no cop," Annie called back over her shoulder.
    "Right," Bear said. "Wouldn't want to lower your standards."
    She disappeared into the fold of men. The older guy grasped her shoulders, and they stepped back onto the mattress, disappearing from view. The others waited, thumbing their belt loops and grinning.
    "Why don't you lend a hand?" Bear said, gesturing to the other room. "I think they need someone to run anchor."
    One of the other bikers laughed. "Dog picked himself up a good case of the Mexican crabs."
    The skin on Guerrera's face was taut. "They're different across the border?"
    "Yeah." He launched into a not-bad accent. "They doan gah no car insurance."
    Laughter and high fives.
    Guerrera said, "Now I get why you're missing that front tooth."
    The sounds from the other room grew louder. Someone called, "Hey, Toe-Tag. Whelp. You waiting for a written invite?"
    "Cool names," Bear said. "You guys have a tree fort out back, too?"
    The two shuffled off to take their place in the train, clearing Tim's view of the far wall, where leather jackets were strung like game fish, crude placards affixed to them. Most of them featured Cholo originals, stripped from ass-kicked members. Outlaws who lost their colors--but survived--had to reclaim them to return to their clubs or, in some cases, to keep their lives; the bold display was a virtual advertisement to their rivals for a clubhouse raid. Tim thought of Chooch Millan's jacket, stripped from his dead body only hours ago, and figured that the Sinners destroyed stolen colors that doubled as evidence. Only two Sinner originals were in the mix, Nigger Steve's barely visible through the gloom.
    Tim pointed to the other jacket featuring the Sinner flaming skull. "Did Lash get killed, too?"
    "Nah, good ol' Lash couldn't behave himself. He had his patch taken back."
    Tim looked over, catching Bear's eye. A guy who got kicked out of the club was a guy who might talk.
    "For what?"
    "Nosy fucker, aren't you?"
    Bear put his feet up on the coffin, and Diamond Dog shoved them off with a boot. "Don't you got no respect?"
    Bear drew himself to his full height, a head above Diamond Dog. Whelp jogged over, and a moment later Toe-Tag followed, buttoning his pants. Guerrera stood quickly, then Tim, and then eight or ten outlaws pulled behind the other bikers as if magnetically. Annie was in the doorway, cloaking her body with a jacket, breathing hard.
    Bear's eyes stayed locked on Diamond Dog's as if the others didn't exist.
    A knocking of boots on stairs, and then a woman with feathered brown hair and a leather jacket appeared. "Uncle Pete'll see you now."
    The bikers' posture loosened a bit, and Tim, Bear, and Guerrera backed away from the standoff. They followed the woman, her PROPERTY OF UNCLE bottom rocker tilting back and forth as she made her way upstairs. The pinkie on her left hand was missing.
    They threaded their way through dark halls on the second floor. A teenage girl popped into view, startling Tim. Her head was down, her arms tightly crossed above her breasts to hold together a ripped shirt. She flashed past, almost colliding with their nine-fingered escort, mumbling to herself. Her tangled blond hair clung to her moist cheeks, and one eye was swollen.
    The woman in the leather jacket pointed at the double doors through which the crying girl had emerged. "In there."
    The three men stepped through the door into a large room--the original master suite?--where an enormous figure sat on a bowed king-size bed. A standard poodle lying at the foot of the mattress bared his teeth silently at them, black skin showing beneath the white hair where it was shaved close. The windows were shuttered; it took a moment for Tim's vision to adjust.
    Uncle Pete held a spotted rag poised over his flabby arm. He returned to dabbing blood from a meaty biceps, applying himself to the undertaking with the silent contentment of a retired general painting model tanks. Three deep streaks, the kind