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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
A year in prison is meant to change you. But the only thing that changed was the date and time. As I paced in a cell—waiting for freedom again. Frozen and forced to wait a sentence before I could make it up to her. I left her at a time where she needed me. Nah, fuck that. She didn’t need me—that is an understatement. Her life as she knew it depended on me being beside her. Instead, I left her at the train station, with half a million in a black bag and a ticket out of our hometown.
Opal Lopez.
She was the girl that I didn’t just love; she consumed me. Every decision I made since I was sixteen, she stood by me. She never judged me. Even though I was the son of the most feared man in Australia. Having a father that carried the name Hades, and with his notorious reputation—made me feel like I had to prove myself as a man. I was trying to craft my own reputation, in the shadows of a father that struck fear not just within the underworld but the entire country.
Every man that rode with a Satan’s Bastards leather cut, wanted one thing—to have a purpose, other than the brotherhood to keep
living. Opal Lopez gave me that purpose, and I royally fucked up.
I felt the vile build up in my throat as I brought my fist to her wooden door. The rain was belting down; the wind was blowing the rain in; it whipping across my body.
I spent a year in prison. Only saw my old man once. Nearly killed my mom, me not letting her see me. I could tell from her letters. My sisters struggled with the separation. Yet, I didn’t go home and I know Dad knows I’m a free man today. Instead, I walked to the nearest train station. Caught a train into the capital, and here I was. On Opal’s front door, banging my fist on it for her to home.
Looking back now, I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been.
It was a summer. I was putting off telling Opal that I had chargers pending. They had set a court date for a trial. Before I could tell her, she tells me that she was pregnant. I fucking panicked. I was looking at time. How long I would be going in for wasn’t determined. All I knew was, it wasn’t going to be months. Opal was sitting in the passenger seat—crying. Telling me she needed me. And what did I do?
I had half a million in the boot of the car from the rent and street taxes I collected early that day. There was bad blood boiling with Winston’s—an enemy family to our club. I couldn’t let Opal be pregnant, unprotected. I needed her to leave town.
So I drove to the train station. Got her a ticket and gave her a black bag. Told her to leave town. I never explained I was facing time, or the threats from the Winston’s. I just told her to leave.
She got out of the car, and the last time I saw her was in my revision mirror—as I drove back into town.
The sad part? It took me a month into my sentence before I realized my fuck up. I should have fucking told her about the threats every Kincaid was riding with on their back. I should have explained that I was facing time and didn’t want her getting hurt. Instead, I acted like my father would. Even though I swore I was nothing like him. That night, I acted exactly like Hades Kincaid would have.
A whole year, I spent locked up. I couldn’t reach out to her. Because I didn’t know if she got on the train or not. I had no fucking idea where she was, and that was all on me. I sat down with my old
man six months into my sentence, after my soul had been eaten alive with the same questions. Was she okay? Did she keep our baby? I told Hades about Opal being pregnant and my reaction. I came clean, like he was a priest, not my president or father.
Hades told me I was fucking stupid. But I already knew that. He went on to tell, he would have kept her safe. But I couldn’t undo what I had done. I reacted in the moment. I asked him to find her down. Dad came through, just as my sentence was ending. I got mail. A report that couldn’t be read to a non-member. Who couldn’t read the code words. Basically, bikers, mainly each club, have their own codes and way of speaking through prison letters.
To the inspector they didn’t censor any of the letter out. Cause they didn’t understand it. But I did. I knew her address from that report.
Which led me here.
I banged on the door again. The porch lights flicked on.
I felt a cold panic as the front door opened. I lost my breath for a second. A solid year. I lived with the last image of her within my mind, blurry from a rear-view mirror.
Now she was standing in front of me.
“Kobra—”
I cut her words off. Moving like the snake I’m named after and kissing her before she could tell me to fuck off. I kissed her like she was still mine. I kissed her as if it would make up for what I did. It was desperate. But the depression didn’t hit me, till I felt she didn’t kiss me back.
Her hands on my chest pushed me back. And I see the tears in her eyes.
Her breathing is sharp, she’s angry, I can feel it.
“Why are you here?” She gritted out, and her eyes ran over me. As if she wanted to make sure I was okay. “Is something wrong?”
Something wrong? I went a year without seeing her! I disappeared from her life while she was pregnant, and that’s when I heard it. A baby cry.
My expression dropped, and Opal’s eyes go glassy when I don’t speak.
“It’s my nephew Kobra,” Opal said and then titled her head back, staring up at me. “I’m his aunt, understand?”
I frowned, “So.. . ”
“You need to leave.” She spoke over. “You told me to get on that train and leave your life. I did. I might not have got on the train but hear me when I say this. I left your life Kobra.”
Slowly the pieces of a puzzle, I didn’t want to solve, clicked into place.
“You gave my child away.” I gritted out.
She shoved me backwards out into the cold rain. “You have no right to be here.” She said with tears in her eyes. “And you have no right to judge me. Ever. You dropped me at the station and left. You gave your right to be a father that night.”
I pointed to the door. “My child is in there.”
“No,” She shoved me back with all her might, but I didn’t move. “My nephew is in there. And my brother and his wife are his parents.”
I felt the colour drain from my face. “I have a son. . .”
“No Kobra,” she stared into my eyes with coldness. “You don’t have a son. You don’t have me. You’ve got your club and you’ll always have your club. Because that’s all you care about.” Her eyes went blurry. “You’re gonna do what you are good at. Turn your back and walk away.”
“Like fuck, that’s my son!” I roared at her.
“You aren’t on the birth certificate. I signed the adoptions papers the moment he was born. Like I said, I have a nephew and you Kobra,” She stared up at me, tears running down her cheeks. “will have no one but your club. If you get it your way.”
Her words stunned me. I had no legal right to my son. To my own fucking son!
“Stay away from him, from us.” Pain rippled across her face. “You are as poisonous as your name.”
I stood frozen, watching her turn her back and walk back inside. That’s when Opal Lopez walked away from me—and I let her. Because she was right. I’d bring nothing to her life, or my sons. I
was a shell of a man, living a lifestyle that could cost them their lives.
So I let her close the door on me, on our future, and on my right to be a father to the little boy in there.
And that was the decision, haunted me for years to come.
Five Years Later
Easton kicked back, inhaling on his joint. Giving me a classic expression. Easton Kincaid isn’t big on words. However could communicate his words through a look. He had just listened to me rant about my rambles with my father.
Hades was making my life that bit harder. Mainly because he said I was slipping on responsibilities within the club. I had little in life. My family and the brotherhood. To be told by my old man that I’m failing at the table which is basically the only thing I got in my life— well, it pissed me off.
I didn’t have mates. Sure, the brotherhood members were considered brothers, but the only men I really trusted carried my last
name. My cousins, Creaton, Tane, Easton Kincaid—were the closest who would ever know the personal details of my life. Couldn’t trust a member without them going back to tell Hades.
My cousins had the ability to look into my life clearly. Because my Uncle Khaos had just as much as a ruthless reputation as Hades.
Tane, he’s more controlled. Looks at everything level headed. Easton—he just fucking explodes with rage at small things. Like I said, not a big talker. Creaton being the oldest is a mixture of both.
“This ain’t about Hades,” Tane said, blowing out a mouthful of smoke. His chiselled dark eyes locked with mine. “This is about you hearing Holly was with Opal.”
Holly, my little sister, had been crashing with my ex. When I first heard. I felt nothing but rage. But I got it. Because Opal was the one person who wasn’t associated with the club anymore. She was Holly’s friend.
Still made me bitter how Opal kept a relationship with my sisters. In saying that, not one of my family members knew I had a son. Only my father, who never mentioned it.
I know Hades. He’d trap my son into this lifestyle and Opal choose for our son. Not to have it. Fuck. Nah. I can’t say that. I choose for him not to have this lifestyle by walking out on them.
“You sent a check lately?” Creaton asked. The boys knew about my son. I send cash checks to Opal’s brother's house. He always took the money, which made me think—he knew deep down that the money was coming from me.
“Yeah,” I blew out my own smoke ring. “Every score and settled deal. I cut a check.” I felt my temper creep up. “Holly wants me to drop past Opal’s and pick up her things.”
The boys shared a look.
“You ain’t looking your best, pretty boy. No offense.” Easton muttered. “What’s with you always looking for a fight? Thinking, I’m rubbing up on you cousin.”
“Yeah,” I ran my hand over my bruised jaw line. “Hades has had words with me about it. Something about having to pull my head in.”
The boys shared another look.
“What!” I barked at them. “Ain’t like I’m looking for a fight. Not my fault every bastard near me is asking for me to reshape their face.”
Creaton smirked, Tane chuckled, and Easton gave me a proud look.
“Kobra,” Tane leant forward. “Swallow ya pride and go see your woman.”
“Not my woman,” I pointed out. “She wanted nothing to do with me then, nor now.”
Creaton gave me a cold look. “You left her at a train station pregnant. What did you expect?” Did he have to rub the past in?
“I’m with Tane. Take the hit to your pride, go get Holly’s shit and have a conversation with her. It’s been five years Kobra.”
Five fucking years. But could I do it? Could I swallow my pride and have a conversation with a woman that I loved and loathed? She gave my child up for adoption. To her prick of a brother, too. But then my mind went back to the day she got my name tattooed on her chest. A tattoo she still wore—that much I was sure of.
So I decided. I’d go see her.
I was taught the right way to apply lipstick at the age of nine. I knew how to shape, fill, shadow and contour my lips before I was fourteen. I got my first lip filler at sixteen. My mother believed your worth was determined by your reflection in the mirror.
It was ingrained in me at a young age that the lips are the gateway for men’s fantasies.
I was nineteen when I had my first shaping liposuction. Did I need it? Well, it depended on who you asked.
I was twenty when I started working in the family’s business. Elite Escorting. This meant I was the girl those billionaires fucked in the late hours of Friday night when they told their wives they were still working late. My mother was a Madam. She ran the most prestigious service that you wouldn’t even know it existed.
She prided herself on her girls being the image of perfection. We had to allure, seduce and fill their every fantasy. She sold the forbidden fruit. The girls they wanted would do anything for their fix. It was our job to keep them hooked, tease, and mainly keep them coming back.
So a few cosmic touch-ups were considered maintenance. After all, what girl at the age of twenty can say she earns a high six-figure within months?
My mom was a successful Madam and businesswoman. Her elite girls had to be able to do everything. Because her high-end clients wanted more than just sex, they wanted a package—an experience. A woman they could dine, flaunt to the public. A woman that could hold a conversation. Then when they wanted, the girl was to open her legs, or get on her knees and fulfil his needs.
I often wondered, was I heading to hell or was I living in it. Is a nightmare nothing but our circumstances— that we created? That living with our mistakes, our decisions— is that the true meaning of hell. Because most days, I felt I was in hell, ruled by the devil of money and expectations.
The expectations that society cast on you, the money you need to live a lifestyle that in return of your actions you created. I decided to spread my legs for a price, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter if I got paid thousands, hundreds or cents. I traded my morals for money. At the same time, someone on the outside wouldn’t know what I did, unless they knew.
I did know.
So I could fool them that I was a functioning mid-twenties adult, but at the end of the day, I had to live in my mind, and my mind was nothing but chaos, ruled by dark demons; where I continually asked myself, what the fuck am I doing.
Some days I wondered if I was mentally ill for the lies that others believed of me. Other days, I believed the lies that I told others.
But only rarely did I see who I really was. Right now, as I stared at the woman in the mirror, I didn’t know her. Her perfect makeup, constructed curves, beautifully maintained blonde hair. She even had a small smile on my face that never fell. I saw the woman everyone
else saw. The only downfall was I was within her mind. I felt the weight of the lies—the dark, suffocating guilt of being a soul that did nothing but keep up a front. I watched the tailor-made mask fall from the woman’s face. And I watched as her eyes became mine. When I saw the ghost of my decisions, the hollowness, the crippling pain rise in my blue eyes— I felt a tightness in my chest.
I had always worked well with clients. Always kept a clear line between them and me. But that was before Ty. A cutthroat businessman. He was everything I was trained to trap in. The only problem was, he trapped me, not the other way around. In other words, his soft kisses, that charming smile and how he actually asked me questions wanting to know the real answer.
In my head, I knew what we had wasn’t healthy. But I slowly began to believe that what Ty and I had was an affair more than a business relationship.
He hired out our usual penthouse floor, flew into town just a few hours ago. We have had our typical dinner, and he was the only person in this world that felt like—he cared about me. I was in the middle of telling him that I wanted to step away from the business… the lifestyle. For some stupid reason I thought he’d encourage it, and hell Ty was always great at giving advice. So I’m sitting there in our bed after we just made love. I’m bleeding to him, that who I’m pretending to be and who I wanted to be, wasn’t the same person.
That’s when his wife called. His lips brushed my forehead, he says the words that shocked me, ‘you’re good at your job sweetie,’ and he left. Just like that, his wife had called, he left.
My heart is bleeding in front of him. And he just puts on his suit, while calling his pilot to fly back home. While also reminding me, I’m in this on my own.
He went back to his wife, and I was left lying in a hotel bed. Suddenly I was reminded every month when my monthly payment went in, that what we had wasn’t love— it was a business transaction. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to believe he loved me or how soft his touches were. How, when he smiled at me, I would melt.
I didn’t even wipe the tears away. They just rolled down my cheeks.
I managed to get dressed, and I did the thing that was expected of me. I suffocated my emotions and went back into business mode. A client had cancelled their appointment. So. I had to rebook the spot. However, I couldn’t stop thinking. Was it all forced? His laughter, the knee-buckling smile he gives me? I felt myself crumbling to pieces…tiny pieces.
I headed home, waiting for my client to confirm the next booking.
I was standing in front of the floor-length mirror now, getting ready to leave to entertain another client. The only problem was, I loved Ty. He stopped being a client to me a long time ago.
However, the truth was, the only reason I fell into Ty’s grips was because of Kobra. I loved him in a way that broke me, and when I broke, I went for the comfort of a stranger’s arms. Thus I fell in love with a client. But was it really love? Right now, I was confronted by the truth… It wasn’t really love. I just needed someone.
Because I had tasted real love, and he intoxicated me. It was smothering common sense from my mind, consuming me with an undying passion for his touch. It wasn’t love. It was pure and utter insanity. That was what love really was.
It wasn’t just the desire to be touched, to be held. No. And right now as I stared at myself. It terrified me. Because if I didn’t love Ty, that meant I was still in love with Kobra. And all the men I had fucked believing I had moved on—meant nothing.
And just for a few moments, as I stared at the woman in front of me, I was beginning to see me, and… then there was a knock on my front door. My masked flicked quickly back up.
Forcing a smile, I turned to the side, walking to my front door and opening it as my gaze landed on a man that made me suffer these painful truths every few weeks.
Kobra Kincaid. And true to his name, he was painfully poisonous to my mind. In some ways, he drove away the insanity I lived with daily, to face my conscience, and that scared the shit out of me.
He was a biker, and sure enough, looked as terrifying as a man that carried the name Kobra. Now there were clear rules when associating with bikers. Well, clear rules set by Madam— the only problem was I ignored every one of them, and I fell in love with Kobra at a young age.
Why would I want to be alone with a man, that could terrify Lucifer? I don’t know. I supposed it came back to my self destructing tendencies.
I don’t know why, but when I stood in front of him, I felt as much a fraud as I am. Perhaps it was because he lived a life true to being who he wanted to be. I lived a life true to money, society, and the expectations of Madam.
He’s stunningly beautiful and alluring. Perhaps words you wouldn’t normally associate with a hundred per cent biker. To clarify, his muscles defined his stunning carved body, his detailed cryptic tattoos beautiful. The way the black swirled so beautifully into the grey, his skin was a work of art. Even though I knew most of the ink that was on his skin stood for things, I could never fully understate their beauty. As for alluring, well, that all came down to the look in his eyes, the sharp smouldering blue eyes, which claimed your ability to think straight and could see onto your soul—just with one look.
Kobra Kincaid cast a spell over me. In more ways than just making me see myself clearly. He fanned my wildfire of lust within me. There was a long list of reasons why I couldn’t act on those lustful feelings. One, we had a business relationship that didn’t involve fucking. He supplied my high-end clients with their drug fixes. He sold me the drugs that put my clients on benders. Essentially he gave me another tool to keep my clients coming back.
So I gave him my normal smile and snapped out of the trance he cast. I pretended he hadn’t broken me years ago.
“Kobra,” I said, trying to act normal. Like my heart hadn’t been ripped out hours ago when realising I still loved him. That I hadn’t spent the next hour on the bathroom floor crying, washing Ty’s scent off me. That it hadn’t taken layers of foundation and blending to cover the redness to my cheeks.
My eyes were still slightly glassy.
I opened the front door, “I just got Holly’s message you were stopping me,” I said and stepped right to the side as he walked in.
My phone rang, seeing the client numbers who I had replaced Ty with tonight, I answered.
“Hey Dylan—”
“Sorry Jasmine can you cancel my evening appointment, I’ve got family commitments.” He cut me off before I even said anymore, so I knew someone was listening.
“Not a problem Dylan, family always comes first, we can reschedule.” With those words said, I hung up.
Perhaps it was the fact he was the second man, tonight to cancel me for his wife, or that my name was Opal, not Jasmine. Which told me, his wife had indeed been listening— because his receptionist was named Jasmine.
That’s when it runs through my mind, the cold face slapping fact. There wasn’t one person in this world that loved me. Not one person that would cancel their plans to be with me. Not one person who cared if come tomorrow I wasn’t breathing.
“Opal?”
My eyes flashed off my phone and to Kobra. He was looking at me as if he knew the pain I was feeling.
“Are you okay?” he asked, shifting, slightly uncomfortable. As if asking that question went against his better instincts.
I could taste my tears, and I was quick to wipe them away. I gestured my head to the lounge room. “Her bags are in there,” I said, ignoring his question.
I didn’t know what else to say. I slipped out of my heels, and walked into the lounge room, sitting down on the circular couch. If life is what you make it, it was fair to say that I had made a toxic potion of co-dependency and addiction to unhealthy men.
Lightning cracked across the sky, the rain slowly getting heavier. I was completely startled when the couch dipped down near me, and I saw Kobra—who I thought would have just left, after getting his sister’s things.
As my eyes run up his neck tattoos, I slowly bring myself to look him in the eyes. I never cried in front of anyone. To say I felt
nothing but shame was an understatement.
“Your date cancel?” Kobra asked.
I scoffed softly. “Come on, Kobra. Your club has been supplying Madam longer than that you and I both know that you know what I do now.” Dragging my gaze to him.
Was he really going to pretend as if he didn’t know that I traded my morals and rights to have a body that wasn’t judged—a long time ago?
His solid blue eyes remained locked on me, surprised I did not see judgement in them or disgust. Kobra was known to keep his emotions close to his chest. It was another reason we never worked.
He opened his vest, pulling out a cigarette packet. “Holly didn’t mention you were back working at your mom’s.”
What was I meant to say? I just stared at him for a few moments longer. “Kobra, what do you want me to say?” Did he really want to hear it? That I ran back to that life as soon as he walked out of my life?
His lips formed a faint line. “I thought you’d walk from it, you know, to do better.”
I was immediately offended. I didn’t even think it through. Maybe it was the fact that he had just insulted me on a level, that no one else could possibly do. I picked up my wine glass on the table and threw it on his face.
“How dare you!” I yelled at him. “I tried, okay? I fucking tried!” Was this what he wanted? The fight we never had? Was that why he came here? “I’m lucky she took me back! After I left to be with you, I turned my back on my family, everything, for you, and what did you do?”
He wiped the red wine from his face but didn’t say anything. He just remained quiet.
“I loved you so fucking much. I would have done anything for you!” I added, getting more upset as the years of me smothering our breakup was finally coming out. “But I was stupid because how could the famous Kobra Kincaid feel anything for me!”
His eyes were still on me.
“I now fuck men and get paid for it. But you want to know the truth, Kobra. I fuck men, hoping they fuck you from my system! And they are. I’m not yours anymore!” Was I screaming it because I wanted to believe it, or did I want him to believe it I wasn’t even sure at this moment.
I inhaled sharply as he got up. I took two steps back from him because he looked murderous as he approached me. My back hits the wall, and his hand gripped my hip, pulling me sharply back to his chest. His hand goes to my dress, and he forcefully pulled it down, and his eyes flashed to my heart, before looking me back in the eyes.
“That’s my fucking name on your heart, not no players,” The veins up his neck bludged and he dipped his head. “They fuck you, but I’ve got your heart, and you’ll always be mine, Opal.”
At this moment, I hate him. I hate his club. I hate his claim on me.
“I’ll get it covered,” I said as tears ran down my cheeks.
His lips twitched up. “Come on, baby girl. If you were getting it covered, you would have done it when I left you at the train station.”
That’s when it hits me. So fucking hard. I was this way because of him. I’m soulless because of him. I pushed him away from me. I shoved him with all my strength, but he didn’t move.
“I hate you,” I said with venom.
“Nah, baby girl, you love me—and that’s a fucking problem.” His grip on my hip tightened. “Because I have always struggled to stay away from you. Now I don’t think it’s fucking possible.”
Everything he has done to me. Everything we went through. The tears. The pain. The insane need for his touch. I thought I was over him, when, in fact, all I had done was lie to myself. Lie that I was in love with someone else. When the only reason I craved Ty’s touch was that I wanted Kobra’s.
He let go of me, and his eyes flashed to my tattoo one more time before he looked me back in the eyes.
“Tell yer mother that yer done.” He then looked me back in the eyes. “And if I so much as hear that you are working the books—I’ll murder the next bastard you’re with.”
Just like that, my expression dropped completely.
“You wanted me to admit to loving you years ago. I couldn’t. I couldn’t be the man you needed all those years ago—”
“And what? You’re the man I need now?” I cut him off. “What makes you think I would ever let you back in?” I tilted my head and stared at him. “I let Holly stay here for a few weeks because she’s a friend. That wasn’t me letting all the Kincaids back in my life.”
He looked at me with a merciless expression. Like it didn’t matter what I wanted, not any more—because he had made a decision and I wasn’t sure if anyone could save me from the wrath that was Kobra and mines addiction for each other. Because that was what it was, an addiction. I loved him then, and it drove me to insanity; trying to get comfort from other arms.
Only for me to realise now that the mask I wore, the secrets I kept, and the lifestyle I had been living was all due to the love I felt for Kobra Kincaid.
Kobra was the devil, but he took more than my soul—he had also taken my heart.
I causally rode up the street, my attention half on the rode but mainly on the sidewalk—I knew she had her yoga class this morning. Was it wrong that I had a private detective on my ex? Opal had made it clear. She didn’t want me in her future. But I wasn’t gonna listen. I spent the last five years trying to move the fuck on. Truth was—I couldn’t.
If a year in prison, and then a further five years, didn’t numb the love I had for her—it was time to admit nothing would. It was wrong to pull her into this life. She deserved better. It infuriated me that she was still working for her Mother. Who was always more of a Madam in Opal’s life than ever a mother.
I spotted her swaying body walking up the street, and I put my foot down, roaring up a block before pulling in and parking the bike.
She was avoiding me. I had gone to her house three times. Lights were always off and no sign of life. That told me she was staying somewhere else, so she didn’t have to deal with me arriving on her doorstep again.
People stepped out of my walk as I walked down the street, heading towards her. I was used to people stepping out of my way. As if they could catch my criminal record, or something. She was looking down at her phone, when I saw her walking towards me, on autopilot.
I paused, standing directly in her path. Her eyes flickered off her phone and up, as if she sensed someone was in her way. Then her eyes did a double take.
Did she really think she could avoid me forever?
I told her when I collected Holly’s things. I didn’t deny the pull to her anymore. Yet her eyes are on me like she is shocked I tracked her down.
“Opal,” I said, standing in front of her. I glanced at her phone, then back into her sea-blue eyes. “You busy?”
I watched her expression and I think she was debating to come up with an excuse.
I arched my eyebrows when she didn’t answer.
“What do you want Kobra?” She sighed asking, lowering her phone down. Her tone told me she wasn’t in a mood for a fight. In fact, everything about her right now. From the way she was standing to the hollowness in her eyes—told me something was wrong.
“What’s wrong?” I immediately asked. “And don’t lie.” I added.
I see the ghosts of her problems haunt her face for a moment. Then I see the tears slowly build in her eyes. She fights them back, but I know my girl—she’s breaking and while I didn’t know what was causing her to break. I just hoped it wasn’t me.
“Opal, do you wanna talk about it?” I offered again to listen to her. Like I had the night I collected Holly’s things. I could tell something was eating at her. Scaring her, even. Opal pushes people away, she doesn’t let people in easily.
She always struggled to trust people. I can’t say that I had done anything worth gaining her trust again. But she knows deep down I
don’t judge.
Glancing at the café we had stopped out the front of. I gripped her arm and pulled her in. Heading to the back of the small café, into a booth.
“Kobra,” She sighed. But I gave her a pointed look, and so she moved into the booth.
“We’re talking about it.” I said firmly and slid in opposite her. “Ya can’t keep letting whatever it is, eat at you, darling. You look like your drowning.”
She held back tears.
“So tell me, what is the problem that you are drowning in?” I paused for a moment. “Is it our son?”
“No, he is fine,” she was quick to say. “He’s actually really well. Growing and each time I visit he’s learnt something new.” Her eyes dropped to the coaster in front of her.
“Then what is it?”
Her eyes flickered to mine. Her mouth tremored slightly and then she sighed.
“I thought I had my life together, and I don’t.” she placed her phone down on the table. “I’m losing everything that makes me, me. So I can be this woman.” Her words confused me, but I didn’t question her about it. “I’m nothing Kobra.” Her eyes flashed back to mine. “I’m a hooker who couldn’t even look after her own son. I have no one.” Tears swelled in her eyes. “Not one person cares if I wake up tomorrow or not. Not even my own mother.” She added with a scoff.
I see her breaking and I don’t know how to keep her together. I glanced at the tattoo peaking out from her top, my name. Did she really think she had no one? My name was tattooed on her chest. She always had me. In saying that, I hadn’t been around or even a fixture in her life for nearly six years.
I pushed her away. Only to try to get her back, then to let her walk out of my life. But now as I sat here. I realised the damage I had done to her, by letting her walk out.
“Opal,”
“Don’t,” She cut me off. “Don’t give me empty promises of you being here for me. We both know you and I aren’t. . .” she glanced up at me. “we aren’t right together.”
“There is a lot of shit I don’t know and get right. But,” I locked my eyes with hers. “you and I. We’re right, Opal. We just haven’t had the right timing.”
“Timing? Is that what you call it?” She titled her head, her voice going up with anger. “You left me at a train station. Then a year later. I tell you about our son. I needed you to fight for us. You let me walk away.” She summed up our tainted history. “You and I will never have the right timing. History proves that.”
“Bullshit. All our history proves, is we love each other and I fuck up repeatedly.” I wasn’t letting her put up that shield of fake coldness towards me. “You love me, Opal, and ya will always love me.”
“How would you know that?” Her hand curled into a small fist. “How could I love you, after everything you’ve done to me? After everything we’ve been through. How could you say I feel love for you?”
“Fine. You hate me then,” I didn’t argue with her. “Regardless what you call it. You know we aren’t over.”
She scoffed, crossing her arms.
I leant forward on the small table. “Did you tell your mother, ya done with the business?”
If she thought I was letting her escort, she had another thing coming. Ain’t no way in hell, I was letting her work in that field. If I knew she was back working for Madam, I would have fucking stopped it earlier.
I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off her for a moment. I had let her work as an escort of five years—and that was on me. No one else to blame but myself. Couldn’t even blame her because it was the only lifestyle she knew.
I saw defense in her eyes.
“I’m not yours anymore. I haven’t been for a long time.” I hated that she reminded me of that. She stared at me for a moment
longer. “Look after yourself, Kobra,” she said and slid out of the booth. Not answering my question and leaving.
Didn’t she know she would always be mine? Watching her leave the café, I realized in that moment. I can’t do this any longer. I can’t keep trying to get her back, just to let her go. Was I all in? Why was it when it came to the club, I was all in? But when it came to the woman, I loved—I couldn’t fully commit. That’s when it hits me, in a busy café, within the middle of the afternoon. I finally understand my actions. I thought I had to pick between the brotherhood and her. Because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Have her in the lifestyle or not at all.
I loved her enough to want more for her. I saw my sisters looming for this lifestyle and saw the strength it took mom to love dad—within the darkness of his decisions. I wondered for a moment was I protecting Opal from the lifestyle, or was I protecting myself? Was I protecting her from seeing me fully? I was the son of Hades Kincaid. There are exceptions of me. I would never be the guy that worked nine to five and had a functioning citizen life.
Some days I felt like the man I was meant to be. But often I felt like a fraud in my father’s shadow.
Opal loved me once, the good and the bad. Though back then, I hadn’t tainted to like I have now. Still, she stood by me and the last name I carried.
Having the last name Kincaid meant to have a back bone. My father ruled the underworld with a bloody fist. I was expected to do the same. All the foolish decisions I had made when it came to Opal, came clear in that moment. I wasn’t protecting her from the lifestyle. I was protecting her from seeing who I fully was and then leaving me for good. Because rejecting me, while knowing who I fully was—that shit scared me.
So did I let her in? Or did I keep this deluded thinking that I only wanted her to love the light side of me—and never see the darkness of this cut I wore and the brotherhood I rode for.
The brotherhood was within trying times. My father was balancing a possible war, while trying to extend our outlay and profits. There was no questioning it, it was a trailing time within the brotherhood.
Satan’s Bastards had never seen times like this. Hades ruled the underworld bloody and handled the corrupt. But it was reaching the time. He needed to make a call. Did we go to war, or did we back down from the bait?
I knew it wouldn’t take much for my father to decide to bring our one percent club to war.
I lit up a cigarette, my eyes going to my old man. We were sitting down in the boardroom. I was acting Vice at the moment. He needed to patch someone else to the table for the position. I wasn’t ready to take a vice rank permanently.
“Do I need to remind you the last name you carry?” The old man asked. I know now that we are in for a fight and it was all over my ‘poor behaviour.’ “Kincaid’s are leaders, we set an example.” He added with a growl. “I’m hearing shit Kobra, and it ain’t looking like you understand what is expected of you.”
I scoffed, turning to him fully. “No one needs to remind me of the exceptions of me as a Kincaid.” I wore the last name with honour but also with mixed anger. I’m the son of Hades Kincaid. Gangsters, members, other ruling brotherhoods—expected me to live up to reputation I hadn’t yet fully created.
“If that is so, you want to explain last night?” He arched his eyebrows at me. “You are fighting members like they are your enemies, son.”
I gritted my teeth but just took the lecture, not fighting back. Truth was those members copied with my anger because of my personal life.
“Ya mad, and I get it.” He added.
“Do you?” I glared at him. “You sit there, telling me to be a Kincaid. Like I’m failing you by being who I am.”
Dad sighed and leant forward. “I lived in my own father’s shadow and brothers. I know the pressure of this last name.”
I said nothing.
“Kobra, ya not just a member of this club. Ya the future.”
“And I never got a choice in that did I.” I bite back at him. “I’m Hades Kincaid son, first. Everyone is expecting me to step up, or step down.” I leant forward. “How can I make a name for myself, when you are making the name for me? You want me as President. You want leading the brotherhood.” I felt the resentment boil to the point I can’t contain it. “I love the club, Dad. But I won’t die just being known for being a member. Not even a leading one at that.”
Kincaid’s don’t feel fear, we create it. However, in this moment as I declared to my father I wanted more from this life. I felt fear. Fear that I would fail, at my own attempt to want more from the life than a leather cut of an outlaw. I wanted a purpose.
A purpose other than the brotherhood and my family to keep living. In this moment, I know. It wasn’t what I wanted, it was who; and her name was Opal.
All day I had been fighting with myself. Drawing a line between the club and Opal, and who I was—who I was meant to be. I realized as I walked from the boardroom. That I couldn’t hold my anger at my father anymore, or the last name I carried.
It was time to be my own man. I wore this cut, this brotherhood —it no longer was wearing me. I had blood on my name, I was no angel. A tainted monster—perhaps.
I wanted Opal. I was done pretending like I was okay with letting her go. It took me six years to become the man she needed. And it was a lecture from my father that made me snap.
It was time to be a man that created a legacy and not lived within one created for him.
I was Kobra Kincaid and as mounted my bike. I ready to rise up to my birth right—no. I was ready to rise above it. I was ready to be my own man.
A knocking on my apartment door. Caused me to abandon the food I was cooking. Heading for the front door, I shouted I am coming; when the knocking didn’t stop. Finally reaching it. I opened the door ajar. Seeing Kobra standing at my front door. Took me back in time. To the night I was staying at my brother's five years ago.
I stared up at him. “Kobra,” I wasn’t completely shocked he was here. Still, it was hard to see him after all these years. Causally seeing him in the street. When for five years we had avoided each other. I frowned slightly, seeing confliction in his eyes. “Are you okay?” I found myself asking a question he was known to ask me.
“Can I come in?” His deep rumble of a voice asked. Why did it feel like if I opened this door letting him, I was letting him in to more than my house? I nodded my head and stepped
back, opening the door fully for him.
“How’s your night been?” I asked, closing the door behind him. “Busy,” He bit out, and then looked around the dimly lit apartment. “Expecting company?”
“No.” I replied and wandered back to the kitchen. “You hungry?” I asked over my shoulder. While my stomach is tightening and twisting and I was struggling not to let my nerves be heard in my tone. I could do this. I could totally pretend this was normal.
I glanced back and it is his expression that had me spinning around. “Okay, Kobra, what’s happened?” I stopped and put a hand on my hip. “You aren’t okay, one look at you and I see. . .” I frowned. Could I explain his expression? “Something happened.” I said—that much I was certain of.
Kobra hadn’t spoken to me in five years. It was only because his sister stayed here for a few weeks. That we even reconnected. But I know Kobra. I know when he is in over his head—more importantly, when something is wrong.
His electric blue eyes are locked on me, and then he slowly nodded his head. “I’ll stay for something to eat, if the offer is still good?” He got around telling me what was wrong.
“Of course, take a seat.” I sighed and gestured my head towards the table, while walking back to the stove. “It’s just stew. I’ve sort of been sick and I don’t see the point in cooking one meal, for one person.” I said, stirring the pot. “Be different if I was cooking for someone, you know?”
I went up on my toes to grab bowls down from the cupboard.
“That your way of saying you want to cook for me, baby girl?”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course you’d take that from what I said.” I continued to talk to him, with my back to him. Placing the bowls down. “I’m just saying. I don’t like cooking for one. So you’re afternoon, how was it?”
I poured the stew into the bowls and spun around, heading for the table. It was sort of weird to see someone sitting at it. Who wasn’t my mother, giving me a lecture on business.
I placed the bowl in front of Kobra and he gives me this look. As if. . . as if this is what he’d always dreamt of or something. I couldn’t
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“Now you’re talking sense!” cried Neighbor warmly “Now you’re getting down to facts.” He threw back his head and sang with great heartiness and zest:
“That day of wrath, that dreadful day; Maryland, my Maryland! When heaven and earth shall pass away; Maryland, my Maryland!”
Clerks beyond the glass partition turned startled faces that way. In that gloomy, haunted counting room, used only to the tones of meekness or despair, the echoes rolled thunderous:
“When, shriveling like a parchèd scroll, The flaming heavens together roll——”
“Will I have the money? Quien sabe? If I don’t the brand is yours— party of the first part, his heirs, executors and assigns forever—nary a whimper from this corner. If I knew for certain I’d tell you, for you have a plain right to know that; but that first line of talk was just sickening drivel. If you held a mortgage on a man’s stuff, would that give you any right to go snoopin’ round and compel him to get in a poker game—hey? Would that look nice? Whaddy you mean, then— how dast you, then—try to tell me not to play poker—meddling in my private affairs? How dare you? Shame-y! Shame-y! S-s-h!”
“Jones,” said the other thickly, “I think the devil himself is in you today. You poor, headstrong fool! I sent for you to do you a kindness.”
Jones rose anxiously.
“Shall I call a doctor?”
“Well, I did; but you make it hard for me.”
“Yes, yes! And you not used to doing kind things, either!” said Jones sympathetically. “Go on. We’re all with you. Give it a name.”
Bennett paced up and down, clasping his hands behind his back.
“You know I have a cattle ranch out Luna way? Ever been there?”
“Not any I stick to the east side. Saragossa is my furthest west; and, as you know, I’ve never been here before. But don’t let me interrupt.
You were working yourself up to a kindness.”
Bennett flinched at his careless contempt, but he forced himself to go on.
“I was intending to offer you a job as my foreman.”
Neighbor sat down with an air of relief.
“You don’t need no doctor. It’s yourself you’re trying to be kind to. Go on with your talk. For a starter—what would I do with my own cattle?”
“Sell, get a friend to run them; let them out on shares. You wouldn’t need to worry about the mortgage. It could stand over—you’ll be getting good money. And,” said the financier diffidently, spacing the words and dropping his voice to tones singularly flat and even, “if— everything—went—all—right, the—mortgage—might—be— canceled.”
“Yes? How jolly! But what’s the matter with the west-side cowmen? Can’t you get some of the V T waddies? Should think you’d rather use home talent.”
Bennett resumed his measured pacing. At the end of each beat he turned, always away from Neighbor’s eyes, so that he marked out a distinct figure eight. Other men, unhappy debtors, had walked that narrow space, many of them; perhaps none so fiend-ridden as he who now tracked back and forth. The jeers of this uncringing debtor galled him to the quick, yet his purpose drove him on.
“We have been having a little trouble on the ranch. For many reasons I do not think it wise to get a local man.” He coughed gently, and went on in the same low and listless manner of speech he had used in his hint about the mortgage. “Trouble was between my boys and the Quinliven outfit—the Double Dee—about one of my watering places. I have no legal title, but the spring is mine by all the customs of the country. There was some shooting, I believe. No one was hurt, fortunately, but there is hard feeling. I must put a stop to it. For his part in the deplorable affair I let my foreman go—Tom Garst. Know him?”
“Sure!”
“So I thought I would get you for the place.”
“Me being a notorious peacemaker and cheekturner, suffering long, and kind, not easily provoked—yes, yes!”
“Quinliven himself would be willing to let the matter drop, I think; but young Roger Drake—why, you know young Drake—he was one of your poker party!”
“The college lad—yes.”
“Nephew of Old Drake, Quinliven’s partner, who died a month or two ago,” continued Bennett, sedulously avoiding Neighbor’s eye.
“Young Drake is hot-headed; says he’s going to hold that spring anyhow. He—will—require—careful—handling.” Again that slow, significant spacing of the words.
As lifelessly Neighbor answered:
“And—if—I—handle—him—carefully; if—everything—turns—out—all —right, the—mortgage—will—be—canceled?”
“Yes,” said Bennett. He busied himself at his desk.
In a startled silence Neighbor rose, fold after fold, interminable and slow. He fumbled for matches, pipe and tobacco; thoughtfully, thoroughly, he constructed a smoke. Then he raised his eyes. Many a hard Ulysses-year had passed over him, this old Neighbor; but his eyes were clear and unstained yet. They now observed Mr. Bennett attentively
“Sorry,” said Neighbor Jones. “I haven’t got a thing fit to wear.”
At the door he turned. “Now, I’ll tell you what you do,” he said kindly. He spread out his left hand and drew a diagram down the palm: “You go to hell and take the first turn to the left!”
Chapter III
DUCKY DRAKE—Roger Olcott Drake, Second—dawdled over a four-o’clock breakfast. He was in bathrobe and slippers, his feet on a second chair; the morning paper was propped before him and the low western sun peeped through his windows.
The room phone rang. “Hel-lo-o! Gentleman to see Mr. Drake—shall we show him up?”... “Use your own judgment; the last time I tried to show a man up he worked my face over.” Bring him up, the telephone meant. Mr. Drake desired particulars: “What is the gentleman’s silly name?”... “Jones. Cowpunch; six or seven feet up; incredibly sober.”... “Sure, Moike! Bring him along! Say, send some good smokes, will you?—and some swipes. What’s that? What do I mean, swipes? Beer, you idiot—beer!”
A clear eye, bright and black; a clean, fresh-colored skin; a frank and pleasant face—that was Ducky. He met his visitor at the door.
“Glad to see you, Mr. Neighbor—welcome to our well-known midst! Weather! Chair! How’s every little thing? You look chirpy enough. Shan’t I have breakfast sent up for you?”
“No, thank you; I got up at noon. You can give me a little help though.”
“Put it on the table, George. That’s all.” George, known in private life as Gregorio, departed, and Ducky turned to his guest. “Whaddy you mean—help?” he demanded, grinning sympathetically. “Did they put the kibosh on you good and proper after I quit last night?” He pushed the cigars over and began operations with a corkscrew.
“Oh, no—nothing like that. I want some advice.”
“Advice? This is the right shop.” Roger struck a Pecksniff pose, waved the corkscrew aloft, and declaimed grandly: “Put your eggs in one basket. Get on the wagon. Hitch your wagon to a star. Mind your step! When in doubt, play trumps. Be sure you’re ahead and then go right home.”
“Not advice exactly—information.”
“Oh!” said Ducky. “A straight line is the shortest distance between two points; the woman who hesitations is lost; a Cobb in the club is worth two in the bush; lead-pencil signatures are good in law; a receiver is as bad as a promoter; hospitality is the thief of time; absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.”
Neighbor shoved a bottle of beer into his host’s hand.
“Drink, pretty creature, drink! Let me explain: What I want is to ask some questions—about words, and so on. You’re a college Johnny, ain’t you?”
“Booze Arts, Harvard,” said Ducky. “Not graduated yet.”
“Man staying here in the Windsor with you—was staying here, gone now—used a lot of words I don’t quite savvy.” Neighbor leaned forward, blinking earnestly. “What is the precise distinction between a mutt, a simp, a gink and a boob? And what did he mean by saying all the time, ‘I should worry!’?”
Ducky placed the tips of his fingers accurately together, and held his head on one side, birdwise, pursing his lips precisely
“The phrase I should worry is derived from the Hebrew verb to bibble, meaning to worry—I should bibble; you should bibble; he or she should bibble. Plural: we should bibble; ye should bibble; they should bibble.
“Mutt, simp, gink and boob are scientific terms employed rather indiscriminately by philosophers of an idealistic tendency. Broadly speaking, the words denote one whose speech, manner, education, habits or clothes differ in any respect from your own; categorically, a thinker whose opinions and ideals do not correspond in every particular with your own. Exactly equivalent terms are—in religion, heretic or infidel; in politics, demagogue, blatherskite!”
“Thank you,” said Neighbor humbly. “Myself, I understood him to mean almost the same thing as a sucker; because this fellow—it was the K. C. Kid, that sat on your left—he spoke of you and me being
mutts and simps, and all them things; and at the same time he said we’d been swindled, cheated or skinned in that little poker game.”
Ducky made a passionate comment.
“That alley-goat could sure stack the cards. He showed me that,” said Neighbor, and related the painful story of the K. C. Kid’s flitting.
“We are the victims of the highly accomplished fact,” said Roger. “We can’t very well squeal; but can they do this to us with the well-known impunity?”
“No,” said Neighbor; “they cannot. I’ll make a note of it. We’ll not squeal and we’ll not cheat; but we’ll give ’em their come-uppances someway. I do not, as a general thing, hold myself up for the admiration of the good and wise; but I must say that I’ve always got what I went after if I wanted it hard enough.”
“‘Don’t flinch; don’t foul; hit the line hard!’” said Roger. The words snapped like a lash.
“Who said that? He did? Good for him once! And I want this, hard. When I get my auger in I’ll give it another twist for you, Mr. Ducky, in case you are not here. You haven’t lost much anyhow That’s funny too! Huh! Our tinhorn friend noticed that. Seems like they didn’t want to rob you; and yet your wool was enough sight longer’n mine. I don’t get the idea. I like to understand things as I go along.”
“I won away quite a wad, all right; but you might say I wasn’t a loser at all compared to what I was two or three nights ago. I was certainlee in bad!” Ducky performed a hospitable rite. “Well, we’ll have to give up poker at Beck’s. Here’s how!”
“That brings me up to the main point,” said Neighbor casually. “What have you been and gone and done? Because a gentleman just offered me the highest market price for your scalp.”
“What?”
“He wanted me to abate you—to abolish you—to beef you—to murder you! Don’t be so dumb! So I thought I’d drop in and get your views.”
“What’s the joke?”
“It’s no joke. This hombre sure wants you killed off. You’ll save time by taking that for proved. And,” said Neighbor wistfully, “I needed the money too.”
“But who—who——”
“Not at all,” said Jones. “Why—why? You tell me why, why, first, and see how well it fits in with who, who. I know the answer all right but I haven’t heard the riddle yet.”
“Oi, yoi, yoi!” Young Drake sat up with a sudden alertness and stared hard at his visitor. “It’s Uncle Ducky’s money—that’s why—I’ll bet a cooky!”
“Not with me, you won’t,” said Neighbor; “for if your Uncle Ducky left any worldly goods the gentleman that offers a bounty for you is the very man to covet those goods. Just how getting you killed would bring him in anything I don’t almost see.”
“That’s just it!” cried Roger Drake. “He’s got the money now—or somebody has; I haven’t. I’m trying to find it.”
“Son,” said Neighbor judicially, “this sounds real thrillin’. Tell it to me.” Young Drake hesitated.
“No offense, Mr. Jones; but I have been strongly advised to say nothing.”
Neighbor nodded eagerly
“Yes, yes! Mystery; sorcery; silence; wisdom! ‘But how do you know I’m honest?’ says the lad in the story ‘Why,’ says the other chap, ‘didn’t you just tell me so?’ Well, I’m honest. Go on! Also curious. That’s why I want to be told; but here is why you should want to tell me: If we were back in New York town you’d understand the ins and outs of things that I couldn’t make a guess at, and that it would take you large, dreary centuries to tell me about. Ever think of that?”
“I gotcha!” said Roger joyously. “And this is your country, you mean; while I’m a mere stranger——”
“Correct! Move up one girl! I never saw a merer stranger than you, Mr. Ducky. You’re so mere that none know you but to love you. Why, the boys you’ve met up with out on the range couldn’t even be hired to kill you, and they had to offer me the chance. Durned if I believe I’m going to do it myself! G’wan now; let’s hear the sad story of your life.”
Chapter IV
“WHEN I think of that poor little answer waiting all alone for its own dear riddle,” said Ducky, much affected, “I can’t refuse. But I’ll only hit the high places. Uncle Roger is dead, and it isn’t a pleasant stunt to rake up all his faults and catalogue ’em.”
He reflected a little while.
“My uncle put me through college and named me as his sole heir, for the reason—I had it from his own lips—that he lost father’s little property for him. Uncle Roger was the elder brother, head of the family, and all that.
“He had a mighty high idea of the Drakes, did Uncle Roger, and he never liked my mother. To the day of her death he was barely civil to her. That’s what I couldn’t forgive in him, for all his cold and formal kindness to me. Damn it! He ignored her and she was worth a hundred like Roger Drake.
“From all accounts, my Uncle Roger was a warm baby at college. He was the only original Ducky Drake; all others were base imitations. Come back to li’l’ ol’ N’ York—lawyer; man about town; clubs; Tottie Twinkletoes; birds and bottles at proper temperatures! New York took his roll away from him.
“Did he buckle down to business and, by frugal industry—and so on? He did not. He faded away into the dim blue and the tall green. Honest, Jonesy, this is rotten of me—knockin’ like this! But if you’re going to help me play Money, money, who’s got Uncle Ducky’s money? this is what you want to know. It was the keynote of his character that he wanted all the beastly junk money will buy, but wasn’t willing to hop out and hustle for the money. He wanted it quick, easy and often.”
“Mind if I take notes?”
“’Eavings, no! Well, six years afterward he came back. A distant relative—great-aunt or something—had left him a sizable legacy.
Business of killing calf. So he took his money and poor old dad’s and set to work to found an estate. Mother didn’t know about it. I happened along about that time and she took quite a fancy to me; didn’t notice other things.
“It doesn’t seem possible that any one could consistently lose money in real estate in a thrifty, growing burg like New York, does it? Uncle Roger did. Then he ducked again.
“Some ten years later, back to New York—who comes here? Is it my long-lost uncle? It is. Talked vaguely of holdings in New Mexico. Had the mazuma, and spent it. He stayed all winter; then back to New Mex. That’s been the program ever since—four to six months in New York, the rest out here. But he didn’t talk about New Mexico and he didn’t urge us to visit him there.
“To do him justice, he made good on one point. He came through with good hard coin for dad. He was really very fond of poor old dad, and he’d always been sore at himself about losing dad’s wad. And, as I said, he put his ungrateful nephew through school.
“Two months ago we found him dead in his bed—heart disease. His will left all his property to me unconditionally. But where and what was his property? He hadn’t told us; and naturally dad hadn’t felt like asking him.
“Saragossa was his post office. Except a pass book for his New York bank we found no papers in his effects—not so much as a letter. We applied at the bank.—Ahem! Huh? Mr. Drake had opened an account with them years ago; the balance was so much—about one winter’s spending for Uncle Roger. We pressed ’em a little. Very irregular, said the bank; but, under the circumstances—ahem! It had been Mr. Drake’s custom to make one large deposit each year, checking out the greater part of it before he put in more. What was a little unusual, he generally made these deposits personally and in cash; sometimes—ahem!—there had been drafts from Albuquerque or El Paso.
“So there we were! How much property? According to the pass book, Uncle Roger had been spending, on the average, about seven
thousand a year, including his two extravagances—father and yours truly. Said property was evidently in the grand new state of New Mex. But where, what and how much? Had Uncle Roger spent all his income or only part of it? All of it, we judged; for, with all respect to your so wonderful Southwest, my Uncle Roger thought life in any place more than half an hour away from Broadway was a frost. If he stayed there only four months in the year, it was because supplies didn’t hold out.”
“I knew of your uncle—never saw him,” said Neighbor. “He lived very quietly. Stayed at the ranch mighty close; made no friends and no enemies. No mixer. Had no visitors from the outside. Hunted a little. No cowman. He didn’t know anything about cattle, he wouldn’t learn anything about cattle, and he didn’t care anything about cattle. Left that all to his partner. That’s his rep, according to campfire talk. One thing’s certain—your uncle didn’t make any seven thousand per from the ranch, or any big part of it. The Double Dee outfit doesn’t sell three hundred steers a year. Your uncle only got half of that and paid half the expenses. No, sir—that Double Dee brand helped some, but it was mostly a blind for something else.”
“That’s what I’m headed for,” said Ducky. “Dad’s an invalid; so I came out. At Albuquerque Mr. Drake had bought drafts at the banks. The hotels knew him but none of the business men had ever heard of him. El Paso, ditto. So he couldn’t have been engaged in any business openly, aside from the ranch. I came to Saragossa. You know what I found here. Uncle Roger’s whole bunch of cattle would have made about a year’s pocket money for him. His partner offered me ten thousand for my half of ranch and cattle. That’s enough to keep the wolf from the well-known door, but hardly what was expected.”
“Grab it! That’s more than it’s worth. I know Jim-Ike, my new neighbor, worked that country last year.”
“Quinliven—Uncle Ducky’s pardner—showed me the tally book. According to that, my share would be about that much.”
Jones bent his head to hide a significant smile.
“Take it! Well, what did he say about your uncle?”
“He didn’t believe my uncle owned any property here. Didn’t know what he might have back East. Close-mouthed codger, he was.
“My own idea all along had been that my uncle had a secret mine. I put this up to Quinliven. Secret mine? Rubbish! No one could work a secret mine in this country—where everything was known; where the smoke of the strange camp fire was something of vital interest, to be looked into at once; where every cowpuncher had the time, ability and inclination to follow up any strange track.
“Fat chance, when all the freight from a country as big as an Eastern state was handled through one depot! Everybody knew all ore shipped—where it came from and what it run. Rubbish! Placer mines? ‘Mai dear-r sir-r, to wash placer dirt, you must have water; and where water is, in New Mexico, is a frequented and public place.’ Nuggets? Pish! Bosh! Nowt!
“I questioned my uncle’s banker and his lawyer. Great astonishment. Nothing knowing. Mr. Bennett showed me the joint account of Quinliven & Drake, with a very small balance. My uncle kept no private account; he knew of no other investment my uncle had made; no such sums as I mentioned passed through his hands. The lawyer is now trying to solve my problem for me.”
“Who’s the lawyer?”
“He’s a Mexican—a Mr. Octaviano Baca—and, at first, it seemed a rum start that Uncle Roger should have a native for his attorney. But he’s a live one, all right; a very shrewd, keen person, indeed. Educated, too—good company; witty; speaks English with fluency and precision—much better English than I do. But doubtless you are acquainted with him. He is, I am told, something of a political power, having great influence with the natives.”
Neighbor chuckled. He knew what young Drake did not. Octaviano Baca was the Boss—King of Saragossa.
“Know him by sight; never met him. But we know all about everything here, even people we’ve never seen. In this country our campfire talks take the place of Bradstreet and Dun, or Who’s Who. Great
help. They ain’t afraid to say what they think, them firelighters; and they ain’t afraid to think what they say! We’re all catalogued..... ‘Jones, Neighbor. Good old wagon, but needs greasing. Use no hooks.’... That’s me. I’m mighty proud of that biography too. So it is Baca and Bennett that are looking after your interests?”
“Baca alone now,” corrected Ducky. “Bennett helped at first, making inquiries from his business connections, and so on. We thought if we could unearth some investment of my uncle’s we might follow it up; but there was a silly gunplay on the range between Bennett’s men and ours, and Bennett thought he had better withdraw from the investigation; because Quinliven took it up, you know—grouchy old sorehead!—talked pretty rough to Bennett, and took our account over to the other bank.”
“What was the trouble about—mavericks?”
“I hardly know—pure cussedness, I guess. Nothing worth quarreling about. Tommy Garst and one of our boys had some words about some spring up in the mountains. All foolishness—nobody had any real title to it and everybody’s cattle watered there; so it made no difference who claimed it. But they got to shooting over it—silly fools! Both gone now.”
“Nobody hurt?”
“Dah!” said Ducky scornfully. “Well, how about that answer?”
Neighbor looked at his own toes with painstaking speculative interest. To assist the process he cocked his head on one side and screwed his mouth up. At last he glanced over at Ducky.
“I know a lot if I could only think of it,” he announced plaintively. With a thoughtful face and apparently without his own knowledge, he broke into song, with a gay, lilting voice:
“Here I am, a-comin’ on the run— Best durn cowboy ’at ever pulled a gun!
Hi-yi-yi-yippy; yippy-yi-yi-yi!
Hi-yi-yi-yippy; yippy-yea!”
Ducky sniffed.
“Why don’t you learn a tune if you want to sing?”
Neighbor looked round with puckered eyes.
“Why, I ain’t singin’—not exactly!” he answered dreamily. “I’m thinkin’—thinkin’ about your troubles and how to make ’em all come out right in the next number. I’ve got a two-story mind, you see. One of ’em is diggin’ away for you, hard, while the other one is singin’, foot-loose, or talking to you. Me and the real serious-mind, we’re studyin’ right now; we don’t hardly sense what I’m sayin’ to you. And that’s a real nice tune too. I don’t like to have you make fun of that tune. That’s a saddle song. That tune goes to a trotting horse. You try it.”
“Why, so it does!” said Ducky after a brief experiment.
“Can you make your fingers go gallop-y? Well, do it, and I’ll show you another But don’t talk to me. I’m thinking fine and close, like walkin’ a rope; and you’ll throw me off.”
So Ducky made his fingers go gallop-y and Neighbor kept time to it:
“Percival Pulcifer Peterkin Pool, Cloaked and mittened and ready for school; Cloaked and muffled and gloved and spurred. Gee! Wasn’t Peter a wise old bird?”
“Any more?” demanded Ducky, highly diverted.
“Yes; here’s a pacing tune. They say,” added Neighbor absently, “they say, back in Maryland and Virginia, that old King James Fifth wrote this song—allowing for some expurgating and change o’ names—Albuquerque for Edinburgh—to give it local color. Hark!
“Oh, when I got to Albuquerque I taken down my sign— Tirra-la-la, tirra-la-la, lay!
Oh, when I gat to Albuquerque I taken down my sign, For they’re all educated there in the riding line— Ti-ri-laddy and a ti-ri-lay!”
Here Neighbor brought his tilted chair back to level, removed his clasped hands from the back of his head, and shook off his dreamy expression.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to give it up for this time,” he sighed.
“Yah!” said Ducky, grinning. “A pish and three long tushes! You big stiff! I thought you were going to tell me money, money, who’s got the money? and where Uncle Roger plucked it in the first place. Little Ducky, he sticks to his first guess—mines—and counterfeiting, for place.”
“Where he got it? Where—— My poor, poor boy!” said Neighbor. “My poor misguided lamb, I wasn’t studying on who’s got your uncle’s money; I was figuring on a harder thing—and that’s how you and me are going to get it. I know where your uncle’s money is. I know it was really cash money, too, and not property. And I know how he got it!”
Ducky stared.
“Business of gasp!” he said. “Demonstrate! Produce!”
“Wait a minute!” said Neighbor, holding up a warning hand. “How do you bate your breath? If you know, do it!”
“She’s bated. Break it to me!”
“I’ll tell you first and give you the reasons afterward; it makes the reasons sound so much more reasonable, that way.”
“‘You may fire when ready, Gridley!’”
“Hist!” said Neighbor, weird, shaky and spook-eyed. “Listen to the evil old man of Haunted Hill! Your uncle was the Man Higher Up! He made his money backing gambling hells! U-r-r-r-r-h! The men who have now got that money-money are Beck, Baca, Scanlon, Quinliven and Bennett! And the men who are now going to get that moneymoney—open another bottle, Ducky—are Roger Olcott Drake, Second—Present!—and Neighbor Jones—Present! But how? How? How?”
Chapter V
ROGER DRAKE caught his breath.
“Sir, do you inhale it or do you use a needle? Can you prove any of that?”
“Prove it!” returned Neighbor indignantly. “I don’t have to prove it—I know it. It’s just gemimini-mentally got to be that way. There ain’t no proofs—the kind to convince a jury of peers; but there’s no other way to account for what’s happened, and, if you’re not a natural-born peer, I can show you.”
“Among the many beauties that add luster to my character are an aptitude to be shown and a simple willingness to try anything—once. Go to it, old summit! Wise me up!”
“Ver-ree well! Let us examine the simple and jolly facts—well-known, but not to you. Tavy Baca is abso-lute-ly the Big Noise in Saragossa County—accent on loot. Nominations and appointments f. o. b. for cash with order. Special terms for convictions and acquittals. Try our land-office decisions. Small graft of all kinds. Corpses to order in neat hardwood boxes. Very Roycrofty See us before trying elsewhere.
“Laying all juries aside, he’s a smart lawyer—Baca. He might be immensely wealthy, but every Mexican within a radius, when he’s sick, lazy or in trouble, makes a beeline for Baca and comes away with a jingle in his pocket. It’s like packin’ water in a sieve.
“Gambling, as perhaps you know, is completely stamped out in New Mexico since she joined the glorious sisterhood. Baca would be getting a juicy rake-off from Beck’s game. Or, since Baca was your uncle’s lawyer, uncle made the necessary arrangements himself, likely.”
“But how do you know my uncle was behind Beck?”
“I don’t—that comes later. I am now giving you known facts only, and you can build for yourself wherever they’ll fit.
“Bennett owns a heap of other people’s property He began life by ruining Brown and Almandares—take thy bill and write down fifty— deliberately smashed ’em so he could get the wreckage. As he began, he kept on—a wrecker. He has no heart, lungs, lights or liver. I knew Almandares; and the good Lord never made a better man than that old Mexican.
“Let me at once show you the impassable gulf between Bennett and a common cheat like Beck, or like Scanlon—blacklegs, card sharps, flimflammers. With the Beck kind, you lose only what they win. The Bennett kind gladly makes you lose ten dollars so he can get one. To end with, Beck and Scanlon showed a tenderness toward you not wholly explained by your many charms of face and form. It was magnificent, but it was not poker. And there’s where I first got the hunch.
“Having stolen the big bundle, they, or either of them, felt a certain delicacy about cheating you for your small change; so what they won from you they won fair. But banker Bennett, with his share put up in moth balls, he’s so scared you might find out and pry it away from him that he wants to hire you killed!”
Ducky Drake made an impassioned remark. It was a household word.
“What makes it a good deal worse,” added Jones with exceeding bitterness, “is that he picked on me to let the contracts to.”
“Well, but——”
“But, nothing! That is one word I can’t bear. He offered to cancel the mortgage on my stuff if I’d expurgate you. That means nearly two thousand perfectly good bucks. Why? Would Bennett do that from civic pride? Nary! He’s got a big bunch of your money—that’s why. Is there any other possible reason?”
“Mere as I am,” said Ducky, “I can see that. There is not. But how does all this involve the others? And what makes you hook up my uncle with the kitty industry?”
“When a man loves money and not work; when a man has run through three fortunes, two of ’em his own; when he turns up with a
“Hi! You put that last in to make it easy—like the Englishman who always added ‘and barks like a dog’ to all his riddles, to make ’em harder. You’re throwing the long arm of coincidence out of socket. It won’t wash, my Angular-Saxon friend! You’re a good old superdreadnought and the best hand at a standing high guess I’ve ever seen—but we can’t go to court waving any wild, wet tale like that.”
“Court? Oh, Jemima! Who said court? Let Tavy Baca pick the jury and you couldn’t convict one of that push on his own written confession. The right hunch is goin’ to be the best evidence, where we settle this case—and that’s out of court.”
“Do you mean to use force?”
“Thank you, I shouldn’t wish any pie. Why, Ducky dear, some of that outfit would lock horns with Julius K. Cæsar if he looked ogle-eyed at ’em. Tavy Baca especially is a cold proposition—the worst west of a given point. Only one skunk in the firm. That’s Bennett. No, sir; if you want to touch that tainted money——”
“I do. Let me leave no chance for misapprehension. I want to roll in it! I want to puddle my paddies in it!”
“Then you’ve got to guess quick and guess right and guess hard; you’ve got to mean what you think, and dig in your toes when you pray! To handle this contract you have got to have the hunch, the punch, the pep and the wallop!”
“But, even if you’re right——”
“If you say that again I’ll quit you!” declared Jones indignantly
“Don’t say dem crool woids to me!” begged Ducky. “You’re horribly right——but where are you going to begin? It’s like climbing a glass wall.”
“Oh, no—not so bad as that! We have one highly important circumstance in our favor. They haven’t divided the spoils yet. If they had they wouldn’t be trying to get you out of the way. And when they do divide—about this time look out for squalls; for I judge that most of that cash was left on deposit with Bennett. The hell-housekeepers
will have the rest—what they had for the house roll when they heard that Uncle Roger had cashed in, and what they’ve won or lost since.
“When you came on and it became plain that you didn’t know anything about your uncle’s business, there they were! Bennett couldn’t keep it all—the gamblers would give the snap away unless they got their share. They couldn’t get it all—Bennett would tell you first.”
“Oh, my, my! Birds in their little nests should not fall out!”
Jones ignored the interruption.
“Baca and Quinliven horned in too—they each want a slice; but Bennett won’t let it out of his hands till you go home. He’s afraid you’ll find instructions from your uncle or some sort of a statement.”
“Uncle Roger knew, in a vague, general way, that men died; but he thought that was only other people—people in the papers,” explained Roger. “And yet he must have kept a pass book, receipts— something to show for his deposits.”
“Exactly! Beck and Baca, between them, have got the pass book, and hold it over Bennett’s head for a club, likely That’s real funny Bennett’s the one that’s taken all the risks, this load. Generally it’s somebody else that takes the chances, while Bennett gets the profit.”
“Well! You certainly are a wise old fowl!” said Roger with explosive emphasis.
“If your uncle had trusted him, I think, maybe, Quinliven might have come across—I judge he would. I reckon Quinnie, old boy, was just uncle’s blind; but he guessed something and butted in to blackmail the blackmailers. To make it nice and pleasant all round, him and Baca will be wanting the gamesters to throw the house roll into the pool along with the rest, and then split it all up, even Stephen. I would right much admire to witness the executive session of that firm when they declare the final dividend!” said Neighbor with a chuckle. Then his brow clouded.
“But I can’t. Because we’re going to get it. To begin with, suppose you step round and take Quinnie up on his offer for your cattle. Stick