Touch Me

5. Karl

Karl

Fed and I got the girls situated in a spare room upstairs. It wasn't the Ritz, or even the Hilton for that matter, but it at least gave them a place to take their heels off and have a moment of quiet. As I shut the door behind me, they began talking back and forth.

At least they weren't doing anything crazy, or making too much of a nuisance of themselves. That was good. Otherwise, this would be a hell of a lot more frustrating to handle.

“Karl,” Fed said as we headed down the hall and started getting the other guys' attention for a meeting, “this whole thing seems wrong, man. We ain't gonna start running girls, are we?”

“What?” I asked, surprised he even felt he had to ask. “f**k no, man, we ain't gonna run girls. But, I gotta feeling that Jassy chick ain't telling us everything. We gotta figure out what the hell she knows. Meanwhile, we figure out our next move.”

Fed nodded, seemingly relieved with my response. But, still, I could tell he had misgivings. “You need to be careful about that girl. Think she's got a thing for you, or something.”

“Or something,” I agreed as we stepped into the meeting room. “But, yeah, I know I need to be careful. But, damn if it ain't been a while. Maybe I could leverage that, though? Get in sweet with her.”

“Hey man,” Fed said, clapping me on the shoulder, “I get it. Been a while for me, too. But, you gotta pick the right head to think with, right?”

I laughed and shook my head. “I know, I know. But, man, what would it really hurt? We could get the info we need, and I could get my d**k wet.” I shrugged. “What's the difference?”

Fed started to make his case, but the guys coming in shut him down. Good thing, too, because he probably would've made it well enough for me to reconsider.

“Alright, boys,” I said as the three other officers of the MC came strolling in. Ricky, Spike, and Happy all took a seat around the table. “We gotta problem.”

I laid out what happened at the hotel earlier in the night, down to the girls we'd been forced to bring back with us. “So, we ain't got that inside deal we wanted. We're gonna have to keep going like we have been if we wanna keep the money rolling in.”

“s**t, man,” Ricky said as he looked around the meeting room at all of us. “So, we got the Port Authority on our tails, and we still got those the Thunder Riders laying into us.”

The Port Authority was always going to be a problem, even if we'd gotten Sven on board with us. He was just going to mitigate some of that risk. Same deal with the Thunder Riders, even though our little turncoat would have given us better goods, and therefore better connections with other elements that could help us strengthen our position.

“More or less,” I admitted. “Back to square one. But, square one ain't exactly the worst place we can be, you know? We're still sitting pretty right where we are.”

The men scattered around the table, even Fed, grudgingly agreed. We'd been in a hell-of-a-lot worse position before I took over the MC, that was for damned sure.

“What about these hookers you picked up, man?” Happy asked. He was a skinny little guy, all sinew and gristle and bad prison tattoos, but he was tough and had a good head on his shoulders. If there was anyone I trusted to have my back in a dark alley, it was him. And Fed, of course, but that went without saying.

“Fed and I were talking,” I said as I looked around the table, my eyes falling on each man and boring a hole in their skulls. “I ain't running girls. No f*****g way,” I said with finality.

A round of head nods.

“And if anyone in this room wants to get that idea in their head, we can have a conversation in the parking lot out back. Got it?”

A chorus of agreement went around the table. “Dirty s**t,” Ricky said, speaking for them all. “Agreed.”

“These girls,” I continued, “saw something that we may or may not be related to. We heard their side of the story, but I don't know if it adds up. Fed doesn't think so, and I tend to agree. Now, that said, we gotta keep 'em around ‘til we at least figure out what the f**k happened in that room, and how much our asses are hanging in the wind ‘cause of it.”

“Got it,” Happy agreed. “Just wanted to make sure, man. Ain't none of us dreaming of getting hooked to that boat, Karl. That s**t's just too slimy.”

“Good,” I said. “Glad we're all in agreement then. Y'all wanna do a vote on holding onto them, then?”

Everyone looked back and forth between each other, with murmurs of, “Sure, why the f**k not?” going around the table.

“Keep 'em, and make sure they stay off the streets?” I asked the table.

“Aye,” we all said, our voice having a weird, harmonious resonance in the small room. The single word had a kind of wonderful, golden finality to it.

“Good,” I said, nodding once.

“Good,” a brassy, sensuous voice said from the entryway. All eyes swiveled that way, including my own. Who should be standing there, but Jassy. A few inches shorter for lack of heels, but still sexy as ever.

“Glad y'all made everything official with your little club,” she purred, one hand on a c****d-out hip. “’Cause you better know we're all stuck together now. Unless you got some sort of hooker catch-and-release program y'all run on the side, Benji and I really ain't got nowhere else to go.”

Fuck my life.