The Biker's Doctor

Chapter Thirteen

The bar was lit with a warm, yellow hue that blended seamlessly into the old wooden architecture. Old beer-stained circular tables had chairs replaced over the years, leaving an array of designs. One thing was similar among all of them: they were strong and durable. Dart boards and green-lined pool tables were the perfect setting for the black leather with red cross badges that every male in the crowded bar proudly wore.

Those men didn't just look tough; they were tough. Dark, tanned skin, from riding motorbikes, was marked with deep lines, and almost every one of them had a bushy beard. Some of those beards reached down to the tops of the bellies of the older guys, as if they were markers of manhood. A diet of burgers and steaks at truck stops made it seem like a heart attack was only moments away. Each of them was intimidating and challenging in their own way.

The club's youth, aged from their late teens to their early thirties, showed signs of invincibility. They were strong and fit. The arrays of muscles from workouts showed their physical strength, and their carelessness made them totally unapproachable.

Women of varying ages, from those barely out of high school seeking a daring adventure or experimentation, were dressed in short skirts and mini tops. Others of a bygone era had age lines on their faces that alluded to untold stories, glaring back through dark makeup. Black eyeliner and deep red lipstick were the obvious fashion here.

All the usual liquid suspects —Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, and Johnny Walker — lined a dirty mirror that gazed out at the figures in leather beyond. Loud Guns N’ Roses songs played in the background, the beat perfectly complementing the bar's stoic atmosphere.

The feeling of the bar was the same as I remembered it, though aged.

This bar was a transitional place that led to another, more perilous world. One that would eat you up if you let it, and you would never be free from it. It was a gateway to hell on earth.

One thing was sure: the weak and the helpless did not belong in such a place.

I oddly remembered being here with my father several times the second that I stepped through the doorway. He did not like bringing me here, and neither did I. However, his work, at least at the time, demanded it. I recall thinking then that these giants were fearsome. I, for one, was afraid of them. That has not changed.

Before my teens, I recall walking behind my father, clinging to the base of his leather jacket, wearing the same colours that he once wore, though mine were just a coloured top and shorts. I remember the giants smiling at me with a kind of indifferent acceptance. I remembered the feeling of fear falling away with a cloud. I had been accepted as a daughter of the club. With that acceptance came the same benefits as any family member. Amidst my fear, I also knew that I was completely safe.

I had to remind myself how long it had been since then. With my father's disappearance from this world, I was no longer an accepted entity. I was a stranger here. I am not in a safe place at all, and I will never forget it. I didn’t belong here then, and I don’t belong here now.

I looked around and knew that my entrance had been noted. I am sure I could hear several of those older women I spotted earlier thinking, 'Stupid tourist, she doesn't know where she is.'

A 'tourist' was probably a common occurrence. I bet several people accidentally stumbled into this bar for a drink. At least those who were not as conscious of their surroundings, who did not notice the many bikes outside, standing like a billboard sign of what this kind of bar really housed as a local crew. Unfortunately, I was not one of them. I knew exactly where I was. I was here with a purpose.

An enormous, grey-haired, bearded man looked up at me after taking his turn during a game at a pool table. He looked like a giant American Bull Mastiff hound. The sheer size was an apt description of him. I recognised the two-lined badge on his shoulder; he was the club General. The job, duty, and responsibility that used to be my father's as the club’s chief advisor and warrior. A position of power next only to the President and leader of the branch faction.

It has been seven years since I was last in this bar, but I recognised him. He had been one of my father's old friends. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall his name. And he was one of the few faces here I did recognise. I looked at the bar to see if I could find a face that I did know, the old bartender, Geoff. He was not there, to my despair, as I had always liked Geoff, and he was one of the few people who had worked in this bar who did not ignore me when I was younger. Instead, a man who could have just as easily been a bouncer was pouring a beer from a tap and was not at all interested in my entrance.

Even though the Bull Mastiff’s attention was on me, he managed to line up a shot and take it. My father taught me to play pool when I wasn’t even tall enough to reach the pool table. Even in his later years, we would meet up every Friday night for a game. I was a good player. I knew it, and I wasn't modest about it because I enjoyed playing and practising at it for hours. I had not played since my father died, mainly because pool was something I had shared with him, and I didn’t want to play with strangers.

When this prehistoric-looking neanderthal took his shot, the crack of the ball into another, directly landing into a corner pocket, showed his skill at such a tricky line-up. A player with as much confidence would have made that stroke with less force, but not this bearded fellow. I believe everything he did in his life, whether it was playing a game of pool or kissing a woman, was done with that kind of shocking force.

The game was gone from his mind the second that he saw me step further into the bar with obvious intent. I think he thought that when I realised the biker bar where I was, I would leave. The fact that I had remained despite the atmosphere led him to view me now as an intruder in this place, an uninvited spectator, an outsider. He most definitely did not recognise me at all, as I had recognised him. But who would? The last time I was here, I was only sixteen. A short, skinny, little daughter of a member in ripped jeans and a loose T-shirt. Unimportant. Now, at twenty-two, I was an educated young woman in a silk blouse and skirt, complete with high heels.

The giant's stare was blatant and carried the force to make me feel as unwelcome as possible, to leave before something bad happened to me. It was his post after all. The purpose of that stare was to make me turn around immediately and go, so his club would remain protected.

His threatening gaze was definitely working. I began to wonder if this was a good idea. The bar was a dangerous place. I only had a name —my father's—Dean Levi—and that was it. This was not my world anymore. My father had ensured that I would be removed from this kind of life, and I was glad to be rid of it. I didn't want to know the comings and goings of a place like this.

It was not too late for me to turn around and retreat. I was not going to take another step into my dangerous climate until I found Jackson Detroit. He is my only hope at the moment. I frantically began looking for him, the President and leader of the San Francisco branch of the Devil's. The man who had been my father's best friend, and my father his most trusted—the man my father had once taken a bullet for. The man who had always been referred to as my ‘uncle’. Jackson is my only mission.

As I looked from face to face in the hope of any recognition of an older Jackson, I became disheartened by just how many new faces I didn’t know.

It was then that I spotted his badge. Three lines on the shoulder, with the same larger ones on the back. The President and the leader of the most powerful biker club in California.

But the face that I saw when I looked up from that shoulder could not be Jackson Detroit. This man was young and strong. Not the old, grey colossus I remembered from my teens.

This young President was seated at one of the circular tables amongst the others, and yet set aside by space from those who dared to stay out of the way. A beer was in his hand, with three other men who wore single stripes as bodyguards. It was as if they sat at an officer's table in the barracks—the other worker bees following orders around them with busy detail.

The President’s dirty blond hair was specked with brown. His skin was tanned just like the rest of the men who encircled him. Unlike the others, he did not have a beard, which set him apart by his own choice. A set of sunglasses pulled back his hair with a wave. It was far too late at night to need sunglasses, but I doubt they left him as if they were a permanent part of his uniform for when he did need them to ride. Crystal blue eyes framed a mischievous smile that curved up to his upper lip, and he suited it well as he listened to a story or a joke from another group at his circular table. His laugh at the joke was genuine and filled the bar across the room all the way to me.

My heart sank. s**t. Another spanner to my plan. There was a new President of the club: Blake Detroit.