Page 10 of Bourbon & Blood

“Yeah?” I asked by way of greeting.

“P. it’s me, Hex.”

“I know who you are, asshole.” I scowled. I hated talking on the phone.

“Got a problem, brother. Bring your big ass in when you’re done there,” he said.

I grunted an assent, then returned the phone to my back pocket.

“Heh.” The old man I was pulling the part for grinned at me and spit tobacco juice on the ground. With a few more turns of my socket, I had the starter for his outboard free and was handing it over.

I told him Big Saul would handle the rest up front.

I looked to the sky, through the shadows cast by the surrounding trees and the Spanish moss hanging from them, and nodded to myself.

The day was almost done.

Did I need to work here? No. Was it the smart thing to do? Yes. Always good to have a day job to cover what a man did at night. I didn’t need the money, but the government didn’t know that. Nor did theyneedto know that.

Big Saul got quite the cut to punch my timecard and to pay me regular. He also got my help more often than he didn’t. I was here, I did my job, and I did a good one at that.

When I wasn’t here, he kept my alibi above board on the odd occasion I had shit to do during the day.

It was the way shit worked. He covered my ass; I greased his palm.

Fuck,why did that sound dirtier than it needed to?

I shucked off my coveralls and hung them up on their peg in the back before I pulled down and shrugged into my cut. Next, I took my ass out front to my bike, waving over my shoulder at Big Saul. He was on the phone behind the counter, the buzz and flicker of the fluorescent lighting over his head distracting as he grunted, “Mm-hm,” into the phone cradled against his big, bearded cheek.

Big Saul wasbig. Something like five foot six, but like four hundred pounds. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of any type of engine or boat motor, though. Folks from all over the state in and out of every parish knew that Big Saul was the one to call when they couldn’t figure it out.

He gave me a pair of raised eyebrows and a chin lift, acknowledging I was leaving without so much as breaking stride in his listening or conversation on the phone as he henpecked with two fingers on the ancient keyboard the invoice for whatever part he was gonna need pulled.

He still had three other guys here and out back in the yard. He didn’t need me; so, I wasn’t worried about it.

I wasn’t overly worried about whatever the hell Hex wanted, either. Whatever it was, it’d be handled in its own time. No reason to get my blood pressure up. All that tended to do was make my short-fused temper even shorter and nobody wanted that.

If Hex was calling me, though, it meant one thing and one thing only… someone was fixin’ to bleed or even die. I was that guy and there weren’t no bones about it.

I rode into the city, making for the club’s compound, and I found a few of the guys smoking angrily just inside the gate.

“’Bout fuckin’ time you got here,” Hex grumbled as I killed the engine to my bike and I swung my dark gaze in his direction.

“Where’s the fucking fire at?” I demanded.

Hex sighed, pinning his hands to his hips as he hung his head low and I frowned. He looked like he had the weight of the fuckin’ world on his shoulders and it wasn’t like him. He was pretty chill most of the time, even when things got hot. He was usually the guy who was cool under pressure. Except he wasn’t cool at all right now and I saw it in the glint in his eye when he looked back up at me.

“The prospect,” he said.

I swung a leg over my bike and stood up, crossing my arms over my chest, and demanding, “Spill it, it’s not like you to beat around the bush.”

Hex sighed. “He got himself stabbed. He’s at the hospital an’ he’s gonna be okay, but—”

“Who, what, when, where, why, and how?” I demanded, my scowl deepening. He cut to the chase.

“Who would be his own kin, some kinda family squabble. What over, I don’t know but I have to suspect it has to do with his mamma,” he said.

I grunted, giving a nod, and waited for him to continue.

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