Page 88 of Red's Peril: Part 1

Closing my eyes, I estimate the direction we’ve travelled and the distance. “I reckon we’re near the garage.”

Catching his eyes in the beam of the flashlight, I see they’re burning with excitement. “Let’s go check it out.”

It takes a while, and a lot of moving of racking, to the amusement of the brothers fixing up their bikes, to find what we’re looking for. But eventually, we do find it.

Crash high fives me. Then I find myself leading Joker, Shadow, Cobra and Hammer in the reverse direction, seeing their bemusement when we climb up into the storeroom off the kitchen.

Hammer looks around, his brow furrowed. “I reckon something dubious went on here back in the day. Drugs? Guns?”

“Liquor?” I put in, wondering how old the bones of the warehouse structure are. It’s quite possible it was built over some illegal distillery.

“Don’t think it’s as old as that, Prez.” Cobra, like Hammer is taking in the surroundings. “But I’d say some nefarious activity took place here.”

Crash’s eyes are gleaming. “Whatever, this is fuckin’ ideal. The women can have their room, and if we’re under attack, can escape straight to the garage.”

“Women getting a room?” Joker creases his eyes. “What the fuck’s that all about?”

I leave it to Crash to enlighten them, while I walk around, eyeing the space again, and what needs to be done to it. In truth, I’m like a kid with a new toy. None of the other chapters, to my knowledge, have a setup quite like I’m envisaging. I’m already thinking about the pat on the back I’ll get for forward thinking.

By the time I’m ready to bring it up in church, I’ve got Keys onside, and Indian brimming with ideas.

“Moving onto other business,” I start, then can’t hide my grin. “The women’s room, or rather, our safe room.”

By now, all members have seen the escape tunnel for themselves, but haven’t been let into the rest of our thinking.

Indian reaches under the table and brings out the rolled-up plans which he flattens and lays out.

“The room needs new sheetrock. We’ll just reinforce the walls behind it.”

Fox leans forward. “Yeah, but the windows leave us exposed.” He rolls his eyes as if he can’t believe we’ve missed that.

“Bulletproof shutters.” Keys is as excited as he sounds. “Anyone in the room will be able to control them.”

“And the door will be reinforced steel,” Indian informs them. “Keys is going to put cameras around the club and monitors in the room so anyone in there can see what’s going on.”

Titch snorts, sits back and folds his arms. “You expecting a fuckin’ invasion, Prez?”

Indian leans forward, and angrily rebukes him, “You saying we’re not? You got a fuckin’ crystal ball I don’t know about? If you have, you’re welcome to take over as sergeant-at-arms for the club.”

“I like the idea.” Fox uses a more reasonable tone. “I’d like to know should anything happen, that Tiff will be safe. And, she’ll have somewhere to go while we’re here.”

“Set it up with game machines too, keep Tom and Trist from being under our feet all the time,” Hammer suggests.

In the end, after a bit of toing-and-froing, the plan was agreed.

With all brothers pulling together, the work was quickly completed and furnished by Tiff and Rosa of course. In no time at all, the Vegas chapter had a women and child-friendly safe room.

Time moves on. We pick up a new prospect, a guy called Scott Flintstone who’s immediately given the nickname Fred. As the months pass, I’m impressed by the man who, while looking like a strong gust of wind would blow him over, is solid, and not to be underestimated when we put him into the ring. Showing MMA skills that we didn’t expect, he can take down men far heavier. The only drawback seems to be an animosity directed at him from Joker.

I delay bringing him getting his patch to the table, having the notion I’d get Joker’s vote so it wouldn’t be unanimous. But as Fred had done his twelve months and then some, there are grumbles from other members who can’t understand the hold up, and not a little unease from the man himself.

I’ve no option but to bite the bullet and face it head-on. At the next church, I put it starkly. Fred gets his patch, or we part company. As I expected, Joker objects, but when challenged can’t come up with a reason why he shouldn’t be patched in. It’s obvious Joker hates the man for reasons even he can’t put a finger on, but in the end, even he votes yes. Fred, now becoming known as Lady’s Man, joins us at the table.

But Joker’s hatred of him appears to be deep seated and doesn’t come to an end. When they’re pitted against each other in the ring, it’s like he wants to kill him.

I can’t have this.Having two members at each other’s throat for no apparent reason goes against our code. How can we swear to have each other’s backs under circumstances like these?

In the end, I have to take action. Joker and Lady will have to sort whatever there is between them. To force the issue, I admit I pushed them together, the term sink or swim being in my head. Either Joker would overcome his objections to calling the man brother, or the weaknesses that only he perceived in Lady would become common knowledge.

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