CHAPTER SIX – BLAINE
Blaine followed Ed through the service bay of his manufacturing plant. The rear garage bay doors opened up onto a huge paved storage yard, wrapped in chain link fencing topped with barbed wire. It was a huge space that had once been used to store cars for auction houses. ‘If the day of the AGM is hot, this place will get cooking,’ Blaine thought to himself. It did have indoor bathroom facilities, which was a bonus, but they would definitely have to supplement with some porta pottys to make it work. There wouldn’t be anywhere for out of towners to camp, but there was a strip of divey motels down the street that were often used by the club’s sex workers. He didn’t love the location, but he didn’t have the heart to strong-arm Steve into letting them use the farm, so the industrial space would have to do.
He caught a whiff of the unmistakable sharp chemical smell of meth cooking.
“You got a little side enterprise going here, Ed?”
“Don’t worry. Zeb knows all about it – we have a mutually beneficial agreement.”
“Should we be smelling that shit out here?” Blaine looked up and tried to locate the source of the smell.
“I’m not too sure. I’m pretty new to this,” Ed said hesitantly. He motioned to a stained office chair, but Blaine declined.
“I’m going to get the hell out of here,” he said and wheeled the chair away from him. “Oh, and, September – the Brass Bonds’ AGM – we’re holding it here.” He said almost as an afterthought. He wanted to get the fuck out of there. His mind was full of images of all the charred remains of amateur meth labs that he had seen in his day.
“Hold on a minute,” Ed said. “Are you asking me, or telling me?”
“The AGM. We are holding it here. I suppose that means I’m telling you.”
Ed seemed to think about it for a minute, but then let out a long sigh. “Fuck, fine. Get in touch with my assistant, Tiffany, to set up the details. As you can see, we will likely have a logistical challenge with the new kitchen here.”
“Deal with it.” Blaine walked briskly back out into the fresh air. He didn’t hesitate to start his bike up and peel out of there as fast as he possibly could. He’d seen meth labs go bad and he didn’t want to be anywhere near this one if things went south.
He pulled his bike into the garage at the back of the clubhouse. On the drive over, he had kept an eye out for a certain beat up Honda Civic. He was surprised at the amount of time spent thinking about the freckle-faced girl.
“Blaine, baby.” A voice called out from the bar area. “Where have you been?”
It was Liz, or Jizzie Lizzie as she was more commonly known. She was a nice girl, but she had definitely sucked more than her fair share of Bonds’ dick. She had been after Blaine since he was old enough to grow facial hair.
“Lizzie. What’s up?”
“Oh, you know. A little bit of this, a little bit of that,” she said as she twirled a strand of her crispy bleached blonde hair around her finger and bit her lip.
“Zeb here?” Blaine asked, annoyed at her failed attempt at being provocative.
Lizzie pointed to the back room and bent over to pick up a bag of ice. She pushed her big fake tits into the bag and sashayed away from Blaine. He shook his head, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and headed into the back room.
Zeb was sitting at the end of the meeting table. It wasn’t a fancy table like all the movie biker gangs seemed to have, it was an old fold-out banquet table with more than its fair share of carvings and crude drawings scrawled all over it. Chrissy, Zeb’s old lady was massaging his shoulders.
“Hey boss, I’ve got an update on the AGM location. We’re going to do it at Ed’s manufacturing facility.”
“I’m not too sure if that’s a good idea,” Zeb replied.
“It’s really our only option if we want to have all of the chapters there.”
“What about the weed farm?”
“Can’t do it there, the stuff won’t be harvested just yet.”
“Hmmm. I see.” Zeb only seemed to be paying partial attention, his eyes were heavy-lidded and half shut in response to Chrissy’s touch.
“Listen, Zeb, I know what’s going on at Ed’s plant.”
That seemed to get his attention. “Chrissy, go wait out there with Lizzie and give us a minute here.” Zeb raised his eyebrows at Blaine and shooed Chrissy away.
Chrissy knew her place. She leaned down and kissed Zeb on his thick neck, leaving a bright red lipstick mark, and walked out, closing the door behind her.
“Now, what is it that you think you know, kid?”