Page 60 of Hidden Desires
Each bar he stepped into was unhelpful. Lots of people were willing to chat for a beer, but not many had anything worthwhile to say. Most mentioned the Cyanyd Kings, but none of them knew where they could be found, only rumors and speculations.
Nobody Blade had spoken to was an actual member of the crew or had business dealings with its members until the last bar he entered.
“Yeah, I know one of the dealers who works for the CKs. He’s a scary-looking dude who doesn’t talk much, but is plowing one of my neighbors. I’ve seen him drop her off a few times; mostly,he hangs out with Black dudes and Latinos. Oh, and one scary-looking white dude.”
Blade’s ears perked up. “White dude? Like a boss or something?”
The man shook his head as he played with his beer.
“No, not no boss. The dude looked like one of those crazy dudes who chop up their families and eat their livers. You know, the ones they talk about in those murder crime specials.”
Blade knew the ones. They used to give him nightmares when he was a kid, especially when living in a trailer, traveling from town to town. They constantly ran into weird-looking dudes.
“And the white guy, do you know where I can find him?” Blade asked, hoping to get a lead.
The man shook his head like Blade was crazy.
“Trust me, dude. You don’t want to ever find that guy. The man gives me the creeps whenever I lay eyes on him. You know there’s something not right in his head. He had those dark, dead eyes. The kind that are empty and have no soul living behind them. Gives me the fuckin’ creeps, if you ask me.”
That was the best that he was going to get from the guy that night. He would have to try to gather information some other way.
“Thanks for your help, bro,” Blade said, slapping the man on his back as he exited the bar.
Across the street, a dark figure sat in a rusty old Lincoln staring at him. The glow from his cigarette brightened as the man sucked in a breath, then dimmed when he exhaled.
Blade watched the figure for a moment, wondering if the man was simply chilling in his car, enjoying a smoke, or was actually there to watch him.
After a few moments, the man tossed his cigarette out his window, then started his car.
Blade continued to stare into the blinding lights of the car, trying to remember every last detail of the mystery man’s car.
He was almost tempted to march over to the vehicle and have a little one-on-one back-alley chat with the man.
Taking Blade’s choice away from him, the car slowly pulled out of the parking lot across the street and made its way south in the opposite direction from the motel and his crew.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence.
Perhaps.
19
ACE
Blade was being unusually quiet. Normally, he was bubbly and energetic, and couldn’t stop talking about how fantastic he was and how everybody wanted a piece of his sausage.
Instead, tonight he was lethargic, quiet, and appeared withdrawn.
Ace didn’t like it.
Something had happened today at the crime scene, and Blade was keeping it all to himself. He even pulled a Houdini and slipped away while Marcus had him distracted doing grunt work, like he was another minion in his army, instead of his intelligent, charismatic brother who had just gotten the dicking of a lifetime in the morning. A dicking he was desperate to repeat, once he got Blade out of whatever funk he was in.
“You keep playing with those knives, and people are going to start asking where you’re hiding the bodies,” Ace said, approaching the withdrawn biker who had set up his own little target practice spot out back behind the motel.
Blade looked up at him. “It helps me clear my head.”
“Yeah, I know. You always turn to knife throwing whenever you’re anxious or need to think. It’s your go-to, happy place.”
“Or at least, I thought it was.”
