He got his cellphone, intending to speed dial her. Movement from the meatshack door drew his attention. They had no jobs, so the place should be locked up, nice and tight. The building was little more than a metal shed, so Christopher hadn’t yet had the locks Pentagon-ized. Really, the entire fucking building needed to be modernized. He’d have to go through his contacts and find a contractor who wouldn’t fucking open his fucking mouth when Christopher requested a state of the art autopsy table, stainless steel counters, huge wash basins, cabinets for special tools, a couple of meat hooks, a drainage system in the floor, and special chairs to hold squirming assfucks. Shit like that made motherfuckers suspicious.
When him and Mort made improvements on the old meatshack, Big Joe had been there to make sure they stayed out of trouble. Or, if they fucking got into trouble, he’d been there to dig them out of it. At that time, Christopher found that shit a lot of fun.
Fuck, just thinking of it reminded him how fucking entertaining it had been. Now, though, it was his responsibility to take care of his brothers, so he had to stay the fuck out of prison to do that. That meant, he couldn’t get his fucking hands as dirty as he once had.
At the edge of the pathway to the meatshack, the strong scent of bleach began burning his fucking nostrils.
Fucking pussy.
Fuck, before long the smell of chlorine would nauseate him, sealing his complete and total pussification, and not the good pussifiedom like with Megan.
A cabinet slammed, and Christopher drew his nine, kicking the door open and aiming.
Mort spun around, his hands shooting up into the air and his eyes widening.
“Fuck, Mort!” Christopher growled, shoving his piece away and lighting a smoke. “I almost shot your motherfuckin’ ass off. What the fuck you doin’ in here?”
Mort scowled. “Fuck, Prez, give me a fucking chance to grab my balls out of my ass. You scared them into fucking shrinkage.”
“Fuckin’ dumb ass,” Christopher said around chuckles. “What the fuck you doin’ in here? You preppin’?”
“I’m not that lucky.” Mort sat on the stool near the shiny table, worn with scratches, knicks, and cuts. A frown creasing his face, he lit his own cigarette. “Just came in to think about the good old times.”
Hearing a fucked-up note in Mort’s voice, Christopher pulled up a second stool and nodded. “We gotta ex-fuckin-plore our contacts. See any fuckin’ outfits who fucked with us in the past that we let off the fuckin’ hook. Maybe, we can scoop one or two of them up and bring them in.”
“Yeah, Prez, I guess.”
If his suggestion didn’t cheer Mort up, then Christopher suspected something bad had happened. “What up, Mort?”
Mort thrust his fingers through his hair, the absence of his skull ring still obvious even after so many fucking months. Before Mort buried the ring with his son, he’d worn it for years. If Christopher saw how fucking bare his finger looked, he couldn’t fucking imagine how Mort felt.
“I have to talk to Bailey.” Shifting his weight and dragging on his cigarette, Mort clenched his jaw. “Or fucking not. I don’t know what the fuck to do with the information I got.”
“That why you fuckin’ came here today?” Christopher had gone to the warehouse for lack of anything to do. Sometimes, motherfuckers got what the fuck they wanted. In his case, shit working so smoothly, all he had to do was either have fucking fun or be with his family. But, fuck. He’d always worked. When Big Joe was alive, he’d served every role, from treasurer, to sergeant-at-arms, to enforcer, to vice president. He’d come up with ways to expand their operations by going on runs and making contacts everywhere. After the man’s death, he’d had to weed out his enemies, work out his leadership abilities, become the be-all-end-all motherfucker, and then exterminate all the club foes. “Maybe, we take a run north. I’ll talk to John Boy, Val, Digger, Cash, and Stretch, after telling Megan. Leavin’ might let you figure shit out.”
“Yeah, maybe, Prez.”
Christopher stretched out his legs and folded his arms, seeing the bleakness on Mort’s face. Whatever he had to tell his girl must’ve been pretty fucking fucked up. “Why you look so fuckin’ lost?”
“Roxy told me some shit and asked me to keep it the fuck away from Bailey. I don’t know what the fuck to do, Prez.”
Fuck, Christopher was right with Mort. He withheld several secrets from Megan, two of which were life altering. One secret would change her entire outlook about herself. The other would devastate her. Some shit was just better left kept in the fucking dark. “Roxy gotta have a reason for askin’ you to keep fuckin’ quiet.”