The clerk sized me up shrewdly. “Well, son, these normally sell for about twenty-five a box. But seein' as how you're askin' me to sell 'em to you instead of goin' to a store, I'm gonna go ahead an' assume you've got a black mark or two on your record.” He held up a hand to stop me before I could say anything. “Now, that ain't nothin' to be embarrassed over. There's plenty of harmless folks who could say the same. Still, given your situation, I reckon I'd be a damn fool to charge less than forty bucks for 'em.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed, forking over the money. “Much appreciated.” I was tempted to tell him to lie if anyone asked whether I'd been in there, but I was pretty sure he would anyway. He didn't want word getting around that he was willing to sell ammo illegally, and besides, he looked like an old-school redneck who wasn't big on people coming in and asking questions. If any Mancusos came in here demanding answers, it wasn't hard to imagine the clerk making them chew on a few rounds from his pistol.
I shoved the box of ammo in my pocket, hefted the weight of the bag with the beverages in it, and walked back to the car in time to see Jewel emerge from the office with the room key.
We drove around to the back of the motel and went up to the room.
Chapter 22
Jewel
I had initially balked when I saw that Rafe had gotten me a big cardboard box of white wine, but when I poured some of it into one of the room's plastic cups and gave it a try, I didn't taste a noticeable difference between it and the twelve-dollar bottles I usually bought myself for special occasions.
I had originally planned to sip it slowly, but given the size of the box and the number of whiskey shots Rafe had taken in the time it took for me to finish my first cup, that plan had started to seem pretty stupid.
So by the time I started bleaching Rafe's hair, I'd had three cups of cheap wine. The low-level panic I'd felt since witnessing the murder in the alley had finally dulled to the point where I couldn't feel it at all. I was using the brush from the kit to paint the bleach over his brown locks layer by layer.
“Jesus, are you painting a portrait back there or what?” Rafe asked after a few minutes.
“I'm just being careful. Wow. It's a good thing your hair just happened to be so dirty, since that's ideal for this. I'll bet you usually keep it nice and clean, though, right?” I added with a twist of sarcasm.
He snorted. “Oh, yeah. All us bikers are known for three things—the fists we throw, the bikes we ride, and the hair products we use to maintain a healthy sheen and volume.”
“Funny,” I said, finishing the last hairs along his neckline with a flourish. “There. Now turn around and I'll do your eyebrows.”
“Nuh-uh,” Rafe said. “You're not doing my eyebrows. That's where I draw the goddamn line. Blonde eyebrows? I'll look like a moron.”
“Well, if you walk around with blonde hair and brown eyebrows, you'll look like someone who bleached his hair quickly because he doesn't want to be recognized.”
Rafe groaned, turning around. “Fair enough. I just hope this shit doesn't take too long growing back once all this is over. The other Reapers are gonna piss themselves laughing when they see me.”
I brushed his eyebrows lightly as I raised my own. “Reapers?”
“Yeah, the War Reapers,” Rafe said. “They're the club I belong to.”
“They sound rough,” I said, trying to sound casual. It had been easier to think of him as just a random biker, but the idea that he was a member of a gang with a name so lethal-sounding was tickling my anxiety again.
“They can be,” Rafe agreed, “but they're a good bunch of guys. They've always had my back.”
“So maybe they could help us,” I offered. “Could they send more bikers to protect us?”
“It's more complicated than that,” Rafe grunted. “I've got them making some moves for me on this back in the city, though. I should probably go rinse this stuff out now, huh?”
“You should wait about fifteen minutes,” I said. I could sense how much he wanted to change the subject and I wondered what he was hiding—about himself, about the Reapers, about this whole situation. We'd been on the run for two days and I still had no idea where we were going or why. “So what's our plan tomorrow?”
Rafe shrugged, pouring another shot of whiskey into his plastic cup and drinking it down. “Keep trying to stay ahead of Jester and the Mancusos.”
“That's, um, not much of a specific answer,” I pointed out.
“Well, how specific do you want me to be?” Rafe said. He sounded irritated and I wanted to drop it, but I knew I couldn't.
“I don't know, Rafe, how far do you expect me to go with you while you keep up the silent act?” I asked, raising my voice a little. “Minnesota? Canada? Alaska? I think I've been pretty patient and good about keeping my questions to myself, but if I'm going to keep trusting you enough to stay with you instead of just taking my chances with the cops, I need to know what your end game is with all this. I've got a mother and father who will probably start worrying about me soon, and a boss who's probably already looking for someone to replace me. So if you think you can just wave all that away with a charming smile and a tough quip...”
“All right, all right, all right,” Rafe said, raising a hand in surrender. “I get the point. Just keep your voice down. We're headed to Milwaukee because as you heard, there's something there that Jester and his guys want. Badly. So badly, in fact, that I'm betting if we grab it before they can, it'll give us enough leverage to make this whole fucking thing go away.”
I thought about that. “So you know what it is, then? What Angelo was asking the other man about before he shot him?”
“Not exactly,” Rafe replied. “But I know that it's stashed in a club called The Flytrap, and that whatever it is, it's important enough that Jester had Maggot clipped over it. That seems like enough to go on for now.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, “but then what? We exchange this whatever-it-is for a promise that they'll leave us alone?”
“That's the plan,” Rafe said.
“That sounds like kind of a flimsy plan,” I pointed out. “What if this Jester guy gets the thing and then has us both killed anyway?”
“First of all, I don't hear you coming up with a better plan,” Rafe said. “And second, guys like Jester can't just go around breaking their word. On the street, their word is all they've got. If he gets a rep as a bullshitter and a mad dog, no one will ever do business with him again.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I answered. “Honor among thieves, is that it?”
“We're dealing with way worse than thieves, but yeah,” Rafe said. He sounded relieved that I was going along with it. The truth was that it all still seemed like a big gamble, but as he'd said, I couldn't think of what else to do to stay safe.
After a few more minutes, Rafe went to the bathroom and rinsed out the bleach. When he came out again, the sight of him with blonde hair was a bit jarring, but not nearly as awkward-looking as I'd thought it would. His shirt was off and he had a towel draped over his shoulders, exposing his rock-hard pecs and gorgeous abs again. The light thatch of brown hair on his chest looked strange with his blonde head, but it wasn't as though anyone would be seeing him bare-chested.
Anyone except me.
“You're staring 'cause it looks so fucking dumb, right?” Rafe asked. “See, I knew this was a bad idea.”
“No, no, it looks fine!” I assured him. “You look...um...great.”
“Well, I'm glad you think so,” he grumbled, pulling his sweatshirt back on. “Personally, I think I look like a fuckin’ moron.”
“That's only natural,” I said. “You've had brown hair your whole life, so of course it's going to take some getting used to for you. And besides, dark hair grows fast. You'll probably have enough roots showing in a couple of months that you'll be able to chop the blonde off.”
“I fucking hope so,” Rafe said. “Are you hungry? You must be. You haven't eaten since yesterday.”
I realized that for the first time since the shoot-out at the diner that morning, I felt like I could eat. Plus, the wine had gone to my head, and I figured it would be a bad idea to keep drinking while keeping my stomach empty. “Yeah, I am a bit hungry.”
“Cool,” Rafe said. “I saw a burger joint up the street. I'll go grab us some stuff and be right back. Same as the motel last night, though, okay? Don't let anyone in, no matter what they say. Keep your gun handy in case someone tries to get in anyway, but keep your head on straight too, understand? The last thing we need is for you to panic and shoot the cleaning lady or something.”
“Don't worry,” I replied primly. “I'm not in the mood to pull the trigger and shatter my eardrums again unless I have to, thank you very much.”
Rafe smiled and stepped out, shutting the door behind him.
I pinned up my dark brown hair and opened the second bleaching kit, painting it on carefully. I thought about the things Rafe had told me, and I had a vague suspicion that he might be almost as confused and uncertain as I was. He tried to seem tough and in control, and for the most part, that's exactly what he was. But he was also a man who was clearly making up his plan as he went along.