Confessions Of An Old Lady Page 4

  “It’s beautiful.” I couldn’t help but admire the perfectly polished chrome handlebars and wheels, not to mention the shiny new engine. I knew absolutely nothing about motorcycles, but I could tell this was a quality bike.

  “You ready to learn to ride this baby?” Beauford asked.

  “Oh yeah!” I said enthusiastically.

  Renley showed me how to mount the motorcycle and how to start the ignition. “Now, it takes some practice to learn to balance on one of these bad boys, but that’s why we ordered you a Superlow. They’ve got a lower center of gravity, which should make it a little easier for you to learn on.”

  It took a couple of tries, but eventually I was able to balance on the motorcycle and it was an amazing feeling. I felt like I had so much power and control over this large piece of machinery. We practiced all week until I finally got the hang of it and could ride all by myself with no coaxing from either of the guys.

  ***

  On Tuesday, we decided to take the bikes for a run and I found I was beginning to love the feel of the wind in my face. When we were done and had parked the bikes back at headquarters, Renley said, “I think you got the hang of it.”

  “Yeah, it feels pretty natural now,” I informed him. They both looked at each other for a moment and I could tell they were thinking about something. “What is it?” I asked.

  “We think you’re ready,” Beauford answered.

  “You do? I’m ready?” I jumped up and down like a school girl who just found out her crush liked her back. “Great! When do I go in?”

  “We’ll have to talk to Kingston, but I think you’re ready to go in next week,” Renley answered.

  “Next week? That’s so soon. But I’m ready!”

  “Hold on there, Rockford. Although we’ve pretty much taught you everything you need to know, you’ll need to be briefed in before we can ship you down to Kentucky,” Beauford said.

  “I know,” I replied. “It’s just that you guys have taught me a lot…and I’m so grateful.”

  “Yeah, yeah…save the sentiment for when your assignment is successful.” Renley brushed me off. Typical man.

  ***

  I was briefed the following Monday by my boss Kingston, as well as Renley and Beauford. It was a pretty heavy conversation. They went over all of the threats and dangerous aspects of the assignment, I guess to make sure I was aware of what I was signing up for. I informed them I was fully aware of the risks, but that I was ready to go in all the way.

  “Great. You’ll be flying out this Friday. We’ve got you a little house set up in Nicholasville. The information’s all in your file. You’ll need to memorize it. You can’t take anything with you. We’ll have your bike shipped down by the time you get there. You’ve got a stipend set up for food, clothing, and living expenses, but we’ll take care of the rent and utilities. Understand?”

  I advised them that I did understand everything loud and clear. That didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous. Of course I was nervous. I was about to play a cat-and-mouse game with a known, hardened criminal. If I failed, it could cost me my position at the DEA, and possibly my life.

  “Now,” Kingston began. “Your cover story is that you’re new to Nicholasville. You moved there because your father recently passed away and you’ve gone there to settle his affairs. You’re not sure if you’re going to stay in his house for a while or if you’re going to sell it. Either way, you’re there for an extended stay. Your mother passed away when you were little and you were an only child, so you have no family to speak of.”

  Renley interrupted. “You’re going to start hanging out at the local biker bar called The Hole in the Wall…or as they call it, The Hole. That’s where Sonny and his entourage hang out almost daily. You’re going to get his attention and then the rest is up to you.”

  “Here’s your new cell phones.”

  “Cell phones? As in more than one?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Yup.” Beauford produced two cell phones, one was black and one was white. “The white one is an untraceable Agency phone. You will keep it hidden and use it only to report back to us. The other one, the black one, is going to be your everyday cell phone. Do not get these phones mixed up and do not get caught with the white one.”

  “I understand.” I nodded my head.

  “I will be your handler,” Renley interjected. “You will report your findings to me, but we need to keep our communications rare and to the point. You can use the phone to contact me whenever you need to provide me with an update or if you need my help. Otherwise, I don’t exist. Understand?”

  “Yes.” They all sounded so ominous, but I knew the severity of the implications if I messed any of this up, so I listened intently to the rest of their instructions.

  Finally, when they had exhaustively gone over every possible slang term, the history of motorcycle gangs in the US, and the hierarchy of the Lords of Chaos, Kingston walked to a file cabinet, pulled out a small fireproof safe, and laid it on the table between us.

  “What’s in the box?”

  “This…” Kingston said as he opened the box with a tiny key, “…is your new identity.”

  He handed me a stack of documents, including a driver’s license, passport, and birth certificate. Apparently, my new name was Trish Sanders.

  “Memorize your date of birth and social security number and where you were born. You’d be amazed at how easy it is to trip up over minor details like that. And if you trip up in this environment, it could jeopardize the investigation, not to mention your life.”

  I nodded, but was unable to speak. The fear sitting on my chest, at the thought of how serious the situation was, made it impossible to even draw breath. There was no denying that by taking on this new persona, I was going to have to commit to it with every fiber of my being if I wanted to succeed in my assignment and escape with my life.

  I spent the rest of the week packing up my new wardrobe in a couple of worn-out suitcases Beauford had loaned me. I took Cleo to stay with Daffney, my hairdresser and only friend in Chicago. The DEA helped me deal with getting out of my lease and putting all of my personal belongings in a portable storage unit.

  Chapter 6

  I arrived in Lexington at the Bluegrass Airport on a Friday around three thirty. It was horribly frustrating to know I was so close to my family, but unable to see them. Being in my hometown was still somewhat comforting, however, knowing the enormity of the task I was about to undertake. Kentucky was in my DNA, so “pretending” to be a country bumpkin was not going to be as difficult as it might have been for someone not from this area. But pretending to be a biker chick was not going to be as easy. All I could do was pray that the last few weeks of training with Renley and Beauford was enough for me to pull it off.

  A pre-reserved taxi was waiting for me at the airport entrance. I gave the driver directions to my new house in Nicholasville and he pulled out of the airport parking lot onto Man O’ War Boulevard. I always loved driving along this road. It intersected the city, passed many thoroughbred farms, and would take you almost anywhere in Lexington that you wanted to go. We took a right onto Harrodsburg Road and then a left onto Highway 169, which took us straight into Nicholasville.

  The cabbie took a right onto Maple Street and pulled into the driveway of a quaint little Cape Cod. It had white vinyl siding and a maroon door with matching shutters. It was a little bigger than I had expected, but I could see how it would fit in with my backstory. My “father” had passed away recently from colon cancer and had left me the house and all his possessions. I paid the driver with the petty cash I had brought with me for traveling and pulled out my keychain and put the designated key in the lock. When I opened the door, I was immediately taken aback by the musty odor that wafted toward me. Due to the clutter and the smell, it was apparent no one had lived in this house for some time. “Thanks, Uncle Sam,” I muttered under my breath as I kicked away some boxes that were in the walkway so I could walk through and survey my new digs.

/>   There were only two bedrooms on the main floor, a kitchen, and a tiny living room. There were stairs by the side door that led to an attic, but it was cluttered full of boxes and old furniture. I came back down the stairs, walked back into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. Nothing. So I’d have to go grocery shopping. Fantastic.

  I checked the television and amazingly, they had sprung for me to have cable TV. There was a wonderful array of books on the two bookshelves that sat on opposite sides of the TV—Steinbeck, King, Follett, Picoult, and Dostoyevsky—I could read and watch my reality TV smut, but other than that, I was going to be rather bored and lonely there in that empty house until things got moving in the investigation.

  ***

  After a trip to the local Walmart to load up on some groceries for the week, I headed back to the house to get ready for my first venture out to The Hole in the Wall. I spent a good amount of time primping my hair and applying my makeup just right. Typically, I only wore mascara and a light-colored lip gloss, but my alter ego loved her makeup. I heavily applied grey and black eye shadow, creating the “smoky eye” look that I had practiced several times after watching a YouTube tutorial on the style. I drew on heavy black eyeliner and caked on the black mascara. Blush was a foreign concept for me, but I had bought some at the Walmart and applied it to my cheeks. Finally, I drew on a deep mauve lip liner and filled in the lines with a matching lip gloss. I stepped back and looked in the mirror at my makeup and my outfit, and although I’d normally never be caught dead looking like I did, it was perfect for what I was trying to achieve.

  When ten o’clock rolled around, a time that I’d normally already be in bed, I locked up the house and headed for the bar. I had memorized its location from the file and so I found it rather quickly near the corner of Main Street and Maple Street. It looked exactly like what its name indicated—a hole in the wall. Even though it was only a little after ten o’clock, there were already several bikes parked outside on the sidewalk. I guessed that was because in this little town, bars close down at midnight.

  I parked my bike next to the others, hung my helmet on the handlebars, and adjusted my hairdo. I stood there for just a moment to gather my nerves. After inhaling and exhaling the smell of beer, cigarette smoke, and sweat that was wafting out of the bar a couple of times, I sauntered into the bar like I’d been there a million times before. I scanned the room for Sonny or Leroy or any of the other members I’d seen pictures of, but no one looked familiar. There were four or five round tables, all fully occupied, and a jukebox in the corner, just like at Dottie’s back in Glenview.

  I spotted an empty seat at the bar, walked confidently over to it, and jumped up onto the barstool.

  “What’ll ya have?” asked the husky bartender. He had a thick black beard, but not a hair on the top of his head.

  “I’ll have a Blue Moon…with a slice of orange.” I had heard other girls order this drink before at other bars, so I thought it must not be that bad.

  He just chuckled and said, “Honey, where do you think you are? We’ve got three kinds of beer on tap or liquor, that’s it.”

  I looked over at the tap and recognized Budweiser from my night with Renley and Beauford. “I’ll have a Bud, then.”

  “Now that’s more like it.” He laughed, poured me a draft from the tap, and slid it over to me. “Will this be it or are you starting a tab?”

  “No, this is fine. Thank you.” I laid down a five-dollar bill and turned around on my barstool to look at the crowd. There were probably about fifteen people in the bar and none of them looked familiar to me. The files had said that Sonny and his dad came in nearly every night, so I was puzzled as to why they weren’t there that night. It was already ten thirty.

  I sat there listening to the music that played on the jukebox. ZZ Top, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash all blared through the speakers set up in the corners of the bar. I sipped on my Budweiser until it was about halfway gone. I started to feel slightly lightheaded for the first time in years. I checked the clock on the wall…eleven o’clock.

  Just when I was about to give up and leave for the night, I heard a shout go up from the small crowd. I turned back around on my stool and saw Leroy and Sonny Jackson walking through the door of the bar, which was now propped open, the loud music spilling out into the night.

  “There they are!” someone yelled out, raising his beer toward the two men who’d just entered the bar.

  “To the president!” yelled another.

  “To the president!” the crowd repeated.

  The older of the two used his hands to try to calm down the crowd. “All right, all right. That’s enough. Simmer down. Get back to your drinks!”

  I immediately noticed exactly what Renley and Beauford had told me about the younger of the two, Sonny Jackson. He was good-looking. He had brown hair that curled only at the ends and fell just above his shoulders. He had his wavy hair pushed back behind his ears. I couldn’t really tell the color of his eyes, but they seemed to be dark and deep. He had a goatee that matched his dark hair and he had a swagger in his step that was unmistakable.

  The elder Jackson, Leroy, was not too bad-looking himself. He looked like an older version of Sonny, only he had completely white hair and a long white beard that hung down to his stout chest. He wore a black bandana wrapped around the top of his head. He too had a certain kind of confidence when he walked.

  Both men were wearing their cuts—a black leather vest with their patches sewn all over, I had learned in my training—with jeans and black leather boots. They could have almost been mistaken for twins, if Leroy’s hair wasn’t so white.

  Both men swayed as they walked from the doorway to the bar, stopping to shake hands with and high-five other bikers along the way. They stepped up to the bar a few seats down from me and talked with the bartender, whose name was apparently Big Jim. They both ordered shots of whiskey and threw them back as soon as Big Jim slid them over. They immediately ordered another round and threw those back just as quickly.

  I sat there, trying not to look directly at them, but I guess I wasn’t as slick as I thought I was, because Sonny did a double-take when he caught me looking. Luckily, he just smiled and raised his third whiskey shot up in the air in my direction. I nodded and smiled, trying to play it flirty and coy at the same time. It must have worked, because Sonny turned around from his spot at the bar and walked over to me and the empty stool next to me.

  “This seat taken?” he asked.

  It worked! I got his attention the first night!

  “No, not at all. Have a seat.”

  He pulled the stool away from the bar and sat down on it immediately. “Well, thank ya, Miss…”

  Luckily, I was ready with my cover story, which I had been over and over in my mind since I left Chicago. “Patricia…Trish, actually. Trish Sanders.” I held my hand out in his direction.

  He looked at it for a split second, as if shaking hands was a foreign concept. I realized in that instant that maybe it was, so I retracted my hand. Then, thank God, he just chuckled and stuck his hand out toward me. “Name’s Sonny. Nice to meet you. You from around here?” Before I could answer, he said, “Wow, that sounded like a lame pickup line. It wasn’t meant to be. I was honestly curious if you’re from around here. I’ve never seen you here before.”

  This was the moment that could make or break the whole deal. I had to cut off his curiosity at the head before it grew into suspicion. “No…well, sort of. My dad lived here. I’m from Lexington. My dad recently passed away and left me his house and affairs to deal with.”

  He looked at me for a moment without responding. It felt like the longest pause I’d ever endured. I felt like he could see right through my lie. I was ready for him to call bullshit on my story. But he didn’t. Instead he just shook his head and said, “Sorry to hear that. That’s a bum deal. When did he die?”

  Whew. I felt like I had dodged a bullet. Maybe literally. “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “W
ho was your dad? Maybe I’ve heard of him?”

  Oh, crap. Even though we had an identity ready for my “father” too, I hadn’t prepared for him to ask me this. “You wouldn’t know him. He wasn’t from here, either. We’re originally from Estill County. He just moved here a couple of years ago himself right after he was diagnosed. Wanted to be closer to the Markey Cancer Center at UK.”

  “I see.” Again, he seemed satisfied with my evasive answer. “What is a pretty girl like you doing in a dive like this?”

  I was prepared for this question too. “Someone told me this was a place where bikers like to get together, so I thought I’d check it out…see if I could meet some kindred spirits.”

  “Kindred spirits? Don’t tell me you’re a motorcycle enthusiast?” He laughed under his breath.

  “Actually, yes. I got it honest. My dad had a chopper and he taught me how to ride when I was sixteen. He bought me my first bike when I was eighteen as a gift for graduating high school.”

  Now he laughed out loud. “You? What do you weigh, like ninety pounds soaking wet? You ride a bike? I don’t believe you.”

  “Sure do. It’s parked right out front if you don’t believe me. It’s a Harley Superlow…blue—my favorite color. I sold my car and bought it a couple of months ago. Want to see it?”

  “Of course I do. I think I’ll have to see this to believe it.” He chuckled.

  “Come on, then. I’ll show you. Follow me.” I hopped down from the barstool and led him out the front door of the bar to where my shiny new bike was parked.

  When I pointed out my motorcycle, he whistled and said, “Sweet ride! I have to admit, I’m impressed. I thought you were trying to pull one over on me there for a second. You wouldn’t believe how many girls try to pretend like they know how to ride a chopper just to get close to one of us, but you…you seem to be the real deal.”