“Hey, Michelle.” Mad Mike showed he was not quite as insensitive as he usually pretended to be by calling Michelle by her Christian name as Rick had just done. Of course, she’d just been elevated in rank, or at least in their estimation, by becoming the old lady of a full member. “You had a call a couple of minutes ago. This chick asked me to tell you to call Melissa at work, she said to tell you it was something very important.” Michelle looked positively radiant; she understood as well as Rick did that by using her Christian name Mike had just given her his tacit permission to drop the trashy road name of Sleaze she so obviously detested.
She cheerfully took the phone Mike extended to her and dialed a number from memory. She spoke pleasantly to someone for a moment then she asked the person to hold on as she covered the speaker with her free hand. “It’s my best friend, Melissa; I worked with her in the emergency room downtown. She knows I run with bikers so she called me as soon as she went on break to tell me who got shot; she thought I might possibly know them.”
Larry jumped right into that interesting conversation with both of his big feet. “We already know the names of the Maniacs who got shot, find out if she knows anything at all about the ones who brought them in. As badly injured as they were, there was probably a fourth shooter involved, because someone had to have driven them in. If there was, we’ve got to get them, too. This is not only a matter of principle, Michelle. It’s downright survival!”
Michelle spoke at some length with Melissa and then she tightly covered the mouthpiece again. “She said she heard one of the wounded men call the biker who brought them in ‘Chico’. She gave me a good description of him; she said he’s around thirty-five years old, he’s about five feet and eight inches tall, and he’s Hispanic. He was so nervous and agitated that he was almost running when he left the hospital just before the police got there.”
“Ask her if this Chico had a teardrop tattoo under one eye.” Mike told her. She spoke into the phone again then she nodded her lovely blond head affirmatively at them. “Yeah, that’s got to be that fuckin’ Chico Mendoza, he’s one of their senior members.”
Larry said. “That stupid Cubano; he knows we can’t let him get away with shooting one of us! Okay Foxy, tell this broad Melissa to forget we asked about this, but she can remember that we owe her a big one. We always make it a point to repay everyone whether they help us or hurt us. In fact, here’s several of my cards, give one of them to her the next time you see her and hang on to a few for yourself.”
Michelle spoke briefly to her friend again, and then she reached over and hung up the phone. As she stretched gracefully to accept his cards she asked Larry, “What is all this stuff about the teardrop tattoo? I’ve seen them on a couple of hard cases before, but I never had any ideas about what they meant.”
“Michelle, I’m going to level with you. We don’t usually let the chicks know about heavy things like this shooting that just happened, but you’ve been caught up in the middle of it already. The tattoo identifies a man as a shooter who has done time for murder. I don’t understand why anyone would get one; it singles you out for the cops and for potential enemies like us. From what I’ve heard about this macho little dude he was trained in Cuba as a jungle fighter.”
Rick felt almost like an anxious teacher’s pet in grade school as he responded to Larry’s statement. “I was qualified in Nam, Cambodia, and Laos as a jungle fighter…” He had always sworn he’d quit volunteering for tough assignments someday, but this was something both he and Snowman were uniquely qualified for.
“Me, too.” Snowman eagerly bought in. “Me and Slick met up in Nam. We were Snake Eaters, Green Berets. Then we got recruited for work in Laos and Cambodia for the spooks, the C. I. A. I never underestimate my enemy, but as far as training and experience go, we far outclass any soldier ever trained in Cuba. Slick showed you a sample of what he can do against an assault squad of three or four average shooters in that little firefight this evening.”
“We all know how capable you both are, Snowman.” Larry roughly grumbled. His craggy face creased deeply as he pondered the situation. Several others of the Bros who had been with Snowman in dangerous situations spoke up loudly in support of him. Larry raised his beer can in his big right fist; he sighted over it appraisingly at Rick and Snowman. “I’d say it’s settled then, we could call in some talent from out of town, but that might fuck up things even more; it takes a great leader to know how to delegate authority. Snowman and Slick will decide how they want to handle this fuckin’ Chico. The rest of us will hang tight and back them up only when and how they ask for it. Now that we’re all in agreement on this, somebody break out some more booze and let’s party down.”
“Oh, one more thing, Larry.” Snowman got everyone’s attention again. “All of this shit about where me and Slick fought is still classified Top Secret, so now that you all know about it, we’ll probably have to kill you!” This totally outrageous statement got a hell of a laugh from everyone.
What Snowman lacked in formal education, he more than made up for in physical ability and street savvy. Despite his relatively small size, Snowman was an extremely capable and deadly martial arts expert. Once, when they’d been on rest and recuperation leave in Thailand, Rick had sat in his chair and calmly sipped on his beer while Snowman had badly beaten three battle scarred Navy veterans who’d made the painful error of referring to him as “Shorty.”
During their first tour of duty, the two of them had been the sole survivors of an A-Team that had infiltrated into Laos to assassinate a key General. The three-day running firefight they had endured to survive, as a company of some of Hanoi’s most elite troops tried to track them down had forged a bond of mutual respect and friendship between them that wouldn’t die! As soon as the intelligence reports of their exploit and the confirmation of their impressive body count had circulated around the headquarters of the Military Assistance Command in Saigon, they were recruited by the Agency for its clandestine activities.
The exhilaration brought on by the danger and the constant violence quickly became a habitual drug they could only continue to score by re-enlisting. After eventually being forced to rotate out of Asia several years later, they’d made it a point to stay in touch with each other. Rick had eventually moved to Houston, which was Snowman’s hometown, when he’d gotten out of government service.
Michelle moved to sit in a nearby chair so she’d have room to work; she quickly hand stitched the member patch onto the sleeveless denim jacket Rick flew his colors on. “There, that will hold them for now.” She told Rick as she handed the “rags” back to him.
“Righteous! Looking good; thanks a lot, Babe.” Rick thanked her as he put the vest back on. The other member’s old ladies had begun gradually trickling in as they heard where their men were and then got the news a major celebration was in order. Most of them had already heard about the shooting; news of violence tends to travel damned fast among any tightly knit group of bikers.
Snowman was putting some major party goodies on the table out of one of his infamous Magic Pockets when Slut called in to report. She was one of Larry’s ex-old ladies who had several rug rats by him. Slut had always gotten along with Larry after she left him because she’d never complained about him not paying her child support. Larry reciprocated and repaid her for her silence by not informing the police that Slut did a lucrative business in renting their curtain climbers to various strippers and whores.
The kids were used by these women to falsely prove they had dependents to scam the government out of food stamps and welfare. The children were otherwise treated very well and were usually generously bribed into giving their cooperation. They could all present Oscar winning performances at looking pitiful and grubby. The youngest girl seemed to have an unerring instinct about people. She could play on the emotions of the most street-wise welfare worker like an artist with a musical instrument.
If they started asking too many questions, she would piss her pants, cry pitifully, throw up, or simply stare hungrily at the workers. Her choice of these tactics depended entirely on her uncanny intuition as to which of these actions would be the most effective at the moment.
Rick had once heard Larry remark Slut was raising their kids like a bunch of fucking gypsies, but at least they were learning how to make a living. He did make her promise him one thing about the children, though. She promised him she would not allow them to grow up and be lawyers. Larry wisely thought of lawyers as a form of life considerably lower than green pond scum!
Slut told Larry she’d talked to one of the Maniac’s old ladies and she’d immediately located him to fill him in on what she had been told. Larry listened closely to everything she had to report and then he asked her how the kids were doing. As soon as he hung up the phone, Larry loudly got everyone’s attention and he announced the latest good news. The word Slut had been given was that Luger, the Maniac’s president, had lost the lung that had been smashed by Rick’s .45 hollow point.
Bishop, the rival club’s bad ass sergeant-at-arms would definitely never ride again, and the surgeon’s prognosis about his even being able to walk was very guarded. Grimy, who had been one of the club’s charter members, was still in surgery and he was reported to be hanging on to his life by a slender thread. The rest of the near leaderless and disillusioned Maniac members were still in hiding. The Maniac Motorcycle Club, which had warred with the Desperados since their conception, was on its way out!
Rick and Michelle sat at the dining room table with Snowman and his old lady, Cat Woman. Cat was a small, dark haired, pretty woman who worshipped the very ground Snowman walked on. They were already making a few rough plans for finding Chico. “You both know I’ve got a lot of good connections around town who’ll be happy to help.” Cat told the men. Cat worked part time for her dad; he was a bail bondsman who had bonded out most of the bikers in town at one time or another.
“That’s great, Cat.” Rick commended her. “We’ll see what we can find out about him the first thing tomorrow morning.” Rick glanced admiringly at Michelle; she was watching him intently as he continued. “Snowman, we’ve got plenty of firepower in our arsenal, but I’ve been thinking about digging up some of the stash of plastic explosives I smuggled back into the world from Nam.”
“Righteous. I haven’t played with that stuff much since we dropped that bridge out from under that fuckin’ reinforced company of North Vietnamese regulars. Man, did those poor troops look shocked or what?” Rick and Snowman both laughed until they literally had tears in their eyes.
Michelle and Cat looked at each other and shook their heads in mutual astonishment. Michelle was the first one to speak. “What kind of men are these two anyway? They’re talking about going to war, and it’s like they’re really having fun now.”
“If you think this is something, just wait ’til you get to know them better.” Cat retorted. Rick immediately hoped that her answer didn’t strike Michelle as being overly patronizing. It seemed to him that the girls had liked each other when they’d met for the first time a few moments before and he hoped they would be friends. His unjustified fears were blown to the winds by Michelle’s next statement. “I think I’m about to try to do just that, if I can drag Slick away from his war plans for a little while!”
Michelle stood and pulled on Rick’s arm until he uncoiled from his chair and came to his feet. “I’ve got something classified Top Secret I want to show you in the bedroom, Soldier!” Rick thought Michelle had a hell of an idea. He’d had a hard on ever since he first laid eyes on her, but he was surprised and was definitely turned on by her own display of audacity. He bent and smoothly lifted her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Actually it was a modified fireman’s carry, because firemen rarely grip the person they’re rescuing by a handful of one cheek of their ass.
Michelle squealed shrilly in excitement as he lifted her and Rick’s Bros whistled and yelled to show their unanimous approval of his macho move! Rick carried Michelle into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. He carefully laid her down on the bed, and then he sat down beside her and kissed her as he began taking off her clothing with both of his suddenly clumsy hands. She responded feverishly to his kisses as she helped by unbuckling his belt and unzipping his Levi’s.
Rick rolled away from her to finish stripping off his boots and clothing. She cleared the deck for action with few wasted motions; she threw her clothing to the floor. Her body was even more voluptuous nude than Rick had even imagined. She was already breathing rapidly as Rick stretched his hard body out beside hers and then took her into his arms. They kissed again and his tongue explored her mouth once more. She sucked on his tongue and reached for his hard prick at the same time.
She erotically stroked his erect prick in time with her strong suction on his tongue and his hands roamed over her body as if they had a will of their own. He first cupped her heavy breasts as he thumbed her nipples into hardness and then he stroked the soft mounds of her sweet ass. Rick ended their kiss and he began licking and sucking his way down her cheeks and neck to her big breasts. She moaned and held her breasts to his mouth with her small hands as he suckled first one, and then the other of her turgid nipples for a moment.
Rick had learned a long time ago that sucking a woman’s nipples deeply into his mouth and against his palate the way a baby suckles its mother gives the woman the most stimulation possible. He felt Michelle’s voluptuous body shudder as his mouth left her breasts and he slowly kissed his way across her smooth belly to her wet center and then licked and sucked at it with his mouth. She clenched her legs in ecstasy and immediately began to quiver and shudder violently.
He cupped the smooth, firm cheeks of her marvelously shapely butt with both of his hands and hung on as she bucked against his face. When she finally calmed down a little, he rose over her to place himself between her legs. She frantically grasped him with both of her hands to guide him into place. Rick found that even though she was well lubricated, she was such a snug fit at first that he had to ease himself into her one short stroke at a time. As he carefully entered her tight, wet warmth, she began to quiver and convulse in another wild orgasm.
Michelle urgently clutched him to her with her smooth arms and long legs and met his every pounding pelvic thrust with an equal upward one of her own. Her long fingernails caused the muscles of his buttocks to tighten as she clenched him to her. Her exquisitely cushioned soft breasts provided a marvelous contrasting sensation as compared to her hard nipples as he rubbed against her with his own hairy chest.
A few moments of that wild ride were all Rick could take and remain in any semblance of control. Michelle came wildly again as she felt him stiffen rigidly and ecstatically spurt his juices into her for the first time.
Shortly after the door had closed behind them the sounds of muted moaning had come from the bedroom. These sounds were echoed merrily by most of the club members and their old ladies. “Oh Baby, oh Baby!” Mike cried out in a loud fake orgasm as the sounds from the bedroom reached a crescendo and then subsided. Rick simply held Michelle for a time, then he kissed her lovingly again and stroked her body. “Damn, Lady.” He told her. “That was great, it was one wild ride!”
“Uh huh!” Michelle moaned in answer. She luxuriously stretched out all of her abundant charms right in front of Rick as he looked on hungrily. She spoke lanquidly; “You didn’t lie to me about the way you kissed all over, Baby! We’re going to spend most of our time in bed from now on.” The noise in the living room had begun to drastically increase in volume again. “But, right now we’ve got to go face the music from those silly bastards. Do you want the shower first?”
Rick grasped one of her small hands and placed it on his swiftly recovering manhood. “No Lady, right now I want to have you in the shower first!” When Rick and Michelle finally came back out of the bedroom, freshly showered, hand in hand, and with sated looks on both of their faces, they were met with the ludicrous sight of the club members lazily reclining all over the furniture and the floors. Every one of them was holding lit cigarettes, even the ones who never smoked. The Bros and their old ladies asked loudly in concert, “Was it good for you too, Baby?”
“Oh yes, Baby, yes!” Michelle’s laughing reply was met with a roar of hilarity from the club. All the joking about the ongoing sex had made Snowman and Cat horny, so they were the next couple to reserve the bedroom. This time Rick and Michelle joined in on the same kind of free for all bantering that had accompanied their own lovemaking. At one point, Cat could be heard pitifully begging Snowman to go slow and easy so as not to hurt her.
One of the younger and more naive of the old ladies asked, “Do you think she needs any help? He must really be hurting her.”
Michelle laughed with the others and then she calmly told the girl, “If you were to go into that bedroom right now, Cat would kill you, Girl!” Michelle was standing behind Rick’s chair; she was carefully brushing and braiding his hair in a long coil. At the same time Rick was swiftly changing the barrels of his twin Colts for the spares he had stashed in his saddlebags. He did this to prevent any possibility the rifling could be matched to the bullets that had wounded the Maniacs. He kept one of the big Colts fully loaded and ready in its holster as he expertly broke down the other.
“That’s a good idea, Bro.” Mike said approvingly of his parts swapping. Rick was also swapping out his ammunition to thwart any possible analysis and comparison of the lead batch.
“Yeah, there’s probably not any matching rifling grooves left on those soft hollow points after they mushroomed when they hit car parts and flesh and bones, but I’ve been told they don’t need much for a positive comparison and I like to be certain. This way I don’t have to dump a fine weapon, I just replace a couple of hundred dollars worth of parts. Luckily, Dana picked up my shell cases before the cops arrived so I don’t have to worry about my firing pins, my ejectors, or my magazines being matched.”
Michelle finished brushing out his long hair and began braiding it neatly. “Slick, you were wonderful in there.” She whispered to him and kissed his cheek. She was more than pleased with her impulsive decision so far. Rick had been so sweet and protective of her and then so damned interesting and sexy that he’d already gone a long way toward winning her heart.
“Yeah, Baby, you’re the best, too!” Rick told her truthfully. He promised her, “I’ll show you how much I really liked it when we’ve got more time later.” He was thinking it would be very easy to get spoiled by having a gloriously attractive and sexy woman. Especially one who was not only multi-orgasmic, but who got off almost the moment you touched her.
Michelle asked him curiously, “There’s just one thing I was wondering about, I mean about Vietnam, not the sex. Snowman said you blew up a bridge under a reinforced company of soldiers, that’s a whole lot of them, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Babe, it is.” In his mind’s eye, Rick could see the long columns of troops as they’d been just before they’d set off the explosives. Their ranks had been trailing out as far as he could see across the bridge and up the dusty road. Dozens of them had been killed because Rick’s team had planted every Claymore mine along the road they could pack forward in three trips, and then they had placed plastic explosives on the bridge supports. That particular mission had been mostly for psychological effect.
The North Vietnamese had been making a major push into the south and Rick had proposed the behind the lines ambush to the Brass as a method of showing the Commies just how vulnerable they were to the Special Forces groups.
“Didn’t they try to find you after they regrouped?” Michelle asked logically.
Rick was a little surprised at her insightful reasoning. “Sure.” Rick amiably told her. “The survivors looked behind every tree and turned over every rock and log for miles around. We’d known we’d be surrounded immediately. Hell, the bridge was only about twenty miles from Hanoi so they were all around us like hornets! The brass let me plan the whole thing so I stole from the Viet-Cong’s own tactics. Usually, we’d hit them fast and then run for the nearest clearing and catch a chopper home, so this time we went in two weeks early and dug us a deep hole in a mountain.”
“We dumped every shovel full of the dirt into the river to hide the evidence, and when all of the fireworks started we caved in the passageway with shovels and we blew the outside entrance to the hole. We had some carefully engineered breathing holes, but I won’t bore you with all the details. From the outside, the cave-in looked just like the site of all the other explosions. We sat around and played cards while they charged around outside hunting for our evacuation route. We dug our way out of the mountain three nights later, and things had cooled off enough for us to inflate our rafts and float quietly down the river.” Michelle gained an insight of the complex mind of her new old man from his astounding answer.
Scooter had been allowed back upstairs for a beer after another prospect, one who was still in good graces because he’d been properly excused from the earlier meeting, had arrived downstairs to relieve him from the guard duty. One of the old ladies noticed the injured and unhappy Scooter had made up for lost time on his drinking. She whispered, “Scooter passed out in the party zone! Let’s paint him.”
Several of the women gathered mascara, lipstick, and nail polish and proceeded to garishly decorate the prospect with makeup. When they finished with him he looked like some sort of freaked-out rock star.
Snowman and Cat finished their business in the bedroom. Mike proposed that now that they had a plan for handling the Maniacs and knew there was no immediate danger from them, they should all go for a ride to clear some of the fog out of their heads. The majority of the club met this proposal with approval and the few lazy slackers among them were soon converted to their just and righteous cause. Mama Juggs told them, if they wanted to go back to the Erotic Club, she was sure she could talk the manager into springing for a couple of pitchers of Kamikazes.
A mad stampede for the bikes began immediately. The roar of the club’s bikes cranking and warming up gave Rick a rush like no mind-altering drug had ever done before. When Larry’s bike had warmed up he yelled over the rumble of the bikes and pointed at Rick and Snowman. Then he pointed to his and Mike’s rear fenders; he wanted them to flank the leaders on this run. Rick knew that Crazy Larry was according them a special honor.
When Larry and Mike led the club out onto the street in pairs, the combined sounds of the powerful hogs began to resonate off of the nearby buildings with an indescribably awesome throbbing power. Rick leaned back against Michelle’s firm breasts. She put her arms around him and clutched him to her as he stretched his legs out to the extended controls of “The Bitch”, as he affectionately called his bike. He did his best to memorize all of the sensations of his first ride with the club as a full member and with a righteous old lady.
Rick and Snowman rode two abreast synchronizing their turns and lane changes. They had walked, run, rode, and fought side by side so often that each of them could almost read the other’s mind. Cat and Michelle got into the wild and crazy spirit of things by giving each other’s old man tit shots. Snowman and Rick ogled, leered, and snorted like the lascivious voyeurs they really were.
At one red light they stopped at, Mad Mike became irritated by the loud rap music coming from the idling car in the traffic lane next to theirs. The five young men in the car were carefully ignoring the formidable pack of bikers, but Mike very effectively produced a radical change in their contrived air of coolness.
Mike did something totally revolting the super cool young men couldn’t help but notice; he inserted one of his little fingers into his nostril and began to rapidly waggle his hand around as if he were reaming his nose out with a tool. Mike withdrew his finger and then he intently scrutinized the revolting product of his mining exploration; if the look of sheer delight that came over his face were any indication, he’d found the mother lode of all boogers this time!
The driver of the car quickly abandoned his unconcerned facade; he rolled up his car window and yelled in panic for his passengers to do the same. Mike flicked his finger and as luck would have it (or knowing Mike, his accuracy was probably the result of years of practice), the repulsive blob of mucus soared in an unerring trajectory to the driver’s window and stuck!
Rick saw the grossed out look on the terrified driver’s face as he stomped on his accelerator and ran the freaking red light. Rick and Michelle joined Larry and everyone else who had seen the tense little drama unfold in cheering and laughing triumphantly!
The lead bikes pulled into the club’s parking lot way too soon for Rick. They parked in a blocked off area the management reserved for bikes to keep the bikers from fucking with the citizens, and then they noisily invaded the place. As they headed toward the door, Michelle grasped Rick and walked possessively arm in arm with him into the club. D. A., the big bouncer, had heard the rumble of all the bikes coming. He held the door open wide and greeted the club members.
When he saw Rick and Michelle coming in together, a wide smile crossed his friendly face and he gave them a thumbs-up sign with one big fist. “How is the gorgeous lady tonight, Michelle? Slick! You don’t have to say a damned thing; I can see how you’re doing, Stud!” Rick acknowledged his congratulations and warm handshake with a nod and a happy grin.
Mad Mike fell madly in love with the abundant breasts of the first topless waitress he saw. He began to follow her around the club telling her things she knew from long experience with bikers were nothing but a pack of outrageous lies about how he’d fallen in love with her at first sight. To prove to her he was really in love and how truly sensitive and caring he was, he sent one of the prospects on a mission with instructions to buy the girl a bunch of flowers.
The rest of the members shoved spare tables around until they were all seated at one long one, then they ordered their drinks. Mike fell deeply and eternally in love with another of the waitresses, but he soon threw her over for the pitchers of Kamikazes Mama Juggs had brought to the table for them.
The prospect Mike had sent out came back laden down with five dozen cut flowers! The well-meaning and eager to please prospect hadn’t had a clue as to how many flowers were in a bunch so he’d just bought all of them the store had! By this time the waitresses were all pissed off at Mike for crudely groping them. None of them would have anything to do with him, so he tried making a few points by passing out the flowers to each of his Bros old ladies.
Snowman called out to Rick. “Hey Rick. Have you heard what happened to poor old Crankshaft, one of my Bros who was shacked up with a fine old lady?” He also got the attention of the whole freaking table. Snowman was well known for telling some damned entertaining stories. Rick’s ears perked up too; he’d been performing the duties of Snowman’s straight man for years. “No, Bro. I don’t guess I’ve heard about that one as yet.” Rick honestly answered.
“Yeah, he was coming in from a run with his Bros and she was just coming out of their pad and she’s really looking good! She’s dressed up all of the way down to her bend me over, fuck me, high heels, but she’s carrying her freaking suitcases. He asks her where she’s going. She says, ‘I’m leaving you, you bastard!’ Crankshaft’s really shocked! He says, ‘But Baby, everything was great this morning, we made mad passionate love and you said you loved me and sex had never been that good for you before.’ She says, ‘That was before my girlfriend told me you’re a fuckin’ pedophile!'”
Snowman stopped the narration of his story to take a healthy swig of his drink. Rick suspected the master showman of shrewdly using this pause to build up suspense for his story. When he resumed, he still had the undivided attention of the whole party. He continued, “The Bro says ‘Pedophile, huh. Well, that’s an awful fuckin’ big word for a ten year old to use!'”
The party cracked up at the surprise ending to Snowman’s wild story! Rick had never ceased to be amazed at the sheer number and quality of the jokes Snowman knew. “Damn it, Bro. That’s a terrible shame! It sounded like your Bro had a really righteous old lady there for a while.”
The conversation slowed a little, and Cat got bored and playfully began tossing flowers at Mama Juggs. Mama Juggs very predictably retaliated in force. Michelle remained an innocent bystander until a stray flower inadvertently hit her and then she and the other girls joined in!
Some of the Bros decided the flower fight looked like fun so they started throwing ice. Michelle and Jugg’s enticing cleavages quite naturally became their favorite targets for the ice! The entire rowdy party was having a very large time until the manager came over and threatened to throw them out. “I knew we were having way too much fun again!” Rick told the others and everyone had to reluctantly agree.
Mike threw one last small cube of ice at Snowman who agilely shifted his head and caught the ice in his mouth. “Ouch!” He yelled loudly as he grabbed at his eye and covered it with his hand.
“What’s the matter, Baby?” Cat asked him in concern!
“Oh, it’s really nothing, Babe. Mike hit me in the eye with a big ice cube. I’m sure it’ll probably be almost as good as new in a month or two.” Rick and Michelle and most of the table had seen Snowman eat the ice, and they laughed as little Cat flashed; she got up and launched herself at the monstrous Mike! Mike put down his drink; he quickly stabbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray, then he rose from his chair to his full imposing height.
He faked an ineffectual attempt at fending off Cat as she pummeled him with her little fists. “Ouch, Snowman, call her off, Man! Ouch! Cat, I know you’ve always craved my body, Baby, but you really have to learn to control your crazed and insatiable desire for me in front of your old man!”
This insane accusation really set Cat off. She yelled, “What do you mean, I want your body, you big idiot? The only way I’d ever want your body is dead!” Scooter rudely interrupted the wild and crazy fun they were having; Rick saw the eerily painted prospect coming for him a fraction of a second after Snowman had. Rick caught the metallic gleam of the knife out of the corner of his eye. He was rising to meet the charge as Snowman leaped up and did an acrobatic forward roll into the chest of the big prospect and right over the top of him. He lit agilely on his feet and presented the knife hilt first to Mad Mike with the flourish of an accomplished magician!
Mike’s only comment was, “Bitchin’!” Scooter was stupidly standing there looking as if he were wondering where his knife had gone as one of Mike’s incredibly huge arms gathered him in. Mike led the big prospect as easily as a child toward the rear of the club; he motioned for Rick and the others to follow him. Larry told the other prospects to stay with the old ladies while the members handled some unexpected club business.
Mike told Scooter when he released him, “Suspect, you got a problem with a club member, you’re supposed to settle it in private!” Larry decisively closed the door of the banquet room behind the last member to enter. As soon as Mike released him, Scooter charged Rick for the third time that evening. Rick knew he’d been much faster than Scooter earlier when the prospect had been sober so he was sure of himself now; he deftly grabbed Scooter’s right wrist in the middle of a wildly thrown punch.
He whirled around behind Scooter and pushed the big man’s arm up behind his back, then he put all of his weight into shoving Scooter’s already injured face straight into the concrete block wall of the building! Rick spun Scooter around and rammed him into another wall then he literally threw the big man at the third. Scooter had started to get very limp after hitting the second and third walls, so Rick finally allowed him to fall.
Rick told the unconscious prospect, “Anytime you want some more of that, you know where I’ll be! Let’s go get us a drink.”
Mike said brightly to everyone concerned. “Watching Slick kick Scooter’s stupid ass always makes me thirsty!” When Rick got back to their table, he could tell by the look of excitement on her face that Michelle was exhilarated. If she’d had any suppressed doubts about her impetuous decision to pack with Rick she’d forgotten them now. She had a crisp hundred-dollar bill extended in her hand and a radiant smile on her face. She told him gratefully, “I told you I’d give you a hundred dollars to do that again; thank you, Darling.”
“No problem, Babe. This one’s on me; it really was my pleasure!” Rick assured her as he creased the bill, he kissed it, and then he tucked it into the soft, warm valley between her full breasts.
“Hey, Bro. I just thought of something.” Larry grunted from across the table. He’d sat down in his chair; now he honored Rick again by picking up his own pitcher and refilling Rick’s drink from it. His serious expression gave away nothing as he sat the pitcher down and picked up his own drink. “I’ve been thinking about giving Scooter a trial for missing the meeting and throwing him out of the club, but it might be more fun if we didn’t. How’d you like to be his new sponsor?”
Eyes lit up and mouths dropped open all around the table in awe and admiration of the Solomon-like wisdom of the fitting punishment. It was no accident Crazy Larry was the Desperado’s Club President!
“Righteous!” Rick shouted happily. “Bitchin’!” Mad Mike threw in. “Justice at last!” Michelle yelled ecstatically. The club members and their old ladies saw the righteous humor in the situation and everybody had a hell of a time celebrating it. The wild partying lasted well into the morning hours.
They dispatched one of the prospects to bring a truck and then they instructed him to load Scooter and his Sportster for transport to one of the other prospect’s homes. Rick proposed an awesome idea for the ride home that met with everyone’s instant approval. They gathered up some of the much abused flowers they’d been fighting with earlier and stuck them in tall drink glasses to make three ragged arrangements.
The club rode down to the hospital the maniacs had been admitted to. The nurses at the front desk naturally turned the wild crowd down when they asked to be permitted to visit their close friends, the Maniacs. Larry gave the nurses a very disappointed look and told them, “Be sure to give them these flowers and tell them they’re from their old friends, the Desperados, who’re always thinking of them!”
Rick and Michelle had enough energy to explore their new love life after an invigorating ride home in the chill morning air. She drove Rick to new heights of passion with her exuberance. They made love until the early morning hours and then they went to sleep contentedly entwined in each others arms and legs.
Rick slowly regained consciousness and stirred, his whole body was in terrible agony. His tortured mind couldn’t understand why he was hurting so damned badly! The last thing he remembered was the Team had been holding a mission planning session in their headquarters on the outskirts of Phu Cat.
He recalled that just before he’d lost consciousness he’d shouted an alarm as he’d seen a grenade flying into the hooch! He raised his head and he could see he was the only lucky one of the team; he’d been blown clear of the demolished shack by the explosion. The badly wounded Green Beret tried desperately to ignore the horrible pain from his newly reopened wounds as he pulled his crippled body closer to the blasted hooch to check on his teammates. He saw the hideously roasted remains of his fellow team members and every fiber of his being screamed for vengeance!
They lay right there before him on the still smoldering ground; his friend’s bodies had been stiffened by fire into grotesque postures of agony. The renegade strikers must have used one of their own white phosphorus grenades against them after he’d been blown clear. One of the charred figures moaned, he could barely make out the mumbled words. “Kill me. I’d do it for you!”
Rick abruptly woke up; he was drenched and sweating from every pore. Michelle stirred and stretched sensuously; then she opened her baby blues and saw he was awake. Michelle whispered passionately, “Make love to me, Baby, one more time!” Rick made sweet love to her in thankful affirmation of his life!

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