Page 57 of Goose

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I fumed. “What if Crip wouldn’t have said anything? It’s shit like that that’ll get us hemmed up, you dip-shit.”

“Tell me about it.” Crip chuckled and then tilted his head toward Pee Bee. “This fucking rocket scientist does dumb shit like that all the time.”

“Not all the time.” Pee Bee argued. “Just every now and again.”

“He gets busy fuckin’ his Ol’ Lady, and he forgets where his devotion lies,” Crip explained. “If a man doesn’t think to ask him, he might never know. Brought a Ziploc bag filled with cocks to my house one night. He’d been riding around with them all night. Found out later that he stopped and got a cheeseburger on the way to my house with that sack of cocks in his saddlebag, but that’s a story for some other time.”

I wasn’t surprised at the bag of dicks comment. I found it shocking, however, that Pee Bee had an Ol’ Lady. If a club as hardened as the Filthy Fuckers had members with Ol’ Ladies, there wasn’t any reason why I couldn’t succeed at it.

If I chose to.

“So, you’re willing to help us out on this?” Baker asked.

Crip nodded. “You get caught on the way here, I don’t know you, and you don’t know me. We’ll agree on a time and date, and I’ll have that thing fired up and ready. Prefer to do it on a Sunday morning, though. Takes that fucker twenty-four hours to cool down. Doing it during the week is a pain in the ass.”

I looked at Cash. “Planning on bringing everything in your truck?”

Cash nodded.

I turned to face Crip. “This Sunday work for you?”

He shook his head. “We’re headed to Palm Springs this weekend. Next Sunday works fine.”

“Next Sunday works for me,” I said.

“Works for me,” Cash chimed.

Crip looked at Baker and gave a nod. “Sounds like a fuckin’ consensus. A week from this Sunday.”

Baker extended his hand. “I appreciate it.”

Crip shook it. “Sorry about your loss. Didn’t know the fella but heard nothing but good things about him. Damned fine man from what I’ve heard.”

“He was,” Baker said.

Crip shook his head in clear disgust. “Leave it up to a drunk in a cage. Probably be the death of all of us. Sons-of-bitches.” He looked at Reno. “Why don’t you get you dumb Army Ranger ass up here on Sunday and ride with us, you worthless prick?”

“I could do that,” Reno said.

“You could, or you will?”

Reno nodded. “I will.”

“Be here at seven,” Crip said.

I wasn’t surprised that Crip and Reno knew one another, but it shocked me that Crip invited him to ride with them on a day-long venture.

“How do you two know each other?” I asked.

Crip looked at Reno. “Can I tell ‘em?”

Reno shrugged. “I don’t give a fuck.”

Crip picked up the beer bottle that Pee Bee set at his feet, and twisted off the cap. After taking a long drink, he glanced at each of us. “Him and his ground pounding Ranger buddies were in the Kandahar Province, on patrol. Al Qaeda got them pinned down between a few big rocks.”

He took another drink of beer, looked at Reno, and grinned. “They must have been sprayin’ and prayin’, because the dumb fucks ran out of fuckin’ ammo. Because Reno here is the son of a Texas senator, the brass decided his life was worth something. They called in my SEAL team to try and rescue them.”

Wearing a serious face, he looked at each of us. “So, they dropped us in this hot zone, with bullets flying from every fucking direction. We fought our way to the pile of rocks, and when we got there these poor bastards had thirty rounds of ammo between them. No food. No water. Nothing but thirty rounds of ammo and a pocket full of desire. My guess is they’d have lasted another five minutes if we hadn’t showed up. When we tried to extract them, dip-shit here refused to go. He said all he needed from me was some ammo. Told me to take the others and leave him. Said he’d fight his way out. In fact, that’s what the crazy SOB did.”

He chuckled and then shook his head. “We ended up slaughtering those bastards with the help of that Ranger chalk. Reno earned my respect right then and there. We’ve stayed in touch ever since.”

I’d always given Reno a little less recognition than the other men. I suspected it was because we’d been friends since childhood, and that he came along later in life. Learning of his courage, the narrow escape from death, and of his devotion, I now viewed him with a higher level of admiration than I had in the past.

“So, if it wasn’t for you, Reno wouldn’t be standing here?” I asked.

“Hard saying,” Crip responded. “Gung-ho SOB might have fought them off with a handful of rocks. Wouldn’t have surprised me one fucking bit.”

I glanced at Reno and gave a mental nod.

He stood before me as proof that a man never really knows who a person is until he takes the time to get to know them. Subsequently, if a man doesn’t invest that time or effort, he might be surprised with what he finds out in the end.

There was one person in my life that I knew little about.

It was time for that to change.