Slave Nation

3. Beards & Tatts

3

Beards & Tatts

I woke up and raised my head off the curtain pulled across the window of the Greyhound. I was sat towards the back, the bus almost empty, except for a Mexican couple who’d come armed with a basket of snacks.

Looking around the coach, even they’d bailed out at some stop or other.

I checked my watch. Eight hours into the drive. The coach was slowing to a stop. I pulled the curtain aside. Caught a death-ray blast of sun to the face. I squinted as my eyes adjusted. Saw a street with a row of single-story buildings made of wood.

The airbrakes on the Greyhound hissed. The driver stood and yelled back at me. “This is your stop, ma’am.”

I peeled myself out of the seat and walked on stiff legs towards the front.

Stan, the driver, was a black guy with dreads and cool wrap shades. “This is it,” he said in a Texan accent. “Bootstrap . . . The bar you want is at the end of the street.” He dropped his shades and looked at me over the rims. “You sure that’s the place you want?”

“Yep,” I said, slipping him a ten dollar bill. “Bye, Stan.”

“Take it easy now,” he said, as I hopped down off the coach.

The Greyhound pulled away in a chug of diesel fumes. I looked both ways up the street. Nothing but a few small stores and swirls of dust. There was the odd cactus in the distance, and a long cracked road you could cook a steak on.

All we were missing was a tumbleweed.

I wore denim cut-offs and a thin, red high-neck top without sleeves I'd picked up at a mall. I admit I’d stolen some cash to pay for them, but only from an obnoxious guy who I found at a petrol station. He'd been having a go at the attendant for touching his Porsche convertible.

I’d picked the guy's pockets, paid for my petrol and driven off before he’d finished shouting and bawling.

Of course, I'd had to ditch the MI6 SUV soon after. It would have been all over CCTV. So instead of driving halfway across the state, I’d bought a few clothes from a mall and hopped on a Greyhound. And there I stood, in good ‘ole Bootstrap, southwest Texas.

To go with the shorts and top, I'd bought a pair of white pumps, some fake Gucci’s, a caramel satchel and a few essentials. Pay-as-you-go mobile included.

At the end of the street, I found the place I was looking for: The Hole Hog. I knew it from hundreds of hours of past internet research.

It looked smaller than on the pictures. But it was the same ramshackle place built out of unbleached wooden boards. It also had a row of gleaming Harleys parked outside, wheels pointed to the road. And a picture of a pig riding a motorbike above the door.

Walking into bars still made me a bit nervous. I was so used to getting ID’d. Seemed like such a silly thing, considering, but I guess it was programmed in.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

It was cool and dark inside. One big, square room with ceiling fans spinning lazy overhead. There was an ancient jukebox playing quiet bluesy rock in a far corner. And between that and the bar, two American pool tables lined with maroon felt.

I counted seven guys and one woman in the bar, including the barman. The music may as well have stopped as I walked in, because everyone else sure did. I nodded and smiled a weak smile, silently apologising for my own existence.

The clientele were dressed head to toe in leather, denim and black t-shirts. A couple with bandanas and all with beards. Maybe even the woman. She was a big unit. They all were. Barman too, polishing a glass with a dirty-white cloth.

I took a tall stool in front of the bar. The bikers went back to what they were doing. But I could tell they were keeping an eye on me.

“Got any ID?” the barman asked in a voice deeper than a well. He was as big as a house and bald as the balls those bikers were knocking around the tables.

I shook my head. “Left it at home. I only want a coke.”

“Sorry, I can’t serve you,” he said. “You’ll have to leave.”

I took my purse out of my bag. I picked out a twenty dollar bill and slid it across the bar. “You can keep the change.”

The barman had a pierced bottom lip. A sleeveless Metallica t-shirt. He put the glass down, looked around and took the money. “You want a glass?”

“Nah,” I said. “Glasses are for wimps, right?”

The barman cracked a half-smile. He grabbed a glass bottle of Coke from a fridge behind him, flashing me a stack of bum cheeks. I looked away, caught the eye of a biker holding a pool cue. His beard was white and trimmed to a dagger point. He wore a bandana and had a Swastika tattoo peeping out of the sleeve of his Harley Davidson tee.

Oookay then.

I looked away. Back to the Coke bottle. The barman tore the metal top off with his teeth and spat it fast into a bin behind the bar. He slid the bottle in front of me. “One twenty dollar coke.”

I grabbed the ice cold bottle and took a swig, feeling it go all the way down my body.

Oh, sweet, beautiful sugar and additives. Just what I needed.

“Where’s that accent from?” the barman asked me, back to drying his glass.

“England,” I said. “Manchester.”

“What are you doing all the way out here?”

I put down the bottle of coke. Sucked up a burp, the fizz stinging my eyes. “I’m looking for something,” I said. “A commune.”

“Commune?”

“Yeah,” I heard there was a commune right around here. I came to sign up.”

“Ain’t no commune around here,” a drawling voice said.

I turned to see Pointy Beard walking over. Pool cue in hand.

“Not what I heard,” I said, taking another drink, checking the inside of his leather waistcoat for signs of a weapon—the bar for an alternative exit.

Pointy Beard wasn’t armed. That didn’t mean the place wasn’t loaded with guns.

I put the bottle down.

“And what did you hear?” Pointy Beard said, leaning his weight on the bar, inches from me. “Whisky,” he said to the barman.

The barman nodded and went to work.

“I heard this is where I could find New Horizon.”

I watched the guy as I said it. He kept his cool. But micro-expressions rarely lied. Philippe taught me to read them. But to be honest, I kinda think the skill came with the heart.

This guy had a rubbish poker face. His pupils dilated, despite there being enough light. It suggested anxiety. And that was in spite of the familiar surroundings and the alcohol in his system.

I could tell the way the others acted around him that Pointy Beard was the leader. Yep, he was the guy to speak to. The head of the Texas Hell Riders. According to local articles online, the gang were Neo Nazi bikers with strong links to New Horizon. They had a thriving business running drugs up and down the state. The police wouldn’t touch them as they were bosom buds with the Mexican cartels. So I guessed at least a couple of them had to be carrying.

Pointy Beard leaned into me with his honking chilli breath. The barman slid him a whisky. He caught it without looking and downed it in one. “Take my advice, girly. Drink up and git your skinny little butt out of Bootstrap. Ain't no one heard of no New Horizon.”

“You’re not very polite, are you?” I said, finishing my drink. I put the bottle down. I closed my eyes and rode out a sharp pain in my nostrils. “Ever get the fizzes?” I asked him.

He screwed up his fat, pig-pink face. “The what—?”

I picked up the empty bottle by the neck and smashed it over the guy’s head.