“Shit, man.” Crunch raised his hands slowly while Tank pulled his weapon and stepped away from him. “What the fuck is going on? You know me. The shit that's going down here, it's not right.”
“I know you? Fuck right, I know you. And I should have known not to vouch for you with the club from the very beginning.” Tank was angry, his face red, and he waved his weapon carelessly. It was probably a good idea that I was here. Tank was much too close to Crunch to just do a clean hit.
Hell, I was close to Crunch too, but I had a lot more experience with killing.
That's why Mad Dog had sent me here.
“What you think I did, I didn't do it.” Crunch looked back and forth at us, eyes pleading, but still defiant.
“Fucking steal money from the club? You’re gonna say you weren’t?” I let Tank rant. It probably would have been better to just get it done with, and that's what a good Sergeant-at-Arms would do, but I wasn't exactly a good Sergeant-at-Arms. Not anymore. I had a nagging feeling something about this wasn't right, and I wanted to hear Crunch's side of things before I made a decision. It was my conscience I had to be concerned about, and I had way too much shit weighing on my conscience already to just kill a brother and walk away.
“You know me, Tank. I wouldn’t steal from the club. Mad Dog’s the one who’s taking from the club. I’ve got evidence. He’s pinning it on me.”
Tank laughed. “Sure, the club President is the one who’s stealing, when you’re the one who was in the lock-up for it.” Crunch was the one with the numbers experience; the one who had access to all the money; and the one who’d been in the federal pen way back when for computer hacking and embezzlement. The guy was a fucking genius when it came to computers. It was a no brainer for the club to make the decision that Crunch was a traitor, when Mad Dog brought this shit to us.
“Fuck you guys. I did not do this. That motherfucker is setting me up,” Crunch protested, shaking his head, resigned to his fate. “You can kill me if you want, but you’re going to find out I’m right. I’m the one who found out Mad Dog’s been stealing from the club, from Benicio.”
"Can you see Mad Dog as some kind of money genius?"
Tank had a point. On the face of it, Mad Dog wasn't exactly a brain surgeon. He had business sense, sure, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten by as Club President for this long. But he wasn't the brightest.
Would he steal from the club? Yeah, I could see that. He was reckless, greedy, narcissistic. But steal from Benicio? He couldn't be that stupid. Mad Dog had done some underhanded things. Hell, I was his fucking right hand man - I'd done some fucking underhanded things. And he'd just tried to get the club to buy off on a plan to get us out from under Benicio. To get us aligned with a fucking Mexican cartel. Crazy Mexican motherfuckers. The club didn't buy off on it, but the vote was close.
In fact, I was the deciding vote.
No hard feelings, Mad Dog had said. I would be stupid to believe that. Coming out here to kill Crunch was a test of loyalty, I knew that much. I just wasn't sure how loyal I was to Mad Dog anymore.
I didn't understand the drive to get into bed with the Mexicans. Money wasn't bad for us right now, and at least Benicio wasn't insane.
Our Panamanian employer wasn't exactly someone you wanted to try to steal from, though. Just like his brother Guillermo, whom we'd provided protection for before, Benicio had a reputation for being ruthless if you crossed him.
Of course, Crunch didn't strike me as being particularly reckless.
Not like Mad Dog.
“You believe this shithead?” Tank asked, turning toward me. I kept my eyes on Crunch, although Tank was making me nervous. He was a hothead and I didn’t need to get shot.
“Quit waving that thing around,” I said.
“The evidence,” Crunch said. “It’s all online. I've got everything, the paper trail that shows it’s Mad Dog who’s been stealing from the club. April knows. He’ll kill her and MacKenzie. I was going to bring it to the club. I was just waiting until I had everything. I confronted him about it.”
"April and Mac will be fine," I said.
I shouldn't be making promises I couldn't keep, I thought. If Crunch had stolen from the club, April was about to be in a world of hurt. It wasn't going to be fine, not for her or MacKenzie.
If Crunch had stolen from the club.
Was I sure? Sure enough to take him out?
I knew Crunch. At least, I thought I did.
“Look,” Crunch said. “The bank statement-there's a copy in my pocket. Take it out. You’ll see I’m telling the truth. I’ve kept it on me since I confronted Mad Dog.”
“You believe this shit? This is pissing me off. I should shoot you right now,” Tank said. “I can’t fucking believe I vouched for you to get you into the club.”