Page 14 of Iron Heart

“It might not matter one way or another,” I finally say. “But If Indio offed Chaco, he might have made a huge fuckin’ mistake. Nobody knows Indio.” I look over at Axel. “With Chaco out of the picture, Indio’s gonna be seen as a potentially weak leader. Too weak to defend their cartel’s turf. Seems like if I was Los Caballeros, I’d consider this a perfect time to strike.”

Rourke blows out a breath. “If Los Caballeros take over Dos Santos territory, our pipeline is broken. We got a big fuckin’ Los Caballeros-sized hole in the middle of it.”

“Unless we cut ties with Dos Santos now,” Bama cuts in with a leer. “And get word to Los Caballeros that we’re not doin’ business with the Dos Santos cartel anymore. Get ahead of the game.”

“We still need Dos Santos’ product,” I shoot back. “We can’t just cut ties without findin’ another source. No guarantee we can do business with Los Caballeros and whoever’s behind them. Or that we should.”

“So, what are we gonna do, prez?” Mal asks. “We gonna get involved?”

“We got an unknown at the head of the Dos Santos cartel.” Axel’s jaw sets. “You’re right about that, Dante. We don’t know whether he killed Chaco. And for our purposes, I ain’t sure it makes any difference right now. For the moment, we made a commitment to sell to them. We honor our commitments.”

“That’s crazy,” Bama protests. “We committed to Chaco. Not Indio.”

“We honor our commitments,” Axel repeats, in a tone that invites no argument.

“We’ll need to change our delivery method,” Matthias points out. “We’re too exposed right now. Los Caballeros knows we do business with Dos Santos. If they’re making a play for their turf, they’re gonna come after us. Try to intercept our shipments. Weaken Dos Santos more, and take the profits for themselves.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Axel grunts. “It’s a detail.”

“An important one,” Matthias growls. “There ain’t no guarantee Los Caballeros ain’t watching us right now.”

“Yeah. But we’ll work it out.” Axel gives Matthias a hard stare, and Matthias is smart enough to shut the fuck up.

There’s a couple other subjects the club has to talk about, but they don’t take a lot of time. Half an hour later, church is over. I go back outside for a smoke, just in time to see Mensa as he finishes moving the tire pile. He’s sweating and huffing, his thinning red hair sticking straight up on his head.

“How you doin’, prospect?” I ask him as I light up.

“Thrivin’ and survivin’, boss!” he puffs. The asshole might be dumb, but he’s smart enough to know I’m fuckin’ with him. And smart enough not to show it.

But I ain’t quite done with him yet.

“Good deal.” I make a big show of looking over the tires, which he’s stacked neatly in perfect rows next to the clearing of trees at the edge of the property.

“Huh,” I grunt, frowning. “Funny thing…”

“Yeah?”

“I thought those tires would be better over there, but I guess I was wrong.”

The dawning realization of what I’m about to say makes his face go blank for a second.

“Yeah,” I continue with a nod. “You better put them back where they were, Mensa. Then maybe tomorrow, I’ll figure out if there’s another place for them.”

I leave him to it, just seeing the flash of dismay on his face as I turn away.

Lesson number one for prospects:

Don’t fuckin’ speak unless you’re spoken to first.

7

Tori

Two days later — still grumbling about it — I file my stupid Lawn Jesus story with Frank.

Mildred called me three times while I was writing the damn thing. Once, to make sure I’d spelled her and Eddie’s names right, and twice more to make sure the story would be coming out in the next issue of thePost-Gazette. Apparently, the two of them are going on a trip to visit family next week, and they want to make sure they have time to buy enough copies for all of their relatives before they leave.

My irritation about the whole thing took a little dip during that conversation, I have to admit. I mean, yeah, the story is still stupid. And Mildred and Eddie are obviously lying about how the face of Jesus just suddenly appeared in their grass one day. But Mildred was so excited about having their names in print for all to see, I couldn’t really muster up all the righteous indignation I had felt on the day I went over there to interview them.