Champagne Challenge #140: "Moonlight Crossover"
The season is changing, dear writers. Here, the weather is getting warm, the days are long, and we're making plans for summer trips. In the southern hemisphere, the days are growing cool and the nights are getting longer. Both summer and winter offer wonderful opportunities to try new things-switch it up a little, so to speak. And in that spirit of experimentation and adventure, we are offering an extra-long Champagne Challenge with a Crossover theme.
I own NOTHING.
Sons of Anarchy can be seen on the FX Network and is a creation of Kurt Sutter's Sutter INK.
SAMCRO means: Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club Redwood Original.
MOONLIGHT ANARCHY
The car radio sadly announced "The third body of a blue eyed blonde woman has been retrieved. The estimated time of death by strangulation was 7 days ago, plotting a pattern of one death every 7 days. Reports of a tall dark haired man…." Ignoring the bad news, Mick changed the radio station and chafed in the blast of warm air from the dashboard vent, "I should have serviced this car before we left town, aren't you uncomfortable?" He eyed Beth stretched out with one foot under her knee, head back, eyes closed.
Burying her annoyance with Mick's baby she sublimated her opinion; "Nope, grew up without air conditioning" She sipped from the water bottle, trying to keep things calm.
He was miffed, "I could kick myself for letting it slip" Mick snuffled at the very pleasant aroma of her subtle summer sweat. Beth's fragrance left him intoxicated, more discomforted by wearing the seatbelt while driving.
"It shouldn't matter!" Beth fanned at the heated air as she rolled down the Mercedes window.
On edge Mick barked back, "Yeah, yeah, it kind of DOES matter."
Innocently, Beth shrugged, "Just pull into the next gas station get some oil top it off."
Mick shook his head, "It's not the oil it's the coolant. Probably the a/c needs recharging" his lips straightened and drew tight across his teeth. So far his fangs hadn't made an appearance, but he was on the verge of one of the "f's" and it wasn't the fun one.
"Look, we're coming into Charming, they must have a gas station or a Car Parts store" Beth's expression tried to show some empathy. This damn classic car had become a bit of a thorn in her side. The drafty cloth roof, the creaky sounds it made and now the recalcitrant air conditioning.
Impatiently Mick pushed his sunglasses back up his nose and pulled his baseball cap down to shade his eyes further.
"Would you pass me the cool cup in the Igloo?" His voice had softened; it was the sad sound of resignation, "Let me drain this cup before we spend the afternoon in a one horse town garage".
In their eighteen months together, any of their discussions about parking the Benz usually ended with their taking neutral corners. "Don't you have another cooler in the trunk?" Beth made a mental inventory, they had never travelled this direction and although Josef's resources were usually a phone call away Beth wanted to be the Girl Scout here and "be prepared"
"I do, three more bags packed. We shouldn't be off our schedule too long once we find coolant" Mick drove on, a hand out for the mug.
Retrieving his favorite aluminum mug Beth's mind ran a loop of memory – the no-tell hotel years ago, his angst over taking her blood and those three words that illustrated his pain, "not like this". Love and patience had crushed that impediment; in fact her sharing herself with Mick had sanded down the sharp edges of his vampirism.
It was a usual weekend job for Mick; catch a philandering spouse while Beth rented a little SMART car to check out Lodi and its best known product, Zinfandel. She joked, "Well, you work on the folks committing their deadly sins and I'll be assessing some bottled Zins". Each of them accomplished what they came for.
Sunday night Mick after Mick caught the guy "En Flagrante Delicto" he steered them toward Clovis for Beth's interview with a crime writer who was a Professor at San Joaquin College of Law. BuzzWire had been bought by Kostan Publications and oddly enough, Beth had flown back to a corner office with a substantial raise.
Now, late on a Monday afternoon when the Benz was low on coolant, Mick was equally low on serenity. Rather than engage in strained conversation Beth regarded the sign on the edge of Charming and ignored that the town's motto was "Our Name Says It All". If only she could write a comic piece about this incident without Mick feeling she was picking on "Gertie", his cherished green classic Benz.
He cruised slowly down the main drag where shuttered shops dotted the road and the open businesses had muscle cars or motorcycles parked outside. It was another age. Painted signs advertised "Oswald Lumber", "Oswald Beef" and "Oswald Construction".
"Looks like the whole town is owned by the Oswalds." Mick slowed the car down the main road, "And the self-serve gas stations have eaten up the service stations." Mick eyed posters for Red Bull and Cheetos and no sight of Coolant.
Beth noticed the tension in his shoulders as he held the steering wheel, and she carefully laid her hand on his thigh, "Maybe the Oswalds have a garage." She felt his toned, muscular thigh muscle twitch at her touch and she withdrew to place both hands to her lap. Carefully licking her lips she craned her neck out of the window, "Mick, down that way." Beth triumphantly pointed towards the street on the right.
Certainly it was a garage, but not Oswald's. TELLER-MORROW was the sign over the active mechanic bays. 11 or so customized Harleys stood parked off to the side, reflecting the testosterone emanating from the mechanics. Mick briefly looked for '99 1200 Sportster; he had a passing road romance with a bike and was grateful he was immortal when the gray haired woman ran him off the PCH in 2001. Seeing Dynas and Superglides he focused on parking the Benz. "This is one time I won't ask you to stay in the car." Mick shot a crooked smirk at Beth as she secreted the mug back into the Igloo cooler.
"Do you trust Gertie to them?" Beth stifled a giggle, not wanting to start a squabble. Their eyes met and she was rewarded with Mick's blue-greens eyes fairly twinkling at her. Mick considered the cluster of men, and shivered at the disparities between their rough looks and his tailored clothing. He was going to get a royal screwing on whatever he needed, Mick was sure of that.
The oldest mechanic sauntered to them with an uncanny grace yet from his looks he was no ballroom dancer. Mick exited the Benz and stood before the hood as if to defend Gertie's honor from a Berserker.
The scent of sweat and oil and buried arrogance rolled ahead of the approaching tough; "Can I help yah?" Piercing blue eyes shown from under squinted eye lids, weatherworn lips moved under a white-blond moustache and goatee while the man parked large calloused hands on his hips.
Mick went to extend a hand then surveyed the fellow before him, although they were equal height the older man seemed broader across in the chest, or was it an allusion of his freakishly developed upper arms covered in Ink? Mick's outstretched hand hung for a while and the man shrugged to hold out his grease stained hands and defer the gesture.
Mick began; "Ger", a brute like this wouldn't appreciate a named classic car so Mick caught his words, "… I need a recharge on the a/c and my fluids topped off" He stated Gertie's needs knowledgably then drew a slow thumb over his bottom lip. Watching the older guy through semi- lowered eyelids Mick caught this stranger's tension and lots of it. Buried somewhere under all this man's redolent drama Mick thought he caught gun powder and blood.
"You a mechanic?" Now the man smacked at his oily work-worn hands as if to rub off whatever he'd been tinkering in. His shirt said, "Clay", but to Mick he didn't look that malleable. Seeing Mick's general discomfort Clay cracked a wide smile and nodded toward the car, "Open her up, I'll check it."
Beth watched the two men do a little "guy" tango around each other, two alpha males dancing around the prized female, a 1965 Mercedes-Benz 250SE. Mick popped the hood and Beth shook her head; the velvet bass of the mechanic's words oddly strummed a secret place deep within her. Yes, Mick's voice was magically enthralling but this ruffian, a brawny sun beat man was a different piece of work. She shook herself back to "now" to admit if Mick wasn't top of the food chain and five feet away from her she'd have backed the car out of here.
To Clay, the kid driving this car probably hadn't seen a rough day in his life. The clothes, the sunglasses, the shiny ring on guys index finger all of it smacked of L.A. The grizzled mechanic figured the driver was just a few steps removed from the weekend Harley riders in too-clean leathers on tricked out custom machines. "They don't make em like this anymore." Clay sighed as he perused the well-kept motor. "You aren't from around here, are you?" Clay drawled as he withdrew a shop rag from his back pocket and did a quick look at the generally pristine Benz. Clay waited to hear Mick's answer before he uncapped the dipstick. "Yeah, you read it right." Clay drew himself back up to his full height to meet Mick's sunglasses.
Beth's "reporter eyes" viewed the employees. Every fella there was covered in tattoos, many of them matching the painted logo on the exterior wall, a menacing Reaper. Not only had they found the only garage in a 25 mile area, it was some sort of motorcycle clubhouse. Beth made a mental note to look up SAMCRO.
"No, been awhile since I visited here." Mick nodded at the thought of his Uncle Bob and his Father riding all the way down here on a hunch they should invest in timber. Mick was 9 and he couldn't abide with the fact they drove all the way here and didn't bring fishing poles for some impromptu stops. He shook his head slightly, preparing for the hammering his wallet was about to take.
Clay stepped back from the engine and reverently dropped the hood, "Go ahead and drive into that bay, these cars have r-12 Freon it's going screw your wallet, you're in luck I have a license to handle it."
Mick felt another stab as he returned to the driver's seat, once he turned the engine over he whispered to Beth, "Would you discretely put the gun in the glove box into your purse?"
"OK Mr. Bond." Beth swung her purse from the back seat and got the task accomplished, "Any other weapons you need to stash?" She wanted to giggle, but stifled that.
Carefully Mick steered the cabriolet into the bay, his eyes on Clay waving him in. Turning the engine off he walked around the back of the car and opened the door for Beth to alight from her seat. For a split second the mechanics ceased their work and scrutinized Beth's shapely calves moving toward the waiting room while Mick's temper simmered at the emotions and intentions polluting the garage air.
Their libidos cried out hormonally like caged demons expressed by desires and despair. From just a few men it seemed so many beasts lurked in blue garage shirts. In Mick's measured steps behind Beth he felt the roiling of his growl as he is corralled his perceptions and eyed the menfolk from behind dark glasses.
Leaning silently in the doorway a tall dark haired woman took the mechanic's reaction to Beth in stride. Beth's eyes immediately caught the well healed surgical scar rising from brunette's ample cleavage. Dark eyes burned on her new "guests" however her lips curled into a predatory smile. Mick saw Lady Macbeth, while Beth saw a middle aged woman dog-eared by life.
The woman stepped aside as Mick and Beth entered the office, "I'd like to offer you more than old coffee, I'll make some fresh if you'd like it." her lips pursed as her brow rose.
"I'm good." Mick and Beth piped simultaneously as they took seats in two scuffed wooden chairs. Beth eyed the nudie car parts posters and cluttered desktops. An ancient computer monitor dominated the woman's desktop.
Mick took the chair nearest the door as he tried to watch Clay hovering over Gertie, then he regarded Beth's amiable "roll with the punches" smile.
"She's your baby isn't she?" the woman's voice was deceptively strong yet melodious, her words caught Mick. Of course Beth was his baby…..he was still processing their relationship a year after the door closed. The tone of the woman's voice told him she was talking about the car and he snapped out of his reverie.
"Yeah, she is" Mick licked at his bottom lip and nodded.
"Must have been your Mom's car?" She was fishing for conversation, "I'm Gemma, Clay's old lady." and she waved a hand of long manicured nails at her newest customers. Mick figured it out, they had landed in the middle of a Motorcycle club, from the look of the men probably a 1% club.
"No, actually it was in my family." He let the lie die there. He kept one ear open to hear the shop gossip. At Mick's silence Gemma honed in on Beth on the subject of Michael Kors purses and Mick zoned into the shop patter.
In between the whine of impact wrenches were conversations about clips and fire arms assemblies. Were they running guns? Mick leaned forward on his knees and closed his hands over his face to hide his concentration.
"Hey, Clay" the scruffy goateed blond called his step dad aside and then whispered "Did you see the shit in the trunk?"
Clay's eye narrowed, "What are you digging in there for, Jax?"
"Those strangulations, all of them were blue eyed blonds, left by dark haired guys and check out this stuff in the trunk." Jax gestured to the cooler, especially the blood residue at the travel mug's spout. Carefully, he nudged the small case open to view Mick's Vampire Hunting kit, "These are some sharp knives".
Clay was not one to cast the first stone, he grunted quietly, "I don't care if it's a cache of AK 47s, shut the fuckin' trunk and let's get them out of here."
"Yeah, he's got a leak so bad I could pop a charge and it'd be wasted by the time they hit the highway." Jax shrugged as he reached for liquid soap to verify the many locations of the leak.
"Then get it done." Now Clay was tight lipped, it was one thing to call a hit, it was another thing to consider one human being doing the cold blooded murder of a strange women. Clay didn't kill anyone who didn't deserve it.
Jax leaned back and caught a look at Beth in the office. Something about her wide eyed compliancy looked hinky to Jax, she looked caught and the guy across the room from her looked itchy. Jax didn't like the looks of this at all.
"Hey, Tig, get over here – we need a hose." Jax shot orders to the scruffy dark hair guy while he watched Beth ask for the ladies' room key. Eyeing Mick's head down, Jax made a path toward the lavatories.
As Beth rounded the corner Jax stood at the end of the hall, "Hey, must be rough cutting a chunk of time out of your day sitting here" There he was all buff and blonde, muscled arms folded over his chest – looking like a dismounted knight. His casual stance caused her to startle.
"Ah, yeah, I'm used to it. Old car seems to have its issues." unpretentiously Beth blanched at making small talk.
"So you feel safe in it?" Jax stumbled at how to ask whether or not she felt she was in danger.
"Safe? Ha!" Beth could make fun of "Gertie" all day, if she didn't have to pee like the proverbial race horse. Jax rushed past her and eyed the traffic in the crosspathes.
Jax bent closer to her, "Do you know this guy?" Now his potent cocktail of oil and sweat swept around Beth, coupled with the overwhelming need to urinate she backed to the locked door.
"Why….do…..ask?" Had they found a Vampire biker gang? Beth quivered at his proximity. As Jax and Beth eyed each other their brains were processing thousands of megabytes for a beat.
Beth cut the expectant silence with an abrupt pronouncement, "All my life." then she turned and slid the key into dented metal door open and slammed it behind her.
Jax strolled back to the bay, mollified by Beth's declaration. "Hey Lancelot, you satisfied now?" Clay cracked at him as the two of them leaned over the Benz's engine.
"She said she's known him all her life." Jax whispered, his head close to Clay's as they each wiggled hoses and clamps as they found them.
Clay's eyes tightened and he wolf whistled, with an insouciant thrust of his jaw he bobbed his head and caught the fly of his jeans "And I'll bet he knows all of her too."The off color comment earned him a slap on his tattooed forearm with the shop rag.
"As if you'd pass it up if it was offered." Tig elbowed Jax and smirked as he connected the last of the hoses replaced.
Jax dismissed Clay and Tig, "Heh, we'd be golden if the Son caught the sonnofabitch killing those women. It's like a get out of jail free card."
"The idea is to stay out of jail, I thought you knew that." Clay emphasized as he made the final estimation of Mick St John's financial gouging and lovingly dropped the Benz's hood.
Surreptitiously Gemma watched Beth's return over the top of her reading glasses, she had been scribbling on a pad and entering a parts order once any attempts at conversation with Mick flagged.
"I thought you fell in." Mick whispered as Beth passed him to return the lavatory key to Gemma's outstretched hand.
Beth turned to him as he sat up, placing a hand on each shoulder she wedged closer between his knees. This display was all the shop guys needed to salivate at her tanned long legs and sleek tan pencil skirt.
Beth leveled playfully amorous eyes at Mick, "The only falling …. Is….in love." and she plunked a very wet smooch on the end of his aquiline nose. With these few seconds wrapped around each other the day's aggravations liquefied. Mick slightly grunted at her intent and caught the wave of boredom banished by the chance for a very public display of her affections. No doubt the sight of his hands encircling her trim waist and travelling to span her hips sent out the word. MINE.
At this point, Mick didn't care if the Sons were running weapons of mass destruction. He wanted to pay Gemma in cash and catch the first breeze out of this "Charming" town.
Clay took his voyeuristic time ogling Beth and Mick as he approached Gemma with the "damages" on the Benz. Stepping up beside Gemma he leaned his hips into her shoulder demonstrating his own ownership. Clay enjoyed the view of her ample décolleté, "Here you go, babe" then he faced Beth's backside and made a point of leaning back to seek Mick's attention, "I'll have the total for you in a sec, Mr. St. John."
Plucked out of his happy place, Mick nodded and voiced a nearly inaudible "Ok". Turning Beth to perch on his knee he waited for the number. Seconds drew out infinitesimally, punctuated by Gemma's nails on the keyboard and the whir of an inkjet printer. The receipt's chain of possession went from Gemma to Clay to Mick as Beth left his knee.
The three of them watched Mick mindfully note each item of the bill. Nodding silently he rose and dug into his back pocket for his wallet, without question he peeled five bills out of the back section and questioningly he gestured to whom the money should go.
In an uncharacteristically jocular tone Clay quipped, "She gets it all anyway, pleasure doing business with you." Clay issued a two finger salute from his forehead and handed Mick his keys. Gemma eyed the fresh large bills, "Let me get your change." she shook one of the bills at Clay and he rifled through his pockets to hand Mick a few singles and quarters.
As the change found its way back to Mick cool hand Clay looked over his shoulder, "Mr. St. John, you and your Benz are always welcome in this garage" Clay's craggy face wore a sly smile.
Beth was ready to shirk off Gemma's attentions as well as whomever the inquisitive blond biker was. She wanted back on the road to beat a path back to LA where they could cocoon for a while before she filed her Author interview.
Leading Beth carefully to the parking lot, Mick found "Gertie" purring as she belched chilled air out of every air conditioner vent. Even the clickety-clack fan belt that Mick's vamp hearing could barely register was smoothly circulating.
Beth fairly expected Mick to plant a thankful kiss on Gertie's hood ornament after he opened and closed her door. He slid behind the wheel and buckled in Mick eyed the congregating mechanics, the motley crew hung back in the shadows of the bay, shoulder to shoulder, each of them wiping a tool or picking at a ragged cuticle. Mick thought to "read" their aggregate energies as he threw the car into reverse, then he dismissed the urge, he didn't want to know what rattled inside what passed for their brains. In the strobe of Mick's vampire quick mind he saw blood and guns and their silent allegiance to a brotherhood bound by their businesses of guns and wrenches.
Clay moved toward the slice of sunlight heating the asphalt he surveyed as if to verify their leaving. The President of SAMCRO would keep his eyes open for whoever kept three pints of blood beside a small crossbow with silver tipped arrows and a cache of sinister looking blades.
Jax strolled from the crew as they circulated back to their tasks keying into his smartphone, "Hey Clay, what's got you watching them?"
"Just want to make sure they move on up the road" The hulking club patriarch bantered back to his stepson and Club VP. Soon the two men were shoulder to shoulder, "Why are you so busy fingered?" Clay craned his thick neck to see the image on Jax's phone.
Initially Jax turned the phone to his chest, then surrendered with a smirk and turned the image to Clay's greedy eyes. On the screen was the Mercedes trunk open, revealing the open cooler and the weapons. Within the tight shot was the full license plate, in Jax's mind all the insurance policy he needed just in case the long-stemmed blond turned up on the 11:00 o'clock news.
Clay focused his 60 year old cerulean eyes and pursed his lips at the image, "Just a little insurance?" Eyes narrowed and head tilted, his posture probed at Jax's rationale.
"I never saw his eyes, I don't trust a man who does business behind dark glasses." Jax's resolute jaw thrust up at his stepfather, neither goading nor assessing Clay's opinion of the dark haired stranger, "There was something about him, something timeworn just didn't jive with her…. J'you figure her for what 27, 28?"
"Now you're stepping into some other man's business." Clay pushed the phone back to Jax's chest with a thick index finger, "It's not club business, not shop business, not your business." Clay set about to step back to his project when he spun, "He's from LA, let our brothers up north watch out for Mr. St. John"
"You never mentioned a chapter in LA?" Jax was flummoxed; he'd been out to Victorville and Bakersfield yet never to LA.
Clay nodded thoughtfully then bent over to get back to work, "Well, they aren't Sons, they mind their business and we mind ours. They've been riding for almost 100 years and go by the name "The Blood Kings"
Jax had "heard" of "The Blood Kings", he deleted the photo.