Clay pounded on the door with the side of his fist, leaning on the door frame with his other arm.
"Come on, Jax! Get your ass out here!" He straightened and put his hands on his hips. A quick survey of the surrounding neighborhood revealed an elderly woman shuffling past, eyeing the tall denim-and-leather clad man making so much noise. Clay grabbed his crotch and puckered his lips at the woman, chuckling at her shocked reaction. He turned and pounded on the door again. "Jax! Unless you're bleeding to death or fucking some goddess open the damn—"
At that moment the door swung open. It wasn't Jax. Instead, a petite brunette stood in the doorway. Her long damp hair indicated that she had been in the shower. Clay noticed that her black and orange tank top revealed more than the brunette probably intended.
"Jax isn't home." She said.
Clay was taken aback for a moment. Damn, Jax gets all the hot tail, he thought. This piece of tail, however, he had never met before. But right now was not the time for small talk.
"Well, where the hell is he?"
"He went out for a ride a few hours ago." She crossed her arms across her chest, obscuring the view. She regarded the much taller man before her for a moment. Clay Morrow, with his grey hair that might have been blonde years before, small eyes, and large prominent chin, probably would never be called an attractive man. But what he lacked in looks he made up for in charisma. "You must be Clay."
I don't have time for this, Clay thought, trying not to let his mind wander. "Did he say where he was going?"
"No. I don't think he was actually going anywhere. But he's been gone for a while. I can't imagine that he'll be out much longer." She shifted her weight to one foot and leaned against the door frame; she was now standing only a few inches closer to him, but the move wasn't lost on Clay. "You want to come in and wait?"
Clay placed his hand on the door jamb a foot above her head and leaned in close. She smelled warm, like patchouli. Oh, don't tempt me. "Just tell him," he said, reaching up with his other hand and pushing a lock of hair behind her ear, "to get his ass back to the house." He stood there for a moment. If this was any other time on any other day, he probably would have been inside the house already. Sighing, he allowed himself a small smile and shook his head. Then he put his sunglasses back on and silently swaggered back to his bike. Throwing his leg over the seat and starting the engine, he threw the brunette a lascivious look and revved the engine a few times before pulling away.
The rest of Samcro was already sitting around the table in the chapel when Jax walked in a couple of hours later. He felt all eyes on him as he took his seat. No one said a word. Clay looked at him expectantly with a wide shit-eating grin on his face. Jax was thoroughly confused.
"What?" The silence was beginning to unnerve him.
"So who's the hot mama shacked up at your place?" Clay asked through his grin.
"She's not a mama," Jax answered.
"Well…is she your old lady, then?"
"No!" Jax answered a bit more forcefully than he intended. He relaxed before continuing. "No. She's nobody's old lady. She's…just a friend." Still more silence. Jax shifted in his chair. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one, and took a long drag. Clay leaned forward and clasped his hands in front of him.
"And…?" Clay asked expectantly. Jax didn't think it was anybody's business, but he knew that the Sons of Anarchy didn't keep secrets from each other.
"Her name is Lily. We met years ago when she was on vacation in San Francisco. We kept in touch, she was coming back out west for another vacation," he paused to take another drag from his cigarette, "and I offered to let her stay at my place instead of wasting money on a hotel."
Clay raised his eyebrows. "That's it?"
Jax smiled around his cigarette. "I'm not the kiss-and-tell type, my brotha."
"So you are screwin' her!" Tig interjected.
"I'm not screwing her…now, anyway." Jax chuckled as Bobby gave him an "atta boy!" pound on the back. "Now," he exhaled the last of the cigarette and stubbed the butt in a nearby ashtray, "can we get to the business at hand?"
"Alright, alright." Clay said. He knew Jax was right. This meeting had been convened to talk about something much more important than Jax's sex life. "Here's the deal. The Nords are getting a shipment of guns from someone in San Francisco. This supplier has also offered this shipment to us, if we can come up with a better price."
"Since when do the Nords run guns?" Tig asked.
"Since they got in bed with the Mayans," Clay answered. "Meth isn't enough for them anymore. They're trying to take us down, and they figure one way to do that is to cut in on our business."
"Alright. So this "supplier" doesn't care who he sells to. Just the highest bidder," Piney said. "My question is, who is this "supplier"?" Clay nodded at Juice, who shuffled a stack of computer printouts in front of him.
"Ironically enough, an ex-ATF agent," Juice informed. Piney and Chibs scoffed. Jax and Opie shared an incredulous look. "Now wait," Juice paused. "Apparently this guy was in charge of destroying guns recovered during raids. He didn't always wait until after the trial, though. The brass was beginning to catch on after a surprise inventory audit. The next day, he told the ATF to fuck off and went underground. According to the supplier—which ATF records confirm—these are the guns he has for sale." Juice passed around the list.
"Shit. This is quite a list," Piney said. "Quite the, uh…smorgasbord, shall we say." The list continued to round the table.
"Any of these guns have a body on them?" Jax asked as he flipped through the list.
"Probably most, if not all of them. It's a lot of guns. I'm still getting all the records." Juice may have been a skilled hacker, but it still pissed him off when the guys expected miracles. Jax tossed the list onto the table.
"So this ex-ATF agent, who stole the guns in the first place, wants somebody to pay him for the privilege of taking some hot guns off his hands? How do we know he's not just trying to get rid of them because the heat's on? Or if he's even an ex-ATF agent? We get jacked with a gun with a body on it, you know we not only go down for the gun, but the dead guy, too."
"But if we don't get jacked, it's the perfect cover. We're not using them, anyway," Clay opined. "We sell a bunch to the One-Niners, a bunch to someone else, etcetera, etcetera. We're just the middle-man."
The men seated around the table sat deep in thought. Most could see that Clay had already made up his mind to take the guns. Jax understood this had less to do with the Sons of Anarchy acquiring the weapons than with keeping them out of Nordic hands. He still didn't think it was a good idea, though.