“You know it will come out,” she said. “You can’t bring up one without the other.”

“If it helps learn who did this to you and Lori?” the old man said. “Fine by me.”

He hobbled down the loading dock step and walked over to an aging Harley. He threw a leg over the seat, kick-started the engine, and roared out of the gravel lot. Diane squashed her cigarette and went inside the loading dock to help the woman.

Before Jason had left for L.A. the first time, he’d seen this corny biker movie at the old Jericho Drive-In, promising Brutal Violence Turned On by Hot Chicks and Burning Rubber. Maybe that’s all he really needed to know about the Born Losers MC, although there’d been a lot of talk since he rode with them about brotherhood, respect, and being the kind of men who would not and could not conform to society. Chains LeDoux had gotten pretty ripped at Shiloh the night before, standing on the silent battleground and telling them all they were the sons of Confederates, Vikings, and the goddamn Knights of the Round Table, punching clocks and paying taxes were for the weak, the emasculated, the deadbeats. He then smoked down a joint, passed it on to Big Doug, and started into a karate kata that ended with a kick to the moon and a rebel yell.

Now, they’d been riding all day, most of it through foothills of Tennessee, and then down through the streets of Memphis and finally catching up with 78, where all of them were hungover, hungry, and getting a little worn in the saddle. Chains wanted to stop off at a little barbecue joint in Olive Branch run by a fellow Marine—Chains had been in ’Nam. The ex-Marine sometimes rode with the club and always gave out big plates of ribs, beans, and coleslaw when they got to town.

Jason just wanted to get home, check in with that sweet Jean Beckett, already calling her from a pay phone in Adamsville, and spend some more time with his dad and brothers before he’d load his bikes onto his truck trailer and head west. There was a new film shooting in a few months, again with Needham and Reynolds. A picture that promised to make stuntmen the real heroes. Needham wanted to jump a rocket car over a river.

The thirteen bikers plus Jason parked out front and used the toilets, the owner coming out and hugging the boys. Big Doug introduced Jason as a bad-ass potential member, saying he’d never met a crazier son of a bitch in his life. A Born Loser, if there’d ever been one, Jason learning “Loser” really meant an outcast from society.

“Big Doug don’t say that ’bout anybody,” the man said. “You want slaw and beans with them ribs?”

“Sure.”

“Beers in the Coca-Cola cooler in the kitchen,” he said. “Help yourself.”

“Being with the club got perks,” Big Doug said, “don’t it?”

Jason nodded and made his way to a big circular table in the center of the room, a couple waitresses in white-and-red ringer T-shirts already laying down plates and handing out cans of beer and glasses of sweet tea for the boys. One of the other riders, that fella named Hank but called Pig Pen, took a seat across from him, the other bikers becoming friendlier and more open on the ride. He had wispy long red hair and a scraggly beard. Dirt up under his fingernails.

Chains LeDoux still couldn’t even acknowledge Jason’s presence. Chains had found a tree stump to sit on in his chaps and leather vest and smoke a joint, looking out at the cars going back and forth on the highway.

“Your ass hurt as much as mine?” Jason asked.

“Probably more,” Stillwell said. “You get a chopper and the ride is smoother, just lay back, let the bike just take you where it wants to go.”

“We know each other,” Jason said. “Before the other night, when you almost stabbed me with that fork? Don’t we?”

“I think you used to date my youngest sister.”

“Don’t say . . .”

“You remember her?”

“What was her name?”

“Darlene.”

“Darlene what?”

“You dated more than one Darlene?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Jason said, grinning, a plate of ribs sliding in front of him. A cold Coors laid down at his elbow by the pit owner. “I can think of six just in Jericho.”

“Darlene Stillwell.”

“Hell yes, I know Darlene Stillwell,” Jason said. “Sang in the choir. Twirled a baton that was on fire. Nicest girl you’ll ever meet.”

“She got married,” Stillwell said. “Got two boys. She’s a teller at the bank. They say she got management potential.”

The men ate hunched over the plates, manners tossed aside, teeth on bone, wiping sauce on their bare chests and Levi’s. Some of the boys started to throw rib bones at one another’s heads. Nobody seemed to mind until Chains walked in and swept up a waitress in his arms and squeezed her ass, asking if she wanted to go for a nice long ride. The woman slapped his face and Chains just laughed, drinking more beer, some spilling down his beard, as he strutted over to the window of the restaurant. All the laughing and the jackassing and the cussing and eating slipping off when they heard the rumble of more bikes coming from the highway, Chains stood still at the window, not grinning about the waitress anymore but watching the parking lot, pulling a .38 from the back of his leather pants, telling everyone to get off their asses. “God damn, here they come,” he said. “Ain’t that somethin’?”

“Who?” Jason said, standing up. Hank looking like he’d just swallowed a big stone. “Who’s coming?”

“Goddamn Outlaws,” Stillwell said. “They claim this part of Mississippi. They warned the owner here that if he served us again, they’d burn the place to the fucking ground.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Can you fight?” Stillwell asked.

“Yep.”

“Shoot?”

“You bet.”

“All right, then, come on,” Stillwell said, joining up with all the boys in their leather and denim and man stink and testosterone. A couple had guns tucked in the waistbands of their wide belts; no shirts over their big furry-ape chests, and long beards. Jason the only one of them without a patched jacket. Big Doug stood up front with Chains, holding a two-foot-long section of metal pipe in his right hand and palming it into his left.

There were twenty Outlaws, just as hairy and ugly and big. The only way to tell the difference was by their leather vests and the big red-eyed skull and crossbone pistons. Memphis was an Outlaws town, and the Born Losers weren’t but about fifteen miles from it.

“You jokers want to ride on into here, flying your colors, like it ain’t no thing,” said a big gray-haired bastard. “May not be nothing to you, but it’s a big goddamn thing to me.”

Chains looked to the man standing opposite to him, spit on the ground, and grabbed himself between the legs. “Suck it, motherfucker.”

“Is that it?” the man said. “That’s what you got? ’Cause I’m tired of talking shit with you, LeDoux. Let’s take it back to the goddamn cowboy days.”

Big Doug stepped up between the men and pushed the Outlaw guy square in the chest, knocking him back a few feet, and then every single goddamn Outlaw looked for a Born Loser skull to crack. There just wasn’t any time for Jason to explain he had never really formally joined a damn thing, had just decided to ride along as a gag, on a dare. But a fight is a fight, and there had always been something in Jason Colson that made him love fighting in a real and authentic way. He grabbed the first son of a bitch he saw and punched him hard in the mouth, feeling good to really connect to some teeth, none of this fake throwing shit anymore, knocking the dude on the ground and looking for more. There were grunts, blows, kicking, and yelling and swearing, and then some blood spilled on the pavement at the barbecue joint. Somewhere, a dog on a chain was going crazy, wanting to get into the mess, and the hot summer wind had changed, blowing woodsmoke down through the brawl, making eyes water and the whole wild scene seem like something out of a crazy dream. It was Brutal Violence Turned On by Hot Chicks and Burning Rubber, only there weren’t any hot chicks besides the two big-bottomed waitresses in red short shorts and tight ringer tees, screaming at them to either stop or beat some more ass.