Chapter 6

THEY RODE BY NIGHT MOSTLY. NOON OR LATE AFTER noon they started out, riding deep into the night until they came to a small town with a beer joint and juke box or another deserted stretch of beach where they drank and cooked hot dogs over a fire and drank and did crazy things and drank and then dropped like dead gulls on the beach until the morning sun burned through the black clouds of unconsciousness and woke them.

Sometimes girls came out from the local towns; the wilder kind of girls who would do anything for a kick. There were always a few, and sometimes more than a few. The sound of banging motorcycle engines attracted them like flies to honey.

There were also rumbles. Naturally.

The local dudes, as Ron called them, naturally resented having some of the best talent plucked from their vinyards by theives riding bikes by night.

But mostly it was a case of a threat of a rumble. There was something awesome and fear-inspiring tight-lipped cyclists, and the small hick towns they hit about the gang of black-jacketed, hard-eyed and offered little resistance of the organized nature that would have been required to resist its girl-raids.

The resistance was poor and the pickings were far from slim. As far as the local people were concerned, they were glad to see the hoodlums leave the village with its stores and windows still intact. And there was always at least one bar or tavern that was glad to have the sudden upsurge in business the free-spending Rattlers brought to it.

Only a couple of times in the next few days on the road did actual fights occur-and then it was usually quick work on the part of the gang.

"Nobody's really going to rumble us as a gang in these square hick towns," Ronnie explained to Jimmy. "Like they're scared stiff, see? Only once in awhile you get a hero or two. But when we get further south you'll really see some action, Jimmy baby. They got clubs of their own down that way. Punk clubs, compared to the Rattlers, but they got their own prestige to maintain when we start cutting in on their chicks."

Jimmy wasn't without misgivings about being with the gang, but he found himself enjoying their company as a rule. Some of them, guys like Paul, were real ape, always doing crazy things that made you laugh. Paul seemed fearless when it came to calling down on a guy bigger than himself. He wore a neat little mustache and goatee, and this plus his diminutive size seemed a natural provocation to anyone who was going around with a grudge against beatniks or motorcycle drivers or Mexicans.

Or anyone. Paul was the kind of guy people would naturally underestimate. He was as thin as a blade, but the blade was made of tough steel. Speed, strength and ferocity made up for his lack of size. This was demonstrated to Jimmy a couple of days after he had joined the gang.

They were in a bar. Lou, Ronnie, and Jim were playing the bowling machine for beers and Paul for some reason was sitting the game out at the far end of the bar, away from them. With his dark glasses, wild bushy hair, combed back from his thin black goatee, he was a natural target for the disapproving looks and finally remarks of an inebriated local dude in shirtsleeves who came in and sat next to him.

In no time at all he was bugging Paul.

"So what's with the beard, hey? Make you something special? You must be one of them beatniks, huh boy?"

Paul cooled it, but Jimmy, looking over his way, could see the little guy gathering himself, waiting to see how far he would be pushed. The guy kept baiting him, and pretty soon everyone in the bar was listening. The bartender made no move to stop the jerk from mouthing off, either. It wasn't exactly a friendly bar-or town.

"Beatnik!" the dude yelled finally, exasperated by Paul's continued silence.

Then he made his big mistake. Twice Paul's size and a good ten years older, he got to feeling very brave. He grabbed Paul by the shirt.

They both came off their stools at the same time, and Paul's shirt ripped. But Paul was wound up like a clock; the dude took about six punches in the face just making it down to the floor. By that time the bartender was around, but it was all over-all he had to do was help the dude to his feet and out the door, blood streaming from his nose.

No one in the bar mentioned the word beatnik after that, or even the word motorcycle, for that matter. Jimmy had never seen anyone move as fast as Paul had. They spent the rest of the afternoon getting very drunk, and as a final gesture of high spirits carried the bowling machine out into the middle of the street of the one-street town. Not a soul moved to stop them and the local constable was notable by his absence.

Jimmy had cause to wonder how far the gang would go with their high jinks. They seemed to be afraid of nothing, and at times Jimmy felt it was only the coo!, quiet leadership of Ronnie that prevented mass mayhem in some of the tiny villages they passed through. They came down on these places like a noisy cyclone, but the villagers, perhaps having had past experiences with this kind of thing, did what people do when a cyclone hits; they closed their doors and kept off the streets till the wind blew through.

It was all very new to Jimmy, and all very exciting.

A gas, as Paul would have put it. Sometimes they found long flat deserted sections of secondary road, good for racing, and Jimmy gained stature through proving how good his machine was and how well he could handle it. After winning several of these races, Ronnie remarked: "You're cool, man; real cool with the bike. Hell, we ought to put you in one of those square official races and cop a few nice shiny prizes for the club."

"You ever get in them yourself?"

"Yeah, man; a couple of times," Ronnie said, making a face. "But like we don't dig them. They're usually run by the do-gooder type dudes and you have to have applications and all that. Once we barged in on one and took all the events before they could chase us off, but we figured we had won so we like came back later that evening and just sort of took the trophies, you know...."

Little glimpses like this gave him a sinking feeling that he had gotten into more than he was ready for, but with the feeling came another feeling, one of excitement, or anticipation, or maybe just the thrill of waiting to see how far he would go himself when the time of his test came. Just what that test would be and how he would react to it was something he didn't yet know.

But in the meantime, he was having fun. A small ball.

Margot rode with him, next to him on her small-tired BSA, Ronnie on the other side atop his big red Honda, with Nikki clinging to his back. The three of them, or sometimes one or the other, led the pack down the highway, always on the lookout for a spot or a town that looked like a place where the group could have some fun, a few kicks or an undisturbed rest.

The further south they rode, the bigger the towns became, swelling into cities eventually, with full-blown suburbs skirting them. Jimmy sensed an increasing agitation among the group to do something really wild and way-out before they hit San Francisco. Some of the guys, like Lou and a tow-headed kid called Gunner, were real toughs, with jail and prison farm records for on sort of petty crime or another, Jimmy learned. These grew sullen when nothing seemed to be happening, and they gave Ronnie questioning looks and made remarks like: "Man, this cruise has been pretty tame so far. Wonder if the boy scouts have as much fun." Never directly in front of Ronnie, but so he could overhear them. Ronnie would just narrow his eyes and say nothing. But Jimmy noticed he seemed to be getting pretty restless himself, and wondered when the leader would finally give in to their desire for some "wild kicks."

He didn't have long to wait to find out.

They had gone through a good-sized city of maybe twenty thousand late one evening, right through the brightly lighted center of town, roaring through without stopping, and then heading out south through a suburban residential district that, as it thinned out, the houses becoming further and further apart with bigger and bigger acreage around them, looked increasingly luxurious.

They slowed, admiring the rich houses, lawns, trees and shrubbery, no doubt envious of what they saw.

"Some shack," Lou would say. "I bet some rich broad lives in it, with three Cadillacs and a poodle."

"How'd you like to take a rich chick, Lou?"

"Hell, man, I've had all kinds of chicks."

"I mean now."

"Hey, man; like I'd go for that! Some platinum blonde in a bikini, sitting beside her pool with a mint julep in her hand."

"Man, you're making my mouth water!"

"Hell, what broad with any kind of money would look at your ugly puss?"

"Oh yeah? Why don't we stop at one of these museums and see, you dumb jerk!"

Other guys joined in, and pretty soon an argument was going full steam as they drew up one by one to the side of the road near a deserted house. Ronnie sat quietly atop his bike, indifferent to them, smoking a cigarette and looking down over a small valley where a few homes nestled.

The quarrel continued.

"Why don't we bust into one of these classy joints then?"

"Yeah; let's go to a swanky cocktail party I"

"We'd get thrown out on our cans."

"Who? Who's going to throw us out?"

"Ah, they got guards at them things!"

"Guards! What guards you talking about anyway? Why I was to one of those fancy blasts once myself and...."

"You? You couldn't get into the John at the Bijou without getting busted, ya mug!"

"Oh yeah? You're just chicken, that's all! There's a party going on over there, in that house up on the hill with all the lights-see? I say let's crash and scare the daylight out of them stiffs!"

"They'll call the cops."

"Nah, not if we bust it right, rip out the phones.

Hey, maybe they might even ask us in! You know hire a beatnik for your party, like that? Ha ha, we'll say the agency sent us!"

"What agency, man?"

"The East Side Rattler's Rich Man's Benevolent Society Agency, that's what agency! We'll grab the booze and the broads and then split, man, before the fuzz comes."

From heckling banter the discussion thus took on a serious tone, and soon everyone was looking toward Ronnie, who hadn't said a word so far.

Gunner Witowski finally braved the leader's silence.

"What'cha say, Ron baby--do we bust in on that shindig up there?"

Ron turned his head slowly and looked at Gunner, his eyes hooded like a cobra's.

"The idea stinks," he said quietly.

Dead silence. Gunner's face flushed and he seemed to gather himself. He had been "put down," and now he had to save face.

"Yeah?" he snarled. "Maybe you got a better idea then, huh?"

Ronnie chewed his gum a few times, his jaw muscles bulging.

"Yeah, like maybe."

"Like a picnic out on the grass, huh? Pin the tail on the donkey, games like that?"

"Um, like are you volunteering, man?"

Everybody laughed, breaking the tension. Gunner's face grew beet red, but he managed a crooked little smile. Ronnie laughed loudly at his own joke, but then his face grew abruptly serious, and the laughter stopped.

"Okay," he said. "You guys want action) right?"

Heads nodded as one, and mutterings ol "Yeah, man!" and "Let's do something," were heard. Jimmy sat silent, tense, waiting to see what was on the leader's mind.

Ronnie carefully spat out his wad of gum and pointed down into the valley. There were only three houses down in there, widely separated, with long driveways and fences around them. Only one of them was lighted, and since Ronnie was furthest ahead, on the crest of the hill, the others hadn't been able to see what he had been looking at while they argued. Now, they moved their bikes up level with his to look down where his finger pointed.

"There," Ronnie said. "That's our gig."

Jimmy looked also.

The house Ronnie had in mind was immediately apparent-a low, expensively built modernistic ranch style, with a long driveway leading in. From the road it would be almost entirely hidden by growths of pines and beech surrounding it. But they were almost directly above it, owing to the formation of the land. The macadam road they were on wound down the hill in a steep hairpin, curving in on itself again at the base.

But it wasn't the house itself that attracted all their eyes.

It was the lighted patio in back. A beautiful flagstone terrace, surrounding an enormous swimming pool, and then a lot of green lawn and rich shrubbery, hidden from view of any of the surrounding houses, distant as they were, by long fences of tall box hedges.

They were reclining on two lounge chairs next to the pool.

Two women.

They were both dressed in swim suits, one a near-bikini and the other a knit one-piece style, deep red. They had drinks in their hands and a portable FM radio atop a white enameled steel table sent soft music up the hill through the unusually clear night.

The woman in the red suit had dark hair, and even in the distance the long, elegant curves of her lushly slim body were evident. The other one, younger, was just as good looking, with lighter hair and tighter, round er curves, owing to her somewhat smaller stature. They were both gorgeous.

And they were both obviously spending an evening alone. The rear of the ranch home, which could be seen clearly from where the pack was gathered atop the knoll, was almost entirely glass, and the curtains had been drawn back, displaying the softly illuminated interior of most of the house.

From what Jimmy could see, it was quite empty. A sudden throb of fear thumped in his chest as he turned his eyes from the scene below and looked at Ronnie.

He had never seen such a sullen, unsmilingly vicious expression before. The familiar tight grin was there, but the eyes said everything now.

They looked really pleased at what they saw.

Pleased with the anticipation of pleasure.

"What about the bikes, Ron?" Gunner said in a deathly soft, sensuous voice.

Ron grunted. "We coast down the hill," he said. "We leave them there, behind those bushes. Are you punks with me?"

"We're with you, baby!" came the answer from Gunner. His soft, lethal voice was full of respect now. It clearly said that Ron was the leader.

They floated down the hill silently, like a dream breeze, only the sound of whispering tires disturbing the night. As they wound down and down, holding tight in a long sweeping coast to the curve of the road. Jimmy felt reality slipping away from him. It was as if he were leaving some part of himself back up there, on the rise where they had stopped, and now was a mere pawn in some new game he didn't understand. Following the leader, like the rest. Ron's shoulders seemed twice as broad, his figure twice as erect as he led them down to their rendezvous with crime. The time for Jimmy to protest or bug out had slipped by without his noticing it, paralyzed with fascination as he was.

So he was part of it and not part of it.

A spectator and a participant.

The road at the base of the hill was dark, without street lamps. This was a very exclusive section, a place where crime and mugging and delinquency seemed remote, no doubt, to the kind of people who could afford to live in such homes.

Black leather jackets and hard-soled boots bad no place here.

None at all.

This added to his feeling that what they were doing was not quite real. Everything was too perfect, too peaceful, too beautiful and serene-like in a picture from one of the better homes type of magazines his mother used to read all the time.

Nothing violent could happen here.

But then they were coasting to a stop, getting off their bikes and silently pushing them through the shadows, becoming part of the deep shadows themselves as they secreted the machines behind bushes, out of view from passing car headlights but near enough to the road for quick access.

The three girls stayed with the bikes. They grumbled about it, but Ron shut them up with a look. That was all that was necessary.

A complete change had come over him. He walked like a cat, graceful, the epitome of grace, as he walked boldy up the grass lawn beside the driveway, approaching the house from the front.

Ten figures followed him silently. At the front of the house, he turned, pointing.

"You and you," he said, "stay here. The chicks will warn you if anyone comes, and you'll warn us, dig?"

Disappointed, the two nodded and sat down under a tree.

That left eight. Ron was in full command now, like a general, a modern-day Napoleon whose complete physical confidence in his movements brought a kind of respectful awe to his followers.

The front door was unlocked. Jimmy wondered why they didn't simply circle around back to the patio, but Ron seemed deliberately to be taking his time, staking out the place.

Inside, they gathered around him to see what he would do next. The living room was empty. It was the most gorgeous room Jimmy had ever seen; done in walnut and pastels, with a huge flagstone fireplace going the length of one wall almost, a curved bar in one corner, an expensive stereo console-bookcase setup going along another, an endless orange curved couch circling around the other. Three steps led down into this sunken living room, the floor of which was covered with stark white wooly carpeting so deep it seemed to be growing under your feet.

"Some shack," Ronnie said, taking a half-smoked cigarette from his lips and dropping it on the carpet. He ground it out with the heel of his boot.

Through the glass wall they could see out onto the patio. The women were there in the distance, but hidden from view, except for their legs and the backs of the lounge chair they were reclining in. The soft music flowed in, louder now, through open sliding glass doors, providing a blanket of sound which hid any sounds they might make.

Ronnie ignored them and went directly to the bar. Behind it, in a walnut wall cabinet with doors which slid back, was an amazing stock of expensive liquor.

"Nice," Ronnie said, taking down bottles and examining the labels. He opened one, an expensive liqueur, tasted it, spat it out in disgust and emptied the bottle over the bar, floor, and part of the sofa.

"Canadian Club," he said, holding up another. "How about that, Gunner-nothing but the best for the Rattlers, huh?"

Gunner seemed to have gone crazy, a wild look in his eyes as he did a little dance around the room. Crazy, man! I dig it, I dig it, I dig it!"

Ronnie tossed him the bottle of CC after taking a long pull from it, and Gunner promptly began sloshing it down his chin and the front of his tee shirt through the open motorcycle jacket as he leapt up onto the bar and scraped his boots against the unflawed surface.

"Nice upholstery, man," Lou was saying, and Jimmy saw he was going along it with an open switchblade knife, making ugly gashes in a zigzag pattern across its beautiful surface. The other guys began helping themselves to bottles of liquor, following Ronnie's lead.

Jimmy felt a sick, sinking feeling. Somebody shoved a bottle of Teacher's Highland Cream at him and he began drinking quickly, fighting the giddy feeling that was possessing him.

Ronnie had found one wall phone and ripped it loose, and now he was directing Paul to go into the bedrooms and do the same with any phones he might find there. Paul proceeded to do so, taking only a few minutes. The other guys had settled down by then, and m were quietly drinking and smoking and being very careless of where and how they got rid of their butts.

Okay, I broke all the pipes," Paul announced.

Ronnie nodded, looking out the window. The two women hadn't moved.

"Okay. Take all the full bottles outside and dump them on the lawn." He looked around at them slowly.

Sizing them up, Jimmy realized. Picking from among them a small advance group to go out onto the patio with him.

"Gunner," he said.

Jimmy's heart thumped.

Steel fingers seemed to grip Jimmy's guts.

"Paul," he said.

Was that all?"

Ronnie's eyes fell on him again, and the tight hard grin appeared. "And lover-boy, of course. We need someone like him along to make the chicks dig us, don't we?"

They laughed briefly, but nausea seemed to flood his stomach. He couldn't back out now, he knew. These guys were crazy, dangerously crazy the way they were now, and if he tried to back out they might gang him. It had to be that way; no one could turn chicken without becoming a threat to the group's security-therefore anyone who displayed fear under pressure would be dealt with severely, cruelly and quickly.

Jimmy managed a weak grin and downed some more Scotch, gagging down until it felt like the lining of his stomach was burning away. But the effect was immediate, a numbing effect that made him steady again once the nausea passed.

Ronnie turned his back to them then and began walking in his slow, hipsterish slump, through the open glass door and out toward the terrace, his hands thrust deep in his jeans pockets, cap pushed back on his dark head.

They followed, carrying bottles of booze. Through the door. Out onto the flagstones. Up to the lounge chairs.

Just before they reached them, Ronnie held up his hand, signaling for them to stop, and began taking off his jacket. The others imitated him, and Jimmy figured quickly that it was because of the easily identifiable Rattlers emblem on the back. Since he didn't have one on his, he didn't bother taking his jacket off with the rest of them.

Still the women hadn't seen them. The patio and pool were lighted by soft filtered spot lamps of a yellowish hue which kept bugs and mosquitos away and the sound of the portable radio tinkled melodiously through the night air. It was a perfect night, a beautiful night.

A good night for almost anything.

Jimmy felt the power of the alcohol he had drunk in him. He staggered just a little as he brought up the rear of the group, who had stashed their jackets together behind a dwarf pine and now proceeded out onto the patio at the pool's edge, coming into full view of the two women seated there.

The dark-haired one in the red suit was the first to see their approach. She sat up, her mouth dropping open, leaning forward and setting her drink on the table. Jimmy saw that she was older than the shorter one, who was just a girl in her teens, perhaps the daughter of the first one.

"Who are you?" she said in a shrill voice, to Ronnie, who was in the lead. "How did you get in here?"

Ronnie didn't say anything, but strode right up to her, thrusting his hands deeper in his pockets and letting his eyes go slowly up and down her figure.

The other guys fanned out, surrounding the two chairs, giving the younger one in the bikini the same kind of insolent treatment.

The silence was electric, broken only by Ronnie.

"Your husband sent us over, ma'am," he drawled. "To like make sure nobody crashes the party."

The older woman was indignant. Late thirties, maybe, with good breasts and the tanned figure of a fashion model. She had long beautiful legs and dark eyes that smouldered with suspicion. The younger one, a darkish blond, just stared at the young men curiously. Her breasts were just a trifle smaller than her mother's, but more could be seen of them because of the bikini.

Much more.

Paul and Gunner squatted around her and stared. Jimmy hung back, waiting to see what the play was.

The mother, as she turned out to be, got up off her lounge chair.

"Party? What party are you talking about young man!"

"Um, you know-take it easy, lady, please huh?"

"I demand you leave at once or I'll call the police."

Ronnie looked away, shaking his head slowly as if he had just been talking to some kind of an idiot who couldn't even understand plain English.

"Police, police. That's very bad, very bad. Um, I don't think your husband would like that, after telling us to come over here, lady."

"My husband's out of town!" she blurted. "He's not even in the country! How could he...." And then, realizing her mistake, she covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh!"

Ronnie swung a hip onto the table, leaning back and twisting the knob of the radio until some very loud rock and roll music from a local station blasted the air.

"Like the party's just starting," Ronnie laughed. "Why don't you give the lady a drink, Gunner?"