Stuart Woods - Heat

Charley Bottoms rose from his chair at the sight of Jesse, and his gaze bored into him from across the room. He was dressed in neat sports clothes, a contrast to the jeans and leather he had worn in Atlanta Federal Prison. Long sleeves covered the prison tattoos, and he seemed, if anything, more massive than when Jesse had last seen him in the punishment cell at Atlanta.

“Good morning, Jesse,” Coldwater boomed. “I want you to meet some colleagues.”

Jesse’s mind went nearly numb as he was introduced and shook hands with four strangers, and finally, he snapped back to reality as Charley Bottoms took his hand.

“And this is Charley Bottoms, who heads a clan of the Aryan Nation about a hundred miles north of here.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jesse,” Bottoms said, holding on to his hand for a moment.

“Good to see you, Charley,” Jesse replied automatically.

“Let’s all have a seat and talk for a minute, then we’ll take a tour of the top of the mountain,” Coldwater said. Everyone sat down, and Coldwater continued. “Most of us have met before in passing, at least, but it seemed to me that we have enough in common that we might do some good for each other. Yesterday afternoon, after your arrival, you saw the town, some of the local businesses and the Wood Products plant, which Jesse here takes a hand in running. We expect to be in control of that business in the near future, and that will consolidate our control of the town. In a few minutes I’m going to show you something that might surprise you, and I hope that what you have seen and will see here will give you some ideas about how to gather power in your own communities.”

Coldwater droned on about how much everyone had in common, while Jesse fought the urge to throw up on the beautiful oriental rug at his feet. What was Bottoms waiting for? Did he want to get Jack Gene alone before he blew the whistle? Jesse looked around. There were only two ways out of the room: Casey sat between him and the door, and if he should throw himself through the windows he had at least a fifty-foot drop. He was sweating now, and he didn’t want to call attention to himself by mopping his brow.

“Is it warm in here, Jesse?” Coldwater said suddenly. He got up, opened a window and sat down again.

“Thank you, sir,” Jesse said, taking a deep breath.

Coldwater talked about cooperation and togetherness for another ten minutes, then he rose. “We’ll have to take more than one car, it seems; you two can ride with me, Pat, you take Bob, there, and Jesse, Charley can ride with you.” Coldwater retrieved a roll of blueprints from the bookcase, then the men filed out of the house and went to their respective cars. Coldwater drove off, leading the way.

Bottoms got into Jesse’s truck and slammed the door. He pointed at the dashboard and mouthed, “Is it bugged?”

“No,” Jesse replied. “I’ve been over it.”

“Well,” Bottoms said, “I guess I gave you a jolt, huh? I mean, I think I scared the shit out of you.”

Jesse glanced across at the big man. “That’s a fair statement, I guess.”

“I wanted to warn you earlier, but you were out of town until last night, I hear.”

Jesse nearly drove off the road. “You knew I was here?”

Bottoms laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

“Charley, what the fuck is going on?”

“Well, a couple of days after Barker sprung you, he sprung me. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you, make sure you’re not so unhappy you’d fly the coop, or so happy you’d change sides.”

“I should have known Barker would have a backup in place. It’s like him to be that cautious.”

“Backup is not far wrong. The deal was, I’d come up to Idaho, where a couple of old acquaintances had established the Nation up north, and get in good with them. Then, if they popped you, I’d be in place to step in. And, of course, I would burn the whole bunch in return for a free pardon.”

“Let me get this straight,” Jesse said. “You were willing to turn in your biker buddies to save your own ass?”

“Damn straight,” Bottoms said. “I never met anybody on a bike, or on foot, come to that, whose ass was as valuable to me as my own. I never even liked most of ’em. Fuck ’em, is what I say, if it gets me a fresh start.”

“You been dealing with Kip Fuller?”

“Right.”

“I told the son of a bitch not to send anybody else in here. Is he trying to get me burned?”

“I doubt it. I think Barker insisted.”

Suddenly, Jesse was delighted to see Charley Bottoms. “Well, I’ll tell you, Charley, you aren’t going to believe what you’re about to see, but I want you to remember every fucking detail of it and report everything to Kip and Barker. They wouldn’t take my word for it.”

“Sure thing, pal. You know, I always wondered what would have happened if you and me had gone toe to toe in the yard. Didn’t you?”

“Never crossed my mind.”

“Well, you got out just in time, buddy; I’d have smeared you across the pavement real good.”

“You know, Charley, it might have been interesting. Up until the time we met in solitary, I had just been trying to stay alive. But I think that after our chat, I would have started killing people, and you would have been first in line.”

Bottoms grinned. “I like you, Jesse; I always did. You always handled yourself real good in the yard; took out some guys I’d have thought would have stomped you into the ground. I’d have hated to kill you, but I’d have done it the minute you set foot out of that cell. I’m glad our present circumstances don’t require me to do that.”

“That’s sweet of you, Charley,” Jesse replied.

“I never saw anybody I couldn’t take in about a minute,” Bottoms mused, “except maybe Coldwater.”

“Coldwater scares you, does he?”

“You heard the stories about him in Nam?”

“Nope.”

“Shit, he’d go out in the jungle and hunt Slopes with nothing but a knife; they say he killed more people in silent combat than anybody in any service, including the marines and the CIA. And now he turns up in Idaho with all that hair, talking like a preacher. I bet if you looked at him cross-eyed he’d tear your throat out with his hands without even blinking.”

“You might keep that in mind, seeing that you’re doing what you’re doing here,” Jesse said. He drove through the gates, then pulled up on the mountain top and parked the truck.

Bottoms stepped down and looked around him. “What we got here, summer camp?”

“Stick around, Charley,” Jesse said. “Your eyes are about to be opened.”

They stood around a conference table in Coldwater’s underground office, following him as he took them through the blueprints of the installation. Jesse, as he had been doing for the past hour, snapped photographs with his Zippo lighter/camera whenever he had the opportunity. He took the opportunity to look closely around Coldwater’s quarters, too, and he saw something he’d seen before: a bookcase that held spines only, and, unlike the one that hid the safe back at Coldwater’s house, the false front was narrower and went nearly all the way to the ceiling.

“Jack Gene,” somebody interrupted, “I don’t see why you’ve stored gasoline instead of diesel in your underground tanks. Twenty-five thousand gallons of gas could make this place awful hot.”

“That’s an easy one,” Jack Gene replied. “First of all, the gasoline is in super-hardened tanks, no closer than fifty feet to the surface; second, in the last ditch, gasoline can make a powerful weapon, even if only in Molotov cocktails. And we’ve got flamethrowers we can use, if we have to.”

“I see your point,” the man said.