Page 11 of Gold Rush (Murphy’s Pub #3)

Chapter Eight

Hippy was packing heavy, and that always worried the group. He was their weapons man, but that didn’t mean someone couldn’t get to him first.

They were heading into the building as soon as the crowd, hopefully showed up and harassed Dane.

Dean wasn’t leaving the pub, as much as he’d begged to be there. Goldie would be happier if none of them were there, if the crowd could handle it all, but they’d gotten the people into it, and would defend them, with their lives, if necessary.

It was all set, and once they paired off to leave in separate vehicles that Cosmo was good enough to boost them before the event, Cosmo drove the car Goldie rode in with a set jaw and steel eyes. “They tried to kill Abs, of all of us. Why not come after you or me?”

“You know why,” Goldie told him.

“If he’d have died, Goldie, I would have lost all the calm I have, and I know you would have.”

“What are you trying to say, Cosmo?”

He was quiet for a while as he drove, but Goldie watched his jaw clenching as he thought of how to say whatever he had to say. “Of all the jobs, this is the one that could get us back to where we don’t want to be. Are you ready for that?”

Thinking of Abs and Dean, the only two victims he personally knew, and he knew he’d die for them, go to prison for them, without question. “I am.”

Cosmo nodded hard. “Yeah. Me too, and that is something I never thought I’d say when I first got here.”

“Told you we’d make you a part of this weird family.”

He laughed in a breath. “Fuckers.”

Once they got to where they were meeting the neighborhood residents, the crowd looked a little sparse. There were maybe ten people waiting around, and Goldie saw their faces. They were not as gung-ho as they were previously.

They got out of the car and moved through the people, talking to them, reminding them of why they were there. As they were getting those present riled, more showed, even an old woman with a cane. Goldie went right for her and took her arm. “Ma’am, you don’t have to be here.”

“I do too,” The old woman said, jerking her arm from his. “I’ve been here seventy-five years! It’s mine more than any of you all!”

Abs came over after parking the car he’d taken and kissed her cheek, making her blush. “Thank you. They tried to kill me, and I thought no one cared. You are showing me I’m wrong.”

“You poor thing. We’ll chase them out of here, and if you need anything, you come see Mrs. Chambers.”

She got another kiss on her cheek for that.

The witnesses to that seemed to take her enthusiasm into themselves, as they asked Abs if he was okay, if there was anything they could do for him. All he would tell them is make sure he was the last victim of these men.

Goldie got the call that Hippy and Haze were ready to go, and Mims was waiting in the van in the alley. All they needed now was the distraction.

Cosmo was on the phone with Taran, who had the task force that were now sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for the BBC to raise their heads again, to swoop in and take the human traffickers down after the money was gone.

Everything was in place. Everyone knew their roles.

Goldie knew, if they could get these men, then the BBC was next. If they could possibly get more neighborhoods involved, more people to take their power back from the corruption of those policemen, then things might finally take a turn.

The worst thing in the world was to feel powerless against oppression and aggression. To feel like fighting, but unable to because you don’t have the army they have. You don’t have the weapons or the strength.

Goldie had felt that all through his youth. The powerless feeling of being a target and having no recourse. These people were trying to take back some of their power, and Goldie was proud of each of them.

Abs grabbed his hand and said, “They’re ready.”

“They are. Are you?”

As those pretty eyes of his narrowed in intense hatred, he gritted, “Let’s get them.”

The entire group started up the street to the building where the pimp and his minions were located.

Mims kept a close eye on him all day, and Dane hadn’t stepped foot outside his door.

Of course, he didn’t. It was a day before the drop.

Saturday night, when the men of the pub would usually be performing but had pushed off opening the doors until eleven.

Until then, they weren’t performing bartenders they were warriors, out for a cause.

When the crowd stood in front of the building, everyone started yelling for the pimp to come out and face them. The people who’d lost their kids to him were front and center of the crowd, screaming the loudest.

Finally, he came out, and like they suspected, all his guards and buddies were flanking him. “What the fuck you all want here?”

Goldie, Abs, and Cosmo moved up, and Cosmo said, “You hurt our friend, tried to kill him with a hotshot. You gonna deny it?”

He laughed, as did his buddies. “This junkie? He came begging me for some dope. I gave it to him! Is it my fault his eyes were bigger than his veins?”

The crowd went insane and lunged for them, and on cue, the goons took out weapons and started to flash them around, keeping the crowd back with the threat of opening fire.

Like they’d all grown steel on their chests, they kept surging, and Goldie set his hand on his own weapon, ready to fire back if those assholes hurt even one person in that crowd.

He, however, was not the one who pulled his weapon. Abs pulled out a gun he’d had on him and walked right up to Dane, sticking the gun in his face, even as all the guns were suddenly turned on him.

“You think you can just take anyone you want? You think you can hurt anyone, use anyone, get them addicted to drugs so that they can’t fight back? You think you own people? How the fuck do you dare think it’s okay to own people?”

Goldie was by his side, pulling his own gun, but then he heard it behind him, a chorus of clicking that could only mean one thing.

At least half of the crowd of thirty people were holding their own rifles, handguns and even one had an assault rifle.

The tension was suddenly at a peak and Goldie worried his actions could get a lot of people killed. Cosmo must have felt the same, but he seemed to know what to do about it.

“What are you gonna do? Kill these good people? Tax paying, hard-working people? And you, the scumbags, are going to get off? If you live through it?”

Cosmo pulled his own weapon and stood by Abs, pointing it at Dane’s head. “If I shot you right now, no one would blame me, and I’m guessing all these good people would back me up that it was self-defense.”

“You’d be dead!”

“Maybe. But I won’t die before you.”

That seemed to shake Dane up a little. He smiled nervously and said, “You might.”

“Try me.”

Abs lifted his chin and said, “I guarantee you won’t get a shot off before the rest of us.”

“We want you out of this neighborhood,” some of the crowd hollered, and that got more hollering the same, and soon, it became a chant. Goldie felt his phone vibrating, and he took it out to see that the guys had gotten all the money, so he smiled so they could back off.

First, however, he said, “I think they’ll be leaving sooner than they think.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dane screamed over the chanting of the crowd, but even that noise was overwhelmed by the sound of sirens closing in on the street.

Guns were stashed in the crowd, and it dispersed quickly. Dane and his goons tried to get away, and a few were running, but the cops and feds came from all sides, and it wasn’t twenty minutes later than they were all in the backs of police cars, and Talan looked over to them with a wink.

As soon as they left, they met with the others at the storage unit a few blocks down the same street where they’d stash the money for a month.

They grabbed ten, huge cases of money in that short time, and Hippy told them, “Man, when the cops see all the heroin he has in that building, he’s never seeing daylight again. ”

“How much?” Cosmo asked.

“At least a hundred bricks. At least. We didn’t touch them, but man, it was tempting to set them on fire.”

Murphy grumbled, “And would have had the entire neighborhood high.”

“As it is, we need to start collecting names and addresses to send all the money too,” Mims said.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t tell them? I mean…when the BBC comes back into play, we could use the extra people on our side,” Hippy asked, and it was obvious he hated himself for asking.

Goldie felt the same. “We need the backing, but still…I think we have it, and if they think about it, they’ll probably figure out who gave it to them.”

Murphy nodded and said, “Guys, we don’t always need to collect people for this upcoming fight, if there is one. I think…I think we’re gonna be okay, regardless. Still, after this, I’m…I’m sending Ryan, Eazy, Tally, and my kids to Washington.”

All of them stared at him, heartbroken. “Paps…” Mims said before tears started to stream down his face.

“Mims, it’s not anyone’s fault but mine.

I started this crime ring, and now that it’s, now that it’s doing good, that changes nothing.

In fact, it’s making us as many enemies as friends.

My family means too much to me to lose them because of this shit.

I’m also giving you, all of you, the choice to go too.

I can easily sell this building, and we can all get out of Denver and have real lives. We all have plenty of money.”

“You mean…split up?” Abs said in a sob.

Murphy got him and Mims in a fatherly hug and said, “Only if you want. We could have this same thing in another state if you all want.”

“But if we want to stay here and see this through with the BBC?” Cosmo asked.

“Then, well, we’ll see it through. Eazy knows I’m not leaving with them right now. He said…he said I have six sons here I need to look after, and it’s true.”