bikes and hanging out in their army buddies’ garages, fixing things and working on bikes. There weren’t any rules or anything like that; it was just friends who had been through the same sort of thing, brothers-in-arms and all that.
“Then, in the lean years after the wars, there was a lot of crime. Marina’s Crest was smaller then, the police force no bigger than three men and one jail cell. Criminals came in and started making short work of the few families that lived here. There were break-ins and robberies, people held at gunpoint in their own homes. People would rob and then run, hopping on the train and getting out of Dodge before the law could catch up with them. Then, one night, a pretty local girl was found out in the desert. When they found her, there was so little left that she could only be identified by her name written in her shoe. Horrible things had been done to the girl, and there was no one to serve her justice.
“So a few men got together, my grandfather included, and they asked themselves what they had fought a war for? They had spent years of their lives defending their country only to return to lawlessness and chaos and violence. But then they realized that it didn’t have to be that way. They were soldiers, and they were well trained and disciplined. They understood how to stay calm under pressure and how to face danger and death and keep everything together. So, they became the law. They patrolled the streets; people called them when they heard a strange noise outside their house late at night. Women working the late shift asked them to act as escorts, so they could be safe on their way home. People paid them however they could—some gave property, others money, others food. For a while it was a beautiful system.”
“So what happened?” Olivia asked.
“Well, the government isn’t too keen on people who aren’t cops acting like cops. It turns out that one of the men the Reapers had run out of town, a man who had been drunk more than he was sober and had crashed more than two cars, was the son of a very well-connected man. That man called another man, and before anyone knew it, the county was installing a real precinct and calling for the Reapers to be disbanded. God’s Reapers had done the government's job for a decade, and then when the government finally got involved, did they thank the Reapers for a job well done? No, they were called criminals and warned that they would be immediately arrested if found.
“By now most of the old guard had aged out; they were too tired to fight any more wars. But their sons and grandsons had spent their childhoods watching their fathers and grandfathers ride away on their bikes. They wanted in on the action; they wanted to be brothers. More importantly, people wanted drugs, and they didn’t understand why the government was so opposed to them smoking a little pot or taking some speed. There was a demand, a growing one. Plus, there were bikers who felt cheated; they had done the government’s job for them and received nothing. Selling some drugs to an eager group of people created a perfect little circle.”
“So the Reapers didn’t start out as drug dealers?” Olivia asked. “Their history is one based in protecting people.”
“Yup,” Hillary said.
“So why couldn’t they go back to that? I mean, not the protection thing, but some other non-illegal activity? Why does everyone throw up their hands like change of any kind is such an impossible idea? I’ve asked David to do it, and he just always says he can’t but never says why.”
“Change is hard. It’s harder on men,” Hillary said with a shrug of her shoulders. There was a chime somewhere; it was the sound of a cell phone going off. The noise pulled Olivia back to earth, back to the here and now.
Hillary stood up and went to her phone where it had been plugged in and charging on the wall.
“So, cop,” she said, looking over at