Free Fall in Crimson by John D. MacDonald

hundred bucks into the pot for the next beer bust. But the troops are getting restless. They know that maybe Mother got six thou for setting up that foolproof run, and there's the feeling around that maybe the officers are getting too far into the business. Some of them have taken to wearing the corporation garments, blow-dry hairstyles, limos with Cuban drivers. Too much separation between the officers and the troops. That is the kind of bitching I hear. They are being used, and they know it."
    "Do any of the troops do any retailing on their own?
    "It could happen, but I don't think it would be a big thing. It really wouldn't go with the image they try to project. It would have to be a situation where there was a heavy cash-flow problem; a man out of work. Or maybe a favor for a friend."
    "Suppose a man in Lauderdale got a call that somebody would meet him at such and such a time way up the line, over a hundred miles away. And when he went up there to buy, the man who called him wasted him, and though there were no witnesses, maybe the machine the biker was using was identified as to make."
    "Recently or way back?"
    "Two years in July."
    "That's very heavy action, Sergeant McGee. What kind of machine?"
    I dug the piece of paper out of my shirt pocket. "The man who saw the track says it was the rear K-One-twelve of a set of ContiTwins, deep enough to indicate a quarter-ton machine, so he guessed a BMW Nine-seventy-two."
    "Pretty reasonable guess. But it could have been an HD, or a Gold Wing Honda, or a Kawasaki KZ series, or a big Laverda or Moto Guzzi, or a GS series Suzuki, or an XS series Yamaha. All burly machines. Big fast bastards. But sweet and smooth. You almost can't stress them. And they could all wear ContiTwins. Where did it happen?"
    "Up near Citrus City, on the turnpike: A man named Esterland who was dying of cancer."
    "I think I remember news an the tube about that. Sure. But there wasn't any mention of drugs or bikes."
    "Not enough to go on, so it didn't get in."
    "Where do you come in, Trav?"
    "A little favor for the guy's son. Ron Esterland. By the way, he's an artist too. Had a big sellout show in London."
    "Hey I know the name. Didn't make the connection. Saw some color plates of his work in Art International. Pretty much okay"
    "So what should I do next?"
    "I don't understand why the buy should have been set up so far out in the boonies. But I can tell you that any one of those kinds of horses I named would be owned by somebody known to the brotherhood. Up by Citrus City and from there on up, it's a different turf. Up there you've got the Corsairs. But there's a lot of interclub contact, when bikers from both clubs go to Page 36

    out-of-state rallies and rendezvous. I think that maybe, if it was nearly two years ago, it's become part of the legend."
    "How so?"
    "Trav, these people go back to a kind of tribal society. Myths and legends. Whoever was involved would keep his mouth shut and make his woman keep her mouth shut. But after a long time there's not much heat involved. Maybe his woman has switched riders. With lots of beer and grass and encampments in the night, the word gets out. A little here and a little there, and it gets built up into something a lot wilder and more romantic than it was. Do you understand?"
    "Sure. I think so."
    "If you can find a legend that seems to fit and then unravel it all the way back to the way things really were, you can maybe-just maybe-come up with a name. And even that won't mean much.
    It'll be a biker name: Skootch or Grunge or BugBoy. And there's turnover among the troops.
    Some get into heavy action and get put away. Some of them, when the fox gets pregnant, decide to pack up and get out."
    "Can you find out if there's a legend about Esterland?"
    "I can listen. I can poke around a little but not much, because it makes these people nervous. I get along fine because I carry good merchandise, and my people do good work, and the prices are right, and the law has