Chameleon

But today all that was to change; today Jonty was about to rejoin civilised society, today Jonathan Derek Latimer would emerge from the shadows and face the music.

***

Bricko propped up his Harley and walked purposefully over to the trailer that housed Jonty and his latest girlfriend. He tried the door. It was locked, but he pressed his shoulder to centre of the door and pushed until the thin metal bowed and sprang open. The door crashed against the trailer wall and Bricko stepped into the bedroom.

Jonty was awoken by the crashing door and assumed the worst, which would have been that the Angels or the Predators were mounting a revenge attack. He flung back the covers and made a grab for the old gun he kept by the bed. Bricko yelled at him.

“Put it down, Jonty, its only me, you prat.” Jonty was standing naked beside the bed, holding his chest.

“Bricko, Dog, what are you doing? Couldn’t you have knocked?” Jonty pulled the covers from the bed and covered the bottom half of his slack, pallid torso and in so doing left Dani, his girlfriend, naked on the bed. Bricko looked at the girl and snorted with disgust. Her pubescent body was thin, almost emaciated and undeveloped. Bricko wondered whether the girl was even a teenager.

“This,” spat Bricko, “is what is going to send us all to prison.” He looked purposefully at the young girl, who looked terrified. He walked over to Jonty and slapped the newspaper into his bare chest. Jonty took the paper and looked at the front page before dropping the covers and abandoning all thoughts of modesty.

“Not again,” he wailed to nobody in particular. “Not again!”

***

Ten minutes later Dani and Jonty were partially clothed. The girl was sobbing pitifully and Jonty sat ashen faced on the bed, looking at photos of himself and the other Warriors selling dope, getting stoned and partying with very young semi naked girls.

Bricko had been sitting on the edge of the bed trying to comfort the distraught girl, while Jonty watched his future unravel in newsprint before his eyes for the second time in his life. Bricko stood up and walked towards the trailer door.

“You know, Jonty, you are a moron. We had a good thing going here and you’ve blown it with your appetite for girls barely in their teens. You must have seen this coming.” He shook his head and pushed his way through the crowd of confused bikers who had gathered in the doorway to see what the commotion was all about.

Bricko was in his trailer throwing a few personal objects into a scruffy holdall when Jonty appeared in the doorway.

“Bricko, mate, don’t let it all end like this.” Bricko continued packing without answering or even looking up. Jonty covered his face with his hands and asked “What are we going to do now?”

The other biker zipped up his case and moved towards the door. “Well, Jonty, I don’t know about you but I’m leaving. If the newspaper and that Max Richmond bloke have told the old Bill where we’re living, we can expect a visit tomorrow at the latest.”

“I guess it’s time to move on, then.” Jonty looked around the camp; it wasn’t much, but he had lived here for almost five years, off and on. “I’ll have the Warriors out of here by morning.”

Bricko knew it was already too late for the rest of them but he smiled a mirthless smile and squeezed Jonty’s shoulder as he passed. Jonty placed his hand over Bricko’s and asked solemnly, “Brothers?” Bricko, looked into Jonty’s eyes and replied with a conviction he didn’t feel, “Always, Dog, Always!”

The customised black Harley was heading away from the camp on a rutted farm track when Bricko heard the sirens a mile or so away. He looked at his watch.

“Forty five minutes,” he said to himself. “That has to be some kind of record.” Two minutes later he was on the A34 and heading towards a lock up workshop on the outskirts of Newbury.

***

Bricko pulled the Harley into the lock up workshop and closed the door. There was a lot to do if he wanted to keep one step ahead of the police, who by now would have Jonty and his gang in custody.

The biker took off his jacket, pushed it into a large cloth laundry bag and sat on an old easy chair. He unfastened his boots, slipped them off and stood up. He was a good two inches shorter without the steps in the boots. Slipping out of his leather trousers and grubby black tee shirt, he revealed the webbing that held the bulky latex body suit in place. Relieved to be free of the constricting latex, he stuffed that, too, into the bag.

Standing in front of the stainless steel sink the shorter, thi

The beard followed the long hair, and when he was clean shaven Bricko filled the sink with hot water and scrubbed every inch of exposed skin. It wasn’t as good as a shower but nonetheless it felt good to be clean. Looking into the mirror, he expected to see a different person, but he had forgotten something. The transformed biker leaned over the sink and popped out his contact lenses one at a time, and the ice blue eyes were back to their original green. Satisfied at the transformation, he smiled at his reflection and said out loud,

“Welcome home, Max”.