Dead Men Motorcycle Club (5 page)

"It's the
only
garage in San Viero," the thin one on the end named Hep
said, and that sent the whole group into a brief fit of laughter, Cash included. I smiled along with them, glad to finally feel included.

Cash turned to me and said, "Alright, I trusted you to ride my baby. Now I'm going to trust that you know what you're doing inside of her, too. Take her into the garage and give her a look over. You know that clicking sound we heard out there? Find it and you'll be my hero." I had heard the sound he was referring to and I already had a few ideas of where to start looking. I gave him a quick mock salute and walked back to the bike.

The group of them watched me walk the bike back into the garage. Their stares seemed a lot less threatening than the ones I'd received earlier, though I didn't doubt some of their feelings were similar. Still, I guessed it was clear to them that Cash was expressing some interest, and I doubted any of them would
dare
say something out of turn. At least, I thought Cash was interested. To be honest, it was hard to tell. His manner was so malleable that it was hard to get a fix on his true opinion about anything. One moment he was dark
storm clouds
and the next, he was a bright and shining day.
As I put down the kickstand and gathered up some tools and a fresh rag, I was thinking about the way he'd smiled at me when we got off the bike. This was a proud man, and he was being openly mocked by his fellow bikers. I had to feel good that he was willing to endure such treatment on my account.

I have to admit that my head wasn't in the game when I was getting my hands into the bike. I did everything right, of course. I'm a professional, after all. However, I was working slowly. Every step of the way, I imagined the life that Cash shared with his bike. I was sure he'd been in and out of every part on the thing many times. Every piece I held in my hands was connected to him more strongly than anything else he owned.
There are
only so many kinds of people in the world who have such a close connection with a machine. For most people, machines are just a way of making life easier. This bike was more than that to Cash. It was more than a way of getting from Point A to Point B. This was his purpose, or at least heavily invested in that purpose. It was an extension of him. I thought I had a strong connection to my Charger, being that I'd put so much effort into getting it running just right. I knew it was nothing like this though. My Charger was just a car. This was a
mount,a
trusty steed, carrying him forth like a knight from some story book.

In my mind, he was every bit the fairytale knight, too. The way he'd carried me off from the lot of Peasant Motors and the way he'd rescued me from the evil gremlin seemed like
high fantasy. I was still no damsel in distress, but I had to admit I like the thought of being his fairytale princess. I wondered if my Dad would approve, but only for a moment. In the end, I was sure he'd do just the opposite. Dad had grown to dislike motorcycles and all the people who rode them. He'd seen friends turn from lively hobbyists to drug-crazed sadists by this life. He always said he was lucky to get out alive, and he meant it. If he knew I was idealizing Cash into some version of Prince Charming, he'd probably sigh in that way he did that made you feel guilty for everything you'd ever done wrong in your entire life.

I finally found the culprit of the noise we'd heard in the bike on the way out. It had been a simple loose connection that was fixed in less than five seconds once I knew what I was looking for. I reassembled the parts of the bike one by one, taking even more care than I had when I removed them in the first place. Just as I was wiping my hands clean on the rag, I saw Karen pull up outside the garage in her truck. She rolled down the window and called out to me.

"Hey Emma, want some lunch?" she yelled.

I nodded enthusiastically back at her and tossed my rag amongst the toolbox. I suddenly realized that I was starving.
I'd had a big breakfast, but it had been a bigger morning. The pressures of a new job were plenty to get my stomach rumbling, but there had been so much more. Besides my hunger, I was eager to have someone to talk to about everything that had happened. Karen was my boss just as much as Cash was, but she was also the only other woman I'd seen at Peasant Motors, and one way or another I was sure she'd have some insight for me.

We drove just a couple blocks over to a restaurant called El Sol, which promised authentic Mexican food and air conditioning. It wasn't quite warm enough out that we needed the latter, but I was eager to try the cuisine. Coming from the frozen wastes of the mid-west, it was hard to find decent Mexican food, but here I was in Southern California and I wasn't going to miss it for the world.

We sat down and ordered a couple drinks. I waited to see if Karen would get herself a beer before I ordered one for myself. You never know when having lunch with a boss whether it's acceptable to drink, but my guess turned out to be perfectly accurate and Peasant Motors was not the kind of place where a mid-day beer was looked down upon.

"So," she said, "How was your morning?"

"Well, I'll just lay it out for you because I'm sure you'll hear it from someone," I said, assembling the pieces of my story in my mind.

"This sounds juicy."

"Oh, it is," I said with a grin. I then went on to explain to her everything that had happened with Vickers, Tubbs and Mike. Her face was a snarl of rage when I told her the way Mike had grabbed me. She looked half furious and half confused as to why I was still here having lunch with her after such bad treatment from one of my co-workers. Then I got to the part about Cash.

She listened intently as I told her about him swooping in to save me, and then how we'd talked. Then I told her about the riding lesson and her face was absolutely glowing.
I tried not to pour it on too thick, but I think any woman knows when another one is smitten, and Karen was probably used to hearing the way women talked about the Dead Men when they were interested. She smiled quietly at me as I finished the story and proudly told her that I'd gotten Cash's bike fixed.

"Well," I asked, finally, "What do you think?"

She took a short sip of her beer and then came back with a somewhat more somber expression on her face. "Emma, we need to talk," she said.

I was terrified about what she might have to say. Clearly there was a piece of information I was missing. Was Cash married? Was she going to tell me that I shouldn't pursue him for professional reasons? I was afraid to find out, but listened closely all the same.

"Did you know that Cash is my nephew?" she said.

I immediately blushed. I hadn't known that. Though I hadn't exactly given her details about the way Cash had made me feel
I still felt awkward telling someone about a crush I had on their relative. "No," I said, trying to keep my cool, "I didn't know that."

"Well he is," she said, "And I love the boy like he was my own son. But that's not the whole of it. I like you a lot, but you have to know what kind of man he is and what kind of life he leads."

"I think I know," I said, "I mean, a little."

"What you know is just small talk," she said with a sour expression, "I'm a part of the family, and I've got no choice but to stay as deep as I am. You have a choice, but you only get to make it once. If you decide to get mixed up with Cash, that
decision might mean you're mixed up for the rest of your life. These boys play for keeps and if he never gets tired of you, then things can get serious, real fast."

I nodded along. What she was saying made sense. I was used to relationships where, if I decided I wanted out, I could just end it. In fact, that's how nearly all of my relationships
had
ended; with me deciding that I had better things to do. But if I were to start something with Cash, that would be very different. I could tell that there would be no telling him "no."

"It's not just the commitment though," she said next, "it's a couple other things. On the one hand, he's your boss. I might be in charge of the garage, but he's in charge of everything. When he tells someone around there to jump, they ask how high. You know what I mean. If you get tangled up with Cash, that means your job's going to change in ways even I can't predict.
It's certainly not going to ingratiate you with Zach or the other mechanics. They're already sore about having a woman around.
Now it’s a
woman that's rolling around with the boss after hours? That's something else entirely. That situation's
gonna breed nothing but contempt, and they're not gonna
have an outlet for it because you'll be under Cash's protection. I can't even tell you what will happen next."

I understood that concern perfectly well. If I was Cash's girl, I could expect that my job might turn from full-time mechanic to something stranger. Would Cash want me in the garage all the time or would he want me spending my time with him? I didn't think I would want to be kept from the garage, even for a guy like Cash. He was gorgeous, but working on engines was my life.

"The last thing is..." she said, trailing off slightly, "I don't know what you've heard about what the Dead Men get up to when the sun goes down, and I don't want to be telling tales out of school, either. But you've got a right to know before you make a decision. Those boys are fighters and they're not standing with the law, if you catch my meaning. Plenty of things I've seen pass through that clubhouse are ones I never would have thought I'd see in my life, for fear of incarceration or worse. Drugs, weapons, you get the picture. That's not all though. I'm not sure about you, but I've never killed a man."

I shook my head, as if it needed to be said. At the tender age of 22, no. I'd never killed a man. The thought was so silly that it was hard to keep a straight face.

"Well he has - Cash, I mean - a
nd not just one. The MC is a dangerous business and
there are
plenty of other crews that are looking to get a hold on what the Dead Men already have. Some of them are willing to fight and some of them are willing to kill. Cash knows that, and he knows the only way to fight back is to play by the same rules."

I nodded at her quietly. That was a lot to take in. Cash was friendly and charming, but I was well aware that there
was a dark
side to his personality as well. As ever, he was a living contrast. This time though, the dark side seemed to be creeping all over the fairytale image I had been constructing of him in my mind. His shining armor was turning rusty and blackened. His faithful steed was becoming a creature of nightmare.

"Thanks, Karen," I told her, "You've given me a lot to think about."
I mulled over what she told me as I ate my enchilada - which was just as delicious as I hoped. The rest of our conversion turned to much less heady topics, such as the quality of the food at the couple restaurants I'd eaten, the quality of my motel and whether she might be able to find me a more permanent place to stay, and the general state of San Viero itself. Karen seemed to have boundless knowledge when it came to the town. She said that she had been born in Portland, but had moved down to Southern California when she was just a girl. Now, she said, she couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

When we got back to the garage, she went to the
business office and I went off to find Zach, to see what else needed to be done. When I found him, he was talking to Tubbs about the Ford I'd seen on the lift earlier. From what I gathered of their conversation, Tubbs had been slacking off and the truck was supposed to be finished already. I didn't even have time to show initiative and volunteer. As soon as Zach spotted me, I could tell that the work was
now mine.

"You two go get your hands in that engine and get it worked out. If it's not starting by five when Taylor comes to pick it up, there's going to be hell to pay," he said.

Tubbs and I walked over to the truck together in silence. He had been present with Mike and Vickers, but aside from laughing, he hadn't really participated in anything, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt for the moment. I was relieved when we reached the truck at the end of the line and he cleared his throat as if he had something important to say.

"Uhh," he started, "Listen, about earlier..."

I kept my gaze steady, watching him and not wanting to let him off the hook for his role in the incident, small though it might have been.

"Sorry for what Mike did. He's a prick."

I could tell that was all the
apology I was going to get out of him, soft spoken as he was. Still, it was something, and probably more than I could ever expect to hear from Vickers or Mike themselves. I wondered how much of the apology was because he honestly felt bad and how much was because of Cash. In the end, it didn't really matter.

After I accepted his apology, Tubbs was a bit more talkative, though he was still far from loud. He explained the trouble he'd been having getting the starter working on the truck. I lobbed him a few softball theories, but he brushed them aside, explaining that he'd already tried my solutions.
I was stumped as to what was wrong with the starter. We brought the truck down to the floor and got under the hood.

I was impressed by Tubbs' knowledge, and I like to think he was impressed by mine. I'd worked with a lot of different mechanics over the years, but Tubbs was the one who seemed to come closest to my Dad's skill. Sometimes he would just stand and stare at the engine for a few minutes. Some people might see that and suppose that he was just confused, but I could see what he was up to. He was doing all of the investigation and testing in his head. He was able to look at the engine and take it apart just by looking at it. The condition of one part compared to the part next to it informed him of what was working and what wasn't. It was impressive, and I have to admit I was a bit jealous.