Money.
Stolen property.
Labor.
Anything.
Leo had avoided him for almost three weeks.
Then two nights earlier, Silas found him.
The first visit ended with a warning.
The second ended with the purple bruise along Leo’s jaw.
“Friday,” Silas told him.
“Fifty bucks.”
Leo had fourteen dollars and thirty-eight cents.
So on Thursday afternoon, he sat in the shade of the abandoned Texaco station wondering what happened when Friday arrived.
He had eaten half a packet of crackers that morning.
His stomach hurt.
Not dramatically anymore.
Hunger had become too familiar for drama.
He sat with his knees against his chest, listening to traffic moving along Route 58.
Then he heard the motorcycle.
The sound was wrong.
Leo lifted his head.
Heavy V-twin.
Old.
Struggling.
He crawled toward the broken garage window.
A motorcycle came down the frontage road at maybe thirty miles per hour.
Deep metallic cherry-red tank.
Long front end.
Old Panhead engine.
Beautiful machine.
Terrible sound.
The rider worked the throttle repeatedly, trying to keep the engine alive.
Black smoke puffed behind him.
The bike coughed.
Recovered.
Coughed again.
Leo forgot hunger.
Forgot Silas.
Forgot everything.
He listened.
“Too rich,” he whispered.
The motorcycle turned into the Texaco lot.
The rider feathered the throttle.
The engine stumbled violently.
Then died.
Silence fell across the property.
The man sitting on the motorcycle remained motionless for several seconds.
Then:
“Goddamn it.”
Leo shrank slightly into the shadows.
The rider kicked down the stand.
He was enormous.
Maybe six-foot-four.
Late forties or early fifties.
Heavy beard threaded with silver.
Sun-darkened skin.
Faded jeans.
Engineer boots.
A black leather vest over a dirty gray shirt.
The back of the vest carried red-and-white patches Leo recognized immediately.
Hells Angels.
California.
Leo had seen bikers before.
He had learned enough about the streets to understand that curiosity could be dangerous.
The man removed his sunglasses.
His name was John Callahan.
Most people who knew him called him Big John.
He had spent most of his adult life around motorcycles.
Some of that life had been respectable.
Some had not.
John had worked construction, hauled freight, repaired motorcycles, done short stretches of county time when he was younger, and outlived enough foolish decisions to become suspicious of men who bragged about being fearless.
He was headed north to meet friends outside Fresno when the Panhead began losing power.
The motorcycle mattered to him.
Not because it was expensive.
Because it had belonged to his older brother Danny, who died ten years earlier.
John had rebuilt almost every part of it.
He understood the machine well enough to know the problem was probably fuel-related.
Unfortunately, understanding and fixing were not always the same thing on the side of a highway.
He opened a saddlebag.
Pulled out tools.
Removed the air cleaner cover.
Sweat immediately darkened his shirt.
“Come on.”
He kicked the starter.
The Panhead coughed.
Black smoke.
Another kick.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
John swore.
Inside the garage, Leo winced.
“Kicking it’s making it worse,” he whispered.
John kicked again.
Leo lasted another thirty seconds.
Then mechanical instinct defeated survival instinct.
He pushed open the rusted side door.
The hinges screamed.
John spun around instantly.
One hand moved toward his belt.
Leo froze.
“What the hell do you want?”
The boy swallowed.
Up close, John looked even larger.
“I…”
John stared at him.
Filthy clothes.
Bruise.
Barely enough body weight to fill out the shirt hanging from his shoulders.
“Kid?”
Leo found his voice.
“You’re flooding it.”
John’s eyes narrowed.