"I can't. Not all of it. I need to see the part. I need to know you really removed it."
"Why?"
There was a long pause. When he spoke again, his voice had changed. "Because eight months ago I heard a man describe almost exactly what you've found, and I convinced myself he was only talking."
The envelope of cash beside me suddenly seemed irrelevant. I sat down on the stool.
"Where are you?"
"Valero station on Norris Road. Ten minutes."
I did not want him in my shop. I did not want another stranger looking at my tools, my debts, or the motorcycle. But if he was telling the truth, he was a witness to something far more serious than an expensive mechanical mistake.
"You can come here," I said finally. "But I'm asking somebody else to be present. I won't promise you secrecy."
"That's fair," he said. "I don't deserve secrecy."
I ended the call and dialed Grip. He answered almost immediately. I told him the name, the location, and what Delgado had said about eight months of silence. Grip did not interrupt until I finished.
"Ray Delgado," he repeated, slower than I had. "I know him. Don't be alone for that conversation. I'll come with Jack, and we'll get someone who can document it properly."
"He might run if he sees you."
"Then we'll stay nearby until he decides what he wants to say. Keep the doors open and don't take risks for our sake."
It was a different instruction from the one I had feared he might give. I told him I understood. Then I replaced the damaged chain with the new lock I'd bought using his hundred-dollar bill and left the bright overhead lights on.
At nine twenty-seven, an old silver pickup parked across the street. A man climbed out, checked both directions, and approached with the posture of someone walking toward a decision he could no longer avoid. He was in his late fifties, with tired eyes and hands that looked permanently stained by machine oil. When he stepped into the light, he studied my face and stopped.
"You look like Hector," he said.
I pulled out a stool. "Sit down, Mr. Delgado. Tell me why you're here."
He sat with his hands on his knees. For a long time he looked at the red motorcycle. Then he whispered, "I should have said something before anybody got hurt."
Ray Delgado did not begin with the name of the person who had commissioned the work. He began with his own failure, which told me more about him than any dramatic confession could have done. He said he had known Hector years earlier, back when both men took occasional restoration jobs too complicated for the shops that accepted them. They had argued about carburetors, traded parts, and once driven to Fresno together in a borrowed truck to rescue a motorcycle whose owner couldn't afford towing.
"Your uncle was difficult," Delgado said, looking at the old workbench. "He didn't know how to let a bad job be somebody else's problem."