He stayed quiet while he looked. Then he called me back.
"Caleb, don't put that thing back on the road because you want to make somebody happy by sunset," he said.
"I know."
"Tell me you actually know."
"I know. I won't release it without checking the frame and the electrical fault."
He asked several questions, most of them harder than I wanted them to be. When had the frame been painted? Was the wiring original? Had anybody documented modifications before the first shop visit? Did I have the right records for the restoration model, or was I making assumptions based on a similar frame? By the time he finished, I felt less like an expert and more like a student, which was exactly what I needed.
"I can look at the photographs now," he told me, "but a photograph isn't a structural inspection. Remove only what you need to expose the alteration, preserve anything strange, and call me before you make a permanent change. I can be there this afternoon."
I stared at the clock. It was after two.
"You can make it?"
"Your uncle got me out of a bad situation once," Frank said. "He didn't ask whether I could afford to lose an afternoon. I'll be there."
For the next hour I worked with the patience that fear makes difficult. I removed the parts necessary to examine the frame junction and the wire routing without further damaging the evidence. I placed fasteners in labeled trays, drew a sketch of the layout, and noted the old tool marks already present when I reached them. Nothing mattered more now than keeping clear what had existed before my work and what I had changed.
I found the hidden sleeve fully enough to understand its role. It was a machined piece of steel unlike anything in the original assembly, set within a concealed alteration to the frame. Nearby, the ignition feed had been rerouted through a cramped space where heat and vibration could intermittently interrupt its connection. I couldn't prove from the metal alone who had done that or what intention lay behind it, but the combination was far too deliberate to accept as a routine factory failure.
Frank arrived at three twenty with a worn inspection case and a sun-faded cap. He was short, broad in the shoulders, and carried himself with the slow efficiency of a man who had spent fifty years refusing to hurry for anybody's deadline. He didn't ask about Grip's patch or my finances. He stood beside the motorcycle, listened to my account, and went over the photographs before putting his hands anywhere near the frame.
"You've done well documenting it," he said at last. "Now tell me what you think you know and what you don't."
I explained the test results and my hypothesis. I showed him the first shop invoice and the strange alterations. He studied the affected area in silence long enough that I began wondering whether I had embarrassed myself.