When he read the words back, he realized how impossible the conversation with Grip would sound. He had been given until sundown to return a complete motorcycle, and he was preparing to tell a feared man that the motorcycle might have been made unsafe deliberately. His evidence would be real, but the machine would still be in pieces. It was a distinction that could matter very little to somebody who measured respect in obedience.
At seven twenty-two, Lena called. She had heard from a customer that three Hells Angels were asking which end of the industrial park housed Oildale Customs, and she wanted to know whether Caleb was all right. He looked at the stripped motorcycle and considered lying. Then he told her enough of the truth that the line went quiet.
'I'm coming over,' she said immediately.
'No. Please don't.'
'Caleb, those men aren't known for waiting politely while somebody explains a missed deadline.'
'I know. That's why I want you nowhere near here.'
Lena swore under her breath, then asked whether he had called the police. Caleb said he had not, because he had nothing more concrete than an implied threat and a dangerous motorcycle. She told him that the combination did not sound small to her and promised to stay reachable. Before hanging up, she made him agree to call if anyone became violent, no matter what happened to the shop afterward.
The call left him feeling both grateful and ashamed. He hated needing other people to worry about him, but the people who cared about him were the only reason the building still felt like more than four walls. He thought about the breakfast burrito Lena had brought, the kindness Maria had shown when she could have closed his account weeks earlier, and Jonah's willingness to drive across town in the heat. The shop had been supported by a hundred small acts of loyalty long before Grip had threatened to replace loyalty with fear.
At seven thirty-five, Caleb began putting the accessible components back into position. He moved with the speed of someone who had practiced the sequence so many times that his hands almost knew it without instruction. Still, there were limits no talent could erase. A custom motorcycle assembled from decades of modifications could not be made safe by wishing away the need for alignment, verification, and careful testing.
He looked at the clock again. Forty minutes until the sun was down, give or take the local horizon. The incoming light had turned orange at the edges of the open bay, and the shadows of hanging tools stretched across the wall like dark fingers. He had not eaten since breakfast, and his stomach was beginning to cramp with emptiness and nerves.