He drank water, forced down half a stale granola bar from the office drawer, and returned to the lift. The engine was back in position, but the fuel system was not connected and several body panels remained on the floor. The wiring was exposed for inspection, the tank still sat apart from the machine, and the old Knucklehead looked nothing like the proud motorcycle that had entered his bay hours earlier. Caleb knew there was no convincing way to hide the truth.
At seven forty-five he heard another phone buzz. It was a single message from an unknown number: 'You better have it ready.' No name, no signature, and no indication whether it came from Grip or one of his prospects. Caleb stared at the words, then took a photograph of the screen and put the phone down.
He reached for his notebook and added the message to the timeline. If anything happened to him, he wanted the record to be understandable to a person who had never seen the bike. That thought was more frightening than the message itself. It forced him to acknowledge how much of the afternoon he had spent imagining violence as an unavoidable consequence of being honest.
At eight o'clock the shop lights began to matter more than the windows. Caleb switched on the fluorescent fixtures above the lift and checked the small fire extinguisher mounted beside the entrance. He had no intention of needing it, but Aaron had made him check safety equipment before dangerous work, and habit was steadier than hope. Then he dragged a clean wooden board toward the front of the bench and arranged the photographs and recovered metal where they could be seen immediately.
He planned what he would say in three sentences. The bike had a dangerous concealed frame alteration, he had exposed and documented it, and he would not release it until it was properly verified. Those were the facts. He could not control whether Grip liked them.
The vibration arrived shortly afterward. At first it was a pressure in the soles of his boots, followed by the faint chattering of a loose sheet-metal panel above the office. Caleb turned toward the bay entrance and watched a glass jar of fasteners tremble on the bench. The sound coming up the road did not belong to three motorcycles.
It came in layers. One engine, then several, then dozens, until the whole street seemed to carry a low mechanical storm toward the building. Caleb stepped to the crack beside the rolling door and looked out. Headlights filled the road from the far intersection almost to the closed warehouses, their beams crossing in the dust like moving bars of white light.
There were motorcycles everywhere. They rolled in two and three abreast where the industrial street widened, their riders wearing black leather, denim, and patches that caught the headlights. Some bikes were modern touring machines, others old choppers built with the same fierce attention to personal style as Grip's Knucklehead. Caleb tried to count them and gave up before he reached forty.