'I can diagnose it,' he said. 'But I can't promise a safe repair by tonight before I've examined the machine.'
Grip leaned in close enough that Caleb could see the small white scar beside his left eye. 'Here's my offer. Five thousand dollars cash if it's running right before sundown. And my club remembers who helps us.' He paused, his gaze drifting toward the fraying electrical conduit along the shop wall. 'You disappoint me, and I'd hate to see this building have another accident. Old wiring can be troublesome.'
The sentence was quiet, nearly conversational. It made Caleb's stomach tighten more than a shouted threat would have done. The two prospects looked toward the ground, and Caleb understood that Grip's reputation did not need a raised voice to do its work. There was no honest way to mistake the implication.
'If I find something dangerous, I'm going to tell you,' Caleb said. 'Even if you don't like it. I won't call a bad bike good just to get paid.'
Grip studied him for a moment. Then he took a set of brass keys from his vest and tossed them onto the workbench. 'That's what your uncle would have said,' he replied. 'Sundown.'
He signaled the younger riders and climbed onto the back of one motorcycle. A moment later, all three men were gone, their engines receding toward the main road. Caleb stood alone beside the red Knucklehead, the keys heavy in his hand. The clock read 1:15 in the afternoon, and sunset was less than seven hours away.
He walked to the office, picked up the bank notice, and set it face down. Then he opened Aaron's old notebook to a blank page, wrote the date and the customer's name, and underlined one sentence twice. 'SYMPTOM: FAILURE AND VIOLENT VIBRATION UNDER SPECIFIC LOAD.' It looked like the beginning of an ordinary service record, and he desperately wanted it to become one.
The first hour went into observation rather than disassembly. Caleb photographed the motorcycle from every side, noted its unusual modifications, and checked the service slips Grip had shoved into the tool pouch. Donovan's shop had replaced jets, inspected ignition advance, and tested the bike around town. Wyatt's invoice showed a complete replacement of the visible wiring and a short road test, also at moderate speed.
Neither mechanic had been careless in the ordinary sense. They had each pursued an explanation supported by the symptoms they could reproduce, and their shops had done the work for which they had been hired. But Caleb noticed that neither receipt mentioned a sustained run at the speed Grip described or a close inspection of the custom frame. The missing step was not proof of anything, though it interested him enough to write it down.