by Vivian Gray
By the time I’ve recovered enough to want to walk out of the bathroom, Diesel’s already gone. His bedroom door is wide open, and there is an empty space on the bed where his large frame normally rests. I smell the faint scent of fresh coffee and toast from the kitchen, but he’s left nothing for me.
The money and the picture are still on the table as if they’re nothing but decorations for the space. I sit down across from them, watching them like they might be bombs that are about to explode. By my guess, the cash is probably five or six hundred dollars in twenties and hundred dollar bills – way, way more cash than I’ve ever had on hand in my life. It would definitely be enough to book me a trip home, and probably enough to see a doctor and get my life right for at least a week while I figured everything out.
But I can’t take it. Taking it would mean that I tacitly endorsed Diesel’s bullshit idea that our relationship, or whatever he wants to call it, is over. Taking it would mean that the mission of finding Tyler is over and that I have signed off on it. Taking the money would mean that I am running.
I take the picture and a twenty dollar bill carefully from the top of the stack and leave the rest behind.
I dress as quickly as I can, then throw everything of mine and Tyler’s into my backpack. It only takes me a few minutes to find my cell phone in Diesel’s sock drawer. The battery is low, but it lasts long enough to call my mom and ask her to book me a plane ticket home. She cries at my request, but it all stops when I tell her I’m pregnant.
Chapter Ten
Diesel
Diesel,
By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way back to Illinois. I only used a few bucks from the money you left me to pay for the cab ride to the airport. My parents paid the rest for me. I didn’t want to owe you anything more. You’ve done more than enough already.
And don’t worry – I don’t plan on telling the cops or my parents about you or the club. I’m sure, in the back of your mind, you’re worried about that. But I promise you: your secrets are completely safe with me. Hopefully, that will be enough to pay you back for your work on finding Tyler and the protection while I’ve been in California.
I didn’t want to go. I hope you know that. I would have stayed had you asked me. I could have helped you look for Tyler as well, but I understand that things change. And four months is a long time to have some girl you don’t care about hanging around your apartment for no reason. So this is my thank you for putting up with me for so long – even if we didn’t have the same feelings for one another.
I am really struggling to write the next part, so I’ll let the test I took this morning, after our fight, break the news to you. I didn’t know until today, or I would have told you sooner. Luckily, you made it clear to me what your intentions are, and I can’t blame you for that. Living with me and a baby would have probably been too much to handle, and I’m sure there are better things you’d rather do than be stuck with a kid to support.
But more importantly, I know you can’t protect the both of us. People will get suspicious, and your club will think you’re on Tyler’s side. So, I’m doing what is best for all three of us, and I’m taking myself and the baby back to Illinois where I can be hidden away while I’m pregnant. This may be unfair to you, I realize that, but I can’t risk the child’s life. This baby didn’t ask to be born into this situation, and he or she certainly didn’t ask to be made after a one-night stand that was forced to last past its prime.
I promise that I’ll raise him or her right. I told you already that family is everything to me, and this child will not want for anything. They’ll have amazing grandparents who will teach them all about the outdoors. And I’ll go get my job back at the hospital. We’ll be okay, and I hope you will too.
I appreciate you not reaching out to us or trying to find us. From here on out, we go our separate ways for better or for worse. I know this is the right decision for us, and I hope you agree.
Thank you again for everything you have done and given to Tyler and me,
B.
The notebook paper she wrote her letter on crumbles easily in my hands. It rips and crunches as I knot it up as small as I possibly can. Her cursive handwriting fades into the new ridges and jagged edges. When I open up my palms, the only piece of the whole note I can spy is the word pregnant.
The test isn’t so easily broken. It takes me a few tries to bend the edges until it snaps into two plastic halves. The screen comes off on its own, but I can still make out the two blue lines highlighted against a white background. Damn. I never thought I’d see one of these things in my lifetime. I’ve always been so fucking safe. The girls I’ve ridden with were always on some kind of protection or I could control myself to pull out in time, but Blanche was a different story. I couldn’t stop myself if I tried.
Everything with Blanche has been an exception. From offering her my protection to letting her sleep next to me at night without the promise of sex… I’ve fallen further from the Diesel I used to be. I’ve become a man who gets choked up at the thought of her carrying my child and enraged over her not being here to share that with me.
No man I know would care about that shit. The guys in the club who are dumb enough to have kids take no part in raising them. And frankly, they’ve got no loyalty to their old ladies, either. My own father was like that with me. He was a stranger until I was grown enough to be his protégé. Until then, I was worth as much as a cockroach crawling on his kitchen floor. My mother was a vessel, a receptacle for his more carnal desires. I remember him telling her that all she was good for was raising his bastard kid. Her body was nothing but a plaything, something to be used.
It was a shit existence to grow up like that, to know no love from a man blood-related to me – and even worse to see how he treated my mom. When I think about it, it’s probably better Blanche went away, so the kid has a better chance at life than with a dad like me. At least now, he or she might turn out to be different from the generations that have come before them. Maybe they can actually have a future. I don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t want to be reminded of it.
I take the shreds of the test and note and walk over towards the trash can in the kitchen. With one toss, they disappear into the mess of food grinds and discarded mail.
“It’s all for the best,” Blanche said, and the truth is, I know she’s right. Without her here, I don’t have to worry about her knowing her brother’s fate. And I won’t have to pussyfoot around my own home pretending like nothing is wrong anymore.
There were so many times I wandered into her bedroom as she slept, convinced it was time to tell her that her brother’s body was found in some dump, stabbed at least fifteen times, and that I couldn’t find the killer. But every night I stopped myself. She didn’t need to know that kind of pain.
***
As the days and nights pass, I find myself dreaming of her. Before long, it’s been two weeks, and Blanche still sears through my mind. If anything, the remaining scent of her is stronger – in my memory anyway. There are small traces of her all around my place, like ringlets of hair stuck to the inside of the bathroom drain, and they only grow more evident. It’s almost as if she’s haunting me – taunting me.
Work is the only way I can let go. I dive headfirst into my projects. My numbers are the best they’ve ever been. Distribution is on time, all the time. I’ve got this shit down to a goddamn science. The routes are pristine, and even the drugged out dealers, and street pimps send their compliments.
But my allies – my best guys, the ones I know I can count on – they know something is up. Spike, in particular, senses it the strongest. He’s the one sharing the tiny office space, and he’s one of the few guys I’ve let in on my search for Tyler’s killer. This morning, he watches me carefully as I take my coffee and grab my maps and charts from my clipboard.
“What’s up with you?” I ask him as his eyes linger a little too long for comfort. “If you’ve got something to say, I’d appreciate it if you
went ahead and came the fuck out with it.”
He takes a deep breath as he leans back in his swivel chair. The nuts and bolts squeak under his large frame. In a low, tempered voice, he explains, “Knux came in here after you left yesterday – wanted to see some numbers, some of your books.”
“Yeah. The bastard loves to audit me for no damn reason. I’m the best fucking distributor his ass has ever seen, but he sure as shit doesn’t trust me.”
“Well, I made the mistake of pointing that out to him, actually.”
“You did?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “And what did he have to say to that?”
“Pretty sure it landed me on his shit list. He growled that I should mind my own damn business. He thinks that if I were smart, I’d be suspicious of you.”
“Me? What the fuck have I done? I haven’t done shit but work my fingers to the bone making money for this damn club.”
“Sounds like he’s hung up on the whole Tyler thing – mentioned him a few times despite the rumors being you boys found him dead in the dump.”
“I didn’t find him; Knux did. Or someone he knows did. I’m trying to get to the bottom of who the fuck did him in.”
With a nod, Spike reaches over to the old wooden door and quietly closes it with the top of his foot. He wheels himself to the center of the room, close enough so I can hear him whisper, “Knux mentioned that – said you’d been on some scavenger hunt looking for clues. The thing is, Knux was out of it – been snorting some of the supplies, I think. He mentioned something to me that I don’t want getting out. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” I answer solemnly as I sit up straighter in my chair, listening intently.
“As he was going, he mentioned you made a visit to Ken’s repair shop a few weeks ago. Knux said something about you missing it. I don’t know what it was referring to, but if I were you, I’d take that gun of yours and go back to old Ken to get him talking.”
“You’re not serious,” I say, bewildered. Ken? How the hell does he figure into all of this?
Spike shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his desk. A minute later, I’m already down the hallway and near the parking lot. I’m not wasting a moment on the most credible lead I’ve gotten since I started this fucking investigation.
By the time I arrive, it’s late, and Ken’s shop is empty and dark. The usual customers are gone, and his staff is down to one teenage mechanic mopping up the tire tracks from a beater vehicle caked in mud. I park my bike partially out of eyeshot of his shop. I don’t want to take the chance that a camera catches my license plate, and I sure as hell don’t want it stealing a look at my face. I take the hood and throw it over my head and face. But even through the disguise, the boy already seems clued in to who I am, or at least what I’m here for.
“Ken! There’s someone—”
“Get the fuck out of here,” I command him. “You call anyone on your way home, I’ll track your ass down. Don’t try anything you’ll regret, kid.”
At my threat, he drops his mop and takes off towards the parking lot. I watch from the windowed garage door as he pulls off towards the night. With him gone, I quietly go around the shop, closing the garages and locking the doors, pocketing one of the auto door remotes for later.
The last door is Ken’s office. From around the corner, I can see the chubby, dense man leaning over a small TV as he takes a bite of a sub sandwich. He doesn’t turn as I pound on the wall next to him. It’s only when I shout, “Ken!” that he turns around to acknowledge me. I must be a damn sight for sore eyes because he nearly stumbles straight into his TV when he realizes I’m here.
“Diesel, man. What the fuck!? You scared me half to death!” His hands curve around the back of his chrome-plated metal desk.
He’s an idiot – I know his move before he’s even thought it through. I raise my handgun in the air, pointing it straight at his head. In the short distance between the two of us in this cramped office, I can practically touch his temple with the tip of the gun.
“Don’t even fucking think about it,” I snarl out, practically begging for him to give me a reason to pull the trigger. “I know you keep a Glock holstered; I’m not a fucking novice, Ken.”
“Fine, fine,” he says as he reaches his shaking hands towards his head. “What are you here for? What do you need?” His nose twitches nervously.
“You remember what I said last time I was here, Ken? You remember my warning that if I found out that you were lying to me about the boy, Tyler, and his disappearance that I would squash you like a fucking bug?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course!” He’s still twitchy, and I can’t tell immediately if he’s lying or not. He, of course, claims he’s not. “But I told you the fucking truth, Diesel! I might be dumb, but I’m not that stupid.”
“Shut the fuck up!” I growl out back, my patience for this game waning. “We’re gonna have to have a long conversation about honesty, Kenny, my boy, because my sources tell me that you were holding something from me about Tyler, something that I missed. And it’s got all to do with Knux.”
“Knux?” He shudders visibly at the name. “How the hell do you know about Knux?”
“Help me out here. What am I missing, Ken?” I ask as I click the safety off on my gun. “Come on, Ken. Don’t make me count to three!”
“Fine! Fine!” he shouts, panic rising audibly in his voice. “You know how Knux is… you know… that he’s the kind of guy that—”
“One!” I shout over his inane babbling.
“I killed him!” he blurts out. “I killed the boy.”
“What?” My voice echoes in the empty shop.
“The kid – they had him followed. They found him sniffing around some other club or something, and they had him followed. When they realized he was coming to her, for his bike, they told me to do him in – promised me that they’d pay off some debts I have with the club. Knux told me they’d kill me if I didn’t.”
I lower the gun to my side, in complete disbelief. “Why?” I mutter. “Why would Knux want Tyler killed if his debt was paid?”
I turn my back for only a second, but it’s long enough for that beefy son of a bitch to get some idiotic sense of courage. The next thing I know, I’m lying on my back on the concrete floor next to the broken down car. The gun’s at my side, out of reach, but Ken doesn’t seem to notice or care. He’s busy attempting to land jabs at my face, but they land softly, without real power behind them.
“Oh, you are a fucking idiot!” I shout as I tear myself up.
He bucks off of my stomach and falls flat beside me. His hands rummage for the gun, but I’m much quicker than that. I use my feet to kick it away while my hands wrap around the bastard’s wrists. He squirms desperately under my weight, but it’s no use. I’m not letting him get away now. From my back pocket, I grab a long black zip tie – just long enough to wrap tight around his wrists. He shouts in agony as it cuts into his skin.
“What the fuck!? Diesel! You know Knux will kill you for this!”
“Not if he doesn’t know who did it.”
“Did what?” Ken asks as I drag him towards the car. I use a second tie to bind him to the wheel cap by his wrists. “Diesel!”
“What time does your shop open up tomorrow, Ken? Nine o’clock? Ten o’clock? That’s about twelve or thirteen hours from now, if I calculate it correctly. I’ve got to admit, I was never any great shakes at math. But I do know that it only takes a few hours for a garage of this size to fill with carbon monoxide – especially with all the windows and doors closed.”
“You sadistic fuck! You wouldn’t do it. I know you! You’re soft, just like Knux said. You let that kid get away…”
“You’re really challenging me on this?” I stand to my feet and walk to the pegboard where the keys for the cars he’s working on hang. I pull the only set off its hook and step over his kicking body to reach the front door. I’m half surprised the old thing starts up, but it roars to life with one turn of the key.
“Now…” I turn back to Ken. “I’m not hanging around here long, so I’d advise you to talk to me. Tell me where you put the body.”
“The Dump.” He coughs. “I know a guy…”
“Good. That much I know is the truth. And you swear that your order came from Knux himself and not some other club?”
“I swear on my life. It was Knux.
“I wouldn’t be swearing on that right now, Ken.”
He stares me down. “I know that asshole’s voice anywhere, and the payment came from him too. He dropped it off himself the next night.”
“Fine,” I try to say as nonchalantly as possible, “then you’ll pay for Tyler’s death, and that’s that.”
“Pay?” he asks, trembling. “B-but, D-diesel, I – I told you the fucking truth.”
I take the garage door’s auto remote out from my pocket, holding it up for him to see. “Ah. But I have to again remind you of the fucking conversation we had on my first visit. I told you I would crush you like a fucking cockroach for lying to me, and unlike you, I don’t swear on my life when I’m lying through my teeth. But since I’m so generous – or, how did you put it? Soft? – I’ll give you a way out of this mess.”
