by Thom Whalen
* * *
I dreaded the passing of the days because each one brought me a day closer to Tuesday, my day off, when I’d have to ride up to Oak Falls and confront the Road Snakes again.
Not confront them in the dictionary meaning of the word. I intended to avoid them. I hadn’t seen them since Buck and Candy had thwarted their attempt to rape my girlfriend right in front of me and I had no intention of ever being in their presence again. Offering to give me a turn at Katie after they had taken as much of her as they wanted had hardly been a sign of respect. I was pretty sure that the next time they saw me, they’d kick me around the room a few times just for the fun of it. Maybe shove my face in a toilet for a few more grins and giggles. Maybe hold me there until I was dead as a drowned kitten.
I had no doubt that they were killers.
My only hope of surviving intact was to get into their clubhouse, search it, and get away without anyone knowing that I was there.
The most frightening part was that the last time that I had expected to be alone up there, I had been horribly wrong. This time, I’d be smarter. I’d make sure that nobody was staying in the main house, watching me when I tried to break into the clubhouse.
I had sworn to do everything I could to save Randal, and that meant going in there and finding evidence. So much could go wrong that I was pretty sure that I was going to die trying. But I had no choice.
More important than saving Randal, I had to do it because, despite what Katie said, it was the only way to prove to myself that I wasn’t a coward.
And getting revenge on the Road Snakes would be a fine bonus.
When Tuesday came, I gritted my teeth, mounted my bike, and pointed it toward Oak Falls. I tried not to think about how foolish I was being.
The day began badly. A few miles short of Kenny Mill, I heard a siren in my ear. Glancing down at my rear-view mirror, I saw flashing red lights.
If Gus had told the police enough that they had figured out who had given him his drugs, then I was about to be handcuffed and hauled away to prison. I was sorely tempted to see if a Harley could outrun a Ford Crown Victoria. All of them. The police had radios. If you ran from one, you ran from all.
Common sense prevailed.
Heart pounding, I pulled over, hoping that the highway patrol cruiser wanted only to get past me.
No such luck. The cruiser followed me to the verge and stopped when I did.
As I took off my helmet, I remembered what Randal did when he was stopped by Albertson. He stayed on his bike until asked to dismount. So I did the same.
That didn’t last long. The first thing the highway patrolman said was, “Get off the bike, kid.”
I did.
“License and registration,” he said.
I was glad that I’d taken the trouble to get my license validated for motorcycles. It had involved nothing more than walking into the nearest Motor Vehicle Department Office and letting them stamp an endorsement on it. They hadn’t even bothered to ask if I knew how to ride a motorcycle; the clerk just looked at the helmet under my arm and said, “Okay.”
I handed my license to the cop. “I don’t have the registration. A friend lent the bike to me.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “Amazing how many guys are riding other guy’s motorcycles when they get stopped.”
In my case, it was true – Randal had lent me the bike – but I said nothing. That was one of Randal’s rules. Never tell a cop more than you have to. It was a smart rule.
“So where are you going in such a hurry?” he asked.
“Oak Falls.”
“What’s in Oak Falls?”
“A bike mechanic.” I couldn’t think of any other reason that I’d be going up there.
“Your bike seems to ride pretty good to me,” he said. “At least up to eighty miles an hour.”
“Gosh. Was I going that fast? I’m sorry. I guess it got away from me for a minute. I thought I was keeping it under the limit. When there’s no traffic around, it’s hard to guess your speed.”
“You don’t have to guess. You’ve got a speedometer.” He reached out and tapped the gauge on my handlebars.
“Actually, I don’t. That’s why I was taking it to the mechanic. It’s broken so I wanted to see if he could fix it.”
“It doesn’t work?”
“It’s erratic. Sometimes it works and sometimes it shows the wrong speed and sometimes it doesn’t work at all. I can’t trust it. I’m sure that the mechanic will get it fixed up in no time. Probably just a loose connection.”
The cop examined my license and made notes on a pad before handing it back. I was worried that he was writing out a speeding ticket but it seemed that he’d only written down my name and address because he said, “You get that speedometer fixed, Phillip, because I don’t want to see you driving that fast on my highway again. Next time, it’ll be a fifty dollar ticket and points on your license.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be sure to keep it under the speed limit from now on.”
“Okay, Phillip. You be on your way, now. Just remember. I’m watching out for you.”
He was using my name to emphasize that he knew who I was and that he was going to remember me. I got the point.
“Thank you, officer.” I mounted my bike, started it up, and eased it onto the highway, being careful to look in both directions.
The cop was in his car, talking on his radio when I left. Probably calling in my name to make sure that there weren’t any arrest warrants pending.
I hoped there weren’t. I hoped that Gus was still insisting that he got all his drugs from Billy Paul.
I was talking to more police officers this summer than I’d seen in my whole life. That gave me no comfort.
The worst part about this traffic stop was that if anything went wrong at the clubhouse and a police report was filed, the authorities would know that I was in the area and have cause to question me.
I could only hope that nothing would go wrong.
Fat chance of that.
When I got to Kenny Mill, I did as Randal had done when he wanted to reconnoiter the property. I pulled the bike off the highway and parked it in the bush out of sight. I didn’t have a knife to cut fresh branches to hide it so I did the best that I could with some dead branches and leafy twigs. It took a little longer, but I got the bike hidden to my satisfaction.
I approached the house through the bush, trying not to rustle leaves or snap twigs. That also took a while. I wasn’t as quiet as I would have liked but I don’t think anyone could have heard me if they were in the house. Not over the barking dogs.
I sat in the bush and watched the house for a long time – only a half hour by my watch, but it seemed like half the day.
I saw nothing. The door was shut and all the windows were closed. There were no bikes in the yard but I didn’t put too much stock in that. There hadn’t been any bikes in view last time when Jimbo had been in the house. Maybe they kept their bikes inside sometimes.
I watched for any movement behind the glass panes but saw nothing. No glint of sunlight on a watch or jewelry. No shadows against the interior walls. No breeze disturbing the curtains. Nothing.
When I got bored, I waited a little longer. When I got really bored, I waited even longer. When I could no longer stand it, I left the bush and walked across the dry, weedy yard, climbed the steps to the front door, and knocked.
I waited and then knocked again, louder.
I waited some more and then knocked a third time, as loudly as I could.
No answer.
I walked around the back and looked for bikes.
I saw none.
I knocked on the back door but that wasn’t answered, either.
Finally, I concluded that there was nobody in the house. Or, at least, nobody who was conscious.
That left the clubhouse. I wasn’t surprised that there was no answer to a knock there, either. Every time I’d seen someone in the clubhouse, they’d left o
ne of the doors open – either the big garage door or the little side door next to it. They didn’t fret too much about privacy. Out here, they had plenty without closing doors.
The door was locked. The garage door, too. I wasn’t a burglar. My only plan was a vague idea that there had to be some way to get into a garage. Usually, they weren’t the most secure places.
This was different. The door was clad in steel and secured with a quality deadbolt lock. The garage door was also secured with a high-end deadbolt. I wouldn’t be walking in easily.
It was important that the Road Snakes not know that they had been burglarized because the highway patrol officer had taken my name and address. I would be questioned if any major crime were reported in the area today.
I circled around the little building, looking for a vulnerability but found none. There were no windows and no other doors. The walls looked secure. Concrete block construction didn’t leave many options for penetration, apart from breaking the concrete up with a sledgehammer. That would be difficult and noisy. Besides, I didn’t bring a sledge. Or any other tools.
That left the roof.
When I looked up, fresh streams of sweat flowed down the back of my neck. I was terrified. Terrified of the Road Snakes if they found me; terrified of what would happen to Randal if I didn’t prove his innocence; terrified of what had almost happened to Katie.
But I had to press on, anyway.
The roof was corrugated sheet metal. I didn’t know what was underneath that. I hadn’t looked up at the ceiling when I was inside. I assumed that there was something, though. Otherwise the place would be an oven in the summer and a deep freeze in the winter. If I could get up there, I could probably pry up a sheet. There would be no problem if there were insulation underneath. The bigger problem would be getting through the ceiling. Suspended ceiling tiles could be moved but a drywall ceiling would have to be broken. I couldn’t do that if I wanted my intrusion to remain undetected.
All that speculation was moot. I couldn’t get up to the roof unless I had a ladder. I looked around but there was no ladder lying around. That would have been too convenient. I couldn’t even go buy one and come back. There was no way to carry a ladder out here on a bike.
The more I looked at the building, the more discouraged I became. My plan to burglarize the Road Snakes clubhouse in the middle of the day was a fool’s errand.
I would have to go back home and devise better plan and then come back another day.
The truth was that I was more than a little relieved when I climbed on my bike and rode back out of the Adirondacks, alive and unscathed.
