Bad to the Bones(40)

To blot out the loss of the necklace, I asked Knoxie, “You’ll get Virginia out of there, won’t you?”

He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “You can bet your ass.” Then his phone chimed. He answered it as he exited my new room. “Hi, Nicole. Yeah. Um-hm. Yeah. What? What the f*ck? How do you know? Who told you that? Sage told you? How do you know it was cheese heroin?”

That was about the last I heard as he strode manfully down the hall. I had no idea who Nicole or Sage were. I was distracted by a strange trickling sensation between my thighs. Shocked, I realized I must have been horny. Sucking on Knoxie had actually made me wet.

By that evening, I had my Sporty back. The next morning, Knoxie was still gone. And Bodhi paid me a visit.



I was intent, concentrating on changing out the stock muffler on Faux Pas’s new Dyna. I was plotting lots of changes to the carburetor and the ignition system, too. Maddy hadn’t given me any grunge clothes to wear, so I was shuffling around in a pair of Speed’s grease monkey coveralls. Luckily he had small feet and mine were big, so his work boots didn’t stick out like boats. The bike repair section of the hangar was separate from the heavy equipment section, so I really had little interaction with Speed. I could listen to my classic rock XM radio all day if I wanted, even though Speed was listening to the same thing on the other side of the hangar.

I had to laugh when AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood” came on. It reminded me of Knoxie’s poster in his crappy little apartment. It made him more human, that he had an AC/DC poster in a crappy little apartment. Better, the poster probably wasn’t even his. It was probably left over from the prior tenant. He was so drop-dead gorgeous, it made him more approachable to have these flaws.

I knew he was paid to bang a lot of gashes, as they called some girls. I knew that he did a lot of unpaid banging, too, maybe with regular citizens. I suppose Knoxie was sort of a manwhore. I had promised not to bond with any other man in or around Pure and Easy. I hadn’t extracted the same promise out of him.

That was all right. Our friendship could include sex on a superficial level. Knoxie was right—I certainly didn’t need any “old man” ordering me around when I was still trying to get rid of the old master. I had a sneaking suspicion it was too good to be true, that I could just walk away from that mesa where he’d dumped me and wash my hands entirely of him and his damned eye patch. My intuition turned out to be accurate.

Ziggy had brought my Sporty back last night no questions asked, no answers given, just rode it into the hangar, parked it, and took his own ride out to rejoin Knoxie. Next step was to get my sister back. I started thinking about what Virginia could do in the real world. She had worked at the cafeteria at Bihari, so she could always be a waitress. But now that she was pregnant, it was anyone’s guess what they planned to do with her.

I was deeply lost in thought when I heard the grumbling of another Harley’s pipes coming up the old runway The Bare Bones used as the access road. As it got closer my sharp ears identified it as a V-rod. A V-rod didn’t have the traditional Harley shape and I always thought they were more for people who liked to do burnouts and pop wheelies. I didn’t personally know anyone who had one at Bihari and doubted any of The Bare Bones would, so I looked over when it rode into the hangar. The rider also didn’t wear the traditional biker brain bucket, the matte black half helmet that made the biker look like an old timey combat vet. This guy had a whole fiberglass helmet with a skinny visor that made him look like a heavy breathing supervillain. What appeared to be black dreadlocks dangled from the back.

I was curioser and curioser. I finished tightening some muffler bolts and stepped off to the side, removing my greasy gloves. The rider wore a plain black cut with no patches whatsoever—another thing that should have tipped me off. When he dismounted and removed his helmet, I saw it was my alleged fiancé, Bodhi.

At first I was so shocked to see him again, all I could think was how handsome he looked, shaking his hair free of the “helmet head” hairstyle. “Bodhi!” He even looked good in black leather, although he’d kept a purple T-shirt and his locket on. I took a few steps toward him before remembering. He’s not my friend. He probably had something to do with banishing me from the compound. He’s just a hang-around, a suck-up to Shakti. He’s probably got something up his sleeve, coming here pretending to be a biker.

“Bodhi,” I said, darker now. “What are you doing here? What happened to your nose? You look like the Predator in that brain bucket.”

Bodhi waved at the helmet sitting on his saddle. “That’s because it is a Predator helmet. Not DOT approved, but it’s got a tri-laser scope. Pretty cool, huh?”

“I…guess? What the f*ck’s going on, Bodhi? Why are you pretending to be a biker? You drive a Prius.”

He gingerly fingered the bridge of his nose. “Well, I figured it was the only way into this fortress. And after your new boyfriend came sneaking into Bihari and gave me a beatdown, I figured your latest hobby was the biker type.”

“Last…night?”

“What? No, a few days ago. Why, what went on last night? Listen, Asanga.”

“Bellamy.”

“Asanga.” Bodhi took me by the shoulders and steered me into a darker corner of the shop. I was glad my Sporty was in the parking side of the hangar, over by the portable restrooms. I didn’t want Bodhi to know I’d somehow gotten it out of impound, if he didn’t already know.