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“So,any of you guys had custom bikes over the years?” Brian asked.
“Cruz did,” Razor said.
“Is that right?” Brian asked. “What sort of bike was it?”
Cruz was reluctant to talk about it, so he just said, “Softail.”
“What sort of mods did it have?” Brian asked.
“Quite extensive,” Razor replied.
Cruz rolled his eyes.Thanks, man.He didn’t need Razor priming Brian for more questions. He brought the beer up to his mouth and looked away as if to converse with someone else.
Brian didn’t seem to take the hint. “You don’t wish you had a custom bike now?”
Cruz was still facing away from Brian. He didn’t like to be rude, but what the fuck? Didn’t the guy get the message? “Nope. Happy with factory original these days.”
“Because they ride better?”
For fuck’s sake.“Yeah, that too.”
“So, what did you do with your old bike? Sell it on?”
Brian seemed to be digging hard to get more information out about the bike, and Cruz was wondering why. He ignored that last question by taking another mouthful of his beer and holding it in his mouth before swallowing and letting out a sigh.
The weed and beer had loosened Razor’s lips. “He had a bad accident on it, Brian. Probably doesn’t want to talk about.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” Brian said to Cruz.
“Yeah…no, no problem, man.” It was, but what else could he say? “I don’t really mind talking about it now. Just got better things to think about.” He looked over at Eden. Turning back to Brian he said, “It was a mechanical failure. I spent a bit of time in the hospital.” Eden was listening intently because she hadn’t heard the whole story. “By the time I came out of the hospital the crash scene investigators had finished their investigation and they had found that I was hit because my lights weren’t on. It was at sunset, and it was hard for the other guy to see me.”
“Ah, man, that’s bad,” Brian said. “So easy to forget to put the lights on at that time of the day.”
“No, that’s the thing. I’m really fucking careful. Always have been. When they completed their investigation, they realized that the lights had been turned on. The light switch was still in the on position. The lights weren’t working, and that was another thing that concerned me because I’m meticulous with the maintenance of my bikes. Even more so now after what happened.”
So that’s why he always checks his bike.“How do you think it happened then?” Brian asked.
Everyone else was quiet. They all knew the story, apart from Eden. Cruz had wanted to tell her privately, but she might as well hear it now that Brian was digging.
Like Cruz, the others seemed interested in Brian’s reactions since he seemed like a dog with a bone.
“Because it was a modified bike, and things weren’t in the factory original positions. Sometime between parking it and meeting with my girlfriend, someone damaged the electrical box on the side.”
“How do they know the damage wasn’t done in the accident?” Brian asked.
“It was on the opposite side of the bike.”
“Did they charge you?”
“They wanted to originally, because they said it was my responsibility to have a well-maintained bike. They said it was my fault the lights weren’t working. But it wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t?” Brian said.
“I needed to prove that the bike was road legal when I’d last ridden it…so Hunter from the Southside Skulls…”
Razor piped up again. “He’s the club’s find-anything-in-the-whole-fucking-world investigator.” They all laughed.
“True that,” Cruz said. “He can find anything, about anyone, anywhere.” Cruz was looking directly at Brian now, and he thought he saw the man flinch.
