Chapter 5: The Woman on the Old Cruiser
Mags Ellery parked her cruiser by the front windows, took off her gloves, and walked back inside, helmet under her arm.
"You again," Jared said from his desk, without standing. "I thought we settled this."
"We settled nothing," Mags said. "You waved me off like a fly. I came back for an answer."
"To what?"
"What my bike is worth on trade. Fairly. From someone who looks at it."
Jared glanced toward the glass, not really looking. "Old Glide style cruiser. High miles, I am guessing. Cosmetically tired."
"Sixty one thousand miles, all mine except the first forty. And do not call her tired. She brought me here."
"Sentiment does not appraise, Mrs. Ellery."
"Miss Ellery. I taught seventh grade for thirty four years, Mr. Kessler. I can spot a guess dressed as knowledge from the back row."
"Fine." He tapped his pen. "Sight unseen, maybe fifteen hundred. Eighteen, if we feel generous during launch week."
"You said sight unseen like it was a credential."
"It is experience. Old cruisers sit, parts get scarce, and then we store your memories at our expense."
Mags set her helmet down carefully. "She starts every morning, leaks nothing. Fifteen hundred, priced from a chair."
"I priced the bike, not you."
"You priced neither. You have not stood up."
Across the floor, Linda Marsh closed the folder.
"Jared," she said, "go stretch your legs."
"I am in the middle of something."
"You are in the middle of a chair. Go." She came around the desk, smiling. "Mags, is it? Linda Marsh. Tell me about your bike like I am a person."
Mags blinked. "That is a new sales technique."
"It should not be. Year, model, and the truth about her."
"Nineteen ninety eight cruiser. Bought used in two thousand three from a man in Kerrville. New clutch two springs ago, tires last fall. Small dent on the tank from a gas station in Fort Davis. That is a story, not damage."
Linda laughed. "Every good bike has one story dent. May I look?"
"Finally, a verb with legs."
Outside, Linda crouched beside the machine without complaint, asking about brakes, charging, cold starts. Elias drifted closer in his plain jacket and listened, head tipped.
"Last valve service?" Linda asked.
"April," Mags said. "Sal knows her. He adjusted her once and said she would outlive us both if I kept oil in her."
"Sal Ricci still runs our service department, and he will appraise her himself. Not a guess. A written number, with reasons. Thursday at nine, on the lift."
"Thursday at nine," Mags said slowly. "And if the number is low?"
"Then it is low for real reasons, and I will show you every one in writing. You can ride home and think it over. A trade should feel like a decision, not a mugging."
"You may live, Miss Marsh."
"Linda. What are you trading toward?"
"Something mid range, lighter in the clutch, still honest on the highway. I am sixty seven, not dead."
"We have two I would put you on and one I would not. I will tell you why when you sit on them."
Behind them, Jared said, "We do not book Sal for every antique that rolls in."
Linda did not turn around. "We book Sal for customers, Jared. New policy. I invented it just now."
Elias smiled, and Mags caught it.
"You," she said. "You have the look. Rider?"
"Once or twice," Elias said.
"Those boots have seen weather. Where?"
"Here, mostly. Hill Country when I can."
"Willow City Loop in April?"
"Bluebonnets on both shoulders. You go slow, not for the curves. For the looking."
"The Three Sisters?"
"Ranch Road Three Thirty Seven out of Leakey. Rode it wet once. Once was the education."
Mags laughed. "I did the Sisters one October with my sister Ruth. A man at a gas station asked if our husbands let us out alone. Ruth said our husbands were smart enough not to follow."
"Smart men," Elias said.
"The Tail of the Dragon?"
"Eleven miles, three hundred eighteen curves. Samuel, my brother, counted them aloud over the wind until I threatened to leave him in Tennessee."
"I did it at sixty," Mags said. "Scared me proper, loved it proper. Beartooth Pass that same summer. Snow at the top in July. I told myself, Margaret, this is your cake."
"You rode Beartooth alone?"
"I rode it with every version of myself I have ever been. Good company, mostly."
"Thursday, nine o'clock," Linda said. "Appraisal with Sal, coffee on us, then we sit on bikes. Deal?"
"Deal." Mags picked up her helmet, then nodded at Elias. "Whatever you are doing, keep doing it. This floor is better with a rider on it."
"Safe ride home, Miss Ellery," Elias said softly.
"Mags," she said. "Riders use Mags."
Chapter 6: The Man in the Service Door
Elias left the showroom floor while Linda was still talking numbers with Mags, and nobody by the Sovereign noticed him go. He followed the smell of oil and hot metal down the short hallway, and stopped in the open service door.
"Can I help you, sir?" a young technician asked. "Customers usually wait out front."
"I was just admiring the work," Elias said. "Mind if I look from the doorway?"
"Doorway is fine. Just do not step on the lift line."
"I will stay right here."
A touring bike hung on the center lift, its rear wheel off, and under it, with a wrench in his hand and reading glasses low on his nose, stood Sal Ricci. He glanced up, nodded once, and then froze.
"Sal?" the young technician said. "You all right?"
Sal did not answer. The wrench lowered to his side.
"Mr. Har..." Sal began.
Elias lifted one finger and touched the side of his nose, an old signal from noisy shops. Not now. Just talk.
Sal swallowed. "Hard... hard to believe, is what I was going to say. Hard to believe this heat before noon."
Sal set the wrench down carefully. "You, uh, you here about a bike, friend?"
"I might be. That one on the lift, is she in for the Sovereign service schedule?"
Sal blinked, caught the rope, and held on. "That is what she is in for. First interval. Six hundred miles, oil, filter, torque check on every fastener. Second one at twenty five hundred. You know the schedule, friend?"
"I read a little," Elias said.
"You read a lot, I think." Sal wiped his hands on a rag that was already clean. "Valve check comes later. Sixteen thousand. Folks skip it, and then they cry when she gets noisy. You ride?"
"A little," Elias said.
"A little," Sal repeated, with a short, shaky laugh. "And what do you ride, when you ride a little?"
"An old one. She has opinions."
"Old ones always do." Sal sent Danny to check a filter in parts, then stepped closer and lowered his voice.
"Thirty years I have known you," he said. "Thirty years, and you walk in here dressed like that, and I am supposed to talk about oil changes?"
"You are doing beautifully," Elias said.
"My hands are shaking."
"Hold the rag with both of them. Nobody will see."
"You could have called me."
"Then you would have been waiting, and your face would have told the story before I got through the door."
Sal exhaled. "Grace know you are here?"
"Grace knows I walk a store every year."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the one I have," Elias said, and his eyes crinkled. "How is Number One, Sal?"
Sal's face softened. "Runs sweet. I took her out Sunday, just around the block. She still starts on the second try when she is cold, to remind you who she is."
"She always did that. Samuel used to say she was checking if we were serious."
"We were serious." Sal looked toward the showroom. "They do not know out there, do they? That salesman, the way I heard he talked this morning."
"They do not know," Elias said. "And I would like to keep it that way a while longer."
"Your house, your rules." Sal picked up the wrench again, for something to hold. "But if he comes back here running his mouth, I make no promises."
"I am not asking for promises. I am asking for oil changes and torque checks, loudly, if anyone wanders in."
Sal managed a grin. "Then let me tell you, friend, the Sovereign also gets a software scan at every visit, free, and we wash her before she leaves. Because that is how this shop treats people."
"That is good to hear," Elias said.
A horn sounded outside, followed by a voice calling for help.
"Go on," Sal said. "I will be here, pretending I never saw you."
"You never did."
Out in the lot, a rider in a faded vest stood beside a heavy cruiser that had died halfway up the entrance slope. Cal was there, sleeves pushed up.
"Sir, put her in neutral for me?" Cal called.
"I am in neutral," the rider said. "She just quit, and I do not have roadside."
"Then we push her in and the shop looks," Cal said. "No charge for a push. I promise you that."
"Nothing here looks free," the rider said.
"It is today. Ready? Hands here, on the bar. We go on three."
Elias stepped in and took the other side of the bike. "Make it two old hands, then," he said.
Cal looked up, surprised and glad. "You sure, sir? She is heavy."