Chapter 4: Three Laps

The old quarry sat behind the clubhouse fence, a big stone bowl with a dirt track cut around the rim.

By twelve-thirty the whole club stood along the edge with beers in their hands and truck headlights aimed down into the pit.

I stood by my Sportster while a prospect pulled the cracked mirror off it.

My forearm was wrapped in a gas-station towel that Ronan had tied around it without asking.

My hip hurt so badly that I walked sideways to hide it.

"You don't have to do this," Ronan said.

He was crouched at the front wheel, running his thumb along the brake line.

"He took my father."

"He took a jar. Your father is gone."

"Then I'll take back the jar."

He looked up at me.

It was the first time I had really looked at his eyes.

They were pale grey, with a dark ring around the edge, and tired in a way that did not come from one night.

"Then do it right," he said.

Misty drifted over from the crowd with a plastic bottle in her hand.

"Water, Roz?" she said brightly. "For luck. No hard feelings."

She stood next to my front wheel while she held it out.

I looked at the bottle.

I looked at her.

"I'm not thirsty."

She shrugged and wandered back to Bronco's side.

I watched her go and saw her glance at his face and give one small nod.

Ronan had seen it too.

He didn't say a word.

He turned back to the bike, and his big hands went to the fitting where the brake line met the caliper.

The fitting turned loose under his thumb.

Somebody had backed it off and left it just short of leaking.

He tightened it down with a wrench he took from his own vest.

"Pull the lever," he said.

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