Chapter 31: Gerrity and Lanier

By five o'clock, the bay was full of other men's motorcycles, and I had a ledger open on the workbench.

The big man in the cut-off vest paid for the first oil change in cash.

I wrote him a receipt in pencil.

"You're better at this than he was," he said, looking at the page.

"Than Boone?"

"He wrote on napkins."

I tore off the carbon and handed it over.

"Tell your friends we take checks, too."

Rafe was under a Sportster with his legs sticking out.

He had not stopped smiling since noon.

At six, a delivery truck pulled into the gravel.

The driver climbed down with a long, flat crate wrapped in brown paper and a shipping label from Asheville.

"Gerrity?" he said.

"Yes."

"Sign here."

I signed.

Rafe slid out from under the bike, and we pried the crate open together on the concrete floor.

Inside, wrapped in a packing blanket, lay a wooden sign.

It was two feet by six, painted cream, with the lettering in deep green and gold, and a thin red pinstripe running around the edge.

GERRITY & LANIER, it said. REPAIR. Under it, in smaller letters: DELL CREEK, OHIO.

Every stroke was perfectly steady.

There was an envelope taped to the back.

I opened it.

The card inside had four lines in a hand I knew from two years of paint orders on the shop wall.

She had written: Paid for the water. The baby is well and fat. Don't write back unless you want to. K.

I read it twice.

Rafe read it over my shoulder.

"She painted that for free," he said.

"No." I held the card to my chest. "She painted it so I would know."

We hung it over the bay door that evening on a ladder, with Rafe's drill and my hand holding the level.

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