Page 19 of Joker's Ghost
He silently follows me into the office, but my brain stalls on my son having sex. Of course, it isn’t a surprise at his age, with his tall, lean build, and my dark hair and eyes, but where my features are blunt and scarred, his are chiseled like his mother’s. He truly got the best of both of us, and that’s what worries me.
He makes a beeline for the garage, and I smile. He loves working on the bikes as much as I do, but I’m determined to at least try to shield him from the shitty part of life for as long as possible. Something happens to a person when they lose their innocence too young—believe me, I know.
The minute I enter the garage, Gus, my head mechanic and surrogate father, hits me with a barrage of problems concerning the jobs in progress. I follow him into the garage, where he’s working on a transmission.
The smell of oil and gasoline usually calms me, but today it twists my gut into knots. I press my lips together and, of course, Gus notices.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” I was getting damn tired of people asking me—first Cobra, then Daisy, now Gus.
We stop at one of the bays where a Mazda MX-5 is up on the lift.
“The kid just had the car in here six months ago for brakes,” Gus grumbles. “Now, he stripped the transmission. Must drive like a fuckin’ maniac.”
“C’mon, you were young once, right?” I dip my head and take a few steps under the car to inspect the job.
“You smell that?” Gus grabs my arm, jerking me back two seconds before the lift crashes to the floor along with the car.
Silence envelops the noisy garage ,and I realize how close I came to getting crushed by the Mazda.
“You all right?” Derek flanks me on the other side.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Shit!” Gus yells. “I just checked those lifts last week, and everything was good.” Then he points to fluid seeping out from under the car. “Hydraulic fluid. Thank fuck, I smelt it.”
The near miss weakens me in a way I didn’t expect. Most of my life I’ve been dodging bullets, figuratively and literally, but this was a little too close. And a little too fuckin’ weird. I’d left the silver feather in the nightstand drawer, refusing to believe in the old man’s words, but maybe . . .
“Dad, you don’t look so good. Why don’t you go in the office and sit down?”
I shake it off. “I’m fine.”
But that was a damn fuckin’ lie. A prickly sweat popped up on my arms, yet my insides were cold as ice. My hands shake, and again I fight off the urge to puke. Now not only are Gus and Derek staring at me, but every mechanic in theplace has eyes on me too. I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but it sure as hell isn’t normal.
CHAPTER 7
JOKER
I pull myself together and bellow, “You guys got nothing better to do? Get the fuck back to work.” Then I nail Gus with a death stare. “And check out that damn lift.”
“Right, Boss.”
I storm into the office feeling like a first-class shit. I never pull rank on Gus or any of the guys. They’re the best crew I could ask for, but I also had to save face.
Accidents are nothing new in a garage, but not my garage. I take pride and great pains to assure my workers have the best equipment and tools. I only hire top-rated mechanics, including Gus, which bugs me on another level. ‘Cause if Gus said he put fluid in the lift, then he did, so what the fuck just happened?
For the next half hour, I occupy myself with going over the orders for the upcoming week. Not necessary since Daisy handles all the orders for parts and other essentials, but it is mind-numbing and keeps me from thinking about being squashed by a Mazda.
The door to the garage opens, and Gus ventures into theoffice. He stands in front of my desk just staring at me, but I keep my eyes trained on the computer screen.
“You got something up your ass?” The man is short on words, but when he speaks, I tend to listen.
“Sorry I popped off at you,” I say to the monitor.
“Not what I’m talking about.”
I pull my eyes away from the screen as he drops his ass into the wooden chair alongside the desk.
