by Matthew Iden
Becky smiled crookedly at him, then cleared her throat. “Well. I’ll see you tomorrow night, then. Thanks again, Lee.”
He waved once as she walked back towards Main Street, his face a strange mix of longing and sadness.
Chapter Fourteen
Randy had a spring in his step as he headed for town. It was good to be on his own. Lee was all right, but he was a pussy too much of the time. Randy waved to the BFGers with excessive enthusiasm as he left, flapping his hand back and forth like it was going to fall off, meanwhile giving the biker the finger with the other hand stuffed in his pocket. One of the bikers beamed and raised a hand.
“Asshole,” Randy said under his breath as he left the campground on foot. It wasn’t far to the main part of town and Randy enjoyed the walk, despite his limp. It was something else, being free and working on a score instead of in the joint or draining another goddamn oil pan at Lee’s garage. The setting was hard to beat, too—hills in the background, beer and chicks in front, drag racing and motorcycles everywhere you turned.
He headed for Main Street, wanting to look at the place on foot after cruising through it in the truck. It wasn’t long before he found a beer and titty bar just to his liking and blew about twelve bucks of the twenty Lee had given him, nursing his beer and watching the girls. He left before he drank the last of his cash and kept moving along, checking out the bikes and the bikers as he went. He swore he saw the same guy three different times in three different stalls, an old dude with a frizzy gray beard, leather cap, and glasses. He decided it was just the way some of them started to look after they hit forty.
Randy watched the crowd and listened. The Glock dug into his side and he shifted and hitched around a lot trying to get comfortable. He broke down and got in line for another beer when he overheard two older chicks talking about a concert that was supposed to happen in a couple nights. The skinnier one, stringy and wearing a leather bikini top and jeans, seemed to want to go. Her friend, heavier and wearing a cowboy hat, a denim tank top, and shorts, wanted to go to the Pasture Patty where she’d heard her favorite soap star liked to hang out when he came to Sturgis.
“Hey, ladies,” Randy said, leaning over to their table. “Y’all say there was a concert going on?”
The skinny one looked at him. “‘Y’all’? Where are you from?”
Randy saluted and gave his best smile. “Southwest Virginia, ma’am, God’s own country.”
They both giggled. “Well, we don’t hear much ‘y’alling’ in Cincinnati.”
“I imagine not,” he said, making his smile even wider. “We don’t leave the mountains much.”
They laughed again. He scooted his chair to their table and ordered a round, drawing out what they knew, which wasn’t much. They’d been to Sturgis four years in a row and had seen rock stars and movie stars, radio DJs and famous authors, but couldn’t really tell him where or when, just that they were around. When the heavy one, Traci, seemed to be taking a liking to him—shooting him looks and smiling a little too widely—he excused himself to go to the little boys’ room and scooted through a side exit, leaving the two women with the bill.
He walked around, at loose ends. He followed signs to the racing strip and watched the top-fuel, nitro-methane racers for a while, covering his ears like everyone else for the six-second, 800-horsepower sprints that the super bikes made down the straightaway. He started chatting up a blonde chick with huge knockers and a nice ass. Things were going well until her boyfriend, who was one of the racers, came over to them, still in his racing suit, and stuck his tongue in her mouth. They did a bump and grind on each other and Randy cleared out.
The sun was setting and it had been hours since he’d had anything to eat. He checked his wallet, but the couple of dollars that had been there earlier hadn’t multiplied. He walked back towards the campground slowly, hoping Lee hadn’t left yet so he could talk him into buying them some dinner.
Passing by an open-air bar, he saw something that caught his eye: one lone guy standing at the sawhorse bar, weaving in place. Somewhere along the way he’d lost his shoes and was just standing there in his socks. Two girls tended the bar, trying to ignore the drunk who was just barely holding on. Randy sauntered over.
“Hey, man,” he said, clapping the guy on the shoulder.
The other guy raised his head, eyes bleary. He was burned brown as a bean, like he’d been standing outside all day. The tan accentuated the teary, bloodshot eyes. The drunk tried focusing at a point somewhere to the left of where Randy was standing. “Hey,” he said weakly.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Randy said, smiling big. “What are you drinking? I’ll buy.”
“Nothing,” the guy said, raising a hand a few inches off the bar. “I’m…done.”
Randy looked at the girls behind the bar, cagily grabbed a beer bottle left earlier, then put his arm around the guy. “Don’t give up the ghost, dude. The night’s just starting. C’mon, let me buy you a drink. Beer? Whiskey? Say, you ever heard of a Prairie Fire? Shot of tequila and hot sauce?”
The drunk rested his forehead on the bar and rocked it slowly from side to side. “Nothing, man, don’t want—” He stopped abruptly, then vomited onto his socks.
Randy jumped back to avoid the splash. “Aw, man. Look what you done.”
One of the bartenders looked over, irritated. “God. Did he puke?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. He’s wasted. I’ll get him out of here. He got a tab?”
The girl waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. Just drag his ass out before he yacks on the bar.”
“Will do,” Randy said. He got one of the guy’s arms over his shoulders and put his own arm around the drunk’s waist. The guy was a deadweight and smelled of vomit and sweat, but Randy managed to drag him off slowly, looking for all the world like a guy helping his drunk buddy back to bed.
Instead, Randy steered the two of them around the back side of the tents that constituted the open-air bazaar. Lights flickered on as the sun slipped out of sight. Randy limped along with his new friend, saying things like, “Hold on, buddy,” and “I got you.”
Once they’d cleared the tents, he looked around and let the drunk slide to the ground next to the empty cans, plastic cups, and beer bottles already on the ground. Randy moved quickly and rolled the man onto one side, then fished his wallet out of a back pocket.
“John Meyer,” he said, tilting the license towards the light to see. “Of Oklahoma City, I see.” Randy tossed the license to the ground like a playing card, then rifled through the rest of the wallet. Not bad. Eighty or ninety bucks, a credit card, and a condom.
“Well, John,” Randy said, looking down at the limp form, the head resting on one sprawled arm. The guy was snoring loudly. “Thanks for the boost. I don’t think you’ll be getting lucky tonight, but I’m feeling pretty good about things.”
He was putting the wallet back when he heard huffing and puffing coming his way. A fat man came around the corner a second later lugging an empty keg, silhouetted against the distant lights of Main Street. He was jogging the keg against his leg, taking one step, then swinging the keg. Another step and a swing. He was in the process of dropping the keg on the ground when he saw Randy.
“Hey, what’s going on?” the fat man said, wheezing a little. He leaned on the keg to catch his breath. That’s when he saw the drunk sprawled on the ground. “What the hell?”
Randy said, “Man, can you help us? My buddy passed out back here. Took me an hour to find him. I think he got mugged.”
The fat guy left the keg and waddled over. He wore a huge cowboy hat and Randy could see a large oval belt buckle glinting in the light. “Holy Hannah,” the man said, peering in the dim light.
“You think he’s hurt?” Randy said, concern in his voice.
“Don’t know, bud. Let’s check him,” the man said, groaning as he got down on one knee to get a closer look.
Randy stood there, looking down at the back of the man’s head, thinking Why t
he hell not? He bent over and picked up a beer bottle.
“He don’t look hurt. But I can tell you he’s drunk as a skun—hey!” the man said, cut off as Randy tipped the cowboy hat forward over the man’s eyes and came down with the beer bottle as hard as he could, hoping he’d be able to get through the rolls of fat that were bunched on the back of the guy’s neck like sausage links. The bottle made a dull clonk as it connected with his head. Randy raised the bottle again, ready to take another swing, when the fat man gave a small sigh, like air leaving a balloon, and keeled over onto the unfortunate John Meyer.
“It’s a twofer,” Randy said, cackling. He glanced around, dropped the bottle, then reached for the fat man’s wallet, thankful that the guy had tipped forward, not onto his back. Randy whistled as he leafed through it. Two hundred in ones, fives, and tens. The guy must be tending bar somewhere, working for tips. Randy slipped the bills into his wallet and was about to take off when he stopped and thought of something. He grabbed the bottle, wiped it off with his shirttail, and then put the bottle in John Meyer’s hand.
“Let ’em figure that one out,” he said to himself, and set off for Main Street, flush and humming the first few bars of “Chattahoochee.”
Randy was still humming, walking along, looking for a place to spend his money, when his jaw nearly hit the ground at the sight of Lee and some girl strolling along like sweethearts down Main Street. She even had Lee’s jacket on, like they were on a date after a Friday-night dance. Randy could tell from Lee’s expression that someone could’ve hit him with a two-by-four, he was so stuck on whatever the girl was saying.
He was thinking about running up and surprising the hell out of both of them when he stopped himself. The girl looked familiar. And Lee had acted a little strange coming back from that auction thing. He’d either met the girl tonight…or earlier in the day, at the registration.
He watched them for a moment, restraining himself. His normal inclination was to charge in there and play it by the seat of his pants, but this situation called for something different.
The two sauntered along, gently colliding with people as the crowd surged around them, oblivious to anything but each other. It was no trouble for Randy to follow them; he could’ve walked beside them and they would’ve hardly noticed. The girl was doing all the talking. Lee was under a spell, adding something every once in a while, but for the most part just listening and, Randy could see, stealing glances at her. He didn’t blame Lee; she was a looker, even with her hair all bunched up in a ponytail. There was a liveliness to her face, a look on it, that made it seem like she’d known Lee for a long time and had just been waiting for him to appear so they could talk.
They stopped at a hot dog stand and got a couple of dogs, which reminded Randy the reason he’d started back in the first place was to find a bite to eat. He waited for them to order and move on from a doorway a few shops down, cursing and stomping his foot as they took their sweet time. He hurried to the stand after they’d left and ordered three dogs, holding two and shoving the other one in his mouth as he took his place behind the couple.
They walked down Main, then Deadwood, finally stopping to face each other. Randy melted into the background as they were obviously saying their good-byes, or at least she was to him. She stood on her toes and planted a big smooch right on Lee’s mouth. They held the kiss and Randy guffawed; it looked like something from a bad movie. When they parted, Lee—looking like he’d been hit by a truck—watched the girl walk away, arms around herself, hugging Lee’s jacket to her body.
Randy thought about following the girl, but Lee was still watching her, not moving. Randy couldn’t have stepped out of the shadows without being seen. Eventually, when the girl had disappeared from sight, Lee headed back in the direction of their camp, his hands in his back pockets. Randy followed him a short ways, making sure he was heading to the camp, then backtracked to Main Street to spend a little more of his hard-earned money.
He was on to his third bar when he noticed a poster, hastily tacked on the wall outside the doorway. He wouldn’t have looked at it normally, except that it was for the charity auction the next night and he was drunk enough that he giggled when he saw it, thinking about how mad Brother Sam would be when Lee didn’t show with his donated Harley.
He stopped laughing when he saw, down one side of the poster, head shots of the celebrity auctioneers. Second from the top was a cute redhead with a movie-star smile and dimples that gave her a little-girl look. It was the girl Lee had been walking with, he was sure of it. Underneath her picture it said Becky Winters, star of Goodbye, My Dominatrix!
Randy read it again, forehead creased in concentration, wondering what kind of game his buddy was playing.
Chapter Fifteen
Tent camping being what it was, Lee and Randy got about four hours of sleep and it was an hour after rising—over a diner breakfast of fried eggs, toast, hash browns, and sausage—before either one said a word.
“Ain’t these people ever heard of grits?” Randy asked. He held his fork in his fist, scooping his plate in big circular motions.
Lee grunted and sipped his coffee, not saying anything.
Randy watched Lee, a little smile on his face which he hid in his coffee cup. “You make it out last night?”
“Yeah, for a little while,” Lee said.
“See anything good?”
Lee raised his head, searching Randy’s face, then glanced away. “Bunch of drunk rednecks is what I saw. Some bull riding. One Jell-O wrestling contest.”
Randy put down his coffee cup. “That last one sounds good.”
“Half good. One of them was a guy.”
“Ah. They got it wrong, then. Supposed to be two girls with big hooters going at it.”
Lee smiled without enthusiasm, then went back to his breakfast. Randy watched him a little more, then looked around the diner. At eight o’clock it was already full. He heard a lot of them talking about day trips to Mount Rushmore or Wyoming, but it sounded like the real early risers had gotten on the road by six thirty. The crowd stumbling in now was the late-night partygoers who were trying to get a jump on the day, but not really succeeding. They had on their leathers and chains, but looked a bit worse for the wear as they dragged themselves to a table and ordered their coffee.
“What you say about cruising around today, trying to find where them movie stars is at?” he asked Lee, his voice casual.
Lee nodded without raising his eyes. He dipped his toast into an egg. “Sounds okay to me.”
Randy watched him for a second, then said, “Good, I was hoping it would.”
They felt a little more human after breakfast and started beating the streets, watching Sturgis come to life as the majority of late sleepers rolled into town from their campgrounds and outlying rental houses. Randy, still tender from the night before, winced as each group cruised into town, giving their obligatory rev as they passed through to find a parking spot.
They passed one section of the street that seemed to be mostly dealers and custom bikes, lined up like trophies for display and sale. Elaborate banners announced each custom shop or artist and where they were from. Some shops consisted of just one guy with a bike or two, while others represented whole garages with twenty or more chopped works of art sparkling in the sun. Lee whistled as he passed some of them, copper and chrome or candy green with orange flames. He stopped to talk with the artists or the mechanics, learning quickly that he was in way over his head when it came to bikes. Give me an ’81 Camaro, he thought, and I’ll talk you out of your socks. But these boys had taken bike chopping to a whole new level compared to the grease monkeys he was used to back home. Not to mention the paint jobs, the styling, the modifications that were well beyond anything he’d ever seen except in a magazine.
“You know,” Lee said to Randy as they passed a custom bike maker from Seattle, “it looks like movie stars aren’t the only ones with expensive rides.” He kept his voice low, though it hardly mattered as the n
oise level started to increase.
“Yeah?” Randy said, looking at one bike that had a gas tank painted and styled to look like a giant bullet.
“If we can’t find them, what’s wrong with swiping a couple of these?”
Randy shook his head. “That’s plan B, remember? The real idea is to hit a couple of millionaires who could hardly care less that they’ve been ripped off. I don’t imagine these guys,” he said, gesturing towards the row of customizers they’d passed, “would feel quite the same way.”
“Thought you said that anybody that can afford a garage full of these bikes ain’t far off movie-star status.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been thinking. These boys, they know their bikes. They’ll have detailed descriptions, tags, probably the serial numbers on each part, for Christ’s sake. The whole nine yards. I bet Jason Ford don’t even know his own license plate number. Or that chick he’s dating. What’s her name?”
“Becky,” Lee said before he could stop himself. “Becky Winters.”
Randy’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “My goodness, Lee Baylor, you’re a regular Entertainment Daily. You a fan of hers? Seen all her movies?”
Lee opened his mouth and shut it, then tried again. He could feel his face coloring. “I just remembered her name from when you first mentioned it, back when you saw that show.”
Nodding, Randy said, “Right. Well, whatever her name, bet she don’t know a bike from a hole in the ground. So, we stick with the plan, Stan. We find us these millionaire movie stars, take their bikes, and get the hell out of here. The poor darlings will just have to bring their checkbooks down to one of these nutcase custom bike makers and drop another hundred grand. Big deal.”
They walked on, shouldering through the crowd. “You know,” he continued, “that don’t mean there won’t be problems.”
“Like what?” Lee asked.