“Where’s your sense of spirit?”

“It disintegrated after I married. Turn right here.”

The road snaked upward, then leveled. At the higher elevation, the winds became redolent with the scent of pine. Blackbirds cawed from above. A mile into the climb, the mountain walls abruptly fell prey to man’s progress: from a vertical barricade of hard rock to terraced soil. A couple of ranch houses, still in the framing stages, sat on dirt-covered lots. Next to the bulldozed mountain was wide-open space. Within moments, the glint of chrome winked at them. Then the motorcycles came into view. Next to the bikes was a makeshift shed. A miracle that the wind didn’t do a huff and a puff and blow the thing down. Several hundred yards in the distance stood a lone eighteen-wheeler semi, as out of place as Stonehenge.

“Well, well, well,” Webster said. “Lots more up here than a couple of trailers. We got a whole private dealership, no doubt specializing in ve-hicles without pink slips.”

“Or someone is running a chop shop.”

“That was my second guess.”

Webster pulled the car into the sandy clearing, shut the ignition, and got out, wind blowing grit in his mouth. He rolled down his sleeves. Martinez slid out of the car, popped a piece of gum in his mouth. They both took their time, sauntered over to the inventory. Immediately, a fat man came out of the shed. He wore overalls but no shirt. On his head was a Dodgers baseball cap.

“Help you?”

“Looking for Grease Pit,” Martinez said.

“You found him,” Sanchez answered.

Martinez glanced around, scratched his crotch. At this point, improvisation was in order. “Looking for a bike.”

“You come to the wrong place.”

“Don’t think so,” Martinez said. “Guy from the dealership sent me here.”

Sanchez took off his cap and wiped sweat from his forehead. “Then he fucked up. See, we only do repairs here, only do repairs. No retail, just repairs. He fucked up, man.”

Martinez looked around again. “He said you could get us a good deal.”

“Well, then he fucked up double,” Sanchez insisted. “’Cause we only do repairs here.”

Webster picked up the story. “He said somethin’ about the cause. We give money to the cause, we get a good deal. You sayin’ he was lyin’?”

“I’m sayin’ he fucked up.” Sanchez wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Who sent you here?”

“Tony.”

“Yeah, Tony.” Sanchez nodded. “He fucks up a lot. Gotta talk to him about that.”

“What about this cause thing?” Martinez said.

“If you want to give money to the cause, I’ll take it. But that ain’t got nothin’ to do with the bikes. Nothin’ for sale. I’m only doin’ repairs.”

“Well, what’s the cause?” Martinez said.

“To stop the fuckin’ government from tellin’ us how to run our lives.” Grease Pit kicked up a toeful of sand. “Too much left-wing regulation shit being crammed down our throats. What the fuck is it their business if we want to wear helmets or not.”

“Right on,” Martinez said.

“So…” Grease Pit snorted. “You want to give me money?”

“Can you make it worth something?” Martinez said.

“Depends.”

Webster started inching toward the shed. “You got lots of good bikes here.”

“All repairs.”

“Nothin’ for sale?”

“Tell you what.” Grease Pit appeared to be thinking. “Tell you what I’m gonna do. Yes, I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do this just for you. You give me money to the cause, then tell me what you have in mind. Just tell me what you have in mind, I take it back to the owner. Maybe it’ll fly. Maybe it won’t. But maybe it will. But no promises.”

Webster moved closer to the wooden lean-to. “You ain’t got nothin’ for sale right now?”

“Nothin’. I tole you it was all repairs. But you give me money, I take your offer to the owner.”

“So I give you money,” Martinez said. “You go and tell the government to fuck off? What good does that do?”

Grease Pit sneered. “You don’t know shit ’bout how the government works, do you?”

Martinez waited.

Grease Pit said, “You buy off people, man! Get ’em in your pocket. They vote the way you want ’em to vote.”

“Like the NRA,” Martinez said. “Yeah, that’s smart.”

“Fucking-A right it’s smart. Money talks, bullshit walks. So if you want to give me money for the cause, I’ll take it.”

Webster said, “I give you money, you give us a good deal?”

“I take it to the owner, that’s what I said. Didn’t say nothin’ ’bout givin’ you anything.”

“Nothin’ for sale, huh?” Webster wiped sand from his eyes. “Shit, that’s too bad.” He was almost at the door of the shed. “I really didn’t feel much like wantin’ to come back.”

Sanchez shifted his bulky weight, his voice turning menacing. “Get the fuck away from my garage.”

Webster stopped, backed off, held out his palms. “Peace, bro. Sorry.”

“What the fuck you tryin’ to pull?”

“Nothin’,” Webster said evenly. “Just the guy at the shop told us we could get a real bargain here.”

“I tole you he fucked up. He fucked up bad. Now you’re fucked up bad.” Sanchez picked up a tire iron from the ground. “You give me a bad feelin’. Get the fuck outta here.”

Webster’s hand went inside his shirt, finger wrapped around the butt of his Beretta. He saw that Martinez had done the same.

Sanchez waved the iron, but didn’t advance. “Get outta here!”

Slowly, Webster walked backward until he bumped into his ’Cuda. Once Martinez was inside, he gunned the engine. As he pulled out, a rock crashed into the passenger door. Webster spun around, brought the car to a stop. “Stupid shit!” Webster screamed. “I’ll kill that motherfucker-”

Another rock came whizzing past, missed the trunk by millimeters.

“Let’s go, Tom.”

“Fucker put a dent-”

“Let’s go, Tom.” Martinez repeated. “Down. We’re going down the mountain.”

Webster cursed again and peeled rubber as he left. Martinez blew out air. “Slow down, for chrissakes. You’ll get us both killed.”

“I should report him to the local police.”

Martinez said, “You see that semi in the distance. Sanchez probably has a crew inside. Guaranteed, they’ll be outta here in less than five minutes.”

They rode the next few minutes in silence.

Martinez took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Sorry about your car.”

Tightly, Webster said, “Reckon I can fix it up pretty easy.”

“I’m not doing anything special this Saturday. If you want, I’ll come over and help you sand it out.”

“Thanks, Bert. That’d be great.”

Martinez patted his shoulder. “At least, we got what we came for.”

“I didn’t. I wanted to test-drive the Ultra Bagger. You see that mother? What a beaut!”

“Too much shit on it,” Martinez said. “Slows down the speed. I like something lighter and faster.”

“You do biking?”

“Used to do lots of it before I threw my neck out.”

“How’d that happen?”

Martinez laughed. “I rear-ended some poor harried housewife. I was driving a bunch of kids to a birthday party in my wife’s Volvo and got distracted by all the commotion.”

“You get any money out of it?”

“No, it was my fault. But the woman I hit didn’t do anything against me. Who’s going to start up with a cop?”

“The perks of the job.”

“You got it.” Martinez smoothed his mustache. “This cause that Sparks gave money to-Peoples for Environment Freedoms Act. You think Sanchez is just pocketing the money or is there actually some kind of cause?”

“He mentioned something about buying politicians. Maybe he’s buying off cops to look the other way at his chop shop.”

“Why would Sparks give money to something like that?”

“Maybe the doctor didn’t really know where his bucks were going,” Webster said. “Maybe he thought he was giving money for environmental freedom.”

“Whatever that is.”

“Telling the government to piss off,” Webster said. “Strange as this may seem, I could see an independent thinker like Sparks getting caught up in a thing like that. Y’all talk to any doctors recently, Bert? They’re real upset ’bout government telling them how to run their practices. Maybe this environmental cause struck a nerve.”