I dropped in enough to test it. Sure enough, the idle held for a full thirty seconds. I revved it up and let it fall, still good.
Rob sauntered back up. “Take it for a ride around the block, but I’m betting there was water in the gas tank or some sort of crap additive that impacted performance. When he comes in, ask him if he had the gas cap open for an extended period or if he got gas someplace different than usual.”
I jumped on the bike and took off through the parking lot. The air was cool, the sun completely stifled by cloud cover. I pulled up at the exit and the idle held perfect. A job like this might be blue-collar, but it taught me something every day. Honest work. I was happy to do it for a while, and this promotion meant I could easily find something in a year in some other town if we moved.
The road cleared and I jetted across the lanes, taking the corner hard, then throttling high as I ripped down the straightaway. The motor handled perfectly, and I shook my head that the solution had been so simple. This guy was getting off easy, a cheap diagnostic fee and a little gas. He’d be happy.
I cut through an alley, the vibrations rumbling in my hands from the rough terrain. If anything was in the carb or petcock, I’d force it to move and show itself. But I came out the other side with the same power and precision, and the idling at the end of it was as clean as before.
As I approached the garage from the other side, a pair standing by the street made me slam on the brakes. A woman and a small boy.
It couldn’t be.
I eased forward, staring. Shit. It was.
Rosa. And Manuelito.
How the hell did she find me?
Panic ripped through my chest. If she talked to the crew, if they believed her…
This was way beyond a phone call and texting a picture. She had obviously taken the boy from Letty. Cops might be involved.
My vision flashed black for a moment. Everything that seemed so easy just moments before was suddenly crashing in.
As I approached the entrance to the lot, Rosa spotted me and waved. I had to keep her away from the garage. I pulled up next to her and killed the bike, hoping no one would look out at this moment.
Rosa smiled, her hand gripping Manuelito’s tightly. He had on a heavy brown jacket that made him look small and stout. He held a green sucker in his hand, one of the big round kind that takes hours to eat. His lips were discolored from it.
“What are you doing here?”
She passed me a piece of paper. “I took this. I am sorry. But I knew you might leave. I needed to find you.”
It was a pay stub, probably from my saddlebag. It had the name of the garage and the address right on it.
“You went through my stuff?”
“I am sorry, Gavinito. But I do this for Manuelito.”
I tossed the pay stub on the ground. “He’s not mine.” I began to push the bike toward the garage.
“I prove it. We will do test.”
I halted. “What?”
“I told Letty I will take him to California for test. She cried and is mad, but she cannot stop me. I have my name on his birth certificate.” She pulled a plastic Ziploc from her purse holding a blue document in Spanish and waved it.
I took it from her. The words “Acta de Nacimiento” were large across the top. Below it, “Madre” was listed as “Rosa Jalindo.” Under “Padre” was only “Juan Juan.”
“I can fix,” Rosa said. “After test. Your name.”
I passed the certificate back. “Isn’t Letty going through enough? Her husband’s gone, and you took her son away.”
Rosa’s eyes filled with tears. “I know. But I will not let him go.”
“He lived in a perfectly nice neighborhood.” I gripped the handlebars of the bike. “I don’t get why they couldn’t stay there.”
“Let us go and test. You know a place where they do tests?” Her face was pleading and desperate.
Cars were starting to pull up at the garage as the lunch hour approached. I needed to get back. “Rosa, I have to get to work. I can’t do this right now.”
“You not answer me on phone. You cannot ignore.” Rosa’s face became fierce. “I will go in there. I tell your boss.”
Shit. “Rosa, you can’t blackmail me. I won’t put up with it.”
“You walk away from us.” She pulled Manuelito against her. “In Ensenada, you just drive away.”
Her words pierced me, but the rage was faster than the remorse. “I stayed there for hours, waiting. What the hell was I supposed to do?”
Manuelito turned his face into Rosa’s skirt, the sucker forgotten. Damn it. Damn it to hell.
“I can’t just leave work. And I have a girlfriend. What do you want from me?”
The wind kicked up, blowing her hair all around. “I want to show you your son,” she said calmly. “I want you to know him.”
I looked down at the boy, his expression hidden in the folds of denim. His dark hair blended into the shadows, but his grubby hand clutched the stick of the sucker.
I couldn’t ignore this. Whether or not the boy was mine, I’d engaged with Rosa too many times to ignore my responsibility to her. “Can you meet me in four hours, when I get off work? I’ll figure something out.”
“Yes, Gavin.”
“Don’t come here.” I looked down the street. “There’s a restaurant down the block. Tony’s. You see it?”
She turned her face in the direction I pointed. “Yes.”
“Meet me there. Four o’clock.”
“Yes, Gavin.”
Manuelito peeked out then as if he knew the conflict was over. I remembered Rosa saying he understood English, and I wondered how much he could figure out. The boy had to be traumatized, his father disappearing, getting snatched from his home. How much damage would that cause?
But he looked at me with sober eyes. After a few seconds, he put the sucker back in his mouth. As Rosa turned away, he glanced back at me, curious, serious.
Mario waited by the door of one of the bays. “That did not look good.”
I parked the bike behind him. “It wasn’t.”
He shot around, as if just realizing something. “Is she one of your hookers?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I don’t know.” Rosa said she wasn’t, but I didn’t know the truth anymore.
“That sounds ominous.”
“Yeah. It’s trouble.” I tugged the keys out of the Suzuki and pulled the clipboard down with the paperwork on it to make note of the problem.
He wouldn’t let things go. “What’s the deal with the kid?”
I was tempted to slam the clipboard against the wall, but I reined it in. “For fuck’s sake, Mario, it’s just a situation. I’ll deal with it.”
But Mario just laughed. “Gavin, you get in the most ridiculous predicaments.”
I glanced around the garage. Rob was in the pit. Two other mechanics were way down in the other bays. The service guys were rapidly changing filters and oil. “One question. If you cross over from Mexico, how long can you stay? Like when your cousins come.”
His eyebrows shot up. “She’s a national?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if she has a border crossing card, she can come and go as she likes, but she has to go back within 72 hours. Otherwise she has to get a tourist visa, which is expensive, and if her income is, well, undocumented, then they’ll turn her down. You have to prove you’re coming back.”
“She has an apartment.”
“That will help.”
“It’s owned by her brother, though.”
He shrugged. “Depends on who looks at her papers then.”
“It was sort of last minute, I think.”
“Then she probably had a card.” He gripped my shoulder. “She won’t trouble you long, my friend.”
“Thanks.” I scrawled a couple words on the work order and headed to the office to turn it in to Bud. I wasn’t sure which I wanted more, for the hours to speed by or for the end of the day to never come.