Rusty straightened.
“We found something.”
Jim read the handwriting.
His expression tightened.
“Arty.”
Leo nodded.
“Locker forty-two.”
Jim looked at him.
“Your father kept this?”
Leo nodded again.
Jim lifted one of the original bent pushrods.
Then looked at the new old replacements.
“He knew Dutch would need them someday.”
Rusty said, “Apparently.”
Jim traced the edge of the wooden case.
Then he laughed quietly.
“What?”
Rusty asked.
Jim shook his head.
“Dutch used to make fun of Arty for saving everything.”
Leo watched him.
“What did he say?”
Jim smiled.
“He called your dad a squirrel.”
Leo looked offended.
“Why?”
“Because Arty stored parts everywhere.”
Big Dave laughed.
“That tracks.”
Jim continued.
“Dutch would say, ‘Throw that junk away.’ Your dad would tell him, ‘You’ll beg me for it later.’”
Leo looked at the replacement pushrods.
“Guess he was right.”
Jim’s smile faded into something softer.
“Yeah.”
He looked at Leo.
“He usually was.”
Jim stayed another hour.
Before leaving, he pulled Rusty aside.
“You paying the kid?”
Rusty frowned.
“For sweeping.”
“I mean for this.”
Rusty looked toward Leo.
The boy was arguing with Milo about whether a washer had originally been brass.
“He’s eight.”
Jim nodded.
“I noticed.”
“He doesn’t need money from a bunch of bikers.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Rusty lowered his voice.
“Don’t turn this into something weird.”
Jim’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means his father died. The kid misses him. Tonight he’s getting pieces of his dad back through a motorcycle. Don’t make it transactional.”
Jim considered that.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
He walked to the door.
Then stopped.
“But Saturday, if that bike starts, the boy rides in the procession.”
Rusty laughed.
“Absolutely not.”
Jim looked back.
“Not on a motorcycle.”
Rusty relaxed.
“In a truck?”
“Support vehicle.”
Rusty looked at Leo.
“He’d like that.”
Jim left.
By midnight Thursday, the engine was closed.
By one-thirty Friday morning, the tank was back in place.
The hidden switch had been cleaned, repaired, and left exactly where Dutch had originally concealed it.
Nobody wanted to remove it.
It was part of the machine now.
Part of the story.
At two-fifteen, the motorcycle was ready to attempt its first start.
Rusty stood beside it.
Big Dave sat on a stool.
Milo leaned against the bench.
Leo had fallen asleep in Rusty’s office beneath an old shop jacket.
Rusty looked toward the door.
“Wake him.”
Big Dave nodded.
“He earned this.”
Milo went into the office.