Savior Ch. 07

The first fat raindrops began to fall, tinking on the metal roof of the shed as I backed my bike in. I stepped out and rolled the door down before I hurried to my trailer, wanting to get inside before the rain began in earnest. As the popcorn like sounds of the falling rain picked up in frequency, I went to the 'fridge, pulled out a Guinness, and opened it before sitting down on the built-in couch. I stared at the wall as I took a sip from my beer.

Hanna confused me. She was stunningly attractive, but there was more to her than how she looked. As she told her story I felt a cold, hard lump forming in my stomach, a heavy weight that became a seething cauldron of animosity as her story unfolded. I took another sip from the bottle. I hoped we found that asshole Carl tomorrow because I wanted to take a measure of this Carl Ellerbe fuckhole.

It was hard for me to believe anyone could be as big a dick as Carl. I'd never treat someone I cared about the way Hanna had been treated, but her story had the ring of truth, and she had the scrapes to back up her claim. Even harder to believe than her soon-to-be-ex slapping her around, or trying to frame her for a robbery, was him stealing her son. That shit crossed the fucking line. If... no... when I found his ass, I almost hoped he'd wouldn't give up Garrett without a fight so I had an excuse to stomp his sorry ass into a greasy spot on the ground.

My lips thinned in impotent anger, I glanced around the trailer. I needed to get out of here or I was going to sit here and stew over this until I was ready to punch a hole in the wall. I stood and pulled three more beers from the small refrigerator before bumping the door shut with my hip. Hunched against the rain, I quickly walked along the concrete path to Patrick's house. I stepped onto the rear porch and rapped solidly on the door.

"Want a beer?" I called.

A moment later the door opened to reveal an older man with close cropped white hair dressed in his trademark white shirt. In the more than twenty years I'd known the man, I could honestly say I'd never seen him wear anything but white shirts.

Patrick O'Neill was in his early seventies, and while he had a few wrinkles, he was still active and in good health. He was about an inch shorter than my own six-one, but he looked taller because he was much more lightly built. He had to wear glasses now, especially when doing fine, detail work, but his hands were as steady and sure as they'd ever been.

"Don't I always?" he asked as he stepped back from the door and opened it wide in invitation.

Patrick was as American as I was, but he liked to claim Irish heritage, if by his name alone, and he enjoyed a Guinness now and again. So far as I knew, Guinness was the only beer he'd drink, so by default, when I was having a beer, that was also what I drank.

I smiled as I stepped into the kitchen, handed him one of the bottles, and then placed the two extras in the refrigerator for later. As I did, I heard the hiss of him opening his bottle. I followed him out of the kitchen into what had once been the dining room, but now functioned as Patrick's living room, the house's original living room now serving as the yard's office.

Patrick's house was small but well kept, with beautifully polished wood floors and lap and plaster walls and ceiling. While the layout of the house was odd because of its dual use, it was charming all the same. With the living room converted in an office, and the dining room into a living room, one of houses three bedrooms, the one most directly off the now living area, functioned as the dining room, the room's small closet converted into a built-in cabinet. The master bedroom that connected to the now office remained Patrick's bedroom, and the third bedroom, the one that had once been mine, had been converted to his hobby room. There, using a miniature lathe and mill, he built the most amazingly detailed, quarter-scale, operating engines. Over the years, he'd built everything from a 1932 Ford Flathead V8, to a 1937 Cadillac V16, to his masterpiece, a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp, fourteen cylinder, radial aircraft engine like the one used in a Boeing DC-3.

His house was cluttered but not dirty, full of metal knickknacks he'd made, either in his full-size machine shop or the miniature one in his hobby room, racing memorabilia, and of course, displays of his scale engines. I felt more at home here than I did anywhere else, including my own trailer.

I sat down in my chair, a supremely comfortable thing made from a BMW seven series bucket seat mounted on a custom fabricated base, and set my bottle on a turned piece of aluminum supported by intricately crafted legs that served as a side table.

"We got some news today. It answers a few questions about Stu."

"What's that?" he asked.

"A girl showed up today claiming the Orcas are going to make a move into town."

"Never heard of them."

"They're a big outfit out of Portland. They also have chapters in Salem, Eugene, and Medford. They control the I-5 corridor, and rumor has it they have their fingers in all kinds of stuff. Drugs, guns, prostitution, protection, the works."

"Nice guys," Patrick said as he took a pull from the beer. "She came to Bayport to tell you that?"

"In a way. Her husband is an Orca, and he kidnapped her son a few days ago. She tracked him to here. She wants our help to get her son back."

"Her husband kidnapped him?"

"Well, soon to be ex-husband."

"Ah, that makes a little more sense. You think the Orcas are going to try to take over the racing, and they shot Stu as a warning?"

"That's the only thing I can figure. Seems rather stupid for them to tip their hand, though. If she's right, and hadn't told us about the Orcas sniffing around, we wouldn't have known anything about it until they made their move."

"Are you going to help her with her son?"

"Yeah, I think so. I want to, anyway."

He held my gaze for a moment. "Rand, you need to be careful with this. Family disputes can get nasty, and quick. Believe me, I know."

I nodded in understanding. "I know, but what she's gone through, going through, isn't right. If even half of what she told us is true, Carl, her husband, is a low-life son-of-a-bitch."

"Maybe it's not, and maybe he is, but it's not really your problem and you need to be careful. That's all I'm saying."

I snorted as I took another sip from my bottle. "I'm always careful."

"Right," he drawled. "Tell that to someone who doesn't know you as well as I do."

I sniffed out a chuckle. "I'll be careful. Has anyone told you that you that you worry too much?"

He nodded then took another sip of beer. "Not since last week." There was a long pause as we sat in comfortable silence. "So, the Orcas are bigger than the Riders?" he asked, restarting the conversation on a different subject.

"Yeah, a lot bigger. Probably twenty to thirty times our size, maybe more."

I smiled when he whistled. "Six to nine hundred members? That's not a club, that's a town."

"That's just a guess, and that's spread across four chapters, but yeah. They're huge. Biggest outlaw club in the state by far."

"How are you going to handle them?"

I snorted. "I have no idea. I don't think Doug does either. We obviously can't go at them head on. They could wipe us out without breaking a sweat. Besides, the last thing we want is a club war in town. Bayport is our home and we have friends and family here. We don't want them coming in here and shooting everything up."

"Glad you feel that way," he said with a small smile. "I may be getting on up there, but I'm not ready to kick the bucket just yet."

"I pity the fool," I began in my best Mr. T imitation, "who tries to take a swipe at you."

I began to smile as I glanced at the Remington 870, twelve-gauge, pump shotgun propped by the door to his bedroom. I knew it was loaded with double-ought buckshot and that he knew how to use it. More than one thief had been sent running by a blast fired into the ground.

He smiled as he followed my gaze and glanced at the shotgun. "A helpless old man can't be too careful."

"Helpless my ass."

"God created man. Samuel Colt made them equal," he intoned solemnly, then drained the last of his beer. "Or in this case, Remington. Want the other?"

"Sure, I'll get it," I said.

I emptied my bottle, rose, and picked up Patrick's as I passed on my way to the kitchen. I chucked the two empties into the glass bin before I opened the 'fridge and returned to the living room with the two cold ones, handing one to Patrick before returning to my seat.

"This girl, how long is she going to be in town?"

"Don't know," I said as I settled back into the chair. "A couple of days, probably. It depends on how quickly we find out if she's right. I hope she's not."

"But if she is?"

I shrugged. "Then we'll figure out how to deal with them. Maybe we'll bring the bodies here and run them through the crusher," I teased.

"Just do it while I'm not around so I can honestly say I didn't know anything about it."

"Make sure you're not around, check. Wait a minute, when are you not around?"

He grinned. "Good question. You seem to have a problem."

I chuckled. Talking to Patrick always improved my mood when I was feeling down. I'd spent a lot of time talking to him after Stu's death. His steadfast refusal to believe I'd missed anything, or allow me to take responsibility for the accident, had stopped the toxic spiral I was falling into before I'd discovered the actual cause of the crash. If anyone knew what I'd been going through, it was Patrick.

Hanna's story had bummed me out a little, which was why I wanted his company, and I didn't know why. He was right... it wasn't my problem, but I still felt the urge to help her. Nobody deserved to be treated like she had. If we found out one of our brothers was treating his wife or girlfriend like she'd been treated, there'd be some... counseling. If that didn't work, an ass kicking would likely follow before they were tossed out of the Riders on their ass.

By helping her, we were helping the Riders, so there was no reason not to help her. I understood Patrick's caution, especially after what he went through, but Hanna wasn't part of my family and if the shit got too deep, I could easily cut her loose.

"I'm not going to be around much tomorrow," I said, restarting the conversation. "Hanna and I are going to ride through town and see if we can find anyone, or maybe a bike, she recognizes."

"Her name is Hanna?"

"Yeah. Hanna..." I began, my voice trailing off as I tried to remember her last name, "Ellerbe. That's it. Hanna Ellerbe."

"Pretty name."

I nodded. "Pretty girl."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah," I drawled out. I grinned at the way he looked at me. "No... I didn't. She's just asking for our help."

"What? I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to. I saw the way you looked at me."

"I did no such thing," he grumped as he took a pull from the bottle.

"Yes you did, and you know it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh," I grunted.

Patrick might be seventy-three, but he wasn't dead, and he still had an eye for the ladies, even if didn't do anything except look. I knew he worried about me, about how much time I spent hanging around in his house, but it was what I wanted to do.

I'd played the field for a while, sleeping with a couple different women a week sometimes, but those encounters had left me feeling hollow somehow. I could have more women in my bed if I wanted them, but they'd be the same one-night stands, casual hookups, and sport fucks.

I always enjoyed the fucking. It was the after that left me feeling slightly... not depressed exactly, but something... something I could feel but not easily describe. It seemed to me there should be more to being with someone besides inserting cock A into pussy B of some woman I'd just met.

I'd go to my grave before I admitted it, but I was jealous of Vince, and Chuck, and Doug, and most of the members of the Bayport Riders. Especially Vince, and when he was alive, Stu. Their wives were beautiful, sweet, supportive, and obviously head over heels for their men, and Vince and Stu were the same for their wives.

Now I made do with a couple of friends with benefits, women who enjoyed fucking me when one of us had a need. Both women lived out of town, which made the situation both easier and harder. One, Alison, was a hydrologist at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, and the other, Dena, was a pro and instructor at Trysting Tree Golf Club in Corvallis. Both were more than fifteen years older than me, and both were beautiful and talented women, well-schooled in the arts of pleasing a man, but after the fucking was done, we returned to our separate lives until one of us needed an itch scratched again. It was better than a one-night stand, but only just. As least we usually had dinner before, and I spent the night in a snuggle afterwards. We were comfortable enough around each other that we didn't struggle for conversation, and there were no awkward mornings or sneaking away, but it wasn't what Vince had. That's what I wanted, not casual one-night stands or friends with benefits.

We sat in companionable silence for a long moment, and I smiled to myself at the way Patrick looked at me. I imagined it was how a father might look at a son. That suited me fine. As far as I was concerned, Patrick O'Neill was my dad, even if Roger Tauper was my father.

The best thing to ever happen to me was having Patrick invite me into the machine shop after school one day to begin mentoring me. He'd taught me everything I knew about engines, and machining, and all the other things fathers should teach their sons. He'd taught me how to be self-reliant, how to be strong and kind, and how to treat a lady. He'd also given me something my father couldn't. He'd given me pride in myself. There was nothing I wouldn't do for that old man, and I'd mourn grievously with his passing.

I quickly drained my bottle and then stood. "I have to go," I said, the thought of Patrick dying cutting me deep.

Patrick nodded and rose as well, if a bit more slowly. "Hot date tonight, huh?"

"Oh yeah," I drawled. "I have 'em breaking down my door."

"You could if you'd ever go out."

"I go out."

"I mean on a date. You know, with a girl."

I snickered. "Oh... one of those."

He chuckled with me. "You should try it sometime. You might like it."

"Good night, old man," growled as I led him into the kitchen, but there was no heat in my response.

I placed my bottle in the glass bin, waited until Patrick took the last swallow from his bottle, and added it to the pile. We didn't drink often, Patrick because he said he didn't like to drink alone, and me because I'd seen what alcohol did to a man, and I wanted to avoid that at all cost, but after adding the four bottles, the tote was nearly full of various glass containers.

It had stopped raining while I was cozy in Patrick's house, at least for the moment, so I bent and picked up the blue plastic tote. "I'll leave this on the porch."

"Leave that. I'll get it in the morning."

"I got it. 'Night."

"'Night."

One nice thing about working in a recycling yard, it was never a problem to dispose of the cans and bottles. I carried the tote across the yard to the glass silo, a thirty by twenty concrete pad with eight-foot-high walls on three sides. This was where the broken glass from wrecked cars ended up until we'd collected enough to make it worth someone's time to send a truck to collect it for recycling. It was also a handy placed to dump empty glass food containers. Metal cans were dumped into the nearest hulk to be compressed with the rest of the car for recycling. Cardboard, paper, and household waste went into the regular trash and recycling cans, just like anyone else, to be picked up by the city.

I dumped the tote, grimacing slightly at the surprisingly loud, high-pitched tinkle of the bottles as they landed, some of them breaking from their fall. I didn't care. It would take a lot more than a few small shards of glass to cut the Cat's massive tires. Tote emptied, I carried it back and quietly placed the container on the porch in case it started raining again later.

I was walking back to my trailer when lightening lit the sky and thunder rolled softly in the distance, thankful that we'd poured the concrete walk between our houses so we could go back and forth without constantly tracking mud.

I entered my trailer. It wasn't much, but I didn't need much. All I needed was a place to sleep. I flicked on my reading lamp and picked up my latest book from the library. I opened the volume and removed the thin, highly polished, brass bookmark Patrick had given me when he'd discovered I liked to read. He'd scavenged the piece of brass from somewhere in the yard, and then shaped and polished it until it looked like a gleaming, golden, tongue depressor.

He was always giving me little things like that, his silent way of saying he loved me. I smiled as I placed the bookmark aside. Though we didn't say it often, certainly not as often as we probably should, I loved that old man more than any person on this earth.

I read for a while as the rain moved in. About ten I heard the first fat drops plopping on the roof of the trailer. A moment later, the rain began to roar as the heavens opened.

I read until I finished the chapter, picked up the bookmark, and placed it between the pages as I closed the book. The lion like roar of the rain slowed, and I leaned my head back against the wall, listening to the almost musical impacts of water droplets against metal.

My thoughts returned to Hanna, and Garrett, and I thought of Patrick and how he'd saved me from a bad situation. I briefly wondered how my life would have turned out had he not. I was four or five years older than Garrett when Patrick had taken me under his wing, but Garrett deserved a better life than it sounded like he was headed for.

I continued to stare at nothing, listening to the rain. I would save that little boy from that life if I could, as Patrick had saved me. I sat in silence, my eyes open but unseeing, listening to the rain, as I developed plans to get Garrett back to Hanna as quickly, and safely, as possible.