Biker (34 page)

Danny, Danny, what do I do about these jackals?

Pratt's stomach yowled. He went upstairs, through the kitchen to the living room, and peeked through the blinds. No news vans. He went into the kitchen and opened the freezer, surveying the field of Marie Callender and Stouffer's. Lasagna was always a good bet. He zapped it in the microwave and popped a Point.

Pratt turned the microwave container upside down over a chipped plate, took his meal and beer out on the back deck. It was dusk and the woods twinkled with thousands of fireflies. Mosquitoes dive-bombed Pratt until he got up and switched on the yellow lights. A raccoon scurried through the brush.

Through the trees to his left Pratt could make out the ribs of another McMansion rising from the soil. The whole neighborhood was on the chopping block. It was only a matter of time before somebody offered him a half mil for his home and lot. Well he'd cross that bridge when it came to him.

Pratt took his dish into the kitchen, laid it in the sink and went into the bathroom to apply Chiggerex to his mosquito bites. He was still exhausted but a toothed edge of raw anxiety sawed at his soul. There was always the Wild Turkey.

No. He didn't want to wake up tomorrow with a dirty sock in his mouth. TV was crap. Chaplain Dorgan said, when all else fails, read. There was always the Bible. He went into his bedroom to get it and his eyes fell to a pile of sky blue cotton beneath the bed.

Cass' panties.

The sky fell. He was overwhelmed by a sense of loss so keen it threatened to obliterate him. He couldn't breathe. Something had sucked all the air out of the room. Too late he realized what he should have known.

She had really loved him.

She had given her life for him.

Pratt sank to the floor and moaned in misery. He stayed that way for a long time, thinking about the guns in his safe.

CHAPTER 69

The knocking woke him. Pratt lay in bed twisted up in the sheets like a croissant. At some point he must have gotten off the floor and fallen asleep. Making a pit stop Pratt padded barefoot through the house, wearing only pants. The cable box told him it was 7:45 in the morning.

Sun glared in through the blinds. Pratt didn't have to look. He knew who it was. He opened the door on three separate clusters of news people, two from local affiliates and one from CBS.

Without Danny he was lost.

“Mr. Pratt! What can you tell us about the so-called ‘dog boy?'”

“Mr. Pratt! How were you able to locate Eugene Moon when the FBI and DEA couldn't?”

Across the street Lowry came out on his front porch, folded his arms and watched. George and Gracie charged the curb, barking hysterically.

Sonia Tyrell was back, inching forward with her mike and cameraman. Pratt had played his biker card and was smart enough to realize he had to make a living. If he didn't manage his image, they would. He had to say something. He held his hands up palms out and there was a sudden bristling among the media as their antennae quivered.

George and Gracie barked and barked.

“Folks, Mrs. Munz hired me to find her son, Eric. I was able to find the father through my connections and he turned out to be a full-blown psychopath. Had I known it would end like this I might have reconsidered. What happened yesterday was a tragedy that didn't have to happen. Moon should have been brought to justice years ago.”

All yammered at once. Sonia elbowed her way to the front and stuck her mike in Pratt's face. “What connections?”

“My connections with motorcycle clubs.”

“Don't you mean gangs, Mr. Pratt? Weren't you a member of the Bedouins and didn't you serve six years at Waupun for various offenses including aggravated assault and trafficking in guns?”

“That's all true, Sonia, but with the help of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I have put my past behind me. I now walk in the light of the Lord.”

Sonia rolled her eyes. Pratt smiled.

The crowd squawked. Pratt tamped them down. “Folks, that's all I'm going to say. I say any more I might embarrass myself. Good morning and God bless.”

Some of them got it but they yelled anyway. Pratt went inside and shut the door.

He found his cell phone on the coffee table in the living room next to the V-twin engine. He turned the phone back on. He had fifteen phone calls, some with voice messages, mostly from news organizations. He listened to his messages. Two were from Trans-Continental asking him to call at any time. One from Ginger. “Call me, Pratt. You brought my boy back to me and I want to thank you.”

She sounded weak but happy. She was better prepared than most to deal with tragedy. He wanted to call back but she was probably sleeping. He wanted to speak to Teitlebaum but it was too early. He wanted to call a lot of people. As far as Pratt was concerned the only advantage to living in California was you could call anybody on the East Coast as soon as you woke up.

Pratt went into the kitchen and made breakfast with English muffins, cream cheese, a banana, an apple, and yogurt. He mixed a killer pot of coffee. He got up, went to the living room, bent at the knees and lifted the V-twin off the asbestos pad, carrying it like a kung fu acolyte into the garage, where he gently maneuvered it into the custom frame he'd commissioned from Thunder Mountain Harley Davidson in Fort Collins.

At nine he phoned Teitlebaum, got her box. He phoned Calloway.

“Calloway.”

“What's going on?”

“Dude from the university took samples for a DNA test. The boy and Ginger just left for University Hospital. You can probably catch 'em there in a couple of hours. You're in line for a DEA cash reward.”

“How much?”

“Ten Gs.”

“You're shitting me.”

“It's real. I gotta go. Talk atcha later.”

Pratt called Trans-Continental. They wanted him to recover the three missing Desmos and offered five thousand per machine, including the one he'd already found.

The Ducatis could be anywhere. Pratt told them he'd think about it.

Somebody opened his unlocked front door. “Josh?” It was Lowry, sent by his wife to make sure everything was all right.

“Come in, Dave.”

Lowry went up to Pratt and embraced him like a long-lost brother. Pratt was shocked. It's what a biker would have done. “Josh, I'm so sorry for your loss. If there's anything Helen and I can do, please don't hesitate to let us know.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

“You need a place to hide out, come on over.”

“I appreciate that, Dave. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

They took their coffee out on the back deck. The sound of hammers and saws drifted through the trees.

“That was a fine thing you did, putting Morgan together with that boy.”

“You have any kids, Dave?”

“Carson, she's just starting with a big law firm in Chicago. And Blake, he's twenty-two, he's at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Do you?”

“None that I know of,” Pratt automatically answered.

“You see things differently when you're a parent,” Lowry said.

“I guess.”

“Welp, I got a tee time. I'll be seeing you.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

Lowry let himself out. Pratt went for a ride around New Glarus, grabbed a brat at the New Glarus Apple Orchard, got home around two, spent the rest of the day in the garage without his cell phone working on the basket-case Harley. He watched some
Ultimate Fighter
reruns and turned in around ten.

Pratt got up at seven, finished off the muffins and went for a jog slower than his usual pace due to injuries. All the stitches held. Back at the ranch he showered and continued to work on the basket case.

Pratt's phone hummed. It was Ginger. It was ten a.m. She sounded weak.

“What up?” Pratt answered.

“I need to see you, Josh. Can you come down here?”

CHAPTER 70

Pratt saddled up the Road King and hit the highway, stopping for breakfast at a Burger King on the Beltline. Ginger was back on Makepeace Road. Her sister-in-law Gwen, Nate's sister, was with her. Behind Gwen's Porsche Cayenne sat a black Chrysler 300 identical to the one in which Bonner had died. Behind the Chrysler was a van with “BEST GLASS” stenciled on the side. Behind the van was a pick-up truck that said, “HARRISON TREE SERVICE.” Pratt heard sawing and pounding.

Pratt went through the open front door. A vinyl runner had been set on the hardwood floor and stairway to protect them from the workmen's boots. A man in coveralls came down the stairs carrying a paper bag filled with broken glass. He nodded at Pratt.

Pratt found Ginger and Gwen on the deck seated at a round table with an overarching umbrella tilted toward the late-morning sun. Ginger relaxed on a chaise lounge wearing loose-fitting cotton trousers and a beige blouse, one hand resting lightly on her stomach. Gwen, a matronly redhead, sat with her elbows on the table going through a stack of papers. Two tree guys sawed up a fallen limb in the yard.

Ginger waved but did not get up. “Josh. Thank you for coming.” She introduced him to Gwen, who stood and hugged him. She was one of those women who unself-consciously hugged people whom she liked.

Pratt sat. “Where's Eric?”

“Morgan took him to University Hospital,” Ginger said. “They're going to see what they can do about his spine, his hair, his skin and his teeth.”

Pratt thought about the basket-case Harley. He'd been working on it for years.

“The funeral's tomorrow at Redeemer Episcopal Church in Janesville.”

Pratt took out his pad and made a note. “What did you want to see me about?”

“Morgan rushed the DNA test through the school. Eric is not my son.”

“What?”

Ginger looked adrift. “He's not my son. He's not Eric.”

Pratt looked at the trees. “Jesus.”

“Pratt, I want you to continue looking for Eric.”

“Ginger, I wouldn't know where to start. I had one idea. I'm not that good a detective.”

Ginger sat up and gripped Pratt's knee with a steely claw. “Now you listen to me, Pratt. You darn near accomplished the impossible. You found that boy and you removed an evil man. You're a better detective than you know. I have faith in you. Please. Give it one week. Money is not an object.”

“What about the boy?”

Ginger breathed deeply. “I'm adopting him.”

“You know you're never going to have a normal relationship with him.”

“Maybe so but I feel at least partly responsible. I should have stopped Moon years ago before all this happened. Besides, what else am I going to do? Nate turned me into a creature of leisure, a lady who lunches. I have the money, the time and the love that boy needs. He responds to me, and he feels love. He may never lead a normal life but he might have a chance at happiness.”

“What are you going to call him? He's used to Eric.”

“That's what I'll call him.” Ginger reached down to something at her side and handed it to Pratt. It was an envelope.

Pratt opened it up. Another ten thousand. “Ginger, the first check was more than enough.”

“Shut up and take it. I'll be very pissed if you don't take that check.”

Pratt put his hands up and put the check in his billfold. “Yes ma'am. I do have one idea.”

CHAPTER 71

One week later on a Monday morning Pratt arrived at Dane County Airport in the company of a tall, handsome high school student named Mario Echeverria. Pratt paid for the taxi to his place, sixty bucks.

“Make yourself at home, Mario. I got to make a phone call. We'll leave in a half hour.”

“Okay, Josh.”

The kid was polite to a fault, had a grade-point average of 3.7 and was starting quarterback for the South Latin High School Marauders.

Pratt phoned Ginger.

“Well Josh. What's going on?”

“It's Monday morning, time for my report. I'd like to deliver it in person if you don't mind.”

“You want to drive down here?” Ginger said in a hushed voice. She was afraid to ask the next question.

“Just wait until we get there. We should be there around twelve-thirty.”

Pratt found Mario in the garage ogling his bikes.

“Go on—have a seat. You ever ride?”

“No sir,” the boy responded, swinging a leg over the Road King's two-tone tank. “My parents would shit a brick if I bought a motorcycle.”

“You ax 'em?”

Mario gripped the midrise bars. “Yeah. ‘Not if you want me to pay for college!'” he said in a dead-on impersonation of his father.

“He who pays the piper calls the tune. Let's roll. Pretty sure she's gonna feed us.”

They got into Pratt's ten-year-old Honda Accord and headed south, arriving at the Makepeace Road residence at twelve-fifteen. Gwen's Cayenne sat in the drive. Pratt parked behind her in the shade of the portico. Pratt lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it fall. Seconds later he heard footsteps approaching on the hardwood floor. The door opened and there stood Gwen with fresh lipstick and an expectant look.

She peered around Pratt at the boy. “Is that him?” she said quietly.

Pratt shrugged. “We won't know until they test. Where's Ginger?”

“She's out on the deck. She'd have greeted you herself but she's feeling a little weak today. Hello, young man. I'm Gwen.”

“Mario Echeverria. Pleased to meet you.” They shook hands. Gwen led the way down the hall to the deck.

Ginger sat up in her chaise as they appeared, tried to get to her feet, staggered. Pratt ran over and steadied her. Mario came up and smiled.

“Hi.”

Ginger stared at the boy a minute. The resemblance was undeniable. Her eyes filled with tears. She hesitantly offered a hand and then fell on Mario, hugging him tightly. Most boys would have been acutely embarrassed but this kid kept his cool. He hugged her back.