“I don’t know. He didn’t say her name. He just said she was at the party and they started talking.”
“Which party? Who threw it?” Ike asked. Brandon raised his head and looked at Ike with eyes as wide as a startled deer.
“I don’t know. I just the run the counter. I don’t go out on jobs. And Derek didn’t say who; he just said what the guy did. That’s all I know, I swear. When the cops came around I was too scared to say anything,” Brandon said. His voice dropped to barely a whisper. Buddy Lee clapped him on the face a few times.
“Okay. That’s good, Brandon. That’s real good,” Buddy Lee said. He gestured toward the door with his head. Ike started to walk out.
“Brandon, if anybody ask, some kids came in, tore up the shop, and left. You got me?” Buddy Lee said.
“Yeah. Sure,” Brandon said.
* * *
Ike merged back into traffic and headed for the interstate. The afternoon traffic was slow and steady. The light from the setting sun bounced off the parked cars that lined the sidewalk.
“That was pretty slick back there with that ‘tell’ thing. I never had a name for it. I mean, I know how to read the room. I can tell when somebody about to go off. You notice how they standing or where they put their hands. Shit like that. Was you on the grift, back in the day?” Ike said.
“I did a little bit of everything. My old man was on the grift. My uncles were outlaws. Only my mama tried to walk the straight and narrow. She was Jesus all day. I think what I learned from my daddy done come in handy more times than what my mama taught me,” Buddy Lee said.
“It’s almost six. What you think we should do? How we gonna find this girl?” Ike asked. Buddy Lee scratched at his chin.
“I was thinking about that as soon as he said it. What do you think about going by the boys’ house? Take a look around. We might be able to find out who this guy was that owned the music studio,” Buddy Lee said.
“Might find out who this girl was, too. Alright. I got Isiah’s keys. Did they give you Derek’s stuff at the funeral home?” Ike said. Buddy Lee bit at one of his fingernails. He didn’t speak until Ike had hit the on-ramp.
“They tried to. I was in bad place at the wake. I didn’t want it. I don’t know, I guess I was kinda mad at Derek because he was dead. And if I didn’t take his stuff, then it wasn’t real. I was pretty drunk that day, too,” Buddy Lee said. Ike let a breath whistle through his lips.
“Yeah. I know what you mean. It was like they weren’t real. Laying there like mannequins. I think I killed a whole bottle of rum that night.”
“Hey, there’s only room on this team for one alcoholic,” Buddy Lee said.
Ike’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the screen. It was Mya.
“Hey.”
“Hey. Where you at? I called the shop and they said you weren’t coming in today.”
“Just had a few things to take care of. What’s up?”
“I just left the cemetery. They said Isiah’s headstone got damaged. Did they call you?” Ike checked his mirror and changed lanes.
“Yeah, I was gonna tell you when I got home. The guy said they gonna replace it.”
“Jesus, what the fuck are they doing up there?” Mya asked.
“It was an accident. They gonna fix it.”
“Arianna got down on her knees at the grave today. I asked her what she was doing. She said she was saying hi to her daddies,” Mya said. Ike didn’t say anything. He could feel the silence between them slowly strangling him.
“I nearly lost it, Ike. I wanted to lay on top of that grave and stay there all day,” Mya said.
“It hurts,” Ike said.
“And it ain’t never gonna get any better, is it?” Mya asked.
“I don’t know,” Ike said. Mya’s breathing got heavy. Her weeping began to fill his ears.
“I guess I’ll see you when you get home,” she said between sobs. The line went dead.
“Everything alright?” Buddy Lee asked.
“No,” Ike said as he put the phone back in his pocket.
ELEVEN
Grayson pulled up to the clubhouse in a cloud of dust. The ride from the Southside to Sandston had been miserable. It felt like he’d been stuck in the armpit of a goddamn orangutan. He climbed off the bike and strapped his helmet to the handlebars.
The clubhouse was an old two-story farmhouse with a wraparound porch. Tommy “Big Boss” Harris, the club president before Grayson, who was now serving twenty to life, had built an enormous three-car garage behind the clubhouse for brothers to work on their rides, break in fresh tail, and handle club business. A row of bikes was parked off to the left of the main building. Muscular examples of American steel and ingenuity. Iron horses for the new outlaws.