"Then Vance isn't just taking cash on the asphalt," Miller replied, closing the laptop with a muffled snap. "He's running an organized enterprise using county facilities. That moves the case from a local misconduct board straight to a federal racketeering indictment."
We took the access road behind the grain elevators to avoid the main patrol corridor. The F-150 ran hot in the thick afternoon air, the temperature needle creeping toward the upper notch of the gauge. I knew every bearing, valve, and spring in that truck; I’d rebuilt the transmission after my wife passed seven years ago, spending cold December nights in the garage just to keep my hands moving until sleep came. Those two deputies thought an old man in oil-stained dungarees was soft because he didn't raise his voice on the shoulder. They didn't understand that when a machine is out of alignment, shouting at the block doesn't true the bore. You have to measure the wear, set the stops, and let the cutter do its work.
The rusted chain-link gate at Gidley’s Salvage was pulled half-open. Inside the perimeter, forty or fifty impounded sedans and pickup trucks sat rotting in rows, their windshields chalked with county case numbers. Many of them belonged to out-of-state drivers or farmhands who hadn't been able to pay the cash fees Vance demanded at the roadside.
I pulled the Ford up beside the open service bay.
Inside, the heavy air smelled of sulfurous gear lube and cutting torches. Ray Gidley stood over a steel workbench, his heavy gut straining against a grease-blackened apron. Beside him stood Deputy Morse. Morse’s gun belt was unbuckled and hung over the back of a metal folding chair.
On the workbench between them sat my bank envelope. It had already been torn open along the seam, and Morse was counting the bills into two uneven stacks beside an open, pre-stamped State Department of Transportation vehicle inspection log.
Morse froze when the Ford’s shadow fell across the concrete threshold, his hand hovering over the cash.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"Ray's got my hydraulic line press," I said, keeping my hands resting open against the rough seam of my coveralls. "Customer’s grain truck is dead on my number two lift. I told you that on Route Nine."
Ray Gidley didn't move. He stood behind the wooden bench with a grease pencil tucked behind his left ear, his broad, red-veined nose twitching once like a hog catching a strange scent on the wind. Between his calloused hands lay a three-part carbon form with the blue header of the State Department of Transportation Vehicle Safety Division.
The top sheet was already stamped with Ray’s certified inspector seal: Station 448-B, Certified Master Tech.
In the blank spaces beside Vehicle Identification Number and License Plate, Ray had written out the exact digits stamped into the firewall of my F-150. Below that, in fresh black ballpoint, he had checked the boxes for Structural Failure, Tire Cord Separation, and Immediate Roadside Hazard.
"You shouldn't have driven that rig down here, Art," Ray said slowly. He didn't look at Morse. He kept his eyes locked on my chest. "Tyler called down from the patrol car twenty minutes ago. Said he flagged your front end dragging on the macadam. Said you had steel belts showing through the rubber and couldn't hold your lane. I’m just writing up the mandatory out-of-service order so the county wrecker has legal clearance to hook it."
"You haven't put a gauge to my tires, Ray," I said. "You haven't put a dial indicator on my ball joints. You haven't stepped four feet out of this bay since noon."
"I take the officer's sworn roadside affidavit," Ray muttered, leaning forward so his belly flattened against the work table. "Tyler’s got eight years on road patrol. If Tyler says your steering box is wallowed out, my stamp backs the report. That’s how the statute reads."
Morse took two steps sideways, putting his shoulder between me and the wooden bench, trying to block my view of the currency. The paper band from the regional bank lay beside a yellow kerosene lantern, torn straight down the center. Ten of the hundred-dollar bills were stacked under Ray's heavy iron tape dispenser; the other ten remained in a loose fan under Morse’s thumb.
"You need to walk back out to the access road and wait, old man," Morse said. The uncertainty had vanished from his eyes, replaced by the sour, sharp authority of a man who realized he was inside his own wire. "The deputy sheriff gave you an order to turn south. You drove a condemned chassis straight onto private commercial property during an active administrative impound. If you don't clear this bay right now, I'm taking your keys and locking you in the rear holding cell at the annex until the morning magistrate sits."
"My press is sitting on the floor under your bench drill, Ray," I said, ignoring Morse entirely. "The red one. Three-quarter-inch arbor, serial stamped on the base plate. I bought it off Joe Miller’s estate twelve years ago. You’ve had it since planting season, and I need it to seat the carrier bearings."
Ray looked down at the concrete floor. The red cast-iron press sat right where I pointed, its handle greasy, wedged between two empty transmission cases. But Ray didn't reach for it. He looked up at Morse, a silent question passing between them that had nothing to do with hydraulic tools and everything to do with the heavy silence gathering in the shop.
"He's stalling, Ray," Morse said under his breath. He reached toward the metal folding chair, his fingers curling around the leather strap of his duty holster. "Get him out of the door frame."
"I'm not stalling anybody," I said. "I'm looking at my money."
Morse stopped, his hand tightening on the leather. "What did you say?"