Buried Biker by KM Rockwood Page B

there.”
    “Who was?”
    “If I wasn’t there, how am I supposed to know?”
    A depraved, hungry look came over his face. “You think she really got raped?”
    My gut twisted. “That’s what I heard.”
    “You gonna do anything about it?”
    “What’d ya mean?”
    “She’s your woman, ain’t she? So you gonna go take care of whoever moved in on you?”
    I shook my head. “First of all, she ain’t my woman. We’re not married or engaged or anything. No commitment.” My mind reeled. Married? Me? Where did that thought come from ?
    Taking a deep breath, I told him the same thing I’d told the bikers. “She’s her own person. She can do what she wants with anybody she wants to do it with.”
    “Including screwing them?”
    “If she wants to. But that don’t give nobody the right to do anything to her she don’t want them to.”
    “So you gonna take care of it?”
    “Don’t you listen?” But I knew the drugs had addled his mind to the point he forgot a lot of things. “I don’t even know who it was did it. So how’m I gonna do anything about it?”
    “She didn’t tell you?”
    “She don’t want to see me.”
    Aaron pondered that for a few minutes. Or zoned out. Hard to tell.
    I retrieved the cup to my thermos from the floor. The spilled coffee soaked right into the old wood planks, so I didn’t bother trying to wipe it up. I gathered up the wrapping from my sandwich and tossed it into the trash barrel.
    “Say.” Aaron shook himself and turned his bleary eyes on me.
    “What?”
    “You know Old Buckles, the biker?”
    “Yeah. He’s Kelly’s dad. He’s just got out of prison. He’s using Kelly’s place as his approved residence for parole.””
    “Really. Anyhow, he been asking about you.”
    “What about me?”
    “When you get off work, where you stay at, that kind of stuff.”
    “He could just ask Kelly.”
    “Maybe he don’t want Kelly to know he’s asking.” Aaron scratched a scab on the back of his hand. It bled, but he didn’t seem to notice.
    I snapped the top on my lunchbox shut. “No secrets about my work schedule. Easy enough to find out. He could even ask me.”
    “You seen him?”
    “Yeah. The other night at the hospital. He can find me whenever he wants to. My schedule’s pretty predictable.” When I wasn’t being hauled off to jail, that is. “He don’t need to ask you.”
    “You’d think so.” Aaron looked around and lowered his voice. “But he paid me to tell him.”
    “Paid you? How much?”
    “Couple of rocks of crack.”
    “You’d better stay away from them bikers. The Predators are in a whole different league than you.”
    Aaron smirked. “That’s what you think.”
    I really didn’t want to know what Aaron was getting involved with now. Just so long as it didn’t have anything to do with me. “What did you tell him?”
    “Where you live at. Like you say, it ain’t no secret. And that you get off of work at eight a.m.”
    “So should I expect him to be waiting for me when I punch out this morning?”
    “I don’t think so. Unless it rains.”
    “What’s rain got to do with it?”
    “If it’s raining or too cold, he can’t work. He’s got to keep a job for parole. He’s working on a crew out where they’re building that new bridge. They start work at seven. Good job. He don’t want to mess that up.”
    For once, Aaron was probably on target. Parole people came down hard on people who lost their jobs. Sometimes they got locked up again.
    “I got some new contacts,” he said. “People taking pretty good care of me. You interested in making some extra money?”
    “No.”
    I went over and climbed back on my forklift.
    “Jesse?” Aaron called after me.
    I was tempted to keep going, but I turned back to him. “What?”
    “You gonna hook me up with a supplier?”
    I was pretty sure I knew, but I asked, “Supplier of what?”
    “You know. Meth. Or crack.”
    “How about them new contacts? They can’t help you out