The Scarred Man by Basil Heatter

said, "Look all you want, baby. Tiny don't give a damn."
        "No?" I remembered the boot going into Moore's ribs. Whatever else he might be, Tiny did not give the impression of a man who did not give a damn.
        "Where are you from, Shaw?"
        "Oh, around."
        She grinned again, showing small white teeth curiously pointed like those of a biting animal. "Like all of us. I mean you're not with no special club or nothin'?"
        "No."
        "Tiny says there's something funny about you."
        "Does he?"
        "He can't figure you out."
        "Why does he bother?"
        "It's just Tiny. He can't stand to be bugged. When some-thin' bugs him, he gets his teeth into it and won't let go. Not till he's bit whatever it is at least in half. Like now. He says you're too old to be a rider. And your clothes look like maybe you haven't had them very long. I mean they're just too clean, man. And your bike. He says he knows that bike, and it ain't yours."
        "It is now. I bought it in Boston. If he wants to see a bill of sale, I might just show it to him. Might, that is, if I thought it was any of his damn business."
        "Oh he can make it his business if he wants, baby."
        When I didn't answer she looked at me appraisingly over the thread of marijuana smoke and said, "I don't know why you give him such a wild hair. Personally I like the way you look."
        "Thanks. You wouldn't happen to know a guy named Soldier, would you?"
        She hesitated just long enough to convince me that the name had rung a bell. "What club does he ride with?"
        "Well I don't know exactly who he's riding with now. Maybe the Deuces. Last winter he was down south for a while, and he was riding with a small club out of Hialeah called the Beaks."
        "Does he have a scar on his face?"
        "He might have. I mean last winter he didn't, but he might have since."
        She stuck out her little pink foxlike tongue and licked her lips suggestively. "You know him real well, don't you, baby?"
        "Not all that well. Just a guy I ran into."
        "Well, if there is ten thousand riders here like they say, I wouldn't be surprised if you could turn up quite a few Soldiers. I mean it might or might not be the guy you're lookin' for."
        "Sure."
        She said without any change of inflection, "Do you like my boobs?"
        "What?"
        "My boobs, dummy. You been looking at them long enough. What do you think?"
        "Great."
        "Sure," she said complacently. "That's what everybody says."
        "How old are you, Pearly?"
        "Guess."
        "Eighteen."
        The cornflower blue eyes with their drug-dilated pupils sparkled with amusement. "Sixteen."
        "How long have you been going around with Tiny?"
        "Like about a year, man."
        The image of her delicate childlike body absorbing the full thrust of Tiny's masculinity was too much for me.
        "Don't you have a chick of your own, Shaw?" she said.
        "Not right now."
        "In between?"
        "Sort of."
        "I could maybe fix you up if you wanted…"
        "Well thanks. Pearly, but right now I'm a little beat."
        "You want I should go away?"
        "I thought I might get a little sleep for a while."
        "Are you puttin' me on? You come here for sleep?"
        "I'm an old man. Pearly. Old and gray."
        "I like them old and gray, Shaw. I've got a kind of a hangup that way."
        "We'll talk about it sometime."
        "Are you giving me the brush?"
        "Not exactly."
        "You scared of Tiny?"
        "Who wouldn't be?…"
        "Tiny's all right He don't beat up on me only so often."
        "That's decent of him. He only outweighs you by a hundred and twenty pounds."
        "I'll tell you something about Tiny. Chicks aren't that important to him. Now his bike, if you touched his bike that would be different. He'd kill you