Page 41 of Making His Bones

Elektra

“Elektra! Girl!”

I was coming out of Doggie Style Grooming when Unity called me from across the street. I’d gone in there to ask Galileo where Gray was. Gray wasn’t at the archery range as he normally would be. I wondered if this had something to do with the “wingsuit” that had arrived FedEx. Googling it, I saw that he could fly unimpeded for pretty long distances over land. While blowing out a labradoodle, Tiago started telling me something about,

“Yes—he is flying low over luz de la luna so he can see who is making it,” but he stopped himself and clammed up.

Luz de la luna. Moonshine.

I didn’t bother texting Gray. He certainly wouldn’t admit to what he was doing, especially if he knew it angered me—and if he was in the middle of plummeting to earth at one hundred miles an hour. Galileo was absent from the dog grooming shop too. So I was sort of dazed, wondering what to do next, when Unity provided a temporary answer.

I tried telling her The Bare Bones didn’t like me, but she wanted to grab a beer inside The Bum Steer anyway. Fuck them. I followed her because I didn’t give much of a fuck at the moment. I knew that Knoxie, Wolf, Tobiah and some of the others had been supporting Gray in what was basically my quest to find Delilah’s killer, so they weren’t all bad. And I could see why they hated me. I’d put their brother Kneecap away for life. Or, as close to it as “sixty years to life” would wind up being.

Fosdick, the new Prospect, was tending bar. The only other members I recognized were Lytton and Fox, who seemed to be eating barbecued ribs like normal guys. They didn’t flash me any looks of loathing. A grizzled guy with a pointy grey beard was wearing a cut, chomping on an ear of corn half of which wound up in the beard, but I didn’t know him. I’d never met Tanner, Unity’s old man, but she’d shown me some amazingly hot photos. He was a pilot, which was almost as attractive as Gray leaping off cliffs wearing only wings. I had to admit, Gray’s bravery astonished me.

Unity ordered a burger, took her mug of beer, and we sat near the front window. “Don’t let them get to you,” said Unity. “They’re going to have to accept you if you’re going to be Gray’s old lady.”

“Do they, I wonder? Have to accept me, I mean.” I sipped my water. I’d thrown a lemon into it.

I was not inspired by the way Unity looked to one side and said, “Well.” One of her cheeks was full of hamburger meat. “They can bring up their reservations to Ford. They can vote on it in church.”

I was glad my mouth wasn’t full of anything, because I gaped. “Vote on it? You mean, like, vote me in?”

Unity shrugged. “In a way. It’s not like you’re going to be a patch holder, obviously, but they do all have to approve of you.”

I slumped. “Oh. Well. That’ll never happen.”

At that moment—it must’ve been fate—this absolutely ridiculous truck drove down Bargain Boulevard. It resembled one of those monster trucks, the chassis lifted so high above the tires you needed a ladder to get inside. His custom headlights probably lit up an entire football field. The Calvin and Hobbes sticker in the window had Calvin peeing on a Ford logo. Even stranger, it was turning into the Bare Bones parking lot off to the side, no doubt creaming a few Harleys in the process.

I giggled and pointed. “Those guys. They probably never go off-road in those things.”

Unity smiled too. “That’s Wolf Glaser. You know him. I think he actually does go off-road. He lives up Mormon Mountain with Lytton and June. He sometimes goes and spies on Tobiah up at the Leaves of Grass pot ranch. He always thinks their ex-girlfriend Tracy is up there.”

Wolf was already blazing past our window, thumping open the front double doors with such unhinged rage they banged against the wall. The wall was so scraped and dirty, I could tell this had been done plenty before, but everyone held their food still to look at him.

That was when reality peeked under the fantasy tent of my childish playground.

“That’s it! That’s fucking it!” he roared, larger than life with his utility belt clanging with tools.

“What now?” yelled Lytton. “Tobiah again?”

Hands like claws, Wolf roared at the ceiling. He seemed about to bust out of his cut, he was so packed with anger.

Unity looked at me wide-eyed. Lytton dropped the rib he held, and it clattered to the plate. Stomping over to Wolf, he yelled, “What did you do now? Did you fucking go barging into Gray’s op over in Seeker?”

I knew it! Whipping out my phone, I furiously texted Galileo.

Elektra: Galileo! What’s this fucking “op” in Seeker? What’s Gray doing with a wingsuit?

Fox tossed down his own rib and stomped over to where Wolf did an impersonation of The Incredible Hulk.

To undercut his point, Wolf roared again. The guy with the pointed beard went over and whipped a folded piece of paper from Wolf’s cut. He shook it open.

“Tobiah Weingarten,” he said, “with some fender fluff on his pussy pad. This your girl?”

“Don’t get him started!” Lytton warned the craggy guy, whose belly jutted way out over his belt.

“What op?” I whispered to Unity, knowing she wouldn’t tell me even if she knew.