Page 6 of Dozer

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Dozer

I had a hankering for spaghetti, so I ran in the grocery store for the ingredients, including the really good parmesan cheese, and I even bought some of the huge chunks of frozen garlic toast to put in the oven.

And then I walked out and my motherfucking truck was motherfuckinggone.

I stood and stared at the empty spot, and strategized. Should I call the cops, or Brain?

No. I didn’t have to call anyone. I had a GPS dot in the glove compartment because I’d planned to put it on a prospect’s bike to see where he went when we gave him a job, but he hadn’t shown up, and the job had gone to someone I trusted. I opened my phone, pulled up the app, and there was my truck, heading north towards Rossville.Hot damn.

I was less than four miles from my house as the crow flies. I’d carried my groceries out without a buggy, but I settled them into a buggy in a corral, so it would look like someone had forgotten them, and I took off at a run towards my house.

I’d recently bought a 1969 SS350 Sprint — a really old, super-tiny Harley Davidson motorcycle. I’d look ridiculous driving it, but I’d thrown it in the back of the truck to get it home, which meant I could drive it to my truck, put it in the back, and then get both vehicles home without having to drag any of my brothers into whatever drama this ended up being.

I was planning to beat the everloving fuck out of whoever stole it, and that meant the less people involved, the better.

The bike didn’t have a mount for my phone, so I took three minutes to unscrew the one on my Roadster and screw it onto the 350’s handlebar a touch off-center. I grabbed a handful of zip-ties off my workbench, jammed them in my pocket, and I was off.

I’m six foot six, more than three hundred pounds of muscle, and I was riding a bike designed for a small woman, or maybe a teenaged boy. I hadn’t bought it to ride it, but to restore and sell it, and driving it was damned awkward. I had a full-faced helmet on, so it wasn’t like anyone would recognize me, but that wasn’t the point. My knees poked out to the side and it was beyond uncomfortable.

The dot had made it to the interstate and was going around Moccasin Bend, and I wasn’t yet to the interstate. I hoped they stayed in town and I wasn’t stuck driving this tiny little clown-motherfucking-bike all the way to Nashville. I breathed a sigh of relief when the dot exited the interstate at the Brown’s Ferry exit.

I weigh more than the bike, so it wasn’t taking me anywhere quickly. I managed sixty on the interstate, but only because there were no long-uphill stretches. My truck is brown and tan, and it stands out, so I saw it from half a mile away. My first instinct was to park on the other side of Cracker Barrel and walk by the truck, but there would be no reason to walk past the restaurant, and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I’m abig guy, and people notice me. I wasn’t wearing my cut, but still, it’d be best if I could just get my truck and go.

No one seemed to be sitting up front, so I assumed it was empty. I could pull up behind it, open the back, put the bike in, close it, and then get in the front and drive away.

But that would mean I wouldn’t get to beat the fuck out of whoever had stolen it.

So did I set up surveillance, or did I just collect my truck and go?

Hell, they might not even come back to get it. I could sit here for six hours and then have to leave without satisfaction anyway.

Okay, so I’d just have to be happy getting my truck back, then.

I drove up behind it, stood, and saw a lump in the back that shouldn’t be there.

Someone was sleeping in the back.

Okay then. Plan B.

I glanced around, and no one was focused on me. Whoever had parked here had done so with the goal of not being close to any activity, and that worked for me. I opened the back, jumped in, and scented woman. Human woman.

I grabbed her forearms and told her, “Scream and I’ll have to knock you out.”

Chapter 5

Dozer

I zip-tied her wrists behind her back, and then brought her ankles up and zip-tied them to her wrists. I looked around again to be sure no one was watching, lifted her over the seats, and deposited her on her side on the front passenger seat. I jumped out the back, lifted the bike and put it into the back, closed it up, walked around to the passenger side, opened the door, and settled the woman onto the floorboard, which thankfully was plenty big for her since she was a tiny thing.

Less than five minutes after pulling into the parking lot, we were pulling right back out. I turned my phone off and put it into a signal-blocking bag I kept in the glovebox. I tossed all my loose cash in there as well.

I had to come up with where to take the little bitch, because she’d fallen into my lap, and now she wasmine.

I breathed in and parsed through the scents. No drugs. She’d recently eaten peanut butter, a banana, and some potato chips. No smell of sex on her. Not on birth control pills. She smelled healthy and terrified, as well as pissed.

“Not many people your age know how to drive a manual transmission. Who taught you?”

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