Page 47 of Back in the Saddle

I didn’t care who figured it out first.

My brother was a handyman savant. He could fix anything going. He had some schooling and experience as an apprentice pipefitter, but for unsurprising reasons, he was never able to complete his training.

That said, Mom and Dad both worked to live, then they lived as large as their meagre wages would allow, in other words, making sure faucets didn’t leak, thermostats continued to work and ice makers made ice were not priorities to them.

This necessitated Jeff figuring shit out.

And honest to God, he started doing that when he was around eleven.

Necessity for sure was the mother of invention.

Nevertheless, my brother was no warrior.

He was about three inches taller than me, which put him at five eleven. He had Dad’s body, which was bulky, and for Dad, soft and came with a beer gut. For Jeff, it was solid because he found regular workouts helped him deal with stress, so when he was himself, he didn’t miss one.

This meant he was fit. And could probably take care of himself in, say, a bar fight.

But beating “darkness” back (whatever that meant), I was thinking…no.

“That said, I got an email into Arthur,” Luna went on. “We’ll see if he’s heard anything about these Street Warrior people.”

That was a good idea.

I forgot all about Arthur.

“I’ve been pondering this all afternoon,” I told them. “And if you’re in, maybe tomorrow we could do the rounds to all of Jeff’s buds. I’ve done that already, checking in frequently, and no word. Also, none of them would keep something from me. They’re as worried about Jeff as I am. But maybe, if he’s getting word to me through the General, he’s also started communicating to them.”

“I’m in,” Raye said.

“Me too,” Luna added.

“Totally.” Harlow rounded it out.

This felt weird, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good weird, or bad.

Of course, having my girls with me was good.

But having anyone help felt alien. Like a new outfit that didn’t fit.

Maybe I’d get used to it.

Maybe it would chafe.

Time would tell.

We hit the storage units and Luna parked in front of numbers eleven and twelve, the units that held the Accord and the Mercedes.

Raye opened number thirteen, where the Sportage sat.

She flipped on the lights and went to the back of the unit where she nabbed a dry erase marker at the base of the whiteboard that Arthur had mounted there to aid in our investigations (all the units had them, we also had a laser pointer, which, according to Raye, made us official).

We all stood around and watched as she wrote on one side of the whiteboard,Jeff Wylde, and under that,Street Warrior, then under that,???. And on the other, she listed in a column,Mr. Shithead, Jinx, Jeff’s Friends, Other?

This reminded me.

“Did you hear from Jinx?” I asked Luna.

“She didn’t answer or return my voicemails,” Luna told me. No worries on that. There was nothing unusual about it. She worked nights, so she slept days. “Hopefully, she’s in her office tonight.”

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