Full Ratchet: A Silas Cade Thriller Hardcover by Mike Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

new, parked square in the middle of the lot. The Jeep pulled an odd trailer: an open, rusty iron box about twenty feet long.
    Two customers and the shop’s owner, talking about a job. They’d driven out. Maybe it wasn’t ready. Maybe, like Ryan’s employer, they weren’t happy with the result. Who knows?
    Dave was the young one, the owner.
    I waited five minutes. Only one vehicle passed the whole time. I kept my head turned away, pretending to stare pensively into the woods, though I’d twisted the rearview mirror so I could watch its passage. Finally I put the gear into drive and turned back.
    I had the window halfway down, so I could hear the yelling as I came up and into the lot, bouncing on the rocky gravel.
    “I’ll fix it right now.” Dave Ellins flipped an aluminum hose running from a pair of red welding tanks, apparently rolled from the garage. It was connected to a torch in his other hand, and he wore heavy leather gloves. “Not my fault you ran it over the rocks at the park, and it wouldn’t have broken at all if you didn’t leave it out to rust all summer. Look at that—the spar just pulled right away from the old weld. That’s crap work.”
    “That’s
your
work.” One of the older guys, in overalls and crusty boots. All three glanced over at me, then turned back to the trailer.
    They had business. I was nobody they knew. Fair enough.
    “Nuh-uh. I fixed the axle, not that panel.” He picked a face shield up from the ground and slipped it on, then fired the torch. Both other men stepped back from the loud, hissing flame.
    “I’ll patch it, but that’s all.” The welder’s voice was muffled behind the mask. “Take it back to—who built this piece of shit anyway? Bale?”
    “Naw, it was Charley. Ten, fifteen years ago now.”
    “Figures.” He bent over the trailer, studying the break.
    “Shouldn’t you clean it up first?”
    “You ain’t never cleaned this in fifteen years, why bother now?”
    The older man shrugged. “It’s a barbecue trailer, that’s all. Lots of grease dripped down there over time.”
    Now that he said it, I could see the grills, folded down to one side. They must tow the thing to festivals and picnics, cook hundreds of hamburgers or chickens at once.
    All three continued to ignore me.
    “Two minutes,” said the man from his mask. “Then you haul it away and I never see it again.”
    He tapped a length of welding rod inside the trailer, considered a moment longer, then aimed the torch. Sparks showered out.
    WHOOOSH!
    The entire base of the trailer burst into flame, flaring out yellow and black. Smoke billowed. The welder was knocked backward and the two old guys about fell over themselves from laughing.
    “Haw, Dave, you dumb cluck!”
    “Look at
that
shit.”
    Dave got to his feet, flipping up the mask and shaking his head.
    “Okay, I wasn’t
going
to charge you,” he said. “But that’s extra work I done there.”
    “Extra work? What’re you talking about?”
    “Cleaned out the pan. Fifteen years of grease, wasn’t that you said?”
    “Haw.”
    “Anyways, that’s it for me. Tell Charley to fix his own damn fuckups.”
    It was strange, watching him move. Like seeing yourself on video—close, but not quite right.
    The fire burned down quickly. Smoke drifted my way, smelling of burned meat and barbecue sauce. I coughed.
    “You racing Saturday?” asked the man in overalls.
    “Might be.” Dave started coiling the hose. “Car’s fixed up.”
    “You decide to run, you let me know. I’ll put some money down with Van.”
    The other man shook his head. “Van thinks you pulled that race,” he said. “Two weeks ago.”
    “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
    A shrug. “Sure. Just saying. They were talking about it, down at the VFW.”
    “They got something to say, they come say it to me.” Dave jammed the hose coil onto the tank’s handle. “Assholes.”
    “We know you wouldn’t do anything like that.”
    When the Jeep drove off, Dave