The Coaster (18 page)

When I went back upstairs, Sarah was in the shower. I always like a woman in the shower. They're all slippery and soapy and wet. And naked. I resisted the impulse to jump in with her. The warrior celebration mood had been completely destroyed by our insomniac son.

***

I talked to Sarah through the shower door. “I'm going to ride the motorcycle to the airport and leave it there.”

Even with soap in her eyes, Sarah didn't buy that one. “Are you crazy? You don't know how to ride a motorcycle.”

“I rode a moped that one time on vacation. It's basically the same thing.”

“It's not the same at all. A moped's just a bicycle with a motor.”

“Well, so is this. It's just a bigger motor. Don't worry, I Googled it and took some notes. It's pretty simple.”

“You can't learn how to ride a motorcycle from written instructions. That's like saying you Googled how to ride a bull and now you're going to ride Bodacious.”

“Look, I'll ride around the farm for a while until I get the hang of it.”

“Good idea. That won't make very much noise.”

“Corny drove it up here and we didn't hear it.”

She considered that while she rinsed the shampoo out of her hair. “So how will you get home?”

“I don't want to take a cab or an über because the driver might remember me. I'll take the shuttle to one of the hotels downtown and walk over to your office. I'll call you to come pick me up.”

***

I went into the front hall closet and dug around until I found an old leather jacket Sarah gave me. I'm sure I would have insisted on returning it if I knew how much it cost, but I kept it because she claimed it was “sexy.”

Now, I felt like an idiot whenever I wore it, like I was the older partner of the star of a cop show. The jacket would have gone great with a turtleneck and a shoulder holster. But it seemed perfect for this mission. It was black and I'd always heard motorcycle riders didn't just wear leather jackets to look cool. They protect your skin if you end up sliding along the pavement for a couple of blocks. Unfortunately, I wasn't likely to execute a successful “lay down” where you skid along the ground like a rock skipping on a lake. If anything went wrong, I was going to be catapulted over the handlebars like a projectile. I needed a suit of armor to really do me any good.

I put on the jacket and the cowboy boots I wear when I'm doing my minor farm chores and don't want to get horseshit all over my shoes. I went back upstairs to tell Sarah I was leaving. The mirror in the bathroom was all fogged up, so I wiped a spot clear to check myself out. I had to admit it. By my standards, I looked like kind of a badass. I went back in the bedroom and grabbed some wraparound sunglasses I wear because my doctor told me I really need to protect my eyes from the sun. I went back in the bathroom and checked out the total package. Sure, it was dark out, but I decided the shades really completed the effect. I looked pretty damn cool, if I do say so myself. Not bad for a guy my age.

“The machines don't stand a chance if you're the terminator they sent back to kill John Connor.” Sarah had stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. I slowly turned toward her and said in what I hoped was an Austrian accent, “I'll be back” and walked out the door.

Chapter Twenty-two

I decided to walk to the copse to get the motorcycle. It took a few extra minutes, but I thought the less noise I made, the better. My plan seemed sound enough, based on my television-based knowledge of police investigations. Nobody notices vehicles left in airport parking unless they've been there for weeks. People leave cars there all the time while they're traveling. If and when the cops eventually found it and traced it to Corny, they'd assume he took a flight somewhere. When they couldn't find his name on any flight manifests, they'd further assume that he used a fake ID, that he was on the run for some reason. He was a shady character, after all, with probably a million reasons to run, if only from cuckolded husbands. Even if the cops managed to pin down the date and had access to some kind of security footage, all they'd see is a guy with a motorcycle helmet pull into the garage. There would be no way to tell it was me. I wouldn't even go into the airport, just hop on a hotel shuttle bus. No one would remember me because there are no records and middle-aged business traveler types are getting on and off those things all night. I decided I should ditch the jacket once I got there, though, so no one would think this particular middle-aged traveler might have ridden a motorcycle. There was no way I was wearing it again.

As Sarah pointed out, my stealth operation wasn't going to work unless I could actually ride a motorcycle. When I got to the copse, I wheeled the motorcycle out into the open field and got out my motorcycle-riding notes. It was too dark to read them, but I figured I didn't need them anyway. I had watched the video. I could figure it out. Hell, I barely took notes in law school and that worked out fine, except for the part where I went on and became a successful practicing attorney, but that failure was much later and unrelated to the lack of note-taking.

From my ATV experiences, I knew that various knobs and switches needed to be in the “on” position. Now that I was out in the clearing, I could see enough to inspect the bike. I found what I thought was maybe the gas knob on the side of the bike. It was already set at “on.” I also flipped the ignition switch down to “on.” I couldn't find anything else, so according to my calculations, the bike was fucking “on.” I was good to go. I climbed on and inserted the key. It went in the lock but the handlebars wouldn't straighten. It was going to be tough to get to the airport making a constant left turn. I jiggled the key and the handlebars unlocked. I turned the key to “on” and a green light lit up on the dashboard. That had to mean “go,” even in Japan. I was ready to start this son of a bitch.

***

As I put on his helmet, I was reminded of a Corny story from college. He claimed he happened upon a naked, passed-out girl in an empty room of the fraternity house one night. Whoever had hooked up with her initially had probably gone to the sleeping dorm to go to bed. Corny put on a motorcycle helmet so she wouldn't see his face if she woke up and proceeded to have sex with her.

Corny's moral code could best be described as situational. If it conflicted with something he wanted to do, he did it anyway. Possibly more disturbing than the act itself was that he was proud of it. He talked about it all the time, like everyone should be impressed with his mad rape skills. In Corny's mind, it was a hilarious story. You know, typical college shenanigans, like the time we came home drunk and broke into the fraternity kitchen and made ourselves breakfast, leaving a huge mess for the cook. To Corny, they were the same kind of thing.

Now I wondered why I was so surprised to discover that Corny was a sociopath, since there had definitely been signs. But when you're looking for somebody to go out drinking with, “nice” is overrated. Give me entertaining over nice any time. It's not only women who like so-called bad boys. It's flattering for both men and women when someone who's a total prick to everyone else selects you for his friend or girlfriend. You think,
this cool guy has nothing but contempt for everyone else but he likes me. I must be pretty cool, too
.

I didn't so much climb on the bike as stand over it with both feet flat on the ground. The thing was tiny. I didn't know if it was small because the Japanese people are small or just a bike for girls and men who couldn't ride a real motorcycle. Either way, I was glad because there was no way I could handle a Harley. I'd be lucky if I could handle this.

I knew from the video that you didn't turn the key to start it like a car, you pushed a button on the right handlebar. I still had to push a button after switching three different levers to the “on” position? There are fewer fail-safes required to launch a nuclear missile at NORAD. We'd hate to have this tiny motorcycle start by mistake and accidentally vaporize Russia. I pushed the button and it fired right up.

The headlight was already on because, like all modern vehicles, the Kawasaki Ninja could tell it was dark outside. If I ever drive a vehicle again that requires me to turn the lights on, I'm sure I'll be cruising around in the dark without even noticing. I knew the clutch was on the left handgrip and the throttle and brake were on the right.

The guy on the video told his girlfriend you shift with your left foot, which makes perfect sense if you're a chimpanzee. For now, I didn't have to worry about it because I only needed first gear.

I pushed the gearshift down to first—first is down, all the others are up, in the traditional number line format we all learned in school of -1, 2, 3, 4—and then eased the clutch out with my left hand while I twisted the throttle with my right. The bike shot out from under me and I ended up flat on my back. Apparently a motorcycle has some kind of shut-off mechanism like a jet-ski, so it stopped after about ten yards. I guess the throttle was kind of sensitive or maybe I needed to hold on better. When you give your horse a nudge in the ribs, he'd run right out from under you too if you weren't gripping him tight with your thighs.

I figured it was a combination of both, so I got back on and this time I held on tight and eased the clutch out as slowly as I could. The bike moved forward gradually and before I knew it I was riding it around the pasture. To me, it was like skiing or riding a regular bicycle: You kind of leaned a little in the direction you wanted to go and it happened. You didn't have to think about it. I drove around for five or ten minutes until I felt like I had the basics down and then I used the hand brake and came to a stop. I was ready for the streets.

***

On my way down our long driveway, I even managed to get it into second gear, so I felt pretty confident as I exited from private to public pavement. I didn't dare to even glance at my watch, afraid the distraction would cause me to careen off the road, but it was still dark and there wasn't much traffic. I didn't see another vehicle until I pulled up to my first stoplight. I got the bike stopped and just sat there waiting, like the kind of cool customer who might be cruising around on a motorcycle in the middle of the night. When a car pulled up behind me, I didn't even acknowledge it.
Nothing to see here
.

The light seemed to take forever. It was killing me not to turn around. It had to be a cop. Who else would be out at this time of night? I tried to glance down at my side-view mirror out of the corner of my eye, without moving my head, but the helmet blocked my vision.

The light finally turned green and I released the clutch. The engine died. Shit, I forgot to give it some gas. The car behind me honked and I waved it around. As the car pulled past me on my right, I noticed it was full of what looked to my untrained eye to be drunken teenagers. The rear driver's side window rolled down and a stereotypical obnoxious young punk yelled “Learn to ride, asshole!” and threw a full, open beer can at me. I recognized the red, white, and blue can as Pabst Blue Ribbon, a popular choice among cash-strapped drunken teenagers nationwide. We used to buy it for something like seven bucks a case in college.

The can hit me right in the forehead—thank you, helmet—and sprayed all over me. The four fine examples of American youth laughed and peeled out, no doubt worried that a real man on a motorcycle might try to chase them down. But there was no danger of that. I was still able to see out of my helmet, so I waited through another light and then made my way across the intersection.

As I was approaching the next intersection, the light turned green.
My luck is changing
, I thought.
I won't have to execute another panicky stop-and-start in traffic.
But just as I was crossing the intersection, a police car pulled up to the light on the cross street to my right. I was on quite a streak. If the police car turned right and followed behind me, I was screwed. My amateurish motorcycle skills would look an awful lot like driving under the influence to a cop at what-possible-reason-could-a-law-abiding-citizen-have-to-be-out-at-this-time-of-night o'clock. I'm sure I smelled like a brewery, one that made shitty beer for drunken teenagers. If a cop even got near me, he'd have to run my plates and sobriety field-test me to make sure I wasn't drunk.

As soon as I saw the police car start to turn right into my lane fifty yards behind me, I immediately turned right onto a residential street. I didn't know if the cop would follow me, but I knew if he did, I couldn't outrun him. That would take third gear, at least. Even though heroes in movies get away all the time when they're literally surrounded by a battalion of cops, the shittiest graduate of the police academy would be beating me with a nightstick for resisting arrest within thirty seconds. So I had to hide. Right away.

***

The good thing about a motorcycle is it can pretty much go anywhere. After I passed the first driveway on the left, I turned onto the grass and drove right between the two houses into the backyard. I switched the bike off, laid it down, and dove on the ground next to it, covering my face with my leather-clad arms. I heard some animal noises, but I didn't know if it was a squirrel or the owner of the house had just let his pit bull out for his nightly piss. I thought I heard the cop car cruising up and down the street, but I was too scared to look up. If you don't move, it's almost impossible for someone to see you from a distance in dim light. It's the movement that catches their eye. That's why predators always remain perfectly still before attacking.

So I stayed there for a long time. I don't know how long, but let's just say much, much, much longer than necessary. Anne Frank would have come out of hiding sooner. Truthfully, I doubt the cop car even turned down the street. I just lay there hearing imaginary noises until it had been so long I was afraid I was going to open my eyes and it would be morning.

I risked a glance at my watch and saw it was four a.m. I raised my head and determined the coast was clear. I wheeled the bike back down to the street.

I eventually made it to Airport Road. I wish all streets were named so I'd know where I was going. It would make it a lot easier to find Prostitute Boulevard or Massage Parlor Avenue. The rest of the trip was uneventful, except for the two times I stalled, the straightaways where I managed to get up to fifty miles an hour in first gear, and the time I almost swerved into oncoming traffic because I thought I saw a possum (it was a paper bag). By the time I got to the airport, I was proficient enough to drive into the parking garage in an unsuspicious manner. The little ticket that came out when I pushed the button to raise the barrier arm didn't give me a second glance.

I drove down a couple of levels and parked the Ninja in what I thought was an unobtrusive spot, or to be more accurate, a completely random spot. I didn't know what would make one spot better than another, so I just picked one. It wasn't right near the elevators. That was the depth of my analysis. I left the helmet on the seat. I figured someone would steal it long before the cops found the bike. I threw the ticket in a trash can.

I took off my leather jacket in the elevator and got off at street level. I stuffed the jacket in another trash can and crossed the street toward the terminal. I wasn't sorry to see the jacket go. My motorcycle riding days were over. There was a downtown shuttle waiting at the curb. When I got on the bus, the driver didn't even look up. “Where to?”

“Downtown.” I sat down. Maybe my luck was changing. While we were waiting for the other passengers to get on the bus, the doors opened and an out-of-breath woman in some kind of airport uniform came aboard. She was holding my leather coat.

“Sir, is this your jacket?”

“I don't think so,” I stammered.

“Yes, it is, sir. I saw you leave it in the trash can outside.”

“I, uh …”

“I knew you really wouldn't want to throw such a beautiful jacket away, so I got it out for you.”

“Um, thanks?” I stuck out my hand and took the jacket from her. The other people on the bus looked at me like I was a lunatic. What kind of an asshole would just throw a leather jacket in the trash? I shrugged and sat back down, keeping a low profile and flying below the radar, just like I planned.

***

After a few minutes, the bus pulled away from the curb. It was about a third full of weary travelers, most of whom had probably been up all night getting screwed over by the airlines, unless their flight was conveniently scheduled to arrive at four-thirty a.m. As far as I could tell, no one paid any attention to me. I made the same amount of eye contact with the other passengers I would have under normal conditions: none. As I generally do in these situations, I busied myself with my phone so as not to appear rude. A phone is also a handy shield against personal interaction in elevators, when walking down an office corridor toward a coworker, and in my own home.

Even though I was being ignored, I never relaxed. Not because I'm vigilant like a professional bodyguard, ever alert to the slightest discrepancy in my environment, but because I was scared out of my mind. In no way did I think this little mission was over.