Backcast (4 page)

Bingo.
Quinn knew she had them now.

“Have you boys ever heard of Hog Heaven in Batavia?”

Big Boy and Junior exchanged glances.

“I reckon everybody's heard of that,” Junior said. “At least, everybody that knows anything about rebuilding motorcycles.”

Quinn reached into her back pocket and pulled out her wallet.

“Here's one of my cards.” She held one out to Junior. He gave his fingers another swipe across the chair arm before he took it from her and looked it over.

“Well, shit,” he said. He passed the card over to Big Boy. “This here woman owns the damn place.”

It didn't seem physically possible for the holes in Big Boy's face to get any wider, but somehow, he managed. Quinn wondered how he kept his eyeballs from falling out.

“Umm. Ummm. Ummmmm.” Big Boy was looking at the card and shaking his head.

“So what kind of bike did your granddad get?” Quinn asked.

“It's a '65 Electra Glide.” Junior took the card back from his brother so he could return it to Quinn, but she held up a hand, indicating he should keep it. “Nice one, too. Rare, I'm thinkin.'”

Shit. A '65 Electra Glide Panhead wasn't rare—it was extinct.

Quinn knew collectors who wouldn't bat an eyelash at shelling out sixty thousand for a vintage Panhead in working condition.

“You got that right,” she agreed. “It's probably one of the last ones.”

“That's what we think, too. Can't get parts no ways.”

“I might could help you out there,” she said. “I've got good sources all over the place.”

“Well.” Junior scratched between the folds of his expansive belly. “Parts is one thing. Findin' somebody that knows how to put 'em back together right is somethin' else.”

“That's true.” Quinn went in for the kill. “What you boys need is a crackerjack Harley mechanic with lots of experience rebuilding vintage bikes.”

“Ain't likely to find that ‘round here.”

“Not ‘til now.” Quinn smiled at them.

“You a mechanic?” Junior sounded dubious.

“Yes sir, I am—one of the best, too.”

“I'll be.”

“I'm staying up here for a couple of weeks. Maybe we can work out some kind of a deal.”

“Deal?” That got Big Boy's attention. His eyes shrunk to an almost normal circumference. He glared at Quinn like she had suggested something lewd.

Junior wasn't far behind him. “We don't have money for that right now.”

“Well, lucky for you, I'm not talking about money.” Quinn pulled the fishing tournament flier out of her pocket and held it out to Junior. “You boys familiar with this contest?”

Junior nodded, but didn't say anything. Big Boy was silent, too.

“I was thinking about entering,” Quinn explained. “But I don't have a boat or any gear.”

Junior raised an eyebrow. “Kinda hard to enter without a boat.”

“Yes sir, it is.” Quinn waved a hand toward the warehouse full of salvage. “That's why I thought maybe you boys could fix me up with everything I need to compete.”

“You ever done any tournament fishing?” Junior handed the flier back to her.

“Nope.”

“You ever done any other kind of fishing?”

Quinn shook her head. “Only for compliments.”

Junior looked confused.

“That would be a ‘no,'” Quinn explained.

“How come you want to start out this way? Why not just get a rod and see if you like it?”

Quinn knew she'd really never to be able to explain it to him. She barely understood it herself. Viv's dire predictions of catastrophe
and mayhem were still careening around inside her head like bumper cars—slamming into her impressive collection of all the other “girls can't do that” pronouncements people had been hurling her way since childhood.

Another round of applause roared up from the TV. Monty Hall was trying to tempt someone to trade what lay behind door number two for a big box on the stage.

“Good things can come in small packages,” he said. The crowd seemed to agree with him.

“Trade! Trade! Trade!” they bellowed.

Door number two could be concealing the Big Deal of the Day. Or it could be hiding a Holstein and a milking stool. It was a crap-shoot. You just never knew.

Junior was still staring at Quinn, waiting for her explanation.

She pointed at the TV. “I'm like that woman right there,” she explained. “All my life, I've wanted to be brave enough to go for the Big Deal, and not settle for what everybody told me was good enough.”

Junior looked at the TV, then back at Quinn.

“You think bass fishing is the Big Deal?” he asked.

They all knew that no woman had ever won one of these high-profile tournaments.

Quinn shrugged. “Maybe. I don't know.”

He huffed. “Well if that ain't the damnedest thing I ever heard.”

His brother nodded his agreement.

“We can't pay you to fix the bike.” Junior wanted to be sure to drive this point home.

“I understand that. I'm offering to rebuild it for free, at my own expense—including parts—if you'll agree to lend me everything I'll need for this tournament.”

The brothers looked at each other. Big Boy scratched his ear.

Junior shook his head.

“What?” Quinn asked.

“Who's gonna teach you how to fish or where to go or how to drive the damn boat?”

“I'm assuming that you will.”

“Me?”

Quinn nodded.

“I don't know as that would be fair.”

“Why not? It's a Pro-Am tournament. You'd be the Pro and I'd be the Am.”

“I wasn't thinkin' about entering this year. My back's givin' me a fit.”

“You wouldn't have to do anything but supervise.”

“Supervise?”

She nodded. “Just be there and tell me what to do.”

He thought about that. “Who gets the purse if we win?”

Gotcha.

Quinn smiled. “You think we might win?”

He held up a puffy hand. “I ain't sayin' that. I'm just asking. Hypothetic-like.”

Quinn glanced down at the flier. It had been folded and refolded so many times it was starting to feel like a piece of flannel. She reread the awards section. Top prize was twenty-five thousand dollars—and a fully loaded, twenty-one foot Ranger bass boat equipped with a gas-guzzling, two-hundred-and-fifty horsepower Evinrude ETech motor.

“I won't have much need for a bass boat in Batavia,” she offered.

Big Boy cleared his throat.

Junior took the cue. “We already got a bass boat.”

“True. But you could sell this one.”

“You'd give it to us free and clear?”

Quinn nodded. “Yes sir, I would.”

“And you'd fix the bike for free?” Junior asked. “No charge to us for parts or labor?”

“That's right. And if I can't get it done here, I'll even pay to trailer it out to my shop and back.”

Even to a crusty old New Englander, that had the ring of a pretty sweet deal.

Junior folded.

“How tall are you?” he asked.

Quinn didn't really understand his question. “Excuse me?”

“You appear to be about six foot, maybe more. I'm six-three. And don't neither of us look like we ever say no to a plate of seconds.”

She got where he was headed. “You mean we wouldn't both fit into the same boat?”

“Not likely,” he said.

“Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because I have a couple of associates who will want to ride along, too.”

“Associates?”

“Yep.”

“Fishing ain't a group sport.”

Quinn shrugged. “Is it against the rules?”

He took his time answering. “Nope. But it don't work that way.”

“Why not?”

Junior thought about it. “Are these ‘associates' women?” He paused. “Like you?”

“Mostly. But not as big.”

“You can't have a bunch of women squawking on a boat. All that yammering would drive the fish into hiding.”

“Can't we use a bigger boat?”

“Bigger? Bigger'n what?”

“I don't know.” Quinn waved a hand. “Bigger than the usual.” She gestured toward the yard, where all manner of boats were trailered or stacked up on blocks. “What about one of those float boats you have out there?”

“You mean them pontoons?” He shook his head. “They don't go fast enough.”

“Can't you put a bigger motor on one?”

“Maybe. But it's gotta have a cutoff switch on it.”

“I can rig that.”

“They don't have no live well on 'em.”

“What's that?”

“It's where you keep the fish until they can be weighed up and measured.”

“You mean like a big fish tank?”

“Kinda. But it has to have fresh water moving inside it.” Quinn looked around the interior of the warehouse. “I thought
I saw an aerator back there on one of those shelves near the door. Couldn't we connect that to a big cooler with some water line and run it off a twelve-volt battery? All we'd need is some marine glue and a couple of alligator clips.”

Junior looked surprised. “It has to stay cold.”

“The water?”

He nodded.

Quinn sighed. He was really making her work for it.

“I suppose we could fill a couple of those grape Fanta bottles with water and freeze them—deep-six them in the cooler with the fish?”

Junior was silent for a few moments. Quinn hoped that meant he'd run out of obstacles.

“It costs fifteen hundred bucks to enter.”

“I can cover that. I have a lead on a sponsor that'll kick in the whole fee in exchange for us putting their name on the boat.”

Big Boy cleared his throat. Junior looked at him. Big Boy shrugged. Junior blew out a breath and slowly shook his head before turning back to face Quinn.

“So all I gotta do is show up and ride along? And if we win—which ain't gonna happen—I get the rig and you get the cash?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you fix granddad's bike—for free?”

“Yes, sir.”

He sighed again. “Okay, then. I guess I done stupider stuff in my time.”

Quinn gave the brothers her biggest, toothy grin. “You won't regret it.”

“Hold on a minute.” Junior had one more question. “Who is this sponsor you got in mind?”

She smiled. “You boys ever heard of Astroglide?”

“I've been kicking some ideas around, and I'm leaning toward sculpting this whole thing as a latticework of stylized webs—
separate, but interconnected.” Barb laced her fingers together. “Made from found objects—things I've been collecting and stockpiling for years, waiting for a project like this. I envision a structure the viewer will walk through to experience—much like each of us walked through the experiences depicted by our stories.”

Viv chuckled. “That sounds vaguely like the funhouse at Coney Island.”

“Yeah,” Darien Black agreed. “But in my experience, funhouses were rarely fun.”

“Precisely.” Barb pointed her web of fingers at Darien. “That's just what I'm getting at.”

Barb and her coterie of authors were scattered around the lobby area of the inn on comfy chairs. The bar wasn't officially open yet, but Barb made arrangements with her innkeeper cousin, Page, to use the space in the afternoons for their bull sessions. Part of that deal included opening the bar early for afternoon cocktails.

When the weather warmed up, they'd move their meetings outside to the big white Adirondack chairs that dotted the lawn.

“I still don't get it.” Montana Jackson was confused. “What possible relationship do spiderwebs have with writing? And what the hell is a ‘found object'?”

“A found object,” Viv explained, “is something you
find.
Right, Barb?”

“You mean like your lost virtue?” Quinn asked.

“Ha.” Towanda slapped Quinn on the arm. “She never had any virtue to lose, you nimrod.”

“Fuck you, Wanda.” Viv shot her the bird. “You're just still jealous that I beat your ass out for that Lammy shortlist last year.”

Towanda glared at Viv. “It's no accident that your name shows up on any list with the word ‘short' in it. Besides, that wasn't even my category. My publisher made a mistake on the submission forms.”

“Right.” Viv rolled her eyes. “I get it. Because your book should have been entered in—what was it?
Genderqueer Scatological Anthologies
?”

Quinn looked at her. “They have that category now? I never hear about this stuff.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Can we please return to the original topic, ladies?” Her exasperation was starting to show. Shawn patted her on the knee.

Barb sighed. “As I was saying—Virginia Woolf wrote about this very thing in
A Room of One's Own.
” She held up a paperback and opened it to a bookmarked page.