On the far side of the counter, an enormously pregnant blonde with pouffy side ponytails and some serious facial piercings dragged herself out of the chair behind the desk. “Help you?”
Marnie stepped up to the counter. “I’ve come about the job—the temporary one?”
The woman braced a hand on her hip and shouted good and loud toward a shut door to her left. “Gus! Job applicant!”
The door opened. A tall, lean black man with a shaved head, chin-strap beard and a moustache pulled open the door. He stuck his finger in his ear and scowled. “You got a voice like a band saw, Desiree. I’m right here.”
Desiree shrugged, flipped her blond head in Marnie’s direction, and lowered herself back into the desk chair with a long sigh. She picked up a stapler and began stapling papers together.
The man came toward Marnie, his wiry brown arm extended. “I’m Gus. Gus McNair.” He had a beautiful tattoo of a single rattlesnake that coiled its way down and around the smooth dark skin of his arm. The snake’s head, fangs showing, red forked tongue flicking, extended beyond his wrist, over the back of his hand.
She reached across the counter and their palms met. “Marnie Jones.”
Gus smiled then, a slow, appreciative smile, displaying even rows of beautiful teeth. Suddenly he looked like a movie star. He could have been anywhere from forty to sixty, his skin was so smooth, with only a few crow’s feet around his eyes. And with a smile like that, a girl would find it very easy to forget that he was probably old enough to be her dad. “Come on in my office,” he said.
She went around the end of the counter and followed him into the small room beyond the door, which held a cluttered desk and a couple of chairs. The single window faced the front and the cinderblock walls were one continuous collage: photos of big bikes, a couple of neon-decked clocks, examples of really fine airbrush art and line drawings of several different chopper designs.
Two pit bulls, one brown and one black, lay on either side of the desk. In unison, the dogs lifted their heads from their paws when Gus led her in. The brown one yawned. Neither got up.
Gus shut the door and folded his long frame into the chair behind the cluttered desk. He indicated the paint-spattered metal chair across from him and she sat in it, sliding her purse off her arm to the floor.
“Here.” He produced an application from the pile of stuff on the desk, and then took a pen from the desk drawer and gave her that as well. “Clear off a space on your side and fill it out. Then we’ll talk.” With that, he put his feet up on the corner of the desk, leaned back, linked his long-fingered hands on his stomach and shut his eyes.
Marnie stared at him for a moment, bemused. Was he asleep?
“Go on, fill it out,” he said, without opening his eyes.
So she did, giving Tessa’s address as her residence and her own cell for a phone number. In the section for previous employment, she put down the payables/receivables job and her father’s garage, lying about the dates a little, extending the time she’d worked at both.
“Done?” He opened his eyes and sat up.
She handed the form across the desk to him.
He leaned back again, hoisted his boots to the desk and stroked his neatly trimmed silver-gray beard as he read. “What area code’s your cell?”
“Santa Barbara.”
“How long you been in town?”
“Since yesterday.”
He slanted her a look. His eyes were a brown so deep they appeared black. They were kind eyes, but she saw doubts in them and had the sinking feeling he wasn’t going to hire her. “This is an Olmos Park address. You got a house in Olmos Park, Marnie Jones?” Meaning what did she need with a temporary job at a motorcycle shop if she lived in a wealthy neighborhood?
“It’s my sister’s house. I’m staying with her.”
“The job is for six weeks, while Desiree’s having that baby you might have noticed she’s about to drop any minute.”
“Six weeks would be great. I’m kind of … open-ended, at the moment.”
He chuckled, a deep, smooth-as-velvet sound. “Open-ended, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Say you decide to head on back to Cali before the six weeks are up. Where does that leave me?”
“But I won’t. That wouldn’t be right. If you hire me, I’m here for as long as I say I’ll be here.”
He tipped his shiny, smooth head and studied her. “You telling me I can count on you?”
“Absolutely.”
“You seem like a nice girl, Marnie.” He definitely had that tone—the one that said he was trying to gently ease her on out the door. “But your office experience is sketchy.”
She was leaning forward by then, willing him to hire her. Strangely, the more certain she became that he would turn her down, the more she wanted the job. “I know all the computer stuff. I learn fast. And I’m no slacker.”
“Let me ask you this. You even know what a chopper is?”
She remembered the bikers she’d met at her dad’s garage and the things they had explained to her about their world. “I do, as a matter fact. It’s a custom-built motorcycle, with radical styling, and a raked front end—longer forks at a greater angle than a standard bike.”
He gave her a slow nod. “Close enough. But I still don’t get it.”
“Don’t get what?”
“Truthfully now, you want to work here, why?”
It was a good question. And she wasn’t sure she had an answer. Probably because it was a damn sight more to her liking than the hamburger place she was heading for next.
Not that she could tell Gus that. “Well, my dad owns a garage in my hometown. It’s on the form there. I always liked it, helping him out, running the office for him. And, also, um …” She blew out a hard breath and brought out the big guns. “Your partner is my brother-in-law.”
Gus’s black Converse high-tops hit the floor. “Jericho?”
She swallowed and nodded.
“His family is rolling in green.”
“So I understand.”
“If you’re married to one of his brothers, you don’t need a temporary job here. We both know that.” He was looking at her like he didn’t believe a word she’d told him.
She suppressed a sigh. “But I’m not married to one of his brothers. His brother, Ash, is married to my sister.”
He smiled again. Slowly. She couldn’t tell whether her being family to his partner made a difference—or he continued to think she was lying through her teeth. “Well, angel. You should have said so upfront.”
“Yeah. Guess so.”
“You talked to Rico about this?”
“The ad said to ask for you,” she offered lamely.
Gus was already on his feet. “He’s in the shop. Wait right here.”
He went out and she waited, eyeing the two pit bulls, both of which seemed to have forgotten she was there.
Gus returned with Jericho in no time. When he led her brother-in-law in, the room seemed cramped, dwarfed by Jericho’s size and his considerable presence—and by Gus, too, who wasn’t as big as Jericho, but had energy and charisma to spare.
Jericho didn’t sit down.