Page 19 of Gone Before Goodbye

“Since when do you ride a BMW R 18, Porkchop?”

“Since they started sponsoring me.”

“For real?”

Porkchop nods. “I get a free bike, free gas, plus a grand a month.”

“Sweet,” she says.

“I also prefer the BMW’s shaft transmission over the belt transmission of a Harley. Makes for a smoother ride. The BMW has three ride modes—rain, roll, and rock—whereas the Harley only has one.”

“They tell you to say that?”

“And exactly that,” he replies with a grin. “Took me three weeks to memorize it.”

Two young bikers guard the BMW. Both wear a patch with the Serpents and Saints logo on their upper right sleeve. Serpents and Saints is Porkchop’s… She would call it a motorcycle “gang,” but that brought up Hells Angels connotations and that didn’t come close to fitting anymore. Maybe thirty years ago. Not anymore.

The Serpents and Saints logo is a mean-looking, black-and-gold, heavily fanged snake with a halo over its head. Marc had a tattoo of it on his upper right quadriceps, albeit a far more cartoonish version with a goofily smiling serpent who looked about as mean as Snoopy. Instead of black and gold, his Serpent and Saint was garish orangeand purple; instead of an intimidating glare, his serpent had a silly, exaggerated wink.

The tattoo, Marc had explained in bed, was the result of a late-night drunken visit to a New Orleans parlor on Mardi Gras when he was nineteen.

“It’s kind of ugly,” she’d told him.

“Don’t worry, my love. Only you’ll see it. Unless you think I should wear a Speedo.”

“Only I’ll see it.”

One of the young bikers is tall, thin, long-haired, white. The other is short, round, buzz-cut, Black. Together, they look like a bowling ball heading toward a pin. Porkchop takes two helmets from the Pin and hands her one. Maggie straps it on and hops on the back of his bike.

“Pinky will drop your bag at the Aman.”

Pinky, she now sees, is Bowling Ball. Porkchop, Pinky—the members like nicknames. Pinky takes her suitcase. Porkchop gets on the front of the bike. Maggie wraps her arms around his waist and feels the hum as Porkchop starts up the engine. When Marc had first introduced Maggie to his father, it had taken her a little time to get used to riding on the back. It wasn’t that Maggie didn’t trust Porkchop’s driving—it’s just that she hated to be in any situation where she wasn’t in control.

Now she relishes it. No talking. No music. No podcast. Nothing but the feel of the world being washed away by the wind.

Porkchop cruises them up Eighth Avenue. They turn west to Riverside Drive and then back north. Fifteen minutes later, Porkchop pulls up to the front of their old apartment building in Washington Heights, four blocks from NewYork-Presbyterian medical center. For a long moment, she and Porkchop just stand there, both of them straddling the bike.

“Porkchop?”

“It’s fine. Go. I’ll wait here for you.”

She watches Porkchop for another moment, but he is already fiddling with something near the throttle. As she turns toward the entrance, the doorman greets her with a wide smile. “Doctor Maggie!”

“Hey, Winston.”

Winston looks as though he wants to hug her, but decorum is what it is. She wants to reach out too, but she isn’t sure she can handle another hug right now. They both stand there for an awkward second before Winston’s smile fades away.

“I’m sorry about…” He stops. “Just about everything.”

“Thank you.”

“You still have Doctor Trace’s key?”

“I do,” she says, showing it to him. “Have you seen him at all?”

“Not in many months,” Winston says. “Doctor Trace’s mailbox got all filled up. We emptied it out, put everything in a box for you. It’s in his apartment.”

“Thanks.”