Chapter 94

True to his word Steve followed me with his emergency lights flashing. He was taking the job of protecting me seriously. Seriously enough to get out of bed at 5 AM, I thought. He crawled along behind me till we got to the Dairy Queen. I parked my cycle in the same parking space as Bart's tricycle.

"Who else rides one of those strange looking tricycles?" he asked while I was putting the helmet into the basket on the rear of the tricycle.

"That one belongs to Bart. He used to be a business partner of mine," I informed him.

"Should I worry about him?" Steve asked.

"Take it easy Steve. Honestly, I can look out for myself," I informed him.

"The commandant said you would be resistant. I'm supposed to hang around you anyway," he said.

"You can hang around as long as you become a pot farmer," I explained. "You need a cover and I need a worker."

"There is more to it than I thought, but I can do it I'm sure," he explained.

"Let's go inside and eat breakfast, before we argue about who is going to do what today," I said with a smile.

Inside I ordered my food then walked back to the booth where Bart awaited us. "Morning Bart," I said.

"Good Morning Rose, so who is your friend?" he asked.

"Bart, meet Steve," I said.

"Isn't there more than just Steve?" he asked.

"Just Steve will do," the younger man replied.

"Well then 'just Steve' you got a full time job keeping Rose safe. She will go along for a while acting normal, then out of nowhere she will get a wild hair up her ass. Then she gets into all kinds of shit," Bart said.

"I'll take care of her don't worry. I'm really good at what I do," Steve said.

"Don't under estimate Rose. She has quite a knack for scaring the shit out of everyone," Bart said.

"Bart you do know that I'm sitting right here," I said.

"Yeah, but you aren't correcting me are you?" he asked.

"Go fuck yourself," I said. "As for you Steve don't humor him. He is a pain in my ass, and he is married to an even worse pain in my ass."

The two of them were circling each other like dogs ready to attack. If not literally then at least symbolically. I didn't enjoy watching, even if I would at one time have found it cute.

"So what do you think of our breakfast spot?" Bart asked.

"It's nothing special," Steve said.

"There really isn't much else except the diner in town. We sometimes have lunch there," I said.

"Are those the only two places to eat in town?" Steve asked.

"Yes, the others are all like in Williamston or some other town. Of course I'm not a gourmet so one is the same as another to me," I explained. I turned my attention to Bart. "So Bart how is Rita?"

"Rita is just fine," Bart said. "She got permission for Hannah to start the courier business. We can advise and she can deliver sealed package for us, but no handling of loose product."

"Well good, at least she won't lose too much ground," I suggested. I had explained Hannah's situation to Steve on the morning of the day before.

"You over paid her?" Bart said. "I knew you did. You are just too soft hearted."

"Hanna didn't skim for money," I said.

"Of course not," Bart agreed. "She is the kid who had never been one of the cool kids. She saw a chance to be part of the group and she took it. It was just a bad idea, but she didn't have anyone to tell her that it was."

"Is that right?" Steve asked.

"Yeah, that was pretty much what happened. I even had suspicions and looked the other way," I said. "I'm a little guilty as well."

"I can understand that for sure. I was the male version of Hannah. I stole cars to take other kids for joy rides," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"

"You know when she is making those pot deliveries you could ride along. I keep hearing that. Even legal this shit can be dangerous. I was going to ride along, but I wouldn't be much help in an ambush." I meant every word of it.

"Yeah, I had thought about that as well. Mostly if Rose decides to send her crap to market with Hannah, there is a good possibility some clown will get a wild hair. I sure wouldn't want Hanna to get hurt," Bart said. "Maybe we need to buy her a crew cab and I could go along as well."

"I'm glad we held off till now to buy the truck," I said.

"Yes," Bart said. "We need something that will seat up to three people. It needs a full size cargo box on the rear. One of us needs to buy it and lease it back to Hannah."

"You are right. She may never get the hang of the business. If she doesn't we can buy her out and put her to work for her own company, that should be legal," I suggested.

"Why the fuck you worrying about legal?" Steve asked.

"Because Rose is the only one smart enough to keep our asses out of jail. For the last ten years she has stayed one or two steps ahead of everybody," Bart said.

"Everybody but Sylvia," I said.

"Sylvia knows every fucking secret in the whole world," Steve said.

"Amen to that," I agreed. I took a deep breath then continued to address Steve. "We have the houses all planted now, so we can run to Williamston to buy a truck for Hannah."

"Sounds like a fucking kid's novel, 'A Truck for Hannah'," Steve said.

"Yeah a Christmas story," I agreed.

"Today we need to run the mister, then we can go to Williamston for lunch. After lunch we can have a truck for desert. You do drive don't you."

"I drove here didn't I?" Steve said.

"I mean you have a license, lot of people who know how to operate a vehicle don't have a license," I replied.

"I have a Florida driver's license," he said.

"Good," I suggested.

On the return home there was more traffic, so Steve very nonchalantly blocked it. The other drivers had to pass both of us, so a lot of them followed behind for a couple of miles. When they did pass us there were some pretty nasty looks for Steve and me. I thought they probably shouldn't shout, since Steve was one bad ass mother fucker suffering from PTSD. You talk about your road rage gone bad, film at eleven.

I decided right then that a stop at the Williamston thrift shop's bike rack was in order before the truck dealer. The bike was going to be necessary to save a life. The life it saved would most likely not be Steve's. Hell it was very likely that in a confrontation with a Swamp man, it would be the local bad ass fisherman who died. That would turn the whole damn County against us. We just didn't need that in order to save the price of a twenty five dollar used bicycle.

First we watered the pot plants, then we secured the place with the alarms. They would be monitored both by the alarm company and by me as well on the smart phone. If we had to rush back we could do so. I loaded both shotguns into the truck just in case that became necessary. My truck had that small rear passenger compartment, so we propped a shotgun on each side of the rear area. I missed my rear window gun rack, but I would never be able to get to the shotgun fast enough, if I were to use one of those racks.

The thrift store was on the highway into Williamston. I found a multi speed bike on the chained rack. Of course the lady with the key couldn't be found for twenty minutes. Then she had to figure out which key on the ring of a hundred opened the lock. Then and only then could she pull the chain through several bikes to release the bike I wanted. All that shucking and jiving meant it would be a late lunch.

The bike was an older six speed model, but hell Steve was in good shape, I thought. I paid thirty five bucks for the bike. I also insisted we stop by the local auto parts store for a can of bearing grease. I knew how to grease a wheel maybe even the wheel man I thought. Then I decided to stop thinking dirty though like that.

When we got to the truck dealer, I had the bike in the bed of the truck. I'm not sure I looked like a serious biker or trucker at that point. Probably I just looked like a rube, ready for the shucking.

The man who came out was at least sixty. He was dressed way to well for a small town car salesman. He was most likely one of the many people who lost their executive jobs due to the liberal's ideas about spreading the wealth. The best he could do at his age was find a job selling cars on commission. I felt sorry for him, but I had more than my share of shit jobs the last few years. Maybe not for the same reasons but what the hell did it matter anyway.

"Hello there," he said extending his hand first to Steve then to me. "I'm Roy, so looking to trade that old Ford in on a new Dodge?" He was looking at Steve when he spoke.

"Not me partner, but the lady is interested in buying a truck," Steve said making it plain who was in charge of the purse strings.

Roy the salesman didn't miss a beat, "So what you got in mind Ma'am?"

"Let me explain something. I have no brand loyalty. To me it's all about the price," I said. So I need something that does not require a special license endorsement at a decent price.

"Well I think we can beat anybody's price on a comparable vehicle," Roy said.

"I'm looking for a cube van with at least jump seats behind the front bench seat," I said.

"How big you want the cube," Roy asked.

"At least sixteen feet and it has to be driveable by anyone without any special training or license," I demanded. "And Roy, don't run me all over the lot. So why don't you go look at your inventory and find me the lowest price truck that meets those specifications. No special orders or other nonsense just something I can drive home today. Just your closest truck to what I want, and your best price, that's all there is to it," I said.

Steve and I sat with a cup of coffee while Roy looked the information up. "Okay little lady here you go, eighteen foot straight truck. Got a V8 Diesel in her."

"Sounds fine so how much?" I asked.

"Well it comes with," Roy began.

"Roy, I really don't care till I hear the price, then we can talk about what it has or doesn't have," I suggested.

"Forty two thousand and change," he said. "You aren't going to get a better deal anywhere."

"Okay thanks," I said.

"You are just a lookie loo aren't you?" he said as I stood to leave.

"Roy you think what you want," I said. I grabbed Steve before he pounded on Roy. "Steve, we have places to go." He just nodded never taking his eye off Roy.