Okay, she said and went back to her pancakes. It was the most important conversation they would have that morning, and neither of them made a big deal out of it. That was the Callaway. The garage was on Birch Street, two blocks east of Maine. It had been sitting empty for 3 years.
The previous owner, a man named Hector Puit, who Rey had never met, had run it for 22 years before his knees gave out. The building was solid, good bones, the kind of construction from the 1960s that didn't care about looking pretty, but cared deeply about not falling down. The sign above the beta door said Callaway Auto. Now, Ray had put it up himself on his first visit to town 3 weeks prior. Just the name.
No tagline, no phone number on the sign, no promise of honest work and fair prices the way a lot of shops advertised. He figured if the work was honest and the prices were fair, people would say so. And if they didn't, no sign was going to fix it. He spent the first two days getting the space organized. It was work he understood down to the bone.
The arrangement of tools, the way the light fell through the bay doors in the afternoon, the placement of the hydraulic lift, the small refrigerator in the corner that would hold water in summer, and on certain evenings, two bottles of beer, there was a radio. He set it to a country station that played older stuff. Cash Haggard Wayan Jennings. Music with dust on it. Music that had lived a life.
He didn't think about Memphis. He didn't think about the years before Memphis. He just worked. Maya came by after school on the second day and sat on a stool near the door doing homework and occasionally passing him a wrench without being asked. She'd grown up in garages.
She knew their language. Coach Burch says I can come to practice Thursday. She said not looking up from her notebook that the cheer coach. Yeah, good. She seems okay.
Mia paused like actually okay. Not fake okay. High bar. Ray said I've met a lot of fake okay. Mia said simply he couldn't argue with that.
On the third morning, while Ray was doing inventory on the tool chest, his phone rang again. The same unknown number, this time he answered, "Ray Callaway. " The voice on the other end was familiar in the way that old scars are familiar. "You stop noticing them until something presses on them. " "Ghost," Ray said. A pause. Then, you know, most people say hello first.
Most people don't call me 14 times without leaving a message. Another pause. Longer this time. Ray heard road noise in the background. This was a man calling from a moving vehicle, which meant he didn't want the call traced to a fixed location that told Ry something.
I need to see you, Ghost said. You know where I am. That's the problem, Ray. Ghost's voice dropped. Someone else knows where you are, too, and they knew before you told anyone.
The radio played on. Merl Haggard. The fight inside of me. How long? Ry asked.
Few weeks, maybe more. Who? Someone in a nice suit who drives a car with county plates. I've been asking around a beat name Hard Grove mean anything to you? Ray said nothing for a moment.