Chapter Nineteen

“You gonna stick by me?”

“Maybe…”

**

“C’mon man, get your ass out of bed, let’s go,” I called out early Monday morning, leaning through the door to Leon’s room.

“Dom,” he groaned at me, not even opening his eyes. “What time is it, and what the fuck are you doing in my house?”

“I gotta go see a man about a car, and you are going to take me over to his place of business.”

“A car?” he asked, reaching up to run a hand over his face. “Don’t we have a garage full of those already?”

“This one’s special, man,” I replied, laughing. I couldn’t help but think of Letty. Only thing that would ever make you think she and Leon were related was their attitude toward the morning. Never could manage to get Leon into the garage before ten a.m., and he always complained that even that was too damn early to be out of bed. I think Leon would sleep till noon everyday, if he could. Letty was the same way, except she had to get up, for school.

“Special,” he groaned, finally opening his eyes. “Yeah, it’d better be pretty fucking special for you to drag me out of my fucking bed at eight in the fucking morning.”

Leon didn’t say anything else until we got to where we were going, but he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye, like I’d suddenly turned into a creature from outer space or some shit like that. Although, maybe it seemed like I had. I remember I couldn’t stop smiling the entire way over to this garage. I just kept thinking how perfect the next day was going to be. Everything in my life was finally coming together how I wanted. At least I thought it was.

“Dom,” he said as we pulled into the drive of Johnny Tran’s garage. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

“I told you already, Leon…I need to see a man about a car. That man just happens to be Johnny Tran.”

Leon just sighed, looked up at the ceiling of the car before muttering to himself, or maybe praying, “Can we please not start brawling this early in the morning? It’s just wrong.”

I knew Johnny from the races, just like I knew his sister Julie. Rich kids, their dad was the vice president of some company. I never really figured out why Johnny got involved in cars and racing. I guess he thought it would make him look like a bad ass or something. I remember Johnny from when he was sixteen…short, scrawny little Asian punk trying to act like he was Bruce Lee or some shit like that, decided that fucking around with guns and cars would get him some respect. It didn’t…not then, at least. He was the laughing stock of the racing scene, the rich kid who didn’t know what the hell he was doing but who everyone tolerated ‘cause they never got tired of taking his money.

Eventually, Johnny learned how to race right, mostly by pouring money into his car. And he finally got some respect by figuring out that if you do enough crazy shit, people will start leaving you alone. He and his cousin Lance would go out, just for kicks, shoot up some cars, threaten anyone they thought had disrespected them on the streets…catch them alone, drag them to some deserted place and beat the shit out of them, pour gas on them and then play with matches. I think after a while, he started liking it...got off on being known as a sick psycho fuck. Johnny and Lance were basically cowards, though. They never went anywhere without their guns. I always thought of it like this…if you need a gun to back yourself up, you’re not a real man.

Kind of ironic that Johnny’d been pulling shit like that for years with nothing happening to him and yet, I beat up one guy and get sent to jail for two years. Oh well…I guess that’s what happens when you have a rich daddy to keep you out of trouble. Or what happens when you hurt someone who’s not scared to go to the cops afterwards.

Johnny fought almost everyone in the racing world, earning respect by intimidation. But for some reason he never tried to go after me, not even when I started fucking around with his sister. Generally I just avoided him, but now, he had something I wanted.

“This way,” I told Leon as we got out of his car and walked into the garage’s office.

“Dom,” Johnny said, barely acknowledging me.

“Hey Johnny,” I replied. “You got the keys and slip for me?”

“Yeah, yeah…don’t know what you want with this car anyways.”

“Now, Johnny,” I said slowly. “Come on. You gonna be like that? We raced for slips, and you lost. Now, if you want me to take your car instead of this one, hey, I won’t argue. I was just trying to do you a favor, since we’re old friends and all and I’ve been looking for a car like this for a while now.”

“Whatever, Toretto,” was all Johnny said as he handed me the keys and the pink slip.

“Nice doing business with you, Johnny. Be seeing you at the races, huh?” I said as Leon and I went outside to collect the car.

“A 240-SX, Dom?” Leon asked when he saw it.

“Let’s just get out of here already, Leon,” I replied, knowing what he was thinking. “We can talk when we get home.”

I remember dreading getting back to Leon’s garage. That day was probably the only time in my life I’ve been grateful for LA traffic. I just knew Leon was gonna ask what I was planning on doing with the car. And, I was right.

Leon was already inside when I got back, working on one of the cars. He didn’t even look up when I came in, just started talking.

“What the fuck are you doing with a 240-SX, Dom? And getting it from Johnny Tran?” he asked. “I know there’s no way in hell you want that car for yourself, and I damn well hope we didn’t go over to Tran’s this morning just ‘cause you thought it would be fun to drag me out of bed and see if maybe we could get killed today.”

“It’s for Letty,” I replied slowly. “For her birthday.”

“Oh, I see…for Letty’s birthday. Right. And how much did it cost you?”

“Didn’t cost me anything. I’ve been thinking about buying her one for a while, just didn’t find any I liked. But then I heard Johnny Tran had this car just sitting over at his place. Knew he’d try to charge me triple the value of it, didn’t really feel like putting up with his bullshit, so I raced him for slips the other night, and won. Told him I’d take this car instead of his. Plus a few grand, call us even.”

Finally, Leon looked over at me, disbelieving. “So…you could’ve lost your car over this. The one you’ve been working on for months, pouring all of your money into… All to get Letty a present for her birthday? Forget that this ‘present’ would’ve cost you at least fifteen grand if you actually bought it…”

“I wanted to do something nice for her. She’s a good kid, she’s been a good friend,” was all I could say.

“A good kid…right,” Leon drawled. “Sure. And you really expect me to believe you went to all this trouble for just a kid, just a friend? Shit, dawg, you think no one can see how bad she’s got you whipped?”

“Whipped? You should talk, man,” I muttered. “’Cause I seem to remember you getting a new car for Amber not too long ago…”

“Quit trying to change the subject, Dom. We’re not talking about me and Amber, we’re talking about you and Letty. Your ‘friend’ Letty.”

“Well…maybe she’s more…” I admitted, hesitantly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Leon retorted. “Not exactly what I had in mind when I asked you to help me look out for her, you know.”

“Not exactly what I had in mind either,” I tried to explain. “But Letty…she just feels right. Like I need her. I tried to stay away…believe me. It just didn’t work.”

“Well,” Leon finally said minutes later. “I guess I can understand that. And there are worse guys out there she could be with... But, if you hurt her, I’m going to have to fucking kill you.” And with that, he threw a dirty rag at me and went back to working on the car’s engine.