Nice neighborhood - fancy new apartments and houses that weren't here when I was last in town. But I find the address easy enough, slow the Indian outside a small, but new painted place with flowers in the front yard. There's a ramp out front, but I don't really process that, not until the guy who answers the door does so in a wheelchair.

I kept the piece of paper Randle gave me. I called.

Wheelchair Guy introduces himself, shakes my hand and spins around, expecting me to follow.

The place is clean, for a guy's house, I guess. The furniture is kind of shoved against the walls, but that lets him get around in the chair and he's quick, leads me through to the kitchen. Two other guys are at the table, cards and poker chips in the middle.

One, the older one, has a burn scar down one half of his face, his ear melted away. The younger guy looks whole. I'm grateful for that, I would have felt like a fraud if this was some kind of 'damage club'.

"Beer." The guy in the wheelchair points to a couple of six packs on the counter as I take a seat.

"And I'm Stu," the scarred guy holds out his hand, shooting the host a look that lets him know his hosting skills suck.

I shake his hand, say hello, and nod hello at the last guy. He's younger than me, and way younger than the other two. He smiles. Slowly.

"I'm Ben..." he pauses, in case I don't need the next clue, but I do."...Giametti."

I blink. "Little Spaghetti?"

He grins. "One of 'em."

"You know each other?" Wheelchair Guy queries.

"Sure, he used to be my brother Carlo's boss, huh?" Carlo. I never called Spaghetti 'Carlo' in my life. And I never kept up with the names of all his kid brothers. Little Spaghetti leans back dramatically, arms wide. "You boys are in the presence of greaser royalty here. This is Tim Shepard, used to run the toughest gang in the neighborhood, back in the day."

Stu snorts.

Ben leans over and rubs the fabric of Stu's shirt sleeve in his fingers. He sends a stage whisper my way, "Soc." He pulls a face.

"Shut up and deal." Stu flicks a pretzel at Spaghetti's kid brother. "Before I remind you what side of the tracks I got drug up on. A man can appreciate nice threads without being a South side candy ass." He smooths an invisible wrinkle out of his shirt. His hand is scarred too.

They laugh and get to the game. I let them deal me in and I go through the motions. Try to relax.

"Tim?" the guy in the wheelchair, Donnie, I try to think of him by name, is asking me a question.

"Sorry. What?"

"You wanna get a smoke?" He gestures to the back porch. I shrug, but I follow him.

"My wife puts up with the rest of it, but she hates these things in the house." He pulls out a kick ass cigar and offers me one. I shake my head and light a weed. No wonder the house looked nice, if he has a wife. I figure she must have decided to stick by him, injury and all. "...she wants it all new looking still, we only moved here last year, after the wedding..."

I wasn't hearing everything he said, but that snaps me back to listening.

Donnie watches me for a second. "Okay. So I was gonna let you ease in, play a few hands, maybe save the talking 'til next time, but you didn't seem very comfortable."

"You just got married?" I'm aware I'm interrupting.

He nods. "You wanna make some big lesson out of that? Life goes on? That kind of shit?"

I stare.

"Forget it, man, I ain't a shrink, none of us are. Just some guys who ain't gonna freak, you mention something that ordinary people don't wanna hear." He shrugs. "Talk. Don't talk. Up to you."

I mumble that I expected to see Randle here.

"Yeah, usually. He said you might prefer it if he didn't show tonight." Donnie shrugs. "Said to say though, that you were right about Dallas, but that's a different group of guys, you got that in common with. I ain't never been to Texas, so I guess Steve knows what he's talking about."

"I owe him an apology." I sigh. "I owe a lot of people an apology."

"Your family?" When I look surprised, Donnie shrugs. "Comes with the territory, it seems. Stu reckons a person can afford to take out their shit on the people they trust the most."

God help my brothers, I think. And, unexpectedly, that makes me smile.

"So. If you talk, what are you talking about? I was Eleven Bravo, pure and simple, but Stu was a helicopter mechanic and Ben was AG on a 107, like Steve's."

It's been a while, but the sounds fall off my tongue, "LRRP."

He nods. And I know that he knows. I don't have to explain. Don't have to try to convey the fact that six men can go out on their own, for days - weeks, even - setting their own schedule, living by rules that no one ever wrote down. Sleeping in the jungle, crawling through territory that don't exist on any carefully colored map. Killing or being killed.

And the fact that I don't have to explain is like a pressure valve that just got loosened. Fuck, I do owe Randle an apology.

Donnie smiles around the stub of his cigar. I finished my weed without even noticing.

"So. You any good with cards, or what?" He wheels himself inside and I follow.

xXXXx

I take a detour, on my way home. My internal map of the area won't help, because I never did know where Randle lived. But this house I know. Slept on their couch once, if my memory serves. I notice that there's a new door and the porch is fresh painted. Everything changes, I guess.

Darry Curtis tells me the address I need, but looks as if he ain't sure whether he oughta. I wonder what Randle told him about me.

I pull up next to a front yard littered with kids' toys; a tiny bike, piles of battered cars and a catcher's mitt on the walk, a single roller skate that I avoid on the porch steps.

As I reach the top, a shriek goes up from inside the house: "The motorcycle man is here!"

"Hello, Motorcycle Man." Evie smiles at me, opening the screen door. I tell her I won't come in, I just want to talk to Randle. He appears and walks out on the porch with me.

"I went to Donnie's." I tell him. He nods, not making it easy for me. And why should he? I tell him I was a prick for what I said, about Dallas. And that I appreciate what he was trying to do for me. I tell him thanks again, for the use of his stuff.

"Seems like you took a long road home," he comments. "You got here in the end, though."

Roots'll pull a man back, Shep.

Yeah.

I nod, in answer to both of them.

Not quite all the way though. Not yet.