I opened the door and placed my hands to avoid the glare of the headlight. "That's her...she's yours now. I don't think I'd need the leather saddlebags. Do you have the types of saddlebags for a high rider on a Rebel?"
"I've got the throw over hard saddle bag for touring. It's a good 40 litres on each side. Or soft saddle ones with trimmings on its sides and studs all over... Both models are thrown over types; over or under its seat. No hindrance for the passenger even though Rebel is a single-seater."
"Or you could still use your existing ones. No problem. This girl here is gonna be stripped down and remodelled and be sent to a place called BikeWorks."
The moment it was mentioned as 'stripped down and remodelled' I felt my chest tightening up. Phantom Shadow had been with me over 4 years now... Ah well, I think it's time for it to retire. The old girl had clocked up some hefty 300k miles on it. Hahahahaha. No one gonna have a bike that was overused.
I got hold of my duffel bag and placed it in the back seat of the truck and gave my keys over to Ripley who eased the bike on a ramp and onto the truck. He places several cloths over it and secured the fat straps on it to steady the bike during transportation.
He removed the saddlebags, GPS holder and the unit before he hooked the bike up and places it in the back seat near my duffel bag. I secured the front door and made sure that the apartment was packed clean before I placed the coin back at the top door frame.
And of course, some readers would be observant enough and yes... I didn't forget my laundry in the dryer and had been stuffed in the duffel as well. Thank you.
I sidled up to the passenger seat as Ripley started his truck up and heads to his workshop. It was a quiet journey to his place as he was a soft-spoken person. Only speaks when spoken to and will definitely talk on endlessly if discussing bikes.
We reached his place and saw Rebel was under wraps under the street light of his house. He eased his truck and parked and told me that he would look into the bike tomorrow morning. He walked out of his truck and went inside the house and came out with Rebel's keys.
"Here you go. Let her rip. This stretch of road is great for drag. See how it feels like. It would hit 100km/h under 4 seconds, mind you. Go... Test it out."
He threw me the keys and I caught it in mid-air and walked over to Rebel and uncovered the light digi camo tarp over it. I spoke gently to it as I traced my fingers over the tail, the seat, the high tank and finally where the ignition is.
I straddled the bike and it felt cushy and a small groin pad was near the tank to prevent sliding on to it. I kicked its stand-in and slid the bike out on to the driveway. I inserted the key in its ignition and turned. All lights lit up on the speedo and I hit the electric starter.
Just one touch, the ignition roared to life and purred down... I changed the gears and it indicated on the speedo display. I wring twice on the throttle and it roared with its powerful engine. A feeling much greater than Phantom.
I slowly open throttle and the bike picked up 35 on 1st gear and changing gears was smooth and it went up to 60 on 2nd and 80 on 3rd. I quickly downshifted and the engine brake causes the bike to slow down but with a slight shudder...not bad... Not bad at all.
This time I let the machine rip as I tore through the path at 3rd gear and I was only opening the throttle like an inch or so and hit 100 km/h as I zipped past where Ripley was. Just 3rd gear and it hit 100 easily. Not bad.....
I downshifted to neutral and let the bike ride clutch free till it came to the turn-in point from the main road and I stopped and turned about. I went to 1st and rode up and performed a wheelie after I pulled back on the handlebars and open throttle for about 2 inches and the machine roared while Beast and Spotty were prancing around on their hind legs like they were also performing a wheelie.
The bike felt alright...not too heavy or light and seemed well-weighted. With a shotgun on its side, this would make a perfect Vamp Killer to those Night Walkers and Weres included.
I turned into the driveway and switched the bike off. "Yeah... It is a deal. I like it. You accept ATM?"
"Hahahaha... This is the first time someone asked me if I accept ATM or not. Well, ATM is just like cash and yeah, of course, there's a terminal in there to process all kinds of payment."
"You wanna check out the area where you wanna scoop up the CCTV coverage? It's not gonna be a federal offence, ain't it?"
"HaiLoong's missing... No one gave me no shit of where he disappeared to. I don't even have a clue who his team were."
"No shitting me, missus. Spying on a DEA staff? I hope it won't land me in the alligators' pit. Yeah... I hope it doesn't."
"Nope, it won't. Do you have the CCTV IP for the street across the building?
I sat behind Ripley as he keyed in a search in Google to get the CCTV ranges for public view and he found the one I was looking for.
"Try a search for 5 days ago and see if you can capture anyone from there. Try it let say about 5 am onwards."
A flurry of the search was made through its thumbnail viewer that indicated the date and time I desired and watched the video at 1.5x rate the normal speed. I saw a bike whizzing past and asked Ripley to freeze-frame and backtrack and true enough it was HaiLoong on his Kawasaki and heading toward the parking lot beside the building.
After several successful searches and several printouts later, I had a timeline on what time he left with his teammates and with whom he was with at that time.
Using the timeline, I was able to track from every traffic light camera until it left certain grey out areas and was untraceable during that time. Each was printed out and marked with a sharpie of the date and time.
I had a few closeups of the team members that were printed and one of them was Pailong. Why did he never want to reveal where they had gone to and why didn't they have a SAR for poor HaiLoong.
I checked his Twitter and Facebook account and did not reveal anything out of the ordinary was last logged in 5 days ago. I signed inwardly as I can't figure out what was happening to HaiLoong at this moment.
"I'll send the freezer to you tomorrow after I've got the bike over to Bike Works first then to your place by 8am."