Chapter 6 - The First Fleet
The first three Costa Vanguard haulers arrived at seven o'clock on Monday morning like a storm of blue steel and air brakes.
They were massive International LT625 semi-trucks—the crown jewels of Gabriel’s East Coast distribution line—each pulling a fifty-three-foot refrigerated trailer emblazoned with the silver Vanguard star. They filled the narrow alley behind Bellini Auto, their idling diesel engines making the glass in the garage windows vibrate in their wooden frames.
Frankie stood near Bay One, her arms crossed, watching three drivers in clean blue coveralls step down from their cabs.
At the head of the convoy sat a pristine black Ford F-350 service truck, and stepping out from the passenger side was Gabriel Costa himself.
He wore a dark navy wool coat over a crisp white shirt, no tie, his dark hair catching the crisp morning sunlight. He didn't look like a boss inspecting a job site; he looked like a man who had decided to take a personal stroll through a territory he had just conquered.
"Ms. Bellini," Gabriel said, stepping onto the concrete apron of the bay. "Your new inventory arrived."
Frankie didn't move from her spot. "You said you were sending three trucks for routine maintenance. You didn't say you were sending half the Baltimore harbor fleet."
Gabriel smiled—that slow, effortless tilt of his lips that made her teeth clench. "If we're expanding your capacity, Frankie, we start with a real workload. Truck one needs a complete brake overhaul. Truck two has a coolant leak in the secondary line. Truck three..."
He paused, looking over his shoulder at the third blue hauler.
"...truck three has an electrical ghost that three mechanics in New Jersey couldn't find in two months."
Frankie scoffed, pulling her shop rag out of her back pocket. "New Jersey mechanics think a fuse box is a magic trick. Bring it in."
For six hours, the shop was a whirlwind of noise, heat, and raw labor.
Sal worked on the brake lines of Truck One, his old hands moving with practiced speed. Toby was flushing the coolant system on Truck Two under Frankie’s strict supervision.
And Frankie tackled the ghost in Truck Three.
She spent three hours buried under the dashboard of the massive International LT625, her back resting against the driver's seat, her head crammed into the tight, dark space near the steering column with a bright LED work light clutched between her teeth.
The smell of new leather mixed with hot copper wiring.
A shadow broke the light spilling into the cab.
Gabriel leaned against the open driver’s door, his navy wool coat removed, his white sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing thick, tan wrists covered in dark hair and a simple silver watch.
"Find it?" he asked.
Frankie didn't look at him. She reached up with a long pair of needle-nose pliers, her fingers working blind behind a thick harness of black wires.
"The idiot who installed your aftermarket GPS tracker tapped into the primary engine control unit ground instead of the auxiliary bus," she muttered around the flashlight. "Every time the driver turns on his high beams, the ECU thinks the transmission oil is boiling and drops the engine into limp mode."
Gabriel blinked. "That took three shops in Newark four weeks to figure out."
"That's because three shops in Newark were charging you eighty dollars an hour for diagnostic time," Frankie said, pulling the pliers back with a small, sharp snip. "They didn't want to fix it. They wanted a pension."
She dropped the severed wire into her palm, spit the flashlight into her hand, and slid out of the cab onto the running board.
She was sweating. Her hair was coming loose again, two dark strands hanging across her forehead, and a smudge of fresh copper grease marked the bridge of her nose.
Gabriel was standing less than eighteen inches away on the pavement.
He looked down at her face, his gray-black eyes lingering on the grease mark on her nose for three long seconds.
He didn't move back.
"You're very fast," he noted softly.
"I have work to do," she said, stepping down off the running board, her shoulder brushing his arm as she passed. "Unlike people who stand around in fifty-dollar shirts watching other people earn their money."
Gabriel turned slowly, watching her walk toward her toolbox.
"It was three hundred dollars," he said.
Frankie stopped. "What?"
"The shirt," Gabriel said smoothly, leaning his hip against the blue truck’s grill. "It was three hundred dollars. If you're going to insult my clothes, Frankie, at least get the numbers right."
Frankie turned her head, her dark eyes flashing with sharp amusement before she could stop herself.
"You got cheated," she said. "The collar stitching is uneven."
Gabriel froze. He reached up with his left hand, his thumb touching his collar, his brow furrowing in genuine, bewildered surprise.
May you like
For the first time since she had met him, Gabriel Costa looked entirely off balance.
Frankie let out a tiny, victorious grunt, turned back to her toolbox, and picked up a heavy torque wrench with a feeling of deep, immensely satisfying triumph.
