He wondered if he was unable to tell the kid about his past because he couldn’t stand the idea of those blue eyes looking at him with amused contempt.
They pulled into the Acme track at nine in the morning the day before the race. Two cars, a gray one with red trim and a battered pale blue job were making lazy laps, the drone of the power plants racketing through the sultry morning air.
A mech clung to the side of the pale blue job, his head close to the bonnet listening for the bugs.
An official gave Whitey the pit assignment and he and the kid unhooked the yellow iron, united the tarp, began to go over it with loving hands. From time to time Bob would straighten up, look at the black oval and sigh.
“How does it look, kid?” Whitey asked.
Bob touched his stomach. “It gives me butterflies. Right here.”
“That’s what it should do, Bob. A guy who is bored by the whole thing can’t drive worth a damn.”
Whitey felt the same thrill as he looked at the wide expanse of empty stands, the pennants sagging in the morning heat, the dark oval. But as he smelled the familiar reek of hot oil, scorched rubber and blistering paint, he wanted with all his heart to get in the sedan, turn away from the track and never come back. He could not understand the impulse that had made him do this thing. It was tied up so closely with his utter defeat. It seemed almost as though he had been forced to come back to a track just to know how much he had lost. Self-respect. Honor. Pride.
He squatted in the dust and began an inch by inch inspection of the casing of one of the brand-new tires.
Together they polished, adjusted, checked. They filled the tank with the special mixture. Bob’s lips were pale as he pulled on the helmet, slid down behind the wheel. He snapped the goggles over his eyes and tried to smile as Whitey handed him the gloves.
“Bob,” Whitey said, “you keep an eye on pressure and r.p.m. and take three slow ones to get the feel. Keep a wide clearance on those two wagons out there. If everything is O.K. on the three slow ones, take three at a good clip and check again. Then take three flat out.”
He gave the yellow car a push with the sedan, turned back to the pit, parked close against the rail, got out and leaned against the rail, his fingers tightly clenched.
The hazy sun glinted on the polished metal, and the motor droned. When Bob went by the pit again, he waved.
Whitey noticed that the blue wagon was off the track. He thought nothing of it until a mild cool voice said, “Well, well. My favorite lush! What wave of bar whiskey washed you up here, Edison?”
He turned quickly, his lips stiff. “Carter!” he gasped.
Sig Carter, tall, lean, weathered, looked at Whitey’s stained hands and said, “What damn fool is letting you mech for him?”
“It’s the son of the man I work for, Carter. He’s a good boy. Bob Oliver.”
“Never heard of him. He must be green. This is a fat purse down here, Whitey. A lot of big time will be around. Your green boy’ll get run into the ground. That is, if you don’t get stinko and forget to fasten the tie rod ends.”
Whitey felt his face redden. He doubled a big fist and turned slowly toward Sig Carter. Carter looked at the fist in mild surprise, laughed nastily and walked away.
Whitey felt his anger slowly drain away. After all, he had no right to be angry. Sig Carter was merely expressing what all of them had a right to feel. A sudden alteration in the sound of the motor on the mile-long oval snapped him to attention. Bob was letting it out. He watched carefully. His timing seemed good. The car snugged down against the macadam and whined smoothly around the curves.
As the motor pitch changed again, he took out a stop watch, thumbed it as the yellow iron flashed by. As it came around again he stopped the hand. Thirty-one and two tenths seconds for the lap. Very nice indeed! Thirty seconds flat would be a hundred and twenty miles an hour.
Bob took two slow laps and coasted in. He jumped out, grabbed Whitey’s shoulders and swung him around in a grotesque dance.
“We got it, Whitey! We got it!”
Whitey forced himself to scowl. “Hell, boy, it’s easy to make time with nobody on the track.”
But Bob refused to be dispirited. They checked it over again, added the minutes of running time to the motor log, checked temperatures.
“Notice anything?” Whitey asked.
“A little flutter on deceleration, when it’s about halfway unwound. Not serious.”
Sig Carter came up again — a stocky wide man with somber deep-set eyes matching Carter’s long strides. Whitey forced himself to say, “Hi there, Yobe. Bob, meet Sig Carter and Wally Yobe. This is Bob Oliver, boys.”
Bob’s eyes widened and he shook hands eagerly. “Gosh, it’s nice to meet you guys. I know your national rating. I never thought I’d be on the same track with you two.”
Wally Yobe smiled briefly. “Nice iron, kid. Who built it?”
“Why, Whitey and I built it,” Bob said proudly.
“You have any parts left over the last time you pasted it together?” Sig asked, glancing meaningly at Whitey.
It was obvious that Bob didn’t get the joke, if any. He laughed nervously. “No, it’s all there,” he said.
“You got a good enough mech, kid?” Yobe asked.
Bob frowned. “Whitey and I can handle her. Whitey does the real tough mech work.”
“That’s what I meant, kid,” Yobe said, no smile on his lips.
Whitey heard himself laugh loudly and unnaturally. “You boys are great kidders. Yes, sir. Great kidders.”
Bob joined in the laugh. Both Carter and Yobe smiled briefly and walked away. Yobe turned and called back, “Don’t give us a bad time out there tomorrow, kid.”
Bob worked silently for a few minutes. Then he straightened up and made a smear of dirt across his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. His eyes were puzzled. “Those guys acted funny.”
“How so?”
“Well, I thought that when you got together with the guys you used to race against, you’d be pounding each other on the back and all that stuff.”
Whitey shrugged. “Well, you know bow it is. Sometimes you have more in common with some people than you do with other people.”
“They kidded you in a funny way, Whitey.”
“Did they? I didn’t notice,” Whitey said.
Chapter II
Sucker Punch
They had lunch together at a stand near the track. When they got back a few people were drifting into the stands. They had come to watch the time trials. By then most of the irons had arrived. Whitey counted twenty-five. He guessed off-hand that probably six or seven wouldn’t qualify. That still left a very packed track for the race. Three hundred laps. Two and a half hours of bitter, deadly grind, the sort that leads to complete physical and nervous exhaustion.
The sleepy track of the morning hours suddenly began to have a deadlier look, a competitive look. Whitey wondered about death. He looked down the line of cars, wandering which one, twenty-four hours from that moment, would be headed on the grind that would leave it a mass of scrap that might have to be torch-cut to haul away.
The track was bitter hot all through the afternoon. About half the time trials were run and four cars couldn’t qualify. Whitey recognized two more drivers from the old days. Veteran drivers. Skip Morgan and Red Lariotti. And neither one of them came near him. He saw Bob looking at him with puzzled concern. He began to wish that the kid had been told about Whitey Edison and about how a man can lose his nerve and his courage and all the things that hold him together.
At dusk they took their bedrolls from the sedan and spread them on the dust close to the yellow wagon. Bob wandered off down the pit line. Whitey knew that he couldn’t stop the boy, that he couldn’t prevent the boy from going and talking to the others. Whitey snapped his cigarette away and said a silent prayer. If only none of the others, the old-timers, would let the kid know until after the race was over. Then it might not make so much difference. But to have it happen before the race...