The straightaway gave him enough push so that he had to drop it back just a bit further on the east corner. Then the stands were a gray blur on the right. In the distance the flag twinkled, flashed down and he went by.
He lifted the throttle, took the entire lap to slow down under compression, eased it into the pit and cut the motor. He heard the announcement then. “Whitey Edison, driving the Edison Special, qualifies with a one lap speed of one hundred fifteen and six tenths miles per hour.”
There was a mild murmur from the stands. It was fair speed. Not good enough to win the best post positions. Good enough to qualify with an adequate margin.
His fingers were stiff from just one lap. He pushed the goggles up, wiggled out of the car, feeling soft and old and too tired.
Bob approached, his face white with anger, a dull red patch on his chin. Sig Carter, sardonically amused, stood behind the kid.
“Just what are you trying to do?” Bob said thickly, his voice dangerously low.
“Yeah,” Sig said. “Ain’t you getting a little virtuous in your old age, Whitey?”
Whitey knew that he could drop the helmet, gloves, goggles in the dust, turn and walk off the track. It would be far easier than trying to force himself into the main go.
“You can’t drink and drive, kid,” he said softly.
“Maybe you can’t,” Bob said. “These other guys can. So can I. Put up your hands, Edison. Nobody sucker-punches me and gets away with it.”
“Give it to him, kid,” Sig said softly, his eyes shining.
“Just a minute!” Whitey snapped. The tone of his voice stopped the slowly advancing boy. Whitey pushed by him, walked up to Sig. Sig tensed. “This is private, Carter,” Whitey said. “Move along.”
“I like it here,” Sig said.
Whitey slammed a big hand into Sig’s middle, stepped inside the looping right and knocked the lean man down with his own right. Sig gasped in the dust, his eyes momentarily glazed. He shook his head to clear it.
“Now go home,” Whitey said.
Sig got up slowly, moved off with painful dignity, with apparent unconcern. Fifteen feet away he turned and said, “Better let the kid drive, Whitey. I might take it in my head out there to send you after Steve.”
Whitey swallowed hard on the nausea that filled his throat. He turned, grabbed the front of Bob’s shirt in his left hand, slapped the kid backhand and forehand across the mouth in steady rhythm, backing him slowly up against the iron pipe fence at the back of the pit.
He stopped slapping. Bob stood woodenly, a trickle of blood on his chin.
“Sucker!” Whitey hissed. “Chump! No-good green kid! Suckered right out of a chance to build a rating. Look at you! You can’t even stand straight! The smart boys sucked you in, laddy. They were afraid of the car. You wouldn’t last fifty laps. This is a man’s work, kid. It isn’t for big-mouth boys. I’ve got half the car. And I’m driving. Get that straight!”
Bob said uncertainly, “They told me you can’t drive.”
“Maybe I can’t, kid. I don’t know. But there’s no doubt about you. I’m sure you can’t drive.”
Bob twisted away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His fists were doubled. Whitey stood calmly and stared at him. Bob finally turned away, his shoulders slack, his feet scuffing in the dust. He sat at the edge of the pit, his head cradled on his knees.
For a few moments Whitey had felt that the clock had turned back, that he was a driver, like he had once been. But the fear was deep inside him. It had merely been waiting. Fear was a quiet gray, viscous pool that lapped slowly at the walls of his heart. Forgotten for a moment, it began to seep up through him again, parching his mouth, tightening his throat, coating the heavy palms of his hands with oily sweat.
He looked down the line, saw Sig Carter standing next to Yobe. They were talking. Yobe was laughing.
A car whined by, flat out, the wind of its passage spiraling up dust-devils at the edge of the pit. It was a virulent orange car. Above the cowl he saw the unhelmeted bristle of Red Lariotti’s bullet head. He watched with professional interest, gauging the stability of the orange iron as it hit the west corner. Lariotti was a contradiction of terms, an old driver and an uncautious driver. He shouldn’t have lived so long.
Whitey looked at the track and knew he would have to drive the race. The yellow car, which had looked so sleek, so reliable, suddenly had a sullen, deadly look about it. The look of a blued-steel barrel pointed at his head. The gleam of a yellow knife, cool across his throat. He wanted a drink badly. He wanted the courage that a drink would give him. He looked at his watch. Starting time, three hours away.
Chapter III
The Man Behind the Wheel
Whitey ate very lightly, very slowly, forcing relaxation on himself so that the food would not knot his stomach. He bought adhesive, a wide type, and he taped his middle, drawing it tight across the small of his back. He shaved his wrists and taped them too, not so tightly as to cut circulation, but enough to give support.
When he got back to the pit, Bob Oliver was gone. The stands were full and the overflow was beginning to spread along the fence. But not on the curves. No man was fool enough to stand at a curve.
It took a precious half hour to locate a willing kid who knew something about cars, to hire him, to coach him in the teamwork necessary to gas the iron quickly, yank rubber and replace it. He gave the kid chalk and a blackboard and told him to keep track of laps, of his position, to hold up the board every fifth lap until two hundred and ninety laps had been completed. Then every lap to the end.
Inside he had the cold feeling that he would never live to the two hundred and ninetieth lap. But maybe it didn’t make a hell of a lot of difference. If he died on the track maybe Bob Oliver would be cured of the bug, of the racing disease. And that would be almost a fair return for what the kid’s father had done for Whitey Edison.
Something had happened to his vision and his hearing. All colors were intensified and all sounds. The startling vividness of everything intensified his desire to live, fighting against the fatalism that had begun to fill him.
The race was scheduled to start at two. At one-thirty the stuttering roar of motors killed all other sounds. Whitey watched the racing cars, picked out Red Lariotti’s orange job, the battered blue iron driven by Sig Carter, Wally Yobe’s job in battleship gray, Skip Morgan driving the Ace Special in fire-engine red.
They had their positions. Whitey wedged his bulk behind the wheel, chilled in spite of the heat of the sun. He had checked every inch of the car. There were nineteen entered. Five abreast in three rows, four in the last. He was second from the inside rail in the second row.
He was pushed and for painful moments the motor wouldn’t catch. At last it did and he joined the slowly circling cars which were loosely edging into position. At a few minutes after two the formation was reasonably tight, going down the far straightaway, the white pacemaker sedan leading. The sedan upped its speed coming around the east comer and the power plants began to blare. Down the straightaway, the stands on the right. Perfect formation. The sedan gunned over the starting line, darted out of the way. The blue flag flashed down and the formation jumped ahead, gaps beginning to widen.
Still too tightly bunched, they roared down at the west comer. It was very unlike the qualifying heat. The outside world was a blur, a stream of misty color. The cars around him were solid and real, apparently motionless, his speed being measured only in reference to theirs.