In a few minutes Eva Steiner is checked out in the blood-red Bianco, takes some stimulants, and moves loudly onto the track. My hearing is numbed by the noise and for a minute we can’t quite talk.
“I’m sorry I get angry,” Massimo begins sheepishly. “I do not like that woman.”
“I don’t, either. But look, I appreciate your getting her here.”
“I find out last night she has a passion for such things,” Massimo says. “I tell you she has hydroplane also, can you imagine? She is worse than they say—in this place, yes, she can do these things.”
At the rising whistle I look out toward the track and follow a wedged Formula E skittering through the S’s.
“But as you say, what a woman this is,” Massimo begins in a tone that sounds strange. “Skin the color of life.”
“Of death, you mean,” I say, turning to see what he is talking about, seeing that he is looking over to the seating tier. Three women dressed in charcoal suits are being seated by an older man dressed in the same style.
“No, not Steiner.” Massimo is laughing, beginning really to laugh, “Rawley…” he says.
In profile she is unmistakable—perfect forehead, aquiline nose, full lips that pout a little, skin the color of cafe latta.
The woman is Collette.
She is staring ahead, oddly inert; when she looks our way from twenty meters distance, her face is slack. She meets my gaze with a blank stare and a faint movement of her lips; doesn’t really seem to know who I am.
“Yes, yet it is true, they all look, for this time of day, Rawley, troppo imbalsamara—what you say, em-balmed.”
She doesn’t seem to know quite who I am even as I point my index finger at her and gently pull the trigger of an imaginary pistol. I hear the low whine and rumble of the Ferrari, look to see the bright red car pounding too high toward us in the S’s. Eva Steiner is visible for an instant, fighting the wheel. She skids along the fence dangerously high, makes it down for the first turn, but the Ferrari is pointed sideways, and she has to let the car slide itself up and out into the far curve, almost to a stop, a dead stop, before she is downshifted and fishtailing into the straight, hard after a Formula E that had blown by her in the second turn.
“Porca madonna,’” Massimo says in disgust. “She thinks she is driving Formula E. My car!”
When I saunter over to the gate, the older man with Collette and the other two women comes over and puts his fingers through the steel links, keeping the gate between us.
“We’re just fine,” he says. He is older, but he isn’t as old as Eva Steiner. His combed black hair is thinning and his complexion is pasty, his eyes watery. “We’re all taken care of.”
“I didn’t ask,” I say. Collette and the other two women are staring ahead at the track. “What are their names?’
“Private party.” He smiles. “That’s just the way it is.”
“Oh, I’m just looking.” I smile back amiably. “I see they’re all dressed the same way. Attractive, really attractive.”
“They’re all named Max, actually,” he tells me with a smile, moving aside a little to show the women off.
“Max?”
“That’s what Eva calls them,” he says, putting himself in my way again, the nervousness returning to his smile.
An irony compounds itself; Max is what we used to call Maxine. Up in the stands the film crew has a telephoto trained on the chute to the S’s, I hear the Ferrari, turn to see. Eva Steiner is too high again. She loses a tenth coming in, two tenths in the way she sets up for the next curve, she still doesn’t quite have the feel of the car.
Collette never takes her eyes off the track—but it doesn’t look as if she’s following any of the cars, either. Or maybe it’s me; when she seems to start to turn my way, I avoid her. She knew all along, I think, she knew all along. Collette looks like heaven in a waiting room of hell.
When the rumbling Bianco del Guidici eases into the pits, Eva Steiner is peeved, her face wet with perspiration, her makeup smeared. She grants the Ferrari its balance but claims the car is too light, says so even as she is climbing from the cockpit.
“I prefer Formula E,” she states once her helmet is off and she drinks some ice water—she scoffs at her lap times, the last few of which weren’t that bad. “It is a matter of power over style. I prefer the power of Formula E to this relic.”
I think Massimo, who has been looking with worry at the Ferrari, has had about enough from Eva Steiner. I can smell the car now—the sharp, overripe odor of nitrogasoline, the heat of it. There is a long, embarrassed silence, Massimo is simply refusing to speak, looking past Eva Steiner’s smile and mocking eyes.
“I could beat you in the Ferrari,” I say evenly. “I don’t think it’s the car.”
The space between us for a moment turns electric. Eva Steiner raises her eyebrows, Massimo falls a step back and looks at me with surprise. Eva Steiner says she considers my remark a challenge; her nostrils flare slightly as she says that.
“I don’t know.” I shrug, thinking, Push this woman, not knowing quite where this is going to go. “I don’t have much time for games.”
“Men only say that when they’re not very good at… games,” she snaps. “I think, with the Governor here as a witness, you’re obliged to prove what you say or retract it. Apologize.”
“I don’t see I have to do either,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck.
Now Massimo’s jaw has gone slack, he is looking at me in wonder—and I’m wondering again what I’m going to say next. If anything is going to happen, it had better be soon.
“Not interested,” she sneers. “Not much of a man, either.”
“Well, what’s at stake here?” I say. “Let’s get this straight. If you’d like to race, fine—that’s about a twenty-five-second handicap I’ve offered you, each lap. But there had damned well better be something on the line. I don’t race for kicks.”
“Ah, straordinario, fantastico!” Massimo exclaims. “I forget I am in LasVenus, yes—there is something in the air of this place!”
“Perhaps you’ll wind up as one of my slaves,” Eva Steiner scowls at me.
“Or you one of mine,” I answer even as I am trying to be certain I’ve heard what she’s said.
The silence of our circle is filled with the noises from pit crew and track, but it is a silence that is charged and palpable. Eva Steiner is appraising me, looking me over from my forehead to my flight shoes, looking straight into my eyes with a slight squint to her own. “I didn’t know you were so inclined,” she says slowly, her pale lips curling into a thin smile.
I say nothing, only raise my eyebrows slightly to suggest that she hasn’t begun to guess the range of my inclinations.
“Very well,” she says, reddening slightly. “I can have a decent car here in two hours. Governor Giroti, I would be pleased if you’d act as our witness. The young man has named the stakes. The loser will become the winner’s slave for a day—until theTube lifts off. Those are my terms. We’ll race one lap from a flying start. Acceptable?’ she asks. “You’ve named the stakes,” she says without really waiting for my answer, verging on anger. “We’ll see who can drive.”
“It is because of this place—do you know we are between two large fault lines in the earth? There is something in the seismicity of this place,” Massimo says after the woman and her service leave abruptly. “The risks men take here are exceptional. I have seen it, that’s why I come. The air here smells of ozone from burning dreams.”
Technicians are pulling the hood on the Ferrari in the cool shade of the metal and concrete building; there is an odor here, the odor of the heated engine, the burning smell is familiar. It takes me back somewhere, pulls me inexorably; yes, I think—the odor of seared cables, of metal too hot to touch, of the last time I saw Maxine. Now to think of Maxine is to think of Collette.