“The machine was as worn out as the rest of them. It’s a long race.”
“But a magnificent challenge,” said Celere.
“I should also warn you,” said Bell, watching his eyes closely, “that Josephine has remarried.”
Celere surprised him. He would have thought Celere would be troubled to learn that his girlfriend had married. Instead, he said, “Wonderful! I am so happy for her! But what of her marriage to Frost?”
“Annulled.”
“Good. That is only right. He was a terrible husband to her. To whom has she been married?”
“Preston Whiteway.”
Celere clapped his hands in delight. “Ah! Perfect!”
“Why is that perfect?”
“She is a racer. He is a race promoter. A marriage made in Heaven. I can’t wait to congratulate him and wish her happiness.”
Bell glanced at Texas Walt, who was listening at the door, then asked the Italian inventor, “Would you care to get cleaned up first? I’ll find you a razor and some fresh clothes. There’s a washroom in the back of the hangar car.”
“Grazie! Thank you. I really must look a sight.”
Bell exchanged glances with Texas Walt again and answered with a smile that didn’t light his eyes. “You look pretty much like a fellow who crossed the continent in a freight car.”
Bell and Hatfield led him to the washroom and gave him a towel and razor.
“Thank you, thank you. Could I ask one more favor?”
“What would you like?”
“Would there be some brilliantine?” He ran his fingers through his dirty hair. “That I might smooth my hair?”
“I’ll rustle some up,” said Texas Walt.
“Thank you, sir. And some mustache wax? It will be wonderful to be myself again.”
“LIKE A FELLOW WHO CROSSED the continent in a freight car?” Texas Walt echoed Isaac Bell’s assessment with a dubious grin.
Bell grinned back. “What do you think?”
“Looked more to me like the man rode the cushions,” said Hatfield, using the hobo expression for buying a ticket for a parlor car. “Doubt he hit the rails ’til the last hundred miles.”
“Exactly,” said Bell, who had ridden many a freight train while investigating in disguise. “He’s not dirty enough.”
“Ah suppose some lonely ranch wife might have sluiced him off in her horse trough.”
“Might have.”
Texas Walt rolled a cigarette, exhaled blue smoke, and remarked, “Can’t help wonderin’ what Miss Josephine is gonna think. Suppose she’d have agreed to marry Whiteway if she had known Celere was alive?”
“I guess that depends on what they meant to each other,” answered Bell.
“What do we do with him, boss?”
“Let’s see what he’s up to,” answered Bell, wondering whether in Marco Celere’s miraculous return lay the explanation for Harry Frost’s angry You don’t know what they were up to.
MARCO CELERE EMERGED from Bell’s hangar car bathed, shaved, and brilliantined. His black hair gleamed, his cheeks were smooth, his mustache curled at the tips. Bell’s own mustache twitched in the thinnest of smiles when Texas Walt glanced his way. The sharp-eyed Texan had noticed, as had he, that Celere’s clean-shaven cheeks were slightly paler in color than his nose and chin. The difference was almost imperceptible, but they were looking for false notes, and there it was, an indication that he had until recently worn a beard.
Josephine expressed astonishment that Celere was alive. She said she had never given up hope that he had somehow survived. She took his hand and said, “Oh, you poor thing,” when he told his story. She seemed happy to see him, Bell thought, but she turned quickly to the business of the race.
“You couldn’t have come at a better time, Marco. I need help keeping the aeroplane running. It’s getting pretty worn down. I’ll have my husband put you on the payroll.”
“There is no need for that,” Celere replied gallantly, “I will work gratis. After all, it is in my interest, too, that my machine win the race.”
“Then you better get to work,” said Bell. “Weather’s clearing. Weiner of Accounting just announced we’re taking off for Palm Springs.”
MINDFUL THAT ISAAC BELL was watching him like a hawk, Marco Celere waited patiently to have a private conversation with Josephine. He made sure he was never alone with her until after she arrived at Palm Springs. Only the next morning, while they fueled the machine for the short flight to Los Angeles, did he dare to chance speaking. They were alone, pouring gasoline into the overhead gravity tank, while the mechanicians joined the police in clearing spectators from the field.
Josephine spoke first. “Who died in the fire?”
“I found a body in the hobo jungle. Now Platov doesn’t exist.”
“Dead already?”
“Of course. A poor old man. They die all the time. What did you think?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Maybe married life confuses you.”
“What do you mean?”
“What is it like?” Marco teased. “Being Mrs. Preston Whiteway?”
“I postponed my ‘honeymoon’ until after the race. You know that. I told you I would.”
Marco shrugged. “This is like opera buffa.”
“I don’t know anything about opera.”
“Opera buffa is the funny kind. Like vaudeville comics.”
“This is not funny to me, Marco.”
“To me, it’s worth getting shot.”
“How? Why?”
“It’s just that if something were to happen to Preston Whiteway, you would inherit his newspaper empire.”
“I don’t want his empire. I just want to fly aeroplanes and win this race.” She searched his face, and added, “And be with you.”
“I suppose that I should feel grateful you still feel that way.”
“What would happen to Preston?”
“Oh, now Mr. Whiteway is ‘Preston’?”
“I can’t call my husband Mr. Whiteway.”
“No, I suppose you can’t.”
“Marco, what is it? What are you getting at?”
“I just wonder, will you keep helping me?”
“Of course. . What did you mean, if something happens to Preston?”
“Such as Harry Frost, your insanely jealous former husband, murdering your new husband.”
“What are you saying?”
Marco reached over and turned back the sleeve of her blouse, uncovering the bandaged bullet wound on her forearm. “Nothing you don’t already know about the man.”
38
A LOUD, BRIGHT CARNIVAL pitched its tents near Dominguez Field, just south of Los Angeles, and was doing a roaring business from the spillover of the quarter-million spectators who thronged to cheer the arrival of the last two contestants for the Whiteway Cup and send them off to Fresno in the morning.
Eustace Weed was sick with fear over the impending order to contaminate Isaac Bell’s aeroplane fuel and had no desire to go to a carnival. But Mr. Bell insisted that “all work and no play made Jack a dull boy.” He backed up this observation with five dollars’ spending money and strict orders not to bring any change back from the midway. A friend of Mr. Bell’s, a guy Eustace’s age named Dash who’d been hanging around, placing a lot of bets on the race, ever since Illinois, walked over with Eustace from the rail yard and promised they’d meet up later to walk back to the support train.
Eustace won a teddy bear by knocking over wooden milk bottles with a baseball. He was debating mailing it to Daisy or delivering it in person – as if somehow everything would turn out fine – when the toothless old barker who handed him his prize whispered hoarsely, “You’re on, Eustace.”