Johnny had figured it nicely. He was riding high on the curve and he merely cut it in to the left and zoomed right between the pale blue job and Brick. It was pretty driving, but not the kind that lets you grow old gracefully. You could hear the yell of the crowd over the drone of the motors.
By the time Brick got under control, Johnny had three hundred feet on him and was still moving away. He was all alone on the south end, so he pulled that skid trick of his which gave him a little more distance.
While Brick trying to catch him, Gidge Putner made his bid in the old Walker Super. Gidge is one of the old men of the game. Hell, he drove a wagon in the big day when they still had two men in them.
And he kept Brick busy. They fought on turn and backstretch for fifteen laps before Brick made it so stiff for Gidge that he dropped back and held his place. By then Johnny was a full half lap in the lead.
With Gidge off his tail. Brick started to close the distance. But there was only three laps to do it in. It couldn’t be done.
Johnny breezed home without trouble, with Brick streaming in five hundred feet behind him. Putner was fourth.
Brick tore off his helmet and his face was white with anger. “You saw what that Wall character did, didn’t you, Joe?”
I grinned. “He passed you.”
“Not that, damn it! I could have been in trouble. How the hell did he know? I might have needed the room to cut back from that fence.”
“Take it easy, Brick,” I said. “I’ve seen you do the same thing.”
“He didn’t give that number twenty-three official clearance.”
“Then it’s up to that guy to shout about it, not you, Brick.”
“Are you pulling for Wall, Joe?”
There was a sneer behind his words. “I’m pulling for the Jeyett Special, son,” I said.
“Tomorrow we’ll see how good you do with him.”
“I’ll do okay, Brick. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about me at all.”
He spat into the dust and turned away. “Wall seems to rile him,” Hoop said quietly.
“Guys who get riled don’t live long,” I said. And then I was sorry I said it. When you follow the iron from track to track you never know how long you’re going to be around. So you don’t talk that way. Any more than you try to buy insurance. If Brick should get it, I’d wonder if I’d hexed him by saying that.
It was a hot evening and the town was full of little kids lapping ice cream cones, girls in light dresses, the sound of laughter and loud music. A carnival atmosphere. I didn’t get hungry until after dark, and then I took a cab into town. Brick was out in the sedan and Hoop and Gil were overhauling our spare power plant just in case it would have to be set in before the big race.
There was a place where the pale green neon yelled about steaks and air conditioning and all legal beverages. I decided I’d blow myself to a good meal and then go back to the hotel near the track and fold up.
The interior was dim and paneled and nice. As I went by a booth a girl’s voice said, “Joe! Hello!”
I turned. It was Wall and his sister. Johnny said, “Eating alone? Move in here with us. We’re celebrating.”
Johnny looked gay enough, but the sister didn’t look too happy.
I sat beside her. Johnny grinned across at me and said, “I’ve been trying to convince Janey that I don’t take chances.”
“After you convince her, you might try Brick Arlen. He needs convincing.”
Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Arlen? Didn’t he like the way I slipped by him today? Hell, there was a lot of room. Two or three inches on either side.”
Janey looked as if she were about to cry. “Arlen didn’t like it,” I said. “He’s sore and he’s a redhead and he’s driving the Special on the big day. I’m wheeling it tomorrow.”
“I’d rather race against Arlen,” he said. “I like a man who gets sore. Then he makes mistakes. You’re as cold as a snowman out there, Joe.”
“Maybe I look that way. In the middle I’m made of mush.”
“Johnny,” Jane said, “I don’t want Arlen mad at you on the last day. Why don’t you find him and apologize?”
Johnny got sore. “Apologize! For what? For winning a pipsqueak race? Arlen’s got pebbles in his head.”
“He’s a rough little man,” I said. “Garry Larue tried to run him off the track in a dirt job in Atlantic City three years ago. Neither one of them would give up. Brick held it steady as she went, and when he saw the wheels about to look, he went downstairs. Brick walked away from it. Garry won’t ever do any more walking.”
Jane gasped. She put the back of her hand to her mouth. I was sorry I said it. I got a good look at her out of her work clothes. She was something very Special, I decided. Very special indeed.
When Johnny left the table to get some change, she put her hand on my arm and said, “Please, Joe. He’d promised not to race any more if he wins the main event the day after tomorrow. See if you can keep Brick from getting too angry. I... I don’t want anything to happen. You see, Joe, he’s all I’ve got, now.”
I looked into her eyes and we sat there like a couple of fools, feeling something happen to the two of us, and then I felt myself blushing and I looked away. When I looked back she was as red as I thought I was. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
“Thanks, Joe,” she whispered.
There were eleven cars in the hundred miler. We lined up, four, four and three. I was in the back row, in the middle, with Johnny on my right. I grinned at him, and saw his lips move, but I couldn’t hear what he said over the roar of the motors.
The start was ragged, and they flagged it down and we went around again. This time it was okay.
As in the beginning of every race, I glanced around at the other cars, wondered who would be dead when it was over.
Some neck-and-neck kids bottled us until the second turn, and then the kid on the outside didn’t seem to turn at all. He went through the fence, tossing timbers high in the air. I gulped, but before I could move outside to ease by where he had been, Johnny had moved up with me, driving straight ahead for the hole.
The second time around I caught a fleeting glimpse of the gap in the fence, oily smoke rising in a plume beyond it.
I fell in behind Johnny and rode his tail. It seemed that I’d better let him make the race. He was my reference point, and it was no trick keeping right on his tail.
But I went to sleep doing it. I was out too far when we were lapping the end of the string, and Harkness boiled by me on the inside, slamming it into a tight turn that swung his deck dangerously near me, his experimental job whining like the Cleveland Air Races. It had a lot of stuff.
He screamed out in front of Johnny, too. And Johnny tried to sneak high and cut in on the next curve, but he couldn’t get enough clearance. The Sternevaunt moved out and Johnny tucked his nose behind it, with me behind him, and in that way, in that order, by the time we had finished the twentieth, we were a lap and a half on the nearest competition. It was fast company to be in, even as third man. I knew that Bobby Harkness was riding with a funny feeling in the back of his neck, two cars so close behind him that any pileup would ride him down.
It was a lucky thing that Johnny made his bid to pass Harkness exactly when he did. And lucky that I swung out too, to follow Johnny.
Because something blew up and shredded the bonnet of the Sternevaunt, and the oil puffed out in a black spray and he dropped behind so fast it was as though a big hand had grabbed him and yanked him backwards.
When we hit the same spot the next time around, I saw the oil slick on the black macadam and decided it would be a good thing to keep away from. Johnny started acting funny. His car seemed uncertain, and suddenly I realized that he was slower.