I dropped my hands back onto the wheel. There was a thud, a wrenching jolt, and the whole skyline of Darido was whirling around me to the tune of screaming, burning rubber. Cars loomed up from nowhere and, as the wheel was useless, I folded my arms around my head and slouched in the seat, waiting for death.
There was the grinding crash of tortured metal, a hot flare of flame that scorched my face, and my car jolted to a stop, stern first, against the outside fence just beyond the turn, and then began to roll straight across the track toward the inside fence. Care were whining down at me. I wrenched the wheel hard to the right, and the motor gasped, popped, coughed, jerked my head back as it caught, as an orange car went by me with a full inch to spare. I lined it along the fence, trying to think.
Was this death?
Then I saw the paint blisters along the side of the cowl. Those weren’t imaginary. I saw the scorch mark on my left glove. That wasn’t imaginary. I was driving like a man in a dream. I waited for the red nose of the Jeyett Special to creep up.
But it didn’t. When I flashed by the pit I gave the signal to tell me where I stood. The board went up and it said “2.” There were cars ahead. I had no way of knowing who was leading. I passed them all. I bit down on the nausea and passed them all. And when I leveled out, after passing them, a checkered flag came down and I heard the tempo of the other motors change and a voice inside me said, “Look, Gartner, when they flag you with a checkered flag, it means you’ve won. Now stop at the pit after you go around again, and they’ll tell you if you’re dead. If they don’t look at you, you’re dead, son.”
At first, with the noise of the crowd and all, and with the presentation and confusion, didn’t know that I didn’t know what had happened.
I understood a little bit when I saw the angry scar, the torn mouth of metal just above my right rear.
Johnny told me, with Jane looking on, grave and quiet.
“We could see that he was trying to ride you out. He didn’t care if he killed himself, too. Jane couldn’t watch any more. Then I saw your arms lift and saw you turn. For my money, that’s what scared him off. Gidge Putner was right behind you.Ч”
“I guess Brick, suddenly scared, tried to slew out and drift back. But it was too late. Your wheels locked and his front right bounced up over your left rear. It tipped him and he took one roll before Putner hit him. You disappeared in the flame burst when the tanks on both the Special and the Walker Super went up, and then you came out of it in a that took you up to the fence.Ч”
Gidge — he came out of it. Running. But he was a ball of fire. They hooked the two cars and dragged them through the inside fence.
“Brick never knew what hit him.”
Later, we ate solemnly, without much joy. The news cameramen were around to take flash shots of the three of us. Over coffee, the spell seemed to lift a little, and we began to look at each other with that hey-ma-we-won look.
Johnny rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together and said, “We’re rich!”
“And just because of that crate of yours,” I said. “To tell you the truth, kids, I was afraid of that iron. It had a mean look. It hasn’t got that look any more. Now it looks as friendly as a pup.”
“It’s got enough stuff for another couple of years,” Johnny said.
I looked quickly at Jane, expecting the flare-up. But she had a remote look in her dark eyes and a little smile playing around the corners of her mouth. Softly she said, “We could take it down to Houston for the Christmas races and—”
Johnny and I exchanged quick and knowing looks. Johnny started to laugh.
“Remember, Janey?” he said. “Those things are dangerous. What’s the point in wheeling around and around and around?”
“There’s something more to it than that,” she said, confused.
“It’s too dangerous for us,” I said, severely.
“It is not!” she snapped. “My goodness! Anything is dangerous. Why, even if I were married to somebody who washed high windows and—”
Johnny laughed delightedly and said, “Joe, that’s a proposal if I ever heard one. With a witness, too!”
“No gentlemen would say no,” I said.
She looked down at the tablecloth, but under the table my hand found hers.
