No Right Turn Page 14

  “And appearances weren’t really m-m-my thing.”

  “Me either. So you started doing testing?”

  He nodded again. “Thanks to Dale.”

  “How so?”

  “Most teams would have dum-dumped me. Not Dale. He found me a job where I still get to go fast. Not racing, but still g-g-good.”

  A guy leaned in and fixed the steering wheel to the column, and I realized once it was there that there was no way Mike was getting into the car with the wheel in place.

  “So he’s a good guy to work for, Dale?”

  Mike shook his head. “Without Dale, I’d be stack-acking shelves at the Piggly-Wiggly.”

  “Folks sure seem to like him around here.”

  “He’s one of the goo-good ones.”

  “Everyone can’t like him. He have any rivals or enemies?”

  Mike frowned underneath his balaclava. “What do you do for Dale?”

  “I protect him.”

  Mike nodded and thought about it.

  “What about WinLobe?”

  Mike shook his head. “Rivals, yes. But they’re old school. Keep it on th-th-the track.”

  “He must have made some enemies over the years.”

  Mike shrugged. “There’s always Brasher.”

  There was that name again. Before I got a chance to ask about it, a guy pulled a helmet down over my head. It was like having my head stuck inside a watermelon. He tugged on the restraints again and then clipped the webbing across where the window was supposed to be.

  Mike flicked a switch and the engine burst to life. I had owned a Mustang once upon a time, and I’d thought that was a pretty throaty engine. It was a pussy cat’s meow compared to this thing. It was a beastly roar, like a waking tiger. A crew guy gave Mike the thumbs-up and he returned the gesture. He pulled the car out onto the pit lane, and I could already feel the pull at my restraints even though we were doing barely more than walking pace. He increased speed some along the pit lane.

  “Okay?” he said, and I realized I had some kind of radio in my helmet.

  I nodded in return.

  “We’ll take the first one easy,” he said, and his eyes gave away the smile hidden behind his helmet.

  Then we took off.

  I left my colon in Albuquerque.

  The car accelerated at a rate that I had not previously thought possible outside of a fighter jet. I was pressed deep into my seat and I had to force my head to the left to confirm that Mike still had his hands on the steering wheel. Then I heard the yelling.

  “Whooooooo!” screamed Lucas through my helmet radio. He was somewhere behind us having the time of his life. He was clearly on a different ride from me. Mike hit the bank hard and the physics of it all pushed us up toward the wall. I thought for a moment I was going to end up as goo on the outside wall, but at the last moment Mike held the car steady and we cruised around the bank what felt like only inches from the wall.

  Then in one swift motion, Mike yanked hard on the wheel and we dropped like a rock down the slope. The bank ended and then we were on the flat and the other car fired past us like a bullet on the low side.

  “Miamiiiiii!” was all I could hear over the sound of the engine and my heart pounding out of my chest. We sped down the back straight, and Mike pulled in behind the front car. What we were doing was illegal in all fifty states and most countries. Probably not Germany with their crazy autobahns. We were tailgating at about six inches. The whine of the engine grew higher and higher, like a soprano building up to explode glassware with her voice. It was penetrating my brain pan.

  Mike braked and I was pinned by my restraints, and then he shifted down the gears and we cut down low as the bank rose above us again. He hit the gas and we drifted up the bank until I realized we were door to door with the other car. I looked right and the other driver took his hand off the wheel to wave to me. I looked away. I really didn’t want to encourage him. As we hit the main straight, I heard Mike speak.

  “Okay, let’s open her up.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. Had we been going slow? Had we been doing the NASCAR version of old-timer-in-a-Cadillac? He hit the pedal and I was planted back in my seat as we took off. We went faster. I didn’t think it was possible, but I was wrong. The funny thing was, it didn’t feel faster. Relative to what we had just done, it just didn’t feel that much faster. Like boiling a frog. The vibration of the car was intense. It drove right up through my legs, into my guts and my lungs and my eyes.

  We did three laps. It was the longest three minutes of my life. Mike spoke into his radio to Simon Lees as we screamed around the track, but their conversation was unintelligible to me. We cruised back into the pit lane and dropped the speed. It felt like standing still.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “How fast was that?” I yelled despite the fact that we had slowed down.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe one fifty at the top.”

  “You don’t know? You don’t pay any attention to your speedometer.”

  “There is no speedometer.”

  I craned my neck to see the gauges. There was nothing complicated. Just analog dials in a steel panel. A tachometer to measure the RPMs of the engine, fuel pressure, electrics. No speedometer.

  “How can there be no speedometer? Isn’t the whole point of NASCAR speed?”

  “No. The point of NASCAR is to win. And you win by beating the other guy and not killing your car or yourself. So we use the tachometer instead. It tells us how hard the engine is working. Run it too hard for too long, you’ll blow it up.”

  “What about pit stops? Aren’t there speed limits in the pits?”

  “There are. In each race, a pace car leads the field around at the speed allowed in the pit lane. The drivers check their tachos to know what revs they should be at when they go in to pit.”

  Which is where we went. Mike pulled the car into where Simon Lees was sitting under his canvas shade. A crew member opened my door, unstrapped me and then helped peel me out of the seat.

  Lucas had his helmet and balaclava off and was beaming like the Florida sun. I pulled my helmet off, nearly removing my ears in the process, and then I ripped off the balaclava and breathed like it was the first time.

  “Awesome,” said Lucas. “Just bloody awesome.”

  I nodded. I had the feeling that speaking might bring forth my breakfast. I sat against the pit wall and watched the crew remove the seat I had been sitting in from the car. Then Mike pulled back out onto the track while the other car remained in the pit area.

  “How fast was that?” asked Lucas.

  “On the straight you topped out at about one fifty-five,” said Lees.

  Lucas nodded like that was good but he’d done faster. “What’s the track record here?”

  “NASCAR qualifying, about twenty-seven seconds, average speed about two hundred mph.”

  Lucas smiled like that was more like it.

  “You guys mind waiting around while we test here?”

  “No,” said Lucas. “Do what you gotta do, mate.”

  Lucas and I stayed in our fireproof outfits and sat in camp chairs by the pit wall. I slugged a quart of water. The car zoomed around and around on a permanent left turn. The sound wasn’t the same as in the car itself but it was still tremendous.

  Lucas watched with rapt fascination. I wandered over to the truck, reminded of what a pantomime professional sports were. What we saw on television was never real. The colors were bolder and the camera lens saturated the light. Football fields were never perfectly flat. The batter’s box in baseball wasn’t either. It was torn up by guys digging in their cleats. Bullpens were hot and sweaty. Change rooms ran out of hot water in the showers and cold water to drink. There was nothing glamorous about long bus trips to play minor league ball games in front of a hundred people. Nothing glamorous about Travis Zanchuk’s workshop. Racing was no different. It was loud, and it produced an oily stench that became part of your DNA. The suits were
hot and uncomfortable and the cars were as utilitarian as they could possibly be.

  And I could see why someone would want to give up everything to do it. Whatever the cost. I heard the cough-cough of Mike’s car returning to the pit area and watched the second car head out. Mike spoke with Simon Lees and then came over to the truck to grab some water from a cooler.

  “Enjoy that?” he asked.

  “Sure. You?”

  “Love it,” he said, slugging back his water.

  “Driving like that is harder than it looks.”

  He nodded. “Every fan can drive, so they th-think it’s like cruising in their air-conditioned Silverado.”

  “You guys are athletes. No doubts about it.”

  He nodded and smiled.

  We sat on the ramp up to the trailer and watched the second car zooming around the track.

  “In the car before, you mentioned a guy called Brasher,” I said.

  “Ansel Brasher. You know him?”

  “He’s a driver, right?”

  “Was. Now he d-does the commentary for NASCAR on Fox.”

  I nodded. Now I could place the guy. He looked like a Persian prince in a blue blazer.

  “So what was his deal with Dale?”

  “You don’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  “Brasher was more an open-wheeler. You know, Indy, F1. He ran a couple seasons in NASCAR and Dale beat him. He didn’t take it well. He said Dale was too chicken to race him in open-wheels.”

  “Let me guess where this is going.”

  “Do you know the Triple Crown?”

  “Like Secretariat?”

  “Not horses. Motorsports. NASCAR has one—Daytona, Talladega, Charlotte—but the more famous Triple Crown outside the US is the Indianapolis 500, the Le Mans twenty-four-hour and the Monaco F1. Some people replace the Monaco race with the F1 world championship now because Indy and Monaco are now on the same weekend, but it doesn’t matter because only one guy has ever done it either way. Graham Hill. English dude, back in the sixties.”

  “Okay.”

  “So in the early nineties, I think it was, Brasher won the Le Mans in a Porsche. At Monaco, he raced for Ferrari and won. He said there that he was going to win the Triple Crown on his home turf in Indianapolis.”

  “He’s from Indiana?”

  “No. The States. He meant the States.”

  “Okay.”

  “So it turns out that Dale was visiting the Monaco race as a guest of his sponsors. I think he was trying to move from driver to owner about then. Was kissing the babies, like you called it. Get sponsors. And someone says to Brasher at the after-party that Dale’s a way better driver.”

  “Red rag to a bull.”

  “Yeah, whatever. So Brasher says Dale doesn’t have the guts to race him at Indy. Of course, it’s only two weeks between Monaco and Indy back then, so there’s no time for Dale to get a drive. Except then this guy, can’t remember his name—he owns like a massive cigarette company—he says he has a backup car and Dale can have it, and a crew.”

  “I can see where this is going.”

  “You know the rest.”

  “No, I don’t. Go on, Mike.”

  “Well, they race. And Brasher’s leading the whole thing. From pole to the last lap. And you know what happens?”

  “Dale wins.”

  “No. Dale’s into second place. Second last turn, he goes to pass on the inside and they smash wheels.”

  “So who won?”

  “I don’t know. Some guy. But you know what the open wheels are like. Axels like toothpicks. Both Dale and Brasher crash out.”

  “They crash out?”

  “Yeah. So Brasher doesn’t win the Indy. And he never did. He retired, like, soon after. He never wins the Triple Crown.”

  “That’s got to hurt.”

  “You’re telling me. But I haven’t told you the worst part.”

  “It gets worse?”

  “Yeah. Everyone—the commentators, the press, the other drivers—they all say that Dale’s drive was one of the best ever at Indy. Maybe the best ever not to have won.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a NASCAR driver. He hadn’t driven an open-wheeler since he raced karts as a kid. So with two weeks’ prep, a second-choice car and a hand-me-down crew, he nearly won the Indy 500.”

  “That is pretty impressive.”

  “Yeah, you bet it is. And a lot of people say he had the racing line on that turn, too. Brasher should have let him through.”

  “I suspect Brasher doesn’t agree.”

  “Nah. He called Dale a cheat, which wasn’t cool. Dale’s a good man.”

  “So why the animosity? Why did this Brasher have it in for Dale in the first place? Just because he beat him in NASCAR?”

  Mike shrugged. “I don’t know this for sure. It was before my time, right? But I heard that Brasher had been stepping out with Missy before she met Dale.”

  “Stepping out?” I hadn’t heard that phrase since I’d listened to my grandfather’s stories as a kid.

  “Dating, maybe,” said Mike.

  I thought back to when I had met Missy Beadman. She had said that a suitor had taken her to the race track where she had met Dale. If Brasher had been that suitor, I could see how that might rankle a guy. Men did very stupid things for much less.

  The second car came into the pits and the crew started packing up. We moved off the ramp so Mike’s test car could be rolled up into the truck.

  “Thanks, Mike. Appreciate the story.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I couldn’t help but notice. The stutter.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It disappeared once you started driving.”

  “Yeah. It d-does. If I don’t think about it.”

  “You got any idea if this Brasher will be at Darlington this weekend?”

  “Probably not. I think the meet’s only on cable. He’s on Fox. Network TV.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  “But he lives in Lake Norman.”

  “Which is where?”

  “Here in Mooresville.”

  I thanked Mike again for the info and the terrifying ride. Lucas hugged Simon Lees. Lees drove us back to the workshop. I asked Lees about Ansel Brasher and he confirmed there was a good bit of history between Brasher and Dale. I asked Lees if he knew where Brasher lived, and he said he had been to his home once or twice for charity functions.

  The sun was dropping low in the sky and the air was a good deal cooler than in West Palm. I’d go as far as to say it was pleasant. I was exhausted. My adrenaline had bounced around like a toddler on a trampoline. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Lucas looked like he was coming down off his high. I could see some beers in my future.

  But first I had one last thing to check.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Despite my better efforts, it felt as though I wasn’t getting very far. It was a familiar feeling. Cases, like baseball seasons, have a momentum all of their own. You can try but you can’t force it. You just have to keep showing up, doing your best work and making sure when the momentum turns in your favor you hang on like hell.

  It seemed like Dale Beadman was a regular Ray Romano. Everyone loved the guy. And even those that didn’t love him, like Rory Lobe and Winton Gifford, didn’t exactly hate him, either. Of course, it was entirely possible they had sold me a bridge. Time would tell. And even the one guy who did hate him, Travis Zanchuk, didn’t seem to fit the profile. He just didn’t have the energy to pull off a heist of this magnitude. Once again, I could be wrong. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Mike Walters had given me an inkling of momentum. It wasn’t much, but even a ground ball to shortstop can become an error that changes things your way. This Ansel Brasher guy sounded like a likely customer. And when it came to crime, the most likely customer was most often the guilty one. The guy who looked like he did it usually did.

  I just had one itch to scratch before we we
re done at DBR. Simon Lees wandered back into the workshop to study his diagnostics or telemetry or whatever the hell it was. Lucas went for a final walk around the museum. I went upstairs to find Dale Beadman’s assistant.

  “How was the track, Mr. Jones?”

  “It was an education. Say, is Dale still here?”

  “No. He has a dinner with some sponsors. Can I help?”

  “Perhaps. Do you have GPS on your vehicles?”

  “I don’t know. You mean like maps?”

  “No, like a locator. For tracking purposes.”

  “No, I don’t think we have anything like that.”

  “Just a thought. What about gas?”

  “Gas?”

  “As in gas purchases. Do you do expenses with receipts, or how does that work?”

  “For which vehicles?”

  “I was thinking about the rigs that carry the race cars.”

  “No, I think they use fuel cards. It’s all done electronically. You’d have to talk to Sydney.”

  “Can I? Talk to Sydney?”

  “She wasn’t in earlier. But we could drop in on her office and see.”

  Dale’s assistant walked me to another section of the offices, where we found Sydney. She was six-two, thin as a bean and as gorgeous as a supermodel. That was just the superficial analysis. Dale’s assistant told me Sydney handled the team accounts, which made me think of Missy Beadman, back in the day, and confirmed that Sydney was also smart. Which made me wonder about the law of averages, and whether somewhere, Sydney’s opposite twin was a short, ugly, stupid person. And whether that person was Detective Ronzoni.

  “Take a seat, please, Mr. Jones,” said Sydney. “Now, how can I help?”

  I find talking to extremely attractive people disconcerting. It’s like dealing with another species. They’re generally pretty hard work. They have to be. It’s a defense mechanism. Getting hit on once in a while is good for the confidence and for the soul. So are Brussels sprouts. But like sprouts, there’s such a concept as too much of a good thing. Getting hit on all the time would grow tiresome quickly. I had seen it with Danielle. Guys hit on her right in front of me, and I’m no wallflower. I could once throw a fastball at near a hundred miles an hour, and I’ve got the shoulders to prove it. But some guys just don’t care. Danielle’s way around it was to wear a weapon. A gun hanging off her belt was a good deterrent to most jackasses. I’m not saying it was why she got into law enforcement, but it was food for thought.