Death Is a Lap Ahead

Chapter IV Shortcut To Suicide

He was physically ill. His head began to nod heavily. He knew his danger, held tightly to the wheel, caught in the automatic series of motions necessary to get around the banked curves, hold his position. With the lapped car ahead of him he could no longer give the yellow wagon full gun.

It was hard to think of what race it was. He wondered what track he was on. The sun beat down on him and the stench of oil was in his nostrils. He shook his head like a stunned animal. He was confused. He muttered thickly, the wind tearing at his lips, “Must have had a bad night. Where’s Steve?”

Sure. Good old Steve. He couldn’t remember whether Steve had been with him or not. But it was a cinch that Steve was in the pack someplace, strong hands on the wheel, that mad wonderful glint in his gray eyes. Steve could handle an iron like nobody else, except maybe Whitey Edison. Steve would be in that deep blue job of his. Shining blue. The blue of the summer sky at dusk, or of deep water.

The corner tore at his arms and as he flattened it out in the straightaway, he looked across the track.

His numb lips spread in a wide grin. No use looking for sly Steve Jantz on the other side of the track. Old Steve would be creeping up behind him, waiting like a big cat, to steal a lap on him.

In the straightaway he thrust his foot down hard, swung out, but not so far as to lose distance. The snout of the car he had been following moved back, back, out of sight behind him. He squinted far ahead, saw the battered blue, the gray. Two cars ahead. Nice guys. He couldn’t remember their names. Time to ride up on them.

He fed the yellow car, feeling the constantly rising whine of power, the drumbeat of the tires.

After the run around the bank, the gray wasn’t so far ahead. He had it on the floor, inching up, waiting until the last possible moment before the curve, and then letting it up the smallest fraction of an inch, sensing the imminence of the lift of the inside wheels, leaning hard to cut that lift, laughing again as the gray seemed to move back toward him.

After one more wild corner he moved up even, and the name of the driver came to him, Wally Yobe. Sure. But Wally looked funny. As though Wally, that eager kid, had grown old overnight.

Wally moved out a little, forcing him higher than he wanted to go. The hell with that. Wally should know enough to get out of the way. The track always belonged to Whitey Edison and Steve Jantz.

He let Wally force him high, then he lifted off the throttle, letting the compression brake him, cutting to the inside, pouring on the coal again, surging ahead to cut Wally on the inside as they came off the corner. Wally tried to move in a little but he was too late. The yellow nose was out in front and Whitey pushed it down to the floor, held it steady as a rock, letting Wally move in and then decide it was healthier to move back out and give a hot man room.

The blue car was ahead. He took a quick glance back at the gray, gauging the distance. Then with a mad twist of the wheel he rode out to the right, blocking Yobe, moving out on the blue, creeping up on the blue. He sensed Steve Jantz behind him, bulling his way through the pack in the same manner, always on the thin, brittle edge of control.

Funny how this yellow car seemed faster than anything he had wheeled before. A nice wagon. Sweet and hot.

The driver of the blue gave him a quick, startled look. Why, that was Sig Carter!

Best way to take Sig was always to bluff him on the corners. Ride high and wild. He went onto the outside, and as the oval tipped for the banked turn, Sig was below him. Don’t pass on the turn. Hold it right there, steady and true. But blast a fraction of a second before Sig does.

The yellow car jumped, but Sig moved out. What was Sig trying to do? Run him into the stands? Sig should know by now that Whitey Edison can’t be bluffed. If Sig wanted to ride him out of the race, Sig was coming too. At the impact he’d go downstairs and roll with it. It had happened before. A few ribs gone, a concussion.

Sig moved over on him. Closer and closer. Whitey held it steady, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Sig’s humming rubber moving in, inch by inch. The turn roared down at them. Sig would ease off on the turn. Whitey kept the throttle tight on the floor. He leaned far to the left. He flashed out ahead of Sig, but the inside wheels lifted a few inches. When they touched again it hurtled the car in a crazy dash toward the inside fence beyond the turn. He fought the wheel, feeling his deck slide under him, half hearing the smack as he knocked white wood from the fence, fighting again, the car angling toward the outside fence, his throttle still full on, never letting up, and suddenly he had it under control, arrowing for the turn, Sig Carter well behind him.

He laughed. Let old Steve try that a few times. That’s what turned the hair gray. He steadied down and concentrated on hitting the turns at the best possible speed. Maybe he could lap Steve. That would be something to give him a ride about. Sink the needle in him. Tell him he was loafing out there. As he spun down into each flat stretch he looked far ahead for the glint of sunlight on deep blue, on the familiar tilt of Steve’s head. He listened for the distinctive throaty blast of Steve’s iron.

He couldn’t remember his pit position, and he didn’t know where to look for the board. What lap was it? How long was this damn race? Never mind. Keep going until you have to hit the pit or until they flash a flag in your face.

He risked a glance at the whole track. Maybe twelve, thirteen cars. He couldn’t pick out Steve.

He looked at his right front rubber, saw the hazy area on the outside rim. A rubber flap. He listened and heard the tiny hum. It probably got ripped loose back there when he’d nearly cracked passing Sig.

Better hit the pit right now. He checked fuel. Good for fifteen more laps anyway. But take care of the works all at once.

But which pit?

He cut it fast on the east corner, took it close to the inside rail, braked, looking for Buzz Gowan, the best mech in the business. But a brown-haired kid was waving him in, jumping around.

He went in. He rubbed a hand over his face. The kid was slapping his back. As he tried to get out from under the wheel, he sensed the heaviness of his own body.

He rubbed a hand across his face.

The boy he had hired and Bob Oliver switched the rubber, and the mixture was being squirted into the fuel tank.

Suddenly he knew that the years had gone by. Steve Jantz was dead. The dark blue car wasn’t on the track. Something stung his eyes.

The kid, his eyes glowing, was pushing him. “Roll it, Whitey! Roll it! You’re second place. Get going!”

Blindly he got behind the wheel. The kid yelled, as he pulled away, “Fifty-one more laps. Whitey, you’re wonderful!”

His lips twisted as the car gathered speed. Wonderful! Crazy as a loon. An old man having whiskey dreams behind the wheel of a ton and a quarter of death. An old man who used dreams instead of guts.

In slower rhythm he settled down to the pace. The gray and the blue were ahead again, but they’d need a pit stop. Beyond them was the bright orange car he’d seen before. That was number one. Lariotti.

No harm to move closer to Sig and Wally. He tucked in behind them. Two laps later Sig moved off and spun back into the ruck as he went into the pit.

The orange car that had been far ahead was gone. Ten more laps. As he came out of a turn, the orange job went by him and by Yobe, skittering along barely on the edge of control.

Lariotti again. He’d made his stop, and pulled back into the lead.

Whitey wasn’t interested.

He saw the board — “275” — twenty-five more miles. He had to come out of his dream and wrench the wheel to get out of the way of Yobe as he turned off. The orange car ahead had slowed a bit. Lariotti wasn’t taking any chances of mechanical failure. He’d hold his lead, fight off the bids and the race was in his pocket.

Second money for Whitey Edison. They didn’t have to know that he made second money because he went crazy out there in the sun, because he lost a few years and he was racing against a man who had been long dead.

He was eight lengths behind Lariotti. Crazy Lariotti.

Play it safe, Whitey. Take your second place. Don’t make a bid. He cut Lariotti’s lead down to six lengths.

Yet he knew that he wouldn’t make a bid. It wasn’t in him. The craziness was over. His arms were lumps of lead. White fire burned behind his eyes.

He glanced at the board. Two ninety-four. Six more laps to go. Three minutes more. He risked a look. The nearest car was the blue, way back at the last corner. Third place for Sig Carter.

He rode into the turn, Lariotti four laps ahead.

There was no increase in motor noise as a dark blue car passed him. It went faster than any car can go. Yet it seemed to drift along.

When he saw the familiar wave of the hand, he knew that it was Steve.

Whitey Edison made his bid to pass Lariotti. The redhead was a shade too high. Whitey tucked his nose between the inside rail and Lariotti’s deck. It was a tight fit. He saw the movement of Lariotti’s head and he fed the gas to it as the orange car tried to run away from him.

Faster and faster and faster. High whine. Roar. Flat smack of wind. Hammering vibration. He felt as though he were being hurled from an enormous sling.

He clung tightly, not letting Lariotti move out ahead. By staying where he was, Lariotti had to take a wider sweep, move a fraction of a mile an hour faster.

But Lariotti kept building up the tempo.

On the west corner Whitey sensed that both cars were going into it too fast. To brake would be quick death.

He saw Lariotti’s inside wheels lift. Two inches off the macadam they poised, began to lift further. Lariotti’s head disappeared suddenly as he went downstairs. The orange car bounced, hurling fragments in all directions, a sideways roll and an enormous end for end bounce off the top rim of the banked corner.

His face a mask of steel, Whitey held the car on the edge of control, and when he returned to the same corner, he noted, almost absently, the smoke drifting up from the place where Lariotti’s car had disappeared.

He made the east comer, the grandstand a flowing bank of misty color on his right. The checkered flag flashed down and he lifted his foot, letting the compression brake him in a last slow circuit before he coasted up in front of the stands.

He had to be helped from the car. And when he was out he could barely stand.

They were gathered around him. Judges, officials, drivers, pit monkeys, people who had come over the fence.

“How’s Lariotti?” he asked.

“O.K.,” someone said. “Banged up a little and scorched, but O.K.”

Whitey turned and looked into Bob’s face and he knew that everything was all right again between them.

Sig stood near him, hand outstretched. Whitey looked down at the man’s lean hand and slowly grasped it.

“Welcome home, boy,” Sig said softly.