No Right Turn

by A. J. Stewart

  There was a small plate affixed to the wall that told us we were visiting Harder Uniforms Racing. I noted that the car with its hood up had no engine inside. The workshop smelled like oil. There was a tall rack unit holding boxes and boxes of car parts. None of the boxes looked new, but the inventory was orderly. A radio echoed AM talkback around the space. We wandered toward the vehicle lift and the whistling that was emanating from within. It sounded like a tune I couldn’t quite place. I glanced at Lucas.

  “Kenny Rogers,” he said. “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.”

  I nodded like that was useful information.

  “Hello,” I called out.

  The whistling stopped but the AM radio didn’t. Those guys could talk and talk. We waited as a man withdrew himself from the innards of the car on the lift. He was skinny and had thin hair and the kind of reading glasses that people spent their entire time peering over the top of. He wore blue coveralls that looked like they might have been used by the guy who stoked the coals on the continental railway.

  “Help you?” he asked. He wiped his hands on a rag despite the dirty overalls. He didn’t come out from underneath the car.

  “Travis Zanchuk?” I asked.

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Miami Jones.”

  “Miami Jones?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Miami Jones.”

  Lucas raised his eyebrows. It happened from time to time. I was—in the small-time version of the word—famous. I had played professional minor league baseball and there were fans of that particular genre that remembered players, even those like me who had made it to the big leagues but never thrown a pitch in anger. I had, however, played four years in Modesto, California, before my brief stint with the Oakland A’s. After that, I had spent two years plying my trade with the St. Lucie Mets. I had been to Jackie Robinson Ballpark in Daytona once or twice. I had pitched there, I had won there. Some folks remembered stuff like that. Not many, but some. So I got recognized here and there. Less than Derek Jeter on Fifth Avenue but more than some late-night cable reality television people.

  The guy under the car stepped out. He was still wiping his hands on the rag. The color of oil appeared to be tattooed into his skin.

  “It is you,” he said. “Miami Jones. I saw you pitch.”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “Yeah, I do. I saw you throw a one-walk, no-hitter here against the Cubs.”

  “I remember that game.”

  “Yeah, me too. You could have had a perfect game, but then Jessie Heskie did a Babe Ruth on you and pointed out to the bleachers like he was going to smack you out of the park.”

  “I remember.”

  “Did your pitch break his arm?”

  I shook my head. “No. He had a couple games on the disabled list, but there was no break.”

  “Bet he never did that again.”

  “It’s a reasonable assumption.”

  “So what brings you to my workshop?”

  I took a breath. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Our pleasant chat was about to take a turn. Travis wasn’t likely to be such a Miami Jones fan within the next ten seconds.

  “Dale Beadman,” I said.

  Zanchuk frowned. He had deep furrows in his forehead. I have the same, but mine are from too much time in the sun. Travis just looked like a worrier.

  “What about him?”

  “You have much to do with him these days?”

  “I have nothing to do with him, period.”

  “But you have history.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “I’m an investigator now, Travis. I’m undertaking an investigation.”

  “Investigator? Seriously? I would have figured you for a bar owner.”

  I had the same thought on a fairly regular basis.

  Lucas wandered over to the lift and looked up into the guts of the car. “Chevy,” he said.

  Travis doubled down on his frown. “Yeah, what of it?”

  “You race these cars?” asked Lucas.

  “Yes. What of it?”

  Lucas shrugged. “You drive?”

  “No. I’m a crew chief and head engineer.”

  I looked around the workshop and decided that Zanchuk’s title was like my lawn guy calling himself head groundskeeper.

  Lucas continued. “Where do you race?”

  “On the All-American Series.”

  “New Smyrna Speedway?”

  “Yes, sometimes.”

  “How do you go?”

  “We go okay. Could be better, could be worse. Listen, what’s this about?”

  “I’m led to understand that you sued Dale Beadman,” I said.

  “That’s old news.”

  “Why?”

  “Why’s it old news?”

  “Why did you sue him?”

  “If you’re here asking the question, then you know.” Zanchuk wandered over to a work table by the wall and tossed his rag onto it.

  I said, “I know what the lawsuit claimed. But that doesn’t tell me anything.”

  Zanchuk turned and leaned back against the work table. “It tells you he won. It tells you I got fired and no team would touch me. It tells you I ended up running a third-string team for beer money instead of being a crew chief for a cup team in Charlotte.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I don’t get, Travis. You had to know that was all going to happen. You knew you couldn’t win the suit.”

  “Did I?”

  “Of course. I’ve known you for five minutes and I can tell you’re a smart guy. Smarter than me, by the length of the straight. And even I could see you’d lose. You worked for Beadman Engineering. You were an employee. You knew that anything you developed was work product. The company owned it. That’s what they paid you for. So you couldn’t win a claim that you owned the right to the braking system. There’s no legal basis for it. You know that now, you knew it then. So why?”

  Zanchuk shuffled his feet. I waited. I don’t feel the need to talk when no talking is required. Lucas was even better at it than I was. Lenny had been, too. He could be mute for days, if the mood took him. But Zanchuk couldn’t. He had things to say.

  “I invented the damned system. I did. Not him.”

  “I don’t think that’s in dispute, Travis.”

  “You don’t, huh? Well, the great Dale Beadman went around telling everyone he invented it. Like it was his baby and we were all there just to clean up after his genius. I was ten times the engineer he was.”

  “But wasn’t that his job? He was the figurehead for the company. Like Steve Jobs invented the iPhone. He didn’t really invent it. I’m sure tens, hundreds, hell, maybe thousands of people played a role. But it was his company. He was the man. That’s how it works.”

  “I should have been crew chief. But he couldn’t stand aside. He couldn’t abide someone else having the spotlight.”

  “You were head engineer. That’s pretty good.”

  “It’s not enough!” screamed Zanchuk. He clenched his jaw and took a few deep breaths to calm himself. “I should have been crew chief.”

  Lucas spoke from under the Chevy. “And now you are.”

  “Yeah,” said Zanchuk with a laugh. “Head honcho on a team on the local circuit racing against kids who don’t even have driver’s licenses yet. Our lead sponsor is the local hospitality uniform company, and I have to moonlight doing up Subarus for rich kids just to make ends meet. Yeah, this is the life.”

  “Money’s tight,” I said.

  “Look around.”

  “Did you ever see Dale Beadman’s car collection?”

  “No,” he said a little too quickly. “Well, maybe a couple of them. Some of them came through the workshop for some restoration. I remember a Testa Rossa. We fixed that one up for him. But I never saw the collection. Not together. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Curious? Why?” asked Zanchuk. “What happened to his cars? They get stolen or so
mething?”

  I said nothing.

  “If they did, I say fantastic. I hope they were broken down and sold for parts. But if you’re trying to suggest I had something to do with it, ask yourself this. If I stole his cars, would I be standing in this workshop right now?”

  It wasn’t the final word on the subject, but it was a good point. I thanked Zanchuk for his time, and he shrugged like he had time to kill. I turned to leave. Lucas stopped by Zanchuk. He looked around the workshop like he was a Catholic in the Sistine Chapel.

  “I sure do love racing,” Lucas said. “You?”

  Zanchuk nodded. “Since I ran go-karts as a kid.”

  “You ever wanted to do anything else?”

  “Never.”

  Lucas nodded and patted Zanchuk on the shoulder.

  “A man who wakes up every day to do what he loves is a lucky man,” he said, and then he nodded and walked out of the workshop, and I followed him, wondering who it was exactly that he had been talking to.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was late afternoon by the time we left Travis Zanchuk, but Lucas decided to take the wheel and make time while the going was good. It was a six-hour drive through to Charlotte. Lucas took us through to a Cracker Barrel country store just south of Savannah, where we ate chicken and waffles and apple pie, and then I took the wheel again into Charlotte. We stopped at a Motel 6 and I asked Lucas if he minded splitting a room or preferred his own. He said he had spent more nights in his life bunking with other men in the room than he hadn’t, so sharing a room was fine with him. We grabbed a six-pack, lay on our twin beds and watched SportsCenter until sleep called.

  Lucas woke early. He was like a kid who had just been told they were off to visit Disney World. We ate breakfast at another Cracker Barrel because they were good, well-priced and right off every freeway we drove along. We were in Statesville before the office workers had gotten to their desks in Charlotte.

  WinLobe Racing was the polar opposite of Travis Zanchuk’s workshop. It was huge, over a hundred thousand square feet. The lobby was larger than Zanchuk’s entire space. It looked like an office complex, and there wasn’t a hint of oil on the air. One thing about NASCAR folks. They’re early birds. The workshop at WinLobe Racing was in full swing when we arrived. Unfortunately the office wasn’t, so we milled around in the lobby looking at memorabilia, waiting for someone to make it into the office.

  That someone was a nice young lady who told us that without an appointment, it would not be possible to see either Mr. Lobe or Mr. Gifford today. I’m not a fan of appointments. I find them too easily broken. I’m more a just turn up and see what happens kind of guy. So I told her that I was a private investigator and I was working for Dale Beadman, and if either Mr. Lobe or Mr. Gifford didn’t want to see me, then I completely understood and we’d let the chips fall where they may. The private investigator bit worried a lot of people. It held no legal weight whatsoever, but it did open a few doors. But I found the really tough doors were opened by the mentioning of chips falling where they may. It really meant nothing but conjured up all kinds of chaos in the minds of people who were worried about how the chips might affect them.

  We found ourselves in a boardroom overlooking one section of the racing team workshop. We were offered coffee, which we declined, and water, which we accepted. We’d had our fill of coffee at Cracker Barrel, and nothing killed the momentum of an investigation like having to excuse yourself from interviewing a suspect for a tinkle.

  We waited about ten minutes, which I thought was more than acceptable given our lack of an invitation. Rory Lobe and Winton Gifford were what my mother would have called good old boys. They were tall and wore cowboy hats, even inside. They also drank water. There were a lot of men of a certain age in the room. If it came down to a pissing contest, no one wanted to be the first to have to go.

  “Rory Lobe,” said the white hat. His accent dripped the South like honey. His hair was short and gray at the sides and he was in good shape.

  “Winton Gifford,” said the black hat. They were like a county music duo. Gifford sported a mustache and a belly with a large buckle on it like a headlight. “What can we do for you gentlemen?” said Gifford.

  I said, “We had some questions about your relationship with Dale Beadman.”

  Lobe sipped his water. “May I ask what this is regarding?”

  “A criminal matter,” I said.

  Lobe smiled. “Do I need to lawyer up?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Do you?”

  “Son, we’re busy men. You got questions, you best ask them.”

  “You were partners with Beadman, once upon a time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But it didn’t end well.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “It ended in court.”

  “Well, that’s not strictly speaking true.”

  “So how did it end, then?”

  “Dale bought us out. This story has done the rounds, son. You don’t know it?”

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “I do,” said Lucas. “He bought you out. He wanted to focus just on cars and you gentlemen wanted to expand into aircraft engineering. So you went your separate ways.”

  “Yep, that’s the story,” said Gifford.

  “So how did it end up in court?” I asked.

  “Business, son,” said Lobe. “Business. All that our Australian friend here has said is accurate, to a point. But it also turned out that Dale had been holding out on us some. The company had developed a fuel management system that is currently used in about forty percent of vehicles on the road. He neglected to mention this fact when we negotiated our separation agreement. We simply rectified that.”

  “Are you saying you bear no ill will toward Mr. Beadman?” I asked.

  Gifford leaned back in his chair, perhaps to better show off his belt buckle. “Only on the racetrack. On the speedway we’re enemies. Nothing less. Off it, we’re former business associates. That’s all.”

  I said nothing. Mainly because I had nothing to say. The duo had a good patter, but they also seemed genuine. Despite my better judgment, I liked them. Which gave me a problem, because I had also liked the idea that Beadman’s former partners were out for revenge. It was trite, but it was also true more often than not. So I threw a Hail Mary.

  “Do you gentlemen happen to collect cars?”

  “I think we both have a number of cars in garages, son, but I don’t know you’d call either of us collectors. Would you say that’s right, Win?”

  “I would. I have six or seven. But personally, I prefer to collect wine.”

  My impression of Winton Gifford took a little dip. I never understood people who collected wine. Surely that was for drinking.

  “But I know Dale does collect,” said Lobe. “He has a thing for domestic cars in particular, I believe.”

  “Have you seen this collection?”

  “No, son, I have not. As you inferred, we are not as close with Dale as we once were. But that does not go as far as bearing him any ill will. Now, may I ask a question of you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why is it you have come all this way to ask us about long-forgotten business? What exactly are you investigating?”

  “Something that belonged to Mr. Beadman was stolen. I have been tasked with finding it.”

  “A car, I assume. And you think we stole this car?”

  “No, sir. As much as anything, an investigation is a process of eliminating suspects.”

  “So you’re looking to eliminate us?” Lobe offered a mischievous smile.

  “Not quite how I’d phrase it, sir, but. . .”

  “And can I ask why the police are not asking these questions?”

  “They have a few protocols to go through, especially when it comes to crossing state lines. And there are budgets they have to consider.”

  Lobe smiled again. “Palm Beach budgets?”

  I shrugged. “Can you think of anyone
who might want to harm or embarrass Mr. Beadman?”

  Gifford took the baton. “If you’re in business as long as we’ve been, you get your share of people who feel they’ve been wronged.”

  “Anyone stick out in your mind?”

  Gifford shook his head.

  “Rivals?” I asked. “Other than yourselves, of course.”

  “We were never Dale’s biggest rivals, son,” said Lobe. “That mantle surely goes to Brasher.”

  “Brasher?”

  “I’m sure your friend here can inform you,” said Lobe. “He seems to know his racing.” The way he said it was not so much a plaudit for Lucas as a condemnation of me.

  “Now if you’ll excuse us, gentlemen, we have a race to prepare for.” The two men stood together, the white hat and the black hat. They each shook our hands.

  “Good luck on Sunday,” said Lucas.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Lobe.

  The two of them shuffled out of the conference room.

  “What’s happening on Sunday?” I said.

  Lucas frowned. “You’re not into NASCAR at all, are you?”

  “I don’t own a television.”

  “And yet you can recite baseball stats up the yin-yang. Sunday is race day in NASCAR.”

  “Okay. Where is it?”

  “This week? Darlington, I think. About two hours from here. South Carolina.”

  The young lady who had ushered us in came to usher us out. We stood for a moment in the parking lot.

  “So who is this Brasher they were talking about?”

  “Ansel Brasher. He was a driver. More open-wheelers than NASCAR, though. He drove Formula One for a while, Indy too.”

  “So why do they think he was a rival? Or are they blowing smoke?”

  “I can’t recall.” He seemed to think about it but said nothing.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Helpful, thanks. I mean those two. You think they could have done it?”

  “Of course they could have. Means, motive and opportunity, isn’t that what they say on the telly?”