Drag Strip Racer

by Matt Christopher

  Just as he got to the tree, a figure rose out of the tall weeds. Dana froze as he found himself staring at the cold, deadly end of a double-barreled shotgun.

  “Hold it right there, young fella,” said the scrawny, thin-faced man pointing the gun at him. “I can shoot you, you know, for trespassing on my property!”

  Dana peered into the narrowed, beady eyes over which lay a thatch of tousled, wheat-colored hair. “You’d better think twice about that, Mr. Taggart,” he warned. “I’m a friend of Scott’s, and you’d have a hard time telling the cops whatever it is you’ve got in mind.”

  “I saw you sneak up to my garage,” Scott’s father snarled. “What were you looking for?”

  “You know darn well what I was looking for,” Dana snapped.

  The old man eyed him warily. “How’d you find out about it?”

  “What’s the difference? The fact is I know about the engine,” Dana said. “Stealing an engine isn’t going to look a bit good for your sons, is it?”

  “Don’t talk to me like you’re an angel, young fella,” Mr. Taggart snorted. “Your reputation ain’t one to brag about.”

  “But I have never stolen, Mr. Taggart,” said Dana. “I’m no angel, but I’m no thief, either. That’s a department where your boys got one over on me.” He grinned wryly as he watched the old man’s eyes glitter with anger.

  “Scott figured on using that engine in a car he was going to race for Mr. Hill,” Mr. Taggart explained. “Then, if he started winning, he was going to tell Mr. Hill the truth.”

  “I guess I look like a dumbbell to you, don’t I, Mr. Taggart?” said Dana patiently. “Know what? I think you’d better tell your boys to return that engine to Dusty Hill; otherwise they might be finding themselves in jail. Tell them to have it back within the next two hours, Mr. Taggart.”

  The gun wavered as the old man looked at him, frowning, as if wondering what to say to the ultimatum.

  Dana took a step forward, then another and an other until he was near the motorcycle. From the corner of his eye he could see the barrel of the gun follow his movements, but he had a strong hunch that Mr. Taggart wouldn’t pull the trigger. A stolen engine wasn’t worth the price of murder, Dana told himself, and he hoped old man Taggart had sense enough to realize that.

  While part of him was gripped with fear, and another part of him told him there was nothing to worry about, he grabbed the handlebars of the Kawasaki and pushed it gently through the brush onto the road. Gingerly, he turned the machine to face the highway beyond, then got on it, kicked the starter, and rode away. Breathlessly he waited for that one-in-a-million chance that Mr. Taggart, in a moment of sudden desperation, would pull the trigger. But the shot wasn’t fired.

  Dana reached the highway, then drove into town to the Wade Mall.

  He found Dusty Hill waiting on a pair of customers, and hung around patiently until they were taken care of and had left.

  Dusty wrote something on the front left side of the cash register, then put down the pencil and looked at Dana. “Hi, Dana. What can I do for you?”

  “A lot, Dusty,” Dana said, and he went on to tell Dusty what Ken had told him about the theft of the 350-HP turbo engine and that he knew, and could prove, who had stolen it.

  Dusty eyed him suspiciously. “Were you the one who called me up and asked about the color of my pickup?”

  Dana nodded.

  “Okay, who?” Dusty wanted to know. “And how do you know?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Dana said, “if you promise to sponsor Ken in his races.”

  Dusty’s eyebrows arched. “Now, wait a minute,” he said. “In the first place I can’t see how a sixteen-year-old kid with a cast on one leg can be such a hot driver on a drag strip.”

  “That cast is on his left leg and it isn’t hindering him one bit,” Dana told him. “Neither is his age. He’s been driving in our backyard since he was fourteen years old. And, since his sixteenth birthday, he’s been driving that little red car almost every day to gain all the experience he could. He’s already driven it in autocrosses. I’d put him up against older drivers any day of the week, Dusty. I know my brother. He can drive.”

  Dusty smiled slowly. “Well, you should know, shouldn’t you?”

  Yes, I should; and I do, Dana thought. Even though, at first, he had wished Uncle Louis had bequeathed the car to him.

  The seconds dragged as he waited for Dusty to give him a definite answer. Finally Dusty broke the silence. “I’m surprised Ken didn’t tell you. I’m already sponsoring a driver. Scott Taggart.”

  “He did tell me. But, if you promise you’ll sponsor Ken, I promise you won’t ever bother with Scott Taggart again. Not ever.”

  Their eyes met.

  Dusty looked at his fingernails, picked at one, then looked up at Dana. “Okay, Dana. I promise. Who’s got the engine?”

  Relief swept over Dana. “There’s one more thing, Dusty, before I tell you,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t want Ken to know that I’ve told you this.”

  “Why not?”

  Dana shrugged. “He’s proud, that’s why. If he found that I’d gone out of my way to trace who stole that engine and asked you to sponsor him in races, he’d feel as if he had to be indebted to me for the rest of his life. I don’t want that.”

  Dusty nodded. “Okay. It’ll be just between you and me.”

  “Thanks. That engine of yours is sitting in Scott Taggart’s father’s garage,” Dana said evenly. “And the guy who stole it out of your shop here is Scott Taggart himself. With the help of his two brothers, of course.”

  Dusty’s eyes widened, and he seemed to stiffen for a moment as if Dana’s words had hit him like buckshot.

  “Can you prove it?” he said.

  “I promised his father,” Dana explained, “that if they brought that engine back within the next two hours they wouldn’t have to worry about going to jail.”

  Suddenly sparks of anger danced in Dusty’s eyes. “You double-crossed me, Dana. You tricked me into making that promise when I would have found out anyway.”

  Dana’s mouth parted in a slow grin. “You won’t be sorry, Dusty, I promise. Ken’s going to turn out to be one of the best drivers in the state. He’s determined.”

  Dusty’s mouth tightened. “You expect me to let Taggart get away with it?”

  “You’ve got to this time, Dusty. I’m probably darned lucky I’m alive and standing here talking to you. Old man Taggart had a gun pointed at my chest all the time I was talking with him.”

  Dusty studied Dana’s face for a few moments as if to see whether there might be a trace of a lie in what he had said. Then, apparently satisfied, he agreed not to tell the cops.

  “But,” he added, “if Scott doesn’t have the engine back in two hours I will call them. If he was so darned white-livered that he’d steal an engine two days after I agreed to sponsor him in his races, he’d be white-livered enough to try to hide it somewhere else, or dump it into a river.”

  “When are you going to call up Ken and tell him he’s got the job?” Dana asked him.

  “As soon as I see that engine with my own eyes,” Dusty promised stiffly.

  SIX

  KEN WAS POLISHING Li’l Red late the following afternoon when he got a call from Dusty Hill. Dusty said he’d like Ken to come to the store just as soon as he was free.

  “In about half an hour, all right, Mr. Hill?” Ken suggested. “I’m putting a polish on my car right now.”

  “Half an hour’s fine,” Dusty said.

  Ken’s hand shook with excitement as he hung up the receiver. What does Dusty want to see me about? he wondered. It had to do with drag racing, he was sure. But what about it? Dusty had already arranged to sponsor Scott Taggart. And, although Ken hated to admit it, Scott was a better driver than he. He had been running that 1320-foot strip so often he probably knew every little scar on it.

  Ken finished polishing Li’l Red, then washed his
hands, put on clean clothes, and drove to Dusty Hill’s parts store in his pickup.

  Dusty was alone, having a cup of coffee and a doughnut at his desk behind the cash register.

  “Like some coffee?” Dusty offered. “Got a potful.”

  “I’m not a coffee man,” Ken said.

  “Then how about a doughnut?”

  “Okay.”

  Dusty lifted a waxed-paper sack up to the glass display counter behind which Ken stood, and Ken took one out. He bit into it, his teeth sinking into the soft, tasty morsel, and wondered how long he’d have to wait before Dusty told him why he wanted to see him.

  Suddenly his eyes caught sight of a new engine at the rear of the store.

  “See you’ve got another engine, Mr. Hill,” he said.

  Dusty shook his head. “No. It’s the same one I had before.”

  Ken stopped chewing the doughnut for a minute. “The cops find it?”

  “No. The thieves brought it back themselves. Or, I should say, the thief, with his brothers’ help. Someone—well, someone caught them stealing it and told them they’d better return it or else.”

  Ken frowned, his mind spinning in higher gear. “Has that engine got anything to do with your wanting to see me?”

  Dusty smiled. “I think you’ve got it.”

  “Scott Taggart steal the engine?”

  “You’ve got it again. It was Taggart—and his brothers. I guess his nickname, ‘Rat,’ suits him to a T.”

  Ken found it difficult to swallow the piece of doughnut he had in his mouth. What gall Taggart must have, he thought, to steal an engine from the guy who was going to sponsor him.

  Dusty wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Anyway, now that he’s out of the picture, I’d like to sponsor you in at least two or three races. See how you run.”

  Ken was instantly bubbling with excitement. “It would be a pleasure, Mr. Hill.”

  He extended his hand, and Dusty got off his chair and shook it. Ken had a hard time restraining himself. This was what he needed, a sponsor like Dusty Hill to back him up with tires and parts for his machine whenever he needed them, and money for the entry fees. Racing was a joy, but it was no picnic without backing and the green stuff.

  They discussed and agreed on an arrangement, Dusty to receive forty percent of the winnings in exchange for taking care of the car’s repairs and Ken’s entry fees in the races. Dusty put it all down on paper, then both signed it. Dusty handed a copy of it to Ken and kept the original.

  Ken happily folded his copy and was ready to put it into his pocket when the door clanged open. He glanced toward it, and his heart gave a slight leap as he saw Dottie.

  She paused in front of the door as their eyes met. She seemed surprised to see him, and it was a few seconds before she spoke. “Hi, Ken. How are you?”

  “Hi, Dottie. I’m fine, now.”

  She closed the door gently behind her, then started forward, her blue eyes flicking perplexedly from him to her father and back to him. “Now? What does that mean?”

  “I’m going to sponsor him in two or three races,” her father explained. “I’ve fired Scott Taggart.”

  She froze. “Fired him? Why?”

  Her father turned and pointed at the engine sitting on a mount near the back of the store. “He was the one who stole that engine. If someone hadn’t seen him and made him bring it back, I would never have known that I was sponsoring a crook’s racing car.”

  Dottie’s face turned beet red. Then she spun around and flounced out of the store, her heels clicking on the hard wood floor. For a moment Ken thought that Dusty might try to call her back, but he didn’t.

  The door slammed shut behind her, and they watched her as she walked past the wide display window, her strides long and deliberate. A little while later they heard a car start up, its motor racing madly for a second or two. Then they heard it drive off, its exhaust roaring.

  “Don’t mind her,” Dusty said easily. “She’s hurt and confused. I guess she had taken a liking to Taggart.”

  Ken didn’t answer. What she had seen in the guy must be something only she could explain.

  He shook hands again with Dusty, promising he’d try never to let him down, then left.

  He arrived home and found Dana outside of the garage, talking with two guys straddling their motorcycles. One was a stranger to him. The other, the one with the heavy eyebrows and a mustache, was Nick Evans.

  His jaw tightened at the sight of Nick. He didn’t trust the guy as far as he could throw a bull. He wished Dana would quit working for him.

  They spoke briefly, and Nick asked him how his foot was. He said it was okay and walked toward the house, conscious of their eyes watching him. Sensing their eyes on him made him nervous, and just before he reached the step leading up to the porch, the rubber foot of his right-hand crutch landed on a pebble and slipped off, causing him to lose his balance.

  He caught himself in time and headed up the porch, blushing at the near mishap. Darn the crutches, he thought. The sooner he got rid of them the better.

  He was anxious to tell Dana that Dusty Hill had changed his mind and was going to sponsor him, but he felt he had to wait till Dana was alone.

  His mother was fixing supper and the girls were helping her. He sat down, leaning the crutches against the wall behind him, before he broke the good news to them.

  “Hey,” his mother said, her eyes brightening. “I guess he knows a good driver when he sees one, doesn’t he?”

  Ken grinned. Was she having a change of heart about his racing ambitions?

  He didn’t say anything about Scott Taggart. Not even about the engine Scott had stolen and returned. But he still wondered who had seen him taking it.

  “You see those guys out there with your brother?” his mother said. “The one with the mustache is Nick Evans. Frankly, I don’t trust him, and I wish that Dana wouldn’t work for him in his pool parlor, or chum around with him. I’ve told Dana, but I might as well talk to that wall.”

  Ken picked up a crutch and limped over to the refrigerator. “Don’t worry about him, Mom. Dana’s old enough to take care of himself.”

  “Age doesn’t make any difference when you run around with the wrong kind of people,” she replied. She turned to look at him where she was standing by the electric range, stirring macaroni in a large aluminum kettle. “Can’t you wait another few minutes? Dinner will be on the table soon.”

  “Just want a drink of iced tea, Mom,” he told her.

  SEVEN

  TIME TO EAT, Dana!” Janet called to him II from the porch. “It’s already on the table!”

  “Be right there!” he answered her. He turned to Nick and Phil Bettix, a guy he had just met. “See you at the hall. Okay?”

  They nodded, then started up their motorcycles and took off. Dana watched Nick’s twin-carbed 250CC Kawasaki sprint away down the driveway and then down the street like a young colt full of spit and vinegar. Bettix’s black and white Honda had a slow start, but the minute he had it on the street he goosed its engine and started to close the gap quickly between himself and Nick.

  Dana smiled at their game, then turned and headed toward the house.

  Anxious to know how Ken’s meeting with Dusty came out, he was barely able to restrain himself from asking Ken about it. He didn’t want Ken to have the slightest notion that it was he who was responsible for the meeting.

  His concern and anxiety didn’t last. Ken told him the news almost before Dana had closed the door behind him.

  “Congratulations, brother!” Dana said, and shook Ken’s hand. “What made him change his mind?”

  “Someone had seen Scott Taggart and his brothers steal the engine,” Ken explained, “and made Scott promise to take it back or expect to be arrested. Dusty didn’t say, but probably Scott paid the guy not to squeal to the cops.”

  “It’s possible,” Dana said steadily. “Anyway, I’m glad you got Dusty to sponsor you. He’s a good man to have backing you up.”r />
  After dinner he excused himself and took off on his Kawasaki for Nick’s pool parlor. His mother’s pale blue eyes hovered in his mind as he barreled the motorcycle down the street, the warm wind whistling past the plastic shield of his helmet. He knew she wasn’t crazy about his spending so much time at the parlor and in Nick Evans’s company, but the job was his bread and butter. And he liked the crowd that came to play pool. They weren’t all roughnecks and troublemakers as she had said they were. Once in a while one or two guys with a little too much to drink might start a quarrel, but, in general, most of the patrons were nice, law-abiding guys and girls.

  “For crying out loud, Ma,” he had said to her, “you seem to think that only bad kids hang around pool halls. There are a lot of good kids that hang around them, too.”

  He didn’t think he had convinced her.

  He reached Nick’s place, parked his motorcycle, locked it, and strode into the building with the helmet under his arm.

  He had a beer, then he found Nick and Bettix at one of the tables and joined them.

  They were in the middle of a game when Nick asked him, “Well, is Dusty going to sponsor Ken?”

  Dana watched Phil Bettix lean his tall, thin frame over his cue stick and size up his next shot. “He is,” he said.

  “Good. Maybe he’d be interested in a proposition I’ve got to offer him.”

  Dana looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that racing can pay off for him in more ways than one.”

  Dana’s eyes studied him a few moments while butterflies started to flutter in his stomach.

  “Maybe you should have told him that you would sponsor him,” he said.

  “I’m not about to sponsor anybody,” Nick answered tersely. “Not just yet, anyway.”

  Phil shot and drove the number-two ball into a corner pocket.

  “He won’t throw a race, Nick,” Dana said, getting to the point. “My kid brother is too darn honest to pull a thing like that.”