Drag Strip Racer

by Matt Christopher

  Nick chuckled. “I’ve met a lot of honest kids in my day, Dana. Most of them have a little bit of larceny in that honest-to-goodness heart of theirs. He’s your blood brother. You can’t make me believe that a little bit of you isn’t in him. And that powerful green stuff, money, will bring it out of him.”

  Dana watched Phil miss a side-pocket shot by half an inch. But his ears were tuned in to what Nick Evans was saying, and he could hardly believe what he heard.

  Time passed as if in slow motion. He watched Nick walk around the table to get in position for a shot on the eleven ball. Nick didn’t play often; only when there were about two or three people in the room. Most of the time he lingered near the cash register, watching the players or reading a magazine.

  Nick made the shot, but the cream-colored ball ricocheted against the cushion, then rolled back across the table into a side pocket.

  Bettix picked the eleven ball out of the pocket, spotted it on the white dot, then got the cue ball and set it in position.

  “Tell Ken to give me a call,” Nick said. “No rush. It can be at his convenience.” He glanced toward the doorway where four customers were just entering. “Here. Finish the game.” He handed the cue stick to Dana and walked toward the front of the room to take care of them.

  Bettix, still leaning over the table with the small end of the cue stick poked through his looped forefinger, said softly, “Don’t underestimate Nick, my friend. I’ve known him a long time. He gambles, and seldom loses. Even when it comes to predicting people.”

  He shot. The cue ball struck the three ball on the side, angling it straight toward the corner pocket. The ball dropped in.

  But the cue ball hadn’t finished its job. It hit the far side of the table, then ricocheted sharply to the left and kissed the five ball that stood near the corner pocket.

  Bettix went on to clean the table.

  Dana stared at him, incredulous. “Hey, who are you, anyway?” he asked.

  Bettix smiled. “Head mechanic at Troy’s Garage, and one heck of a lucky pool player. Come on. I’ll buy you a beer.”

  EIGHT

  THE PHONE woke Ken. It rang and rang, and II he began to wonder if there was anyone else in the house.

  Presently he heard footsteps hurrying across the floor, then the ringing stopped. Seconds later there was a tap on his door.

  “Ken, are you awake?” It was his mother’s voice. She sounded worried.

  He flipped back the covers. “Yeah,” he said.

  “Dana’s on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

  Dana? What does he want? “Be right there,” he said.

  He turned on the lamp that stood on the night-stand next to his bed and glanced at the small, radium-dialed clock sitting next to it. Quarter of three. Oh, man, he thought. Now what was Dana up to?

  He reached for his crutches and hobbled out of the room.

  The light in the hall was lit. It created a soft glow around his mother’s head as she stood there in front of it, her face slightly in shadow.

  “He says he’s all right, but what’s he doing out this late at night?” she said worriedly. “And why should he be asking for you?”

  Ken hobbled past her. “Go back to bed, Mom,” he said. “I’m sure he’s all right. If he wasn’t, it would’ve been someone else calling.”

  It was a lame statement, he knew, and he didn’t think he was fooling her one bit. But he had to say something and that was the best thing he could think of right now.

  He got to the phone and picked it up. “This is Ken,” he said.

  “Ken, I’m in the brig,” Dana said. “I had an accident with my bike and they got me on a DUI.”

  “Great; driving under the influence, really smart,” said Ken, feeling a stab of disgust. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Bail me out, what else? It’s only two hundred dollars. But I don’t want anybody else in the family to know about this.”

  Ken glanced back over his shoulder and saw his mother staring at him from the next room.

  “Dana, I haven’t got two hundred dollars,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’ve put all I had in that car. You know that.”

  “I know, I know,” said Dana. He didn’t sound drunk to Ken. “Ask Dusty Hill for it. I’m sure he’ll give it to you.”

  “I can’t ask him. I haven’t even raced for him yet. What about Nick Evans?”

  “No, not Nick,” countered Dana. “Look, see Dusty…”

  “Why not Nick?” Ken interrupted. “You work for him. Why wouldn’t he put up bail for you?”

  He heard Dana take a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t want Nick involved in this, Ken,” he said irritably. “That’s final. Keep his name out of this. See Dusty. He’ll give it to you. Tell him I’ll pay him back in a month or so. But, for crying out loud, do it as soon as you can this morning. I don’t want to stay in this hoosegow all day.”

  Ken sighed. “Okay, Dana. I’ll see what I can do.”

  He hung up.

  He turned slowly, hoping his mother wasn’t still back there waiting for him. But she was. Her eyes were wide with anxiety, her face like dough in the weak light.

  “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?” she murmured.

  He hobbled toward her, then started to go past her. “He was in a small accident,” he said uneasily. “He isn’t hurt, though, so don’t worry.”

  She laid a hand on his arm. “Where is he?”

  He hesitated. “Mom, he’s all right. Don’t worry about him.”

  He walked past her, feeling her eyes piercing his back.

  “Ken,” she said.

  He paused and turned around. “He’s in jail, Mom, under two-hundred-dollar bail,” he explained. “I’m going to ask Dusty Hill for the money this morning to bail him out.”

  He felt he had to tell her. He couldn’t let her go to bed worrying the worst about Dana.

  “If I had it—” she started to say.

  “But you don’t,” Ken cut in, “so forget it. Go to bed. It’ll work out.”

  He went back to bed himself, staring up at the darkened ceiling. That brother of mine, he thought. What is it going to be the next time? A real smashup in which he’d barely survive? Or didn’t survive?

  It was ten of eight, and his father was already sitting down at breakfast when Ken entered the kitchen. Ken could tell immediately from the expression on his father’s face that he had learned about Dana.

  He sat down and had a glass of orange juice while his mother started to cook some hot cereal for him.

  “So your brother finally got jailed on a DUI charge,” his father broke the awkward silence. “I’d let him sit there for a couple of days. Let him get some sense into that crazy head of his.”

  Ken stared at him.

  “Frank!” Mrs. Oberlin exclaimed. “He’s your son! How can you say a thing like that? Why, he’d be more hurt than ever—”

  “Hurt?” her husband cut in, looking up at her. “How about me? And you? Aren’t you hurt about what happened to him, and what he keeps doing to mess up his life? Maybe a couple of days in jail will be just the thing to teach him a lesson or two.”

  “Don’t say that, Dad,” Ken said. “He already thinks you don’t care what happens to him. And that you don’t love him. If he could hear what you’re saying now—” He paused. “Well, I don’t know what he’d do.”

  “If I didn’t love him I wouldn’t care what happened to him,” his father grunted. “And the same goes for you.”

  For a moment their eyes met, and Ken felt a desperate urge to reach over and touch his father’s hand. But just then his mother came over with the cereal and poured it into the bowl in front of him.

  After his mother had left for work, Ken left to run his errand, knowing that Dana must be sitting on pins and needles in that jail cell waiting for him to arrive with the bail money.

  He drove the pickup to the Wade Mall and found Dusty having coffee and doughnuts with Rooster. They both looked at him as he
stepped into the store, and for a minute he wondered if he should mention his mission to Dusty in front of Rooster.

  Anyway, Dusty didn’t ask what brought him here so early. Instead, he offered Ken a doughnut which Ken accepted.

  They talked briefly about his leg. “You’re walking with those crutches as if you’ve always had ’em,” Rooster said. They talked about his little red racing car. “Race coming up this Saturday. You going to enter it?” the mechanic wanted to know.

  Ken said no, he wasn’t. He wanted to run more passes with the car.

  Would he be ready to race next weekend? He wasn’t sure, he said.

  Rooster finally finished his second doughnut and his coffee, ran a hand across his mouth to wipe off the rim of powdered sugar, and left. The minute the door clanged shut behind him, Ken began to steel himself against the embarrassment of asking Dusty for the money to bail Dana out of jail. They had signed an agreement that Dusty would back him up in three successive races, with the option for more races should they find that their partnership was mutually satisfactory. But Ken still didn’t feel close enough to Dusty to ask him for two hundred dollars to bail out Dana without alligators prowling around in his stomach.

  “Something on your mind, Ken?” Dusty asked, wiping the cup out with a napkin and then setting it on a shelf next to the coffee maker.

  “Yeah.”

  Thoughts jumbled in his mind for a few sec onds before he finally got them together. “I need two hundred dollars to bail my brother out of jail.”

  Dusty’s eyes widened with surprise. “What did he do?”

  “He got into an accident with his motorcycle and was arrested for drunken driving.”

  “Did he get hurt?”

  “No.”

  Dusty sucked in a deep breath, pursed his lips, and shook his head. Ken interpreted it to mean that Dusty was refusing him. But then Dusty leaned over to one side, took out his wallet, and picked out two fifty-dollar bills. He got two more fifties out of the cash register and handed them all over to Ken.

  Ken felt his hand tremble as he took them. “Thanks, Mr. Hill. I hadn’t wanted to ask you, but—”

  “Forget it. Always willing to help a friend.”

  “Thanks again. Dana promised he’d pay you back within a month. If he doesn’t, well…I’ll try to myself. I’ll sign an IOU if you want me to.”

  Dusty raised his hand. “Hey. Forget it. I’ll take your brother’s word that he’ll pay me back. He’s not all that bad.” The last sentence came out almost as an afterthought.

  Ken stuck the two hundred dollars into his wallet, said good-bye to Dusty, and walked out of the store.

  Within twenty minutes Dana was out of jail.

  In the pickup Dana said, “Dusty gave you the money, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dana reached over and squeezed Ken’s knee. “I appreciate this, brother.”

  “Well, you owe him two hundred. I told him you had promised to pay him back in a month.”

  “Don’t worry,” Dana said easily. “I will.”

  On the following Monday Ken hauled Li’l Red to the Candlewyck Speedway in hopes of running a dozen or so passes with her. This time both Janet and Lori rode with him. Lori hadn’t seen him drive the little red Chevy down any speedway track yet and had begged to go along.

  He got the surprise of his life when he got out of the pickup and started to pull down the ramp on the trailer. He had heard a voice over the public address system and looked up to see someone waving to him from a window of the timing tower.

  “Oberlin, I’m sorry, but you can’t run your car on the track,” came Buck Morrison’s ringing voice.

  Ken stiffened. “Why not?” he shouted.

  There was a pause. Then the face disappeared from the window.

  His sisters stared at him. Janet looked shocked and surprised, and Lori sadly disappointed.

  “Get into the truck,” Ken said, his jaw set.

  They piled in. He got behind the wheel and drove up to the timing tower. His heart was pumping hard as he grabbed his crutches and stepped out of the truck.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  He entered the building at the rear of which another door led to the lanes. Inside were wind-and rain-battered signs regarding racing dates, coils of cords and electric bulbs hung haphazardly up on the walls, and the electronic starting device—the Christmas tree—standing on a tripod near the center of the wood floor.

  Ken started up the steps that ran along the wall. A shadow moved across the wall and he glanced up to see Buck Morrison looking down at him over the upstairs railing. Then the shadow vanished as Buck moved away.

  When Ken finally reached the second floor he saw Buck sitting at his desk, reading one of the letters piled on it. Jay Wells was on a phone at another desk and a girl was banging on a typewriter at a third desk.

  Between Buck’s and Jay’s desks were the public address system units and the console from which the Christmas tree was operated.

  For almost a minute Ken stood there and no one seemed to notice him, even though Buck had seen him ascending the stairs only moments before. The only sounds in the room were the staccato tap-tap-tap of the typewriter and the soft country music emanating from a portable radio.

  “Excuse me,” Ken said.

  Buck and Jay turned and looked at him. The girl kept pounding on the typewriter.

  “Good morning, Mr. Oberlin,” Buck Morrison said.

  “Morning.” Ken felt a tightening in his stomach. “Why can’t I use the track?”

  Ken saw Buck flash a glance at his partner. Then he looked back at Ken. “For starters, we figured that it was best you didn’t until you got that cast off your leg.”

  “I’ve driven that car with the cast on, Mr. Morrison,” Ken said firmly. “You know I have. And the cast is on my left leg. It doesn’t hinder me one bit.”

  Buck shrugged. “We see it differently, Mr. Oberlin.”

  He turned and picked up another letter from the pile in front of him.

  “I don’t think you’re doing this because of the cast,” Ken said, trying to control his anger. “I think there’s some other reason. What do you mean, ‘for starters’?”

  The two partners looked at each other again, and Ken felt a message being exchanged between them. Then Buck turned back to him and said, “We received a phone call that at least two guys won’t race if you’re going to race, too.”

  Ken frowned. “Why not? What did I do?”

  Buck cleared his throat, “This person swore that you’d been drinking before you got in the accident that resulted in your breaking that leg,” he said tersely. “We just can’t take a chance that it’ll happen again, Mr. Oberlin.”

  Ken stared at him. “Drinking? That’s a darn lie! My brakes blew! Who told you I was drinking?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Oberlin,” Buck said, and turned back to his work.

  Ken grabbed his shoulder. Buck whirled, his eyes furious. “You heard me! I’m sorry!Now, will you excuse me? We’re all very busy.”

  “Yeah,” Ken said, glancing at Jay Wells and the girl again. “I can see that very well.”

  He bit down hard on his lower lip to keep his emotions under control, then walked back downstairs and got into the pickup.

  The girls wanted to know why he couldn’t use the track and he told them only a part of what Morrison had told him; he said it was because of the cast on his leg.

  He didn’t want them to worry unduly over him.

  NINE

  KEN WRACKED HIS BRAIN trying to think of a place to practice driving his car. They were on the highway heading back toward Wade, but he didn’t feel like returning home just yet.

  Only the buzzing drone of the Ford’s engine and the hum of the tires on the road cut into the otherwise silent cab of the pickup. They passed by fields of short-cropped grass, feathery-foliaged jacaranda trees, and tall, single-trunked palms. It was while passing a field in which cattle grazed, placidly ign
oring the white egrets that stood on their backs feasting on bugs, that Ken thought of a place. The field just north of here, off Lychee Road. An old abandoned airport.

  A smile creased his face as he stepped on the gas and sped to the junction where Lychee Road turned off the highway. Four miles farther on they were there.

  He stopped the truck in front of the gate leading onto the field, gazed at the weather-beaten hangar and the black-topped runway, which had begun to sprout stubbles of grass, and smiled again. “Perfect!” he exclaimed. “Now if we can get permission to use it.”

  He turned the truck around and drove to a small ranch house about a mile back. The man who answered his knock was the abandoned airport’s owner. Ken kept his mental fingers crossed as he asked for permission to drive his car on the runway. He wouldn’t be there more than half an hour, he promised.

  The man—a tall, rotund figure in overalls—glanced past Ken’s shoulder at the little red car sitting on the trailer and, without blinking an eye, said, “Sure, you can. It’ll be the first time anything’s been on that runway in five years.”

  Ken was instantly alight with excitement. “Thank you. Is the gate locked?”

  “Just lift up the chain,” the man told him.

  Ken thanked him again, then returned to the truck and drove back down the road to the gate. He got out, lifted the chain from the fence post, swung the gate open on groaning, rusty hinges, and drove in.

  He parked beside the old building, which he could see now had part of a damaged airplane’s fuselage inside of it. Then he unloaded the racer, put on his firesuit, helmet, and gloves, and drove the car onto the airstrip.

  Sitting behind the wheel again filled him with excitement. The sound of the motor was like an eight-piece orchestra joined in perfect harmony, and he was the man with the baton.

  He nodded to his sisters, who were standing by the pickup, watching him with eager faces.

  Then he pulled back the gear lever and stepped on the gas. He pushed the pedal down only about two-thirds of the way. He didn’t want to start off with full power just yet. Treat it kindly the first two or three times, he figured, then put the pressure on it.