When Harlan returned, Trace was sitting in his lawn chair beside the trailer, smoking one of Harlan’s cigarettes.
“What the—?” Harlan began.
“Let’s go,” Trace said. “Let’s hit the road.”
Harlan glanced sideways at Jimmy and Smoky. Smoky disappeared into the Gulf Stream. “Gimme that thing,” Harlan said. He yanked the cigarette from Trace’s hand.
Trace stared across the nearly empty pits to the headlights moving on Highway 10.
“Where’s your girl?” Harlan asked.
“Gone,” Trace said. “Probably for good.” He slumped forward in the chair, and stared at the ground.
“What the hell happened?” Harlan asked.
Trace looked up at Jimmy. “You said April wasn’t here.”
“What?” Jimmy exclaimed. “No way! She ain’t working here, and I never saw her anywhere.”
“Well, she was here—in my cabin,” Trace said.
“Damn!” Jimmy said with a pained look.
“But hey, that’s not really Jimmy’s fault, is it?” Harlan said.
“No,” Trace said. “No, it’s not.” Across the empty pits, an eighteen-wheeler rumbled west on the highway.
Harlan pulled up a chair. He sat down. He drew deeply on Trace’s cigarette. “I shouldn’t have joked about fence bunnies the other day.”
Trace had no words.
“I could talk to her if you like,” Harlan said. “Tell her you’re not that kind of guy.”
“I am that kind of guy,” Trace said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Harlan said. “You’re handling this whole thing—the billboards, the fans, the attention—way better than I would have. Way better than most guys I know. I’d be like a kid in a candy shop—I’d be knocking over chicks like bowling pins. You’re not that way—and you’re a damn good driver, too.”
“I want to win—but on my own!” Trace blurted.
Harlan jerked his head at Jimmy, who disappeared into Smoky’s motor home. When he was gone, Harlan took another long draw. “You could win on your own. You’re a good enough driver,” he said.
“So we are cheating,” Trace said.
“I didn’t say that,” Harlan said. “You’re the one who says that.”
“You don’t drive the car,” Trace shot back. “You don’t feel what I feel on the pedal. You don’t see what I see on the tach.”
Harlan was silent for a moment. “Okay, okay—fair enough.” He lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “I know Smoky’s up to something. Nobody knows Chevy motors like Smoky, but I swear on my momma’s grave I don’t know what he’s doing.”
“It has something to do with carburetion—” Trace began.
“And I don’t want to know,” Harlan interrupted.
“Maybe a combination of the fuel pump and the carb,” Trace continued, “because it’s definitely about fuel flow.”
“Unless you can tell me exactly what he’s doing, I don’t want to hear about it!” Harlan said.
Trace fell silent.
Harlan let out a long exhale of cigarette smoke. They sat in silence for at least a minute. Then Harlan spoke. “Let me tell you something Darrell Waltrip once said about racing. It was pretty close to this: ‘If you don’t cheat, you’re an idiot. If you cheat and don’t get caught, you’re a hero. If you cheat and get caught, you’re a dope. Put me in the category where you think I belong.’ ”
Trace turned to look at Harlan. “So where do I belong?”
“You belong where you are right now—on top of the heap,” Harlan said. “With tonight’s checkered, you’re Midwestern points leader in Super Stocks.”
Much later, in his cabin, Trace felt the big Blu hauler gear down from freeway speed, the Allison transmission braking them—shoom, and shooom, and shoooooom—as it down-shifted. The rig rocked slightly as it slowed to a crawl. Still in his race clothes, he sat up in bed. He had sent Mel at least ten texts—with no reply. Each message was shorter than the last, until there were no more ways to say he was sorry.
He stood up and went to his porthole. Harlan was docking at the diesel pumps at the big Clearwater Travel Plaza, Freeway 94, near St. Cloud, Minnesota. They were headed to Minneapolis for a special appearance at the Mall of America, then on to Wisconsin for racing. This was a serious truck stop, with a long, tight row of eighteen-wheelers on the back side, their drivers catching some sleep, and a dozen pump lanes for “civilian” cars lit by harsh vapor lights. Trace had stopped here often with his parents on the way to Minneapolis and St. Paul—mainly because the place had a major bakery.
Remembering that he hadn’t eaten since early afternoon, Trace rummaged through his clothes for his wallet. Below, Harlan clanked the nozzle into the mouth of the saddle tank. Trace headed down, then stepped outside into the cool night air. Smoky and Jimmy were already on their way to the bakery. Smoky’s motor home sat just behind the big hauler, with Harlan on the back side of the tractor, running the fuel. Trace paused, glanced around, then stepped over to Smoky’s rig. He tried the door. It was open. With one more quick look around, he slipped inside.
The place smelled like tools. Like fuel and WD-40 and GoJo hand cleaner and Little Trees air freshener. Jimmy’s bunk, with rumpled sleeping bag, was over the cab, and Smoky’s bedroom was in the rear. In between, covering the little galley kitchen and all available counter and cushion space, were voltmeters, ohmmeters, electrical probes, remote-control devices, little boxes with joysticks that looked homemade, several types of magnets small to large, along with parts and pieces of cell phones. Those were all gathered around several silvery Holley carburetors. Trace picked up the nearest carb. It was way light in his hand—he knew the weight of a Holley two-barrel—and he turned it over. Parts of the underside were missing. He set it down and examined another carburetor. This one weighed right but had bright grinding and polishing marks on the side. Holding it close to his eyes, he saw a nearly invisible slot—with a tiny sliding window—no wider than a pencil eraser. The alterations were machined as finely as an expensive watch.
The door latch clicked behind him. Trace whirled. Smoky stood there, silhouetted in the narrow doorway.
“It’s way simpler than you think,” he said. His face was shadowy.
“I’m sorry,” Trace began. He glanced around the trailer.
Smoky shrugged. “I’d do the same thing if I were you—snoop around, try to figure things out.”
Trace looked again at the carburetor in his hand. He touched the altered spot. “It lets in more gas—I knew it,” he said.
Smoky stepped forward and took the carburetor from Trace; he carefully set it back in its place. “No. These were all experiments that failed. Getting more gas through the carb and into the cylinders was the obvious choice. But the best engineering solution is always the simplest—and the least obvious.”
“I don’t get it,” Trace said. “If it’s not more gas—”
“Then what’s the only other answer? Come on—you’re a motor guy.”
“More air,” Trace said. “It’s airflow!”
Smoky smiled his crooked smile. Jimmy arrived—and drew up in surprise to see Trace inside the motor home.
“I need to know how you do it,” Trace said.
“Why?” Smoky asked.
“Because he’s one of the good guys,” Harlan said from behind Jimmy. There was sarcasm in his voice. “He’s got the world by the tail, and he can’t leave well enough alone.”
“I can understand that,” Smoky said. “I’d want to know, too.”
“Well, I don’t,” Harlan said. “And neither does Jimmy. If we don’t know, nobody can say we were lying.”
Jimmy looked uncertainly at Smoky and Trace, then turned to follow his father into the cab.
“Come, I’ll show you,” Smoky said. “You deserve to know.”
Trace followed him inside the hauler. The bright lights came on—Smoky flinched at the glare, then bent to the hood. Trace unpinned one side and Smoky the other. Carefully they hoisted away the bonnet.
“Take off the air-cleaner collar,” Smoky said.
Trace obeyed.
“Now the air cleaner itself.”
Trace spun off the wing nut from the vertical center pole, and lifted the air filter hoop. Beneath it was the platter-size round plate that the filter rested upon. In the center was the open throat of the carburetor. He leaned in to look at the carb.
“You missed it already,” Smoky said.
Trace cocked his head one way, then the other.
“Just like the tech guys. They watch too many of those CSI shows. They want to do an autopsy, when the answer is way simpler.”
Trace stepped back. “I still can’t see how you’re getting more airflow.”
Smoky stepped up. With a small pliers, he unscrewed the vertical rod, threaded on top, that held in place the air-cleaner assembly. Every car had one. He tapped it on a roll cage pipe: ting! It rang bright and empty-sounding.
“It’s hollow,” Trace said.
Trace looked at its open end. “It’s not a bolt, it’s a tube.”
“It’s both,” Smoky said.
Trace held its open end to his lips, and blew; the pipe whistled like a tiny piccolo.
“It puts more air right down into the carb,” Smoky said. “Increases your cfm by about ten percent.”
“That’s why it always felt like I had more than a two-barrel carb.”
“Not always,” Smoky said.
“Just when you thought I needed it,” Trace added.
“Which wasn’t often.” There was pride in Smoky’s voice.
Trace examined the pipe once more—then held it close to the side of the Super Stock: it sucked against the tin with a sharp clack!
“Very good,” Smoky said.
“It’s magnetized,” Trace said. “That, with the antennas, the satellite dish, the remote controls—somehow you made it open and close.”
Smoky carefully retrieved his pipe. “A magician never gives away all his secrets,” he said, and began to reassemble the air-cleaner parts.
Trace leaned against the car and let out a long breath. “So now what?”
“I guess that’s up to you, kid,” Smoky said as he worked.
“I can’t drive if I know we’re cheating.”
“And I can’t not do my job,” Smoky said.
“Your job is to cheat?” Trace said.
“I don’t call it that,” Smoky said. “I make cars go fast—faster than other cars. So fast, nobody else can catch them. That’s how stock car racing began, and that’s how it still is. It’s my job to give you the fastest car on the track, and it’s the rules guys’ job to catch me. I’m only doing what Laura Williams and the people above her hired me to do: ‘Whatever it takes,’ they said.”
“What about Harlan and Jimmy?”
“They don’t know what I do or how I do it. They’re just country boys tryin’ to keep racin’ and make a living,” Smoky said. “Down South it’s tough if your family name ain’t Allison or Petty.”
Trace swallowed. He ran his hand along the smooth blue tin of the Super Stock.
Smoky looked sideways at Trace. “And don’t fool yourself, kid,” he said. “Racing is way bigger than any one driver. If you walk away, Laura will have another kid behind the wheel tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to walk away,” Trace said. “But if we keep cheating, I’ll never really know how good a driver I am.”
“Well, get used to that, because I’ve always got more tricks up my sleeve. If I can get one of those other carburetors to work right—”
Harlan and Jimmy appeared in the doorway.
“Come on in,” Smoky said. “We’re about done here.”
“Yes, we are,” Trace said suddenly. He stiffened his spine.
Harlan and Jimmy looked at Trace uncertainly.
“I can’t drive for you anymore,” Trace said to them.
“What?” Harlan exclaimed.
“Not this way,” Trace said.
“What way? We’re winning!”
“I want to be legal and win.”
Smoky shrugged, shook his head with a mixture of sadness and disgust, and left the trailer.
“What are we gonna do now, Pops?” Jimmy murmured. His face had turned pale and scared.
“Don’t worry about that,” Harlan replied, keeping his angry eyes on Trace. “One monkey don’t stop the show.”
Trace shrugged. “Well, I’m no longer the Team Blu monkey,” he said. He turned, headed up to his cabin, and threw his stuff in his duffel bag. It was surprising how few things actually belonged to him.
When he came down, Harlan and Jimmy were still there, waiting. Jimmy looked away; Trace saw a glint of extra water in his eyes.
“That monkey crack,” Harlan began. “That’s not exactly what I meant.”
Trace waited.
“I meant, Laura will have a new driver tomorrow,” Harlan said. “Drivers are a dime a dozen, but good ones—like you—are hard to find.”
Trace looked squarely at Harlan. “But with Smoky building my engines, and you looking the other way, how would I ever know how good I am?”
A pause followed. Jimmy’s eyes flickered back and forth between Harlan and Trace.
Harlan stiffened his back and put on his gruff face. “Okay, kid. I can sort of see what you’re saying. And you’re only eighteen. I’ve been there. So let’s do this: why don’t you go into the truck stop and cool off for a while? Get yourself a cup of coffee. Try to relax and think this through. Think about what you’d be throwing away.”
“I could go with him,” Jimmy said quickly.
“No,” Harlan said sharply. “Trace has to do this on his own.”
Jimmy’s shoulders pulled in; he said nothing more.
“Okay, I will,” Trace said. “I owe you that much.”
“But we roll in fifteen minutes,” Harlan said, looking at his watch. “You’re either on board or you’re not.”
Trace swallowed, shouldered his duffel bag, and walked out. Across the empty, brightly lit lot, past the silent gas pumps. He checked the time on his phone.
Inside, he stepped up to the counter.
“What do you need?” asked a sleepy-looking older woman. Trace wondered more and more about people: what things—what decisions—in her life had brought her to this moment?
“Coffee.”
“Dark roast, medium, or light?” she asked in automatic reply.
Hot cardboard cup in hand, he went to the narrow side counter and sat on a stool. He took his time opening three creamers; each one made his black coffee a shade lighter. After he stirred the coffee, he pushed the little plastic cups into a triangle. Like a shell game—which one covers the pea? But tonight there was no pea.
He looked around the diner at the scattering of other late-night types, all alone, then checked the time again. He called Mel, but she didn’t pick up; he didn’t leave a message. He thought of calling his father, but didn’t.
The coffee was horrible, and after a few sips he pushed it aside. He could see, through the front window glass, the big blue hauler, waiting beyond the far pumps. As the deadline approached—two minutes left—he carried his duffel bag to the front of the store. Near the door.
One minute.
Harlan revved the engine and brought up all the lights. It really was a beautiful rig.
“That your ride?” the guy at the till asked.
Trace swallowed. Ever so slowly, the Team Blu rig began to move. “No,” Trace said. “It’s not.”
The long hauler eased away. At the stop sign, its brake lights came on; there was no oncoming traffic, but the brakes remained red—as if Harlan was waiting. Long seconds stretched toward half a minute—and then the tractor jerked forward sharply, pulling the trailer onto the highway. Its running lights streamed sideways as they headed away, and then gradually disappeared into the night.
Trace went back to the counter. He spent a long time texting Mel. He told her about April, and also about Sara Bishop. The truth of both was way less bad than Mel believed. He told her about leaving Team Blu—and that he was coming home. After that he called his father.
When he finally set down his phone, the coffee woman came by, this time pushing a broom. Her gaze fell to Trace’s big duffel bag. “You got a ride somewhere?”
“Yes,” Trace said. “I’m waiting for my father. He’ll be here”—he checked his watch—“in a couple of hours. If that’s all right.”
“No problem, we’re open all night,” she said. Then she cocked her head to look at him again. “Your face seems familiar. I keep thinking I should know you.”
“I don’t think so,” Trace said. “But maybe someday you will.”
“And how would that be?” the woman said, mustering a small smile.
“I’m a race-car driver,” Trace said.