Checkered Flag Cheater (9 page)

“What, the tech inspection?” Trace said as he pulled himself upward through the window.

“No. That stuff over in the stands.”

“You mean, people not so happy that we won?” Harlan asked.

“Yes,” Laura said. “The ‘cheater' thing.”

“Local cowboys,” Harlan said with a dismissive wave. “They root for the hometown racers, and they hate it when somebody from out of town takes their money.”

Trace was silent.

“Hey, kid—our first feature win of the season!” Harlan
said. He threw a beefy arm around Trace. “Did y'all see his move on the last yellow flag?”

“Yes. Pretty cool,” Tasha said.

“He's the real deal,” Harlan said. “There's plenty more checkered flags where that one came from.”

From the hauler came the faint sound of Smoky closing his little window.

6

For their meeting, Tasha joined Trace in his cabin. She sat on the pull-out couch; Trace leaned back on his bed.

“So,” Tasha began.

“I know, I know,” Trace said. “I'm behind at MOHS.”

“The Phantoms,” Tasha said. “It's a sweet name for an online high school mascot, but from what I gather, you've been taking it literally.”

“We don't have to show up,” Trace replied.

“You know what I mean,” Tasha said. “Your counselor tells me that you haven't been turning in your online work, you won't take her calls, you don't respond to her e-mails.”

“I've been racing a lot,” Trace began.

“Don't kid me,” Tasha said. “At most you race three
times per week. You've got lots of off-hours while you're traveling. What are you doing with all your time?”

Trace shrugged.

Tasha looked around his cabin. Her gaze went to his gaming collection and his Xbox. She reached over and picked up two empty cases. “GTA IV. Warhammer,” she said. “Great.”

“Jimmy and I play some,” Trace said. “He's good.”

“What does that tell you?” Tasha said.

Trace shrugged again.

“He's a good gamer because he plays a lot. Because he plays a lot is why he's a tire and setup guy,” Tasha said. “ ‘Proficiency at pool is a sign of a misspent youth.' ”

“Pool?” Trace replied.

“It's an old saying,” Tasha explained, “but nowadays it would probably be gamers, not pool players.” She tossed the disk cases to Trace.

He caught them. “I'll get on it,” he said.

“I'll get on it,” Tasha said, mimicking him. “You sound just like my younger brother, Caleb, back home. He's a big basketball stud in high school. All he does is shoot hoops. Doesn't leave home without a basketball—he's constantly dribbling it between his legs or rolling it up and down his arms and across his shoulders. He's silky smooth. Scouts been watching him since grade school.”

“He must be good,” Trace said.

“Way good,” Tasha said. “So good my whole family's a nervous wreck about it. You know that movie
Hoop Dreams
?”

“Heard of it,” Trace said.

“It follows these two kids who can throw it down—I mean, they're both really good—just like Caleb. One of them sort of makes it, at least to college ball. The other kid gets injured, gets into drugs—a really sad story.”

There was silence in the little cabin.

“I've been thinking that you're in that kind of movie now,” Tasha said. “Except it's stock car racing, not basketball.”

“You're saying I'm not going to make it?” Trace asked.

“I'm saying you gotta watch the lifestyle part,” she said. “You can't just race cars, play video games, and sign girls' T-shirts.”

Trace looked down.

Tasha leaned forward. “You need to be more than a one-trick pony.”

“Okay, I hear you,” Trace said.

“This thing we got with Team Blu is business, and business can change just like this.” She snapped her fingers with a sharp
pop!

“I'm on it—I promise,” Trace said.

“Good,” Tasha said, standing up. “That's what I wanted to hear. Now, enough of this—you already got a mother and I'm not her.”

“That's for sure,” Trace said.

Tasha paused at the door, the faintest of smiles around the corners of her lips. “I'll bet you never saw many girls like me at your school.”

“None,” Trace said.

“Well, honey, everything they say about older women is true,” she answered. “But I'd never even consider hooking up with a guy who couldn't finish high school.”

Trace fell back on his bed as her footsteps thumpety-thumped down the stairs. He let out a long breath, and lay there a couple of minutes, getting his wits. He thought about stepping into his little bathroom and bleeding his pressure valve (as Harlan called the act) but, on second thought, stood up and went to his little window. He wanted to get one last glance at Tasha, who looked great from the front or the rear.

She was still in the pit area. A Ford pickup and trailer carrying an orange Super Stock had stopped on the way out. Tasha stood with one hand on the truck's roof as she leaned in. She was talking with Jason Nelson.

7

Harlan powered the big blue hauler out of the Huron speedway as soon as the Super Stock was tied down and the trailer buttoned up. Team Blu would not race again until Saturday night in Billings, Montana, with a promo stop in Gillette, Wyoming, on the way, but Harlan liked to get gone.

They had been under way only a few minutes when there was a light tap on Trace's cabin door. He looked up with surprise. “It's open.”

Jimmy poked in his head.

“Harlan take off without you?” Trace asked. Jimmy usually rode up front with his dad; there was no inner door between the hauler and the tractor's cab.

“Yeah. He hates hanging around after a race.”

“No kidding,” Trace said.

“Says that after you win, only bad things can happen if you stick around—but I think he was scared of the cowboys,” Jimmy said with a yuk. He swayed in the doorway as the truck turned.

“Want to shoot some trolls?” Trace said, nodding toward the Xbox.

“Better not,” Jimmy said. “You're supposed to be doing your homework.”

“I'll get it done. Take a load off,” Trace said, nodding toward the couch where Tasha had sat. “I can never do much of anything right after a race.”

The Speed Channel was on, and they watched a show where drag strip fans guessed the quarter-mile pass times. Jimmy cleaned up; he was always within a couple tenths of a second. During a commercial break for new cars, Trace turned suddenly to Jimmy. “Hey—what'd you do with my car?”

“I met this girl, a single mom, at the concession shack,” Jimmy said.

“And?” Trace said.

“I gave it to her.”

They watched the next two cars do their burnouts—then power down the straight track. “Seriously, what did you do with the car?” Trace asked.

“I told you—I gave it to her,” Jimmy said. “Handed her the keys and the paperwork. ‘It's yours,' I said.”

“What'd she say?”

“ ‘Thanks,' ” Jimmy said.

“Is that all?” Trace asked.

“Well, not exactly,” Jimmy said, and blushed.

Below, Harlan shifted gears.

“I figured she needed it more than us,” Jimmy said.

Trace looked up, as if he could see or smell something. “We're heading south,” he said. “I can feel it.”

“Could be,” Jimmy said.

“Aren't we going to Montana?” Trace asked.

“Yup,” Jimmy said. “Pops is dropping down to I-90 and then west.”

They were silent for a while. “You could spin me around blindfolded and I would always know my directions,” Trace said, his eyes on the next pair of drag racers.

“That's another skill I don't have,” Jimmy said.

“You got skills,” Trace said.

Jimmy shrugged. When he was away from his father, he was way more serious—a different guy altogether.

“Want some food?” Trace said, gesturing to the fridge.

“No thanks. Got plenty of comp food for myself, Pops, and Smoky from the concession girl.”

“I would hope so,” Trace said. “What else did she give you?”

Jimmy's narrow shoulders bounced with silent laughter.

The truck's engine pulled one more time, then settled back into high gear and lower rpm, as if the highway was clear ahead.

“The car ran great tonight,” Jimmy said.

“And then some,” Trace said.

They were silent for a while.

“How'd you meet Smoky?” Trace asked.

“Pops knew him. He was a driver out of Corbin, Kentucky,” Jimmy said. “In the sixties, before NASCAR came down on everybody with rules and template bodies, he raced with the big boys, like Jimmie Johnson—until he crashed.”

“What happened?”

“He was racing asphalt, a long-distance thing at Darlington or someplace like that. One of those races where the more fuel you can carry, the better. Drivers would come up with tricks to hide extra fuel in their cars—even one gallon could make the difference between winning and losing. Some guys welded up little minitanks here and there; they say Smoky might have had race fuel inside the pipes of his roll cage. All the tubing full of fuel. He never said that, but I guess when he crashed, his car went off like a bomb.”

Trace sucked in a breath.

“He was in the hospital so long, people forgot about him,” Jimmy said. “People thought he was dead, which was all right with Smoky. It allowed him to disappear, until Pops ran across him working in the back room of a filling station as a mechanic. People kept talking about this guy who could fix anything—especially Chevy motors. He could make 'em sit up and bark, they said. Pops was starting to race himself then. Smoky built him a motor, and they just hit it off.”

“How old is he?” Trace asked. It was good to get Jimmy talking; he knew stuff. He was way smarter than he acted.

“Sixty at least. Maybe close to seventy.”

“I thought he was, like, fifty,” Trace said.

“You should see pictures of Smoky before he got burned. Brown, curly hair. Big chin and nose. He could have been in the movies,” Jimmy said. “He says he'll never get wrinkles because his skin's burned tight.”

“Does he have family?” Trace asked.

“Nope,” Jimmy said. “We're it. He's sort of like a granddaddy to me.”

Trace was silent.

“He's taken a real shine to you,” Jimmy said. “Says, as a driver, you remind him of himself back when he was young and bulletproof.”

“Are you kidding?” Trace said, turning to Jimmy. “He won't tell me anything. Keeps all his stuff locked up. I've never been inside his trailer.”

“It's pretty full in there,” Jimmy said quickly. “He's got all this electronic stuff. Hardly room to turn around.”

“What kind of electronic stuff?”

“Beats me,” Jimmy said, his eyes flickering sideways. “I'm just the tire and setup guy.”

“All those antennas and stuff. It's like he could run a radio station,” Trace pressed.

Jimmy's phone beeped. He gave it a quick look. “I better go or Pops will think I'm bothering you,” he said to Trace.

“You don't bother me,” Trace said.

Jimmy grinned shyly. At the door he paused, then said suddenly, “You want to know something funny?”

Trace waited.

“I'm a crew guy on a race team and I don't even have a driver's license.”

“You get in trouble and lose it?”

“Nope. Never got one. Never took the test.”

“Why?” Trace said.

Jimmy shrugged. “I was afraid. Still am.”

“Of the test, or what?”

“Sort of.”

“You can read, right? I've seen you.”

“Yeah. But slow. Sort of like my typing.”

“At the testing place I think they have people to help you with that part,” Trace said.