Two Jakes (65 page)

That
did it. They were entering a small turn and the car fishtailed and then went
totally out of control, spinning around several times before hitting an outside
wall. The impact sent the car back across the track to the infield sideways.
When the two wheels on the left side hit the softer dirt, the stock car rolled
over several times. At one point it twirled on its nose, became airborne and
then flipped end over end. Large and small pieces, including both hood and
trunk, flew off, as did two tires.

Scarne
had been momentarily knocked out by the initial wall impact. He came to about
halfway through the rolls and watched in fascination as the sky, ground and
stands alternated in a kaleidoscope through the shatterproof windshield. After
what seemed an eternity, the mangled wreck finally slid to a stop on its roof
in a cloud of dust that blocked Scarne’s vision completely.

Upside
down and stunned, he was nevertheless mystified by the near silence. He braced
himself for the inevitable explosion and fire. But although he could smell
fuel, nothing happened. The sound of approaching sirens shook him from his
daze. He tried to crawl out the window. He couldn’t budge. Panicking, he
thought himself paralyzed. Then he realized that he was still tightly
harnessed. Forcing himself to think calmly, he unhooked all his safety
apparatus, as he had been drilled. He put his hands on the door frame and
pulled himself onto the ground in a fraction of the time it had taken him to
get in the car. The prospect of being broiled alive was a great motivator.

The
sirens were getting closer. He looked back and saw two trucks racing his way,
with men running in their wake. He smelled smoke and looked on the track. The car
engine was sitting 150 feet away, burning. He pulled himself together. Crash
was still in the car, which he assumed could go up at any second. He got to his
feet and immediately fell down. All his teeth hurt. In fact, his entire head
felt like it might fall off. But he half crawled, half walked to the driver’s
side and reached in to unhook Crane, who was limp. He grabbed the unconscious
man by the shoulders and began to pull him out. Only his legs remained inside
the cab when several firemen and attendants ran up and doused them both with
foam. One man reached in to grab the driver’s legs.

“Where’s
the goddamn steering wheel?”

“Don’t
ask.”

Together
they pulled Crane out the rest of the way and dragged him a safe distance from
the wreck. They lay him on the grass. He was motionless. An emergency worker
gingerly unzipped his suit and removed his helmet. He tilted the driver’s head
back to clear his airway and started breathing into his mouth.

“What
the hell, you doin’, boy?” Crash sat up so suddenly the EMT yelped. “We ain’t
even engaged.” He then looked around at the stunned men. “Did I win?” Then he
looked at Scarne. “Hey Jake, how’s it hangin’? What’s everybody staring at? Did
I forget to turn the engine off or somethin’.”

In
unison, all the men turned to look over at the track, where a fire truck was
spraying the smoldering remains of the car’s power plant. Crane appeared not to
notice. He lay back down and started singing.
I’m gonna wash that song right
outa my hair. I’m gonna wash that song
.… Soon he was asleep, and snoring
contentedly.

“Let’s
get him to a hospital,” the EMT said. “Must be brain damage.”

“He’s
fine,” Scarne said, and then passed out.

***

In
the grandstand a few hundred yards away a handful of spectators had watched the
incident in shocked silence. Now all but one started jabbering excitedly. Two
young children began crying as their parents comforted them. The man who wasn’t
saying anything studied the wreck intently through a pair of binoculars. One of
the other men in the stands turned to him.

“Jesus
H. Christ,” the man exclaimed. “They have to be dead. Nobody could survive
that. Can you see anything?”

Sobok
lowered his binoculars.

“I
wonder why there was no explosion and such a small fire,” he said to no one in
particular. Then he turned to the children. He hadn’t expected any to be at the
race track. Another miscalculation, one that bothered him. “It’s all right. No
one was hurt. Just a lot of noise.”

It
was obvious Scarne had survived the accident. A tough man to kill, he thought,
with a tinge of admiration. Maybe if I had more time to set this up.

Sobok
had gotten the call only the previous evening. The Internet had provided him
with some ideas but he’d had to cobble together a plan in a few hours. Oh well,
he thought, as he headed down the stairs. I suppose I could try again at
whatever hospital they take him. Forget it. No more amateur hour.

Sobok
turned back to the family with the children. He took off his V.I.P. badge. It
had served its purpose, giving him the run of the track complex, including
locker rooms and maintenance areas.

“This
will get you in the private lunchroom,” he said, handing the badge to the
father. “Why don’t you take the children there. I think it will give you a
discount in the gift shop, as well. Take their mind off all this
unpleasantness.”

The
man stammered his thanks. As he walked away Sobok heard the wife say, “What a
nice man!”

CHAPTER
27 – NO LAUGHING MATTER

This
is getting ridiculous, Scarne thought. Another day, another hospital. He was
having trouble remembering their names. Oh, yeah. This one was Wilkes-Barre
General. He’d be safer if he reenlisted. Dudley thought this case would be an
easy way for him to ease back into his old life. He might be on disability
before he could do that. Honker and Graebe walked into the room.

“I
missed lunch,” Scarne said.

“But
not the wall,” Graebe said.

“How
are you feeling,” Honker said, with what for him must have passed for concern.
His tone reminded Scarne of his old gunnery sergeant who, despite the fact that
Scarne outranked him, said the platoon was going to hell while its young
officer was “goofing off” in the hospital with pneumonia.

“Not
too bad, considering that the only part of my body that doesn’t ache is my left
pinky. Just what the hell happened out there?”

“We’re
not sure. Your driver, Crane, says he doesn’t remember a thing before he came
to on the tarmac. We just left him. He’s just down the hall.”

“How
is he?”

“Concussion.
Lots of scrapes and bruises. Broken nose. And a separated shoulder, which we think
he got when you wrenched him out of the car.” At this, Honker looked accusingly
at Scarne.

“Next
time, I’ll try to be more gentle. Maybe wait for an explosion to help throw the
driver out.”

Graebe
laughed

Honker
wasn’t amused.

“What
can you tell us about the incident?”

Incident?
Apparently hitting a wall at almost 200 miles an hour, cart-wheeling 200 yards
and ending up in an engine-less hulk of scrap metal didn’t qualify as an
‘accident’ or a ‘crash.’

Scarne
sighed and told them everything he could recall.

Finally,
Graebe spoke up.

“Jesus,
I’m sure glad you signed that release form.”

“Believe
me, you don’t want my attorney looking at that form,” Scarne said dryly. He saw
them exchange looks at the mention of a lawyer. “Don’t worry, boys, I’m not
going to sue. But I want to know why one of your top drivers suddenly went
berserk. I’d think you’d want to know, too.”

“Of
course we do,” Honker snapped. “Despite his good old boy routine, Lex Crane is
normally one of our most stable guys. We think perhaps he had some residual
effects from his earlier accident. Maybe a seizure of some sort. Soon as he is
up to it, the docs want to run some more scans. That may tell us something. In
the meantime, if you can think of anything else, let us know.” As an afterthought,
he added. “And, of course, if you need anything.”

Graebe
put a couple of magazines on the bed stand.
Car and Driver
. “Thought you
might want something to read.”

Scarne
started to laugh, but it hurt.

“I
had them drive your car over,” Honker said. “It’s in the hospital lot. The keys
are with your effects.”

“How
did you know which car was mine?”

“Be
serious. No body in NASCAR would be caught dead driving an MGB.” Honker
realized that the “caught dead” remark might be considered inappropriate. “I
mean …”

This
time Scarne did laugh. The men turned to leave.

“Wait
a minute,” he said. They stopped. “Seizure, you say? I read somewhere that some
people smell things just before they have one. Part of the epileptic aura.
Crash said he smelled something funny just before he went off the deep end. But
I have a hard time squaring a seizure with him singing the cast album from
South
Pacific
.”

“What
kind of smell?” Graebe was interested. “Like gasoline or oil?”

“No.
Something sweet or flowery. He wasn’t too clear on it. I didn’t smell
anything.”

The
two visitors looked at each other.

“Shit,”
Honker said.

They
left without another word. A few minutes later Aristotle Arachne walked in.

“I
saw the whole thing, Jake. It’s a miracle you survived.” Arachne looked
devastated. “I almost got you killed.”

“Not
your fault.”

“I
insisted on the demo ride.”

“Forget
it, Ari. I’m just glad we can laugh about it.”

“Do
they know what went wrong?”

“Not
yet.”

“Something
mechanical, no doubt. Stuck gas pedal, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.”

“Well,
at least I hope Honker was helpful. Did he provide any useful information?”

Scarne
didn’t want to tell Arachne that the security man had stonewalled. The real
estate mogul had only tried to help. It wasn’t his fault that the trip had been
a total waste of time. He obviously felt bad enough already.

“We
talked in generalities,” Scarne said. “We were going to pick it up after lunch.
Now, he’s got other problems. Maybe I’ll call him in a few days.”

“So,
you didn’t get into the things you mentioned to me?”

“I
told you I would be circumspect.”

Arachne
flashed an expansive smile.

“Yes,
yes, of course you did. Well, I have to get back to the city, but I’ll check up
on you. Of course, I’ll cover all your hospital bills.”

Only
the very rich can get away with a line like that today , Scarne thought.

***

A
resident came in late that afternoon, holding a sheaf of X-rays and reports.

“I’m
Dr. Bhupathi. The NASCAR people are apparently very solicitous of your health,
Mr. Scarne. I’m happy to tell you that they – and you – have nothing to worry
about. A mild concussion. Some deep bruises but, amazingly, no broken bones or
serious burns.” Bhupathi gave him a strange look. “Those marks on your face
seem to be healing remarkably fast. And some of your injuries are a bit inconsistent
with what happened. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

Scarne
didn’t want to go into his Florida experience, so he merely said, “I seem to be
accident prone lately. I’ve been wondering about the burn part. I kept waiting
to be fricasseed.”

“I
asked the track people about that myself. They have reinforced fuel tanks and
pretty good fire suppression systems on those cars. And they don’t put much
fuel in the demonstration cars to begin with. Apparently yours was almost down
to fumes by the time you crashed. You and the driver were incredibly lucky.”

Bhupathi
told him they wanted to keep him overnight, just to be sure about the
concussion. Scarne, who by now felt like one big bruise, didn’t argue.

***

Honker
called the next morning. He sounded less reserved and asked him to stop by the
track office after he was discharged.

“There
is something I want to show you.”

As
Scarne was dressing to leave the hospital, there was a tentative knock on his
door. He turned to see a sheepish-looking Crane, arm in sling and bandage on
head. His nose was askew. “How you doing,’ pardner?”

“Fine,
Crash. You OK?”

Scarne
made a conscious effort not to stare at the nose, which looked like it was
signaling a left turn.

“Hell,
this is nothin’.” Crane lifted his sling a bit. “And I’ve been concussed
before. There’s not much left upstairs to scramble.” He shifted uncomfortably.
“But I’m mighty sorry about what happened. They said I went bonkers. More than
usual, I mean.”

Scarne
felt for the man. Whatever happened obviously wasn’t his fault, and, in
addition to feeling guilty about almost killing his passenger, he was
undoubtedly worried about his career.

“Listen,
Crash. They’ll get to the bottom of all this. Right now, just get better.
You’ll be back out there in no time.”

“Sure.”
But he sounded dubious. But then he brightened. “Hey. When I am, you got a pass
into every race on the circuit. Just call. Anytime.”

They
shook hands, painfully, laughing, and Scarne headed to the track.

When
he arrived at Honker’s office, Graebe was there, along with two men in
coveralls. They were introduced as NASCAR mechanics. Other staff drifted over
to listen. On a small plastic sheet on Honker’s desk was a jumble of cylinders,
wires, gaskets, nozzles, hoses and other mechanical and electrical paraphernalia.
Scarne picked up a piece.

“Is
this all that’s left of the car?”

No
one was apparently in the mood for levity and he soon found out why.

“It’s
a nitrous oxide racing kit made for Camaros and Firebirds,” one of the
mechanics said. “Pretty sophisticated array. Got a 16-foot braided stainless
feed line, high flow solenoids and wet nozzle, arming switch, relay, wire and
wire harness, fuse, crimp terminals, micro throttle activation switch and
mounting bracket…”

Honker
blessedly cut him off.

“All
well and good, but Mr. Scarne will be more interested in this.”

He
picked up the largest object on the table, a blue cylinder labeled
N2O
.

“When
you mentioned that sweet smell, it got us to thinking,” Graebe said. “Nitrous
oxide has that smell. Dentists use it to calm patients, especially kids. They
call it ‘sweet air’ or ‘laughing gas.’ Because it’s nonflammable, it’s also
used in motor racing as an oxidizer to increase engine power.”

“NASCAR
allows that?”

“No,
of course not,” Honker said quickly. “Racing kits of any kind are banned. But
some guys like to experiment with engines and I thought maybe one of them
hooked one up on Crane’s demo car just to give it a little boost. If it cracked
during your initial run, the gas might have seeped into the cab.”

“But
I wasn’t affected. In fact, I didn’t smell anything.”

“That
bothered us, too,” Graebe said. “But we checked the engine anyway. It hadn’t
been altered.” He paused. “Then we found this kit in the garage area. The
bottle was almost empty.”

It
came to Scarne before anyone said it.

“The
suit!”

“Yeah,”
Graebe said. “Crash’s suit. I checked the air-conditioning pack. It had been
tampered with. Somebody had pumped in some nitrous oxide. When the unit kicked
on, Crash got a snoot full of happy gas.”

Honker
pulled out a piece of paper. “Got this off the Internet this morning.” He
started reading: ‘When inhaled, nitrous oxide is absorbed in the bloodstream
and has a calming effect. At higher levels, it can induce euphoria, making it a
popular ‘recreational inhalant’ among teen-agers, and others, seeking a
relatively safe ‘high.’ Normal breathing eventually eliminates the gas from the
body. Users remain fully conscious and keep all natural reflexes, but may
experience altered perceptions of reality, hallucinations and disassociative
behavior.”

“Does
it say anything about singing show tunes?”

That
finally got a smile from Honker.

“You’re
lucky to be alive, Jake,” Graebe said. “You had Chuckles the Clown driving.”

“Actually,
he wasn’t driving. He handed me the wheel, literally.”

“That
would do it,” one of the mechanics murmured.

After
the mechanics and Graebe left, Scarne and Honker sat across from each other at
the desk. The security man cleared his throat.

“I
think I owe you an apology, Scarne. I can only assume somebody was trying to
kill you. Can’t imagine anyone wanted to get Crane. If they did, they could
have done it a lot easier when he was driving alone. It had to be you. It’s a
miracle it didn’t work. If Crane hadn’t detached the steering wheel, you’d have
hit the wall head on, like Dale Earnhardt. No chance. Hasta la vista! And there
was not enough fuel left in the tank to cause a fire. Whoever did this hadn’t
counted on that. But he, or they, went through a lot of trouble to make it look
like an accident. Somebody wants you dead.”

“You
probably were a pretty good FBI agent.”

“Maybe.
But I must be losing a step.”

“Don’t
sweat it. There’s a lot of that going around. I’ve been spending so much time
in hospitals I’m thinking about getting a personalized gown.”

“So
the story about ‘rumors’ was bullshit.”

The
cat was obviously out of the bag.

“A
couple of those names I gave you are already dead. You might want to tell your
bosses to increase their due diligence on Staten Island. They’re not in Kansas
anymore, Toto.”

Honker
stood up and stuck out his hand. Scarne took it.

“Thanks,
Jake. I’ll pass it along. Anything you need, let me know. We’re running down
the N2O kit now, and I’m calling in the state cops. We’ll get whoever did
this.”

Scarne
knew they wouldn’t.