Drag-Strip Racer (4 page)

Ken wondered whether to tell Dusty now what he had come here for. He felt he should wait.

“You’re pretty busy, Mr. Hill,” he said. “I’ll be back later.” He headed for the door.

“Wait a minute. Can I do something for you?”

Ken paused and turned. His eyes focused on Dusty’s. His heart hammered. “Well, I was going to ask you if—if you’d like to
sponsor me in my races.”

Dusty frowned, and his eyes lowered to Ken’s cast-encased leg. “You expect to race with a cast on that leg?”

“No problem. I did about ten passes on Monday. Had no trouble at all.”

Dusty stared at him. Then he took a deep breath and started to look about him as if for another box of parts to move.

“Ken, I feel for you, believe me,” he said. “But you’re pretty young, you know. You’re just getting your feet wet. Drag racing
ain’t for everybody.”

Ken felt as if a needle had been stuck into his skin. “It
is
for me,” he said. “I can drive, Mr. Hill. I can drive better than you thinks.”

Dusty moved a box, straightened up, and shrugged. “Okay, maybe you can,” he admitted. “But you’re too late, anyway. I’ve already
signed up with a driver. I guess I should have told you that in the first place.”

Ken froze. He eyed the older man steadily for a few seconds before he could swallow his disappointment.

“Mind telling me who?” he finally asked.

“Scott Taggart. I guess you know him.”

Ken nodded. “Yes, I know him. When did you sign up with him?”

Dusty thought a minute. “Two days ago,” he said.

Ken nodded again. He stood around awhile longer, then turned and headed for the door. “Sorry I bothered you, Mr. Hill.”

“No bother, Ken,” Dusty’s voice trailed after him.

He opened the door and walked out, squinting against the morning sun. He kept his head down as he hobbled across the sidewalk,
stepped off the curb, and started toward his pickup parked in the lot.

Anger and hurt set in his eyes as he thought of what Dusty had said. “
You’re just getting your feet wet. Drag racing ain’t for everybody.”

But Dusty’s sponsoring Scott “Rat” Taggart was the last straw. Taggart had not acquired the nickname “Rat” by chance: he had
earned it.

Five years ago, when Scott was fourteen, he had entered a race by using an older friend’s birth certificate. He was caught
and disqualified, but not until several days after the race was over.

Another time he had used nitrous oxide in his gas, an offense in all racing classes and categories except Top Fuel and AA/Funny
cars. He had told the officials he hadn’t known it wasn’t allowed. But every other drag racer had known it. Why hadn’t he?
There wasn’t a soul in the racing crowd who didn’t believe that Scott Taggart had lied through his teeth.

You would think that Dana, who had told all this to Ken one night about a year ago after he and
Scott had been biking together for a couple of hours, would have dropped Scott like a hot potato. But, no. They still chummed
around, although not as much as they used to.

Anyway, Scott had been disqualified repeatedly in races all over the county. One time a member of the racing clan dubbed him
with the nickname “Rat.” And it had stuck ever since.

Ken heard a car drive up as he approached his pickup, but he didn’t look around at it. He didn’t want anyone to see the dismal
expression on his face.

But a voice called out his name and he paused, feeling he had to look up now. He glanced at the car as it swept around in
a quick turn and pulled up in the vacant space two cars away from his. It was a black, two-door Plymouth owned by no one else
but the person he had just been thinking about, Scott “Rat” Taggart.

But it wasn’t Scott’s voice that had called to him. It was the voice of the girl sitting beside him—pretty, dark-haired Dottie
Hill, Dusty’s seventeen-year-old daughter.

“Oh, hi,” he said, at the same time thinking,
What in heck is she doing with him?

He let a frown linger on his face, remembering the two times he had taken her to the movies, and
the few times he had danced with her at school functions. Then he turned away, opened the door of the pickup, put in the
crutches, and got in.

He started the pickup and headed for home, embittered by the thought of Dusty’s signing as a sponsor for Scott “Rat” Taggart.
Well, he couldn’t deny that Scott was a good driver. He had scored a lot of points in Pro Stock races—although he had never
come in better than third runner-up—and had several trophies to show for it. Dusty, no greenhorn in the business, must have
known a competitor when he saw one.

Ken wondered what to do to ease the pain of Dusty’s turning him down and thought of going to a movie. But that was out. The
theaters in Wade didn’t open till one-thirty.

There was really only one place that would do—the Candlewyck Speedway—and he promptly headed for it. He got there in half
an hour, parked next to the bleachers, and for the next hour and a half he watched the Plymouths, Omnis, Chevies, Mustangs,
Camaros, Hornets, Fords, Buicks, Oldses, Pontiacs, and a bristling white Chrysler run passes on the quarter-mile strip.

“Snakeman” Wilkins was in a Plymouth, “Little Beaver” Applejack in a Mustang, “Battle-scar” Jones in a Ford, Jim “The Toad”
in an Olds.
Their names were printed in glowing colors across the sides of their cars, which themselves were painted in sharp, contrasting
colors. The first thing you noticed about these cars was their owners’ pride in how they looked. And then, the way each car
reflected the personality of its owner. Ken wondered if someday he’d be worthy enough to have earned a nickname and join that
reputable clan. “Limp-along” Oberlin? “Wolfman” Oberlin? The possibilities were limitless.

Dana was in the backyard working on his motorcycle when Ken finally went home. He was bare to his waist and his hands were
black from grease and oil.

“Nick give you the day off?” Ken found himself asking as he hobbled over to his brother.

Dana straightened and shoved his long hair away from his forehead with the clean part of his arm. “I’m taking it off, brother.
Where you been?”

“At the track. But I went to see Dusty Hill first.”

Dana eyed him expectantly. “What’s the verdict?”

“He’s already sponsoring a driver.” Their eyes held. “Scott Taggart.”

“Rat? Since when?”

Ken shrugged. “Since two days ago. Another thing: somebody broke into Dusty’s place last night or early this morning and stole
that three-fifty turbo engine he had sitting in his store.”

“Oh, no.” Dana shook his head sympathetically, then narrowed his eyes as he grasped the full impact of what Ken had said.

“Early this morning?”

“Yes, or last night.”

“Hm,” Dana muttered, shaking his head. Then he resumed work on his black and red Kawasaki, a KE125 model. The Takasago steel
rims and Nitto tires were as clean and sparkling as if he had just bought them off the assembly line.

“See ya,” Ken said, noticing that his brother seemed more interested in working on his bike than talking with him. Then a
movement caught his eye toward the rear of their yard. He grinned amiably as he saw his father hoeing the garden. Dad was
wearing that wide-brimmed, tattered straw hat that he had had for as long as Ken could remember.

The girls weren’t around. They were probably in the house or playing with some of their neighborhood friends, Ken thought.

He hobbled to the garden to talk with his
father, and wasn’t there more than ten minutes when he heard the Kawasaki start up. Surprised, he turned and saw Dana tearing
away on it, dirt squirting up like sparks behind its rear wheel.

F
IVE MILES
out of Wade, Dana turned off the highway onto a road that was flanked on one side by a cow pasture and on the other by tall,
gangling palms. He reduced the speed of his motorcycle almost to idle so that the noise wouldn’t carry to the small ranch
house nestled about an eighth of a mile off the road among a thick set of trees.

Some one hundred yards from the highway the dirt road curved to the left, sweeping around a tall, sprawling grapefruit tree.

Dana drove off the road to the left side of the tree, shut off the engine, dismounted, and leaned the motorcycle against the
tree. Weeds were chest-high around the tree and he doubted that anyone who happened to drive by could see the bike.

He ran across the road, hopped over a ditch, ducked through a wire fence, and headed toward a garage that was set away from
the house.

He kept bent over, not wanting to risk having someone at the house see him. He knew of at least five shotguns kept inside
that he had seen with his own eyes, with the shells for each of them easily available.

A green pickup and an old Dodge were parked in the driveway. Both had rust scales on the fenders, but the Dodge looked worse.
Its front right fender was battered and the front door on the same side was caved in.

Dana reached a side window of the garage and peeked in. He had to wipe the dirt off the glass to see through it, but it didn’t
take long for him to spot the suspicious-looking tarpaulin-covered pile set on a couple of planks near the rear of the garage.
He grabbed the wooden parts of the window and tried to force it open. It wouldn’t budge.

He stood awhile, wondering what to do to get inside. He had to see what was underneath that tarpaulin.

Well, why not try the door? he thought. If he just kept down and out of sight, he should be able to make it.

He ducked low as he scurried to the front of
the garage, peeked around its corner, saw no one, and turned the knob of the door. For a scant second he was afraid it might
be locked, although it never was, not whenever he’d been here.

He pushed the door and it slowly opened. He entered quickly and closed the door quietly behind him. Then he headed toward
the rear of the building. The smell of grease and oil was thick in the air. The garage was like an automotive parts store,
except that the parts were old and used and left haphazardly all over the place.

He reached the hidden bulge on the planks and felt tension begin to creep through his body as he grabbed an edge of the canvas
and lifted it. His expectations were realized as he unveiled a brand-new engine. He read the HP on the head, 350, and then
looked for the ID.

He found the place where it was supposed to be, but the numbers were gone. Filed off.

Dana pursed his lips. “Rat” really deserved his nickname, he thought. And my family calls
me
a black sheep! I’m a kitten compared to Scott “Rat” Taggart.

Last night he had stayed at the pool parlor shooting pool and guzzling beer with a couple of guys after work. Nick had wanted
him to stay till midnight, at which hour he had promised to re
turn from an appointment and take over till closing.

Instead, Nick didn’t return till 2
A.M
., which was okay with Dana. It was more money in his pocket and he had nothing else to do, anyway.

Then, while he was heading for home on his Kawasaki, breezing down Palmetto Avenue, he had seen a pickup pull up into a lane
that led to the rear entrance to the stores of Wade Mall. It could’ve been brown, blue, or green—any of the dark colors—exactly
which he couldn’t swear for sure. He could hardly see the driver who, he remembered now as he thought back to that moment,
had seemed to duck back against his seat. In the night shadows next to him sat a couple of passengers, both of whom had tried
to keep out of his sight, too, now that he thought of it.

But the white sign on the door was plain: H
ILL’S
A
UTO
P
ARTS
.

Dusty’s working late, he had told himself. Or was it Rooster?

But that pickup looked different. Wasn’t Dusty’s white?

One other thing had caught his attention, but had not sufficiently registered at the time. The first three letters on the
license plate:
SRT
.

There was only one person he knew whose
license plate started with those letters. Scott “Rat” Taggart. In spite of the connotation in the name “Rat,” Scott was proud
enough to use it in his initials.

But the letters had not meant anything to Dana at the time. Not until Ken had told him about the theft of the engine had the
pictures of a puzzle begun to fall into place. Seconds later, while Ken was out there in the garden shooting the breeze with
his father, Dana had gone to the telephone and called up Dusty to check out the color of his pickup. It was white, Dusty had
told him. And when Dusty had wanted to know who was calling, Dana had simply said, “A friend.”

As for the “Hill’s Auto Parts” sign, it didn’t take a genius to paint one and tape it to the side of a pickup.

He pulled the tarpaulin back over the engine and headed out of the garage, careful to crack the door open and peek out before
he made his departure.

The coast was clear. He hurried around to the side of the garage and then back through the brush to his motorcycle, feeling
good that his hunch was right. He had never considered Scott a real friend, anyway—he had never felt he could trust the guy.
This dirty business of Scott’s stealing an
engine from Dusty Hill at about the same time that Dusty had agreed to sponsor him in races was proof that he was exactly
what his nickname said: a rat.

Dana finally reached the spot at the side of the ditch that was directly across from the tree against which he had propped
his motorcycle. Glancing again toward the house to make sure no one was watching him, he sprinted across the road.

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.”