Bob went back to the hospital and sat around for a couple of hours. He met some more of Nikki’s reporter friends and picked up on how much she was loved and respected and how angry everyone was. He told them about Thelma and was gratified to learn she had a fine reputation, had been to a number of FBI schools, had a few big cases, and was something of a local character. She’d been a raving beauty once; who knew she’d turn up as a cop and become the three-time Tennessee state ladies’ USPSA champion, which, he now realized, was why she carried the fancy automatic in the speed holster. He also was invited to dinner and turned down the invites, being too tired and depressed for much more comfort. About ten he kissed his daughter’s still cheek, and headed back to her apartment. There he called Julie and reported in on his findings.
“We’ll be there tomorrow.”
“No, please. Just give it a few more days. I just don’t know. I like this detective and she wouldn’t steer me wrong but I still have a queasy feeling.”
“Is someone following you?”
“No. And if they were, I sure made it easy on them. So no, no, there’s no sign it’s some old mess of mine, I agree.”
“Then it’s clear for us to come?”
“I got one more trick to play out. Then I’ll call you.”
It was stupid, he knew. But the tracks made no sense to him. He went to his laptop, turned it on, and called up good old Google. He typed in “Aerial photography, Knoxville, Tennessee.”
FOUR
If he blinked, he could have sold himself on the illusion he was back in Vietnam, at some forward operating base, where the helicopter was the only way in or out, and the helicopter the order of the day: taking men to and from battle, hauling out the wounded, laying on solid suppressive fire where needed. He was back in a war zone of engines somehow, and although the sandbags were missing, the perimeter security wasn’t, and the whole wide area was separated into bays so that each powerful machine was isolated from the others, and its crew and shop worked as one. No, not Vietnam, but big, powerful machines just the same. The noise of them was gigantic, a physical presence demanding ear protection, so powerfully did the vibrations fill the air and set everything buzzing to the rhythm of their firing. Everyone running about had something to do with engines, all smeared with grease, all filthy in that happy way of men who love what they’re doing and don’t care what it looks like.
Meanwhile, a secondary fact of life was the stench of high-test fuel, which lingered everywhere, just as palpable in its way as the grinding roar of the engines. If you wanted to continue the Vietnam game further, you could: Like the aviators of that long-ago, so-vanished time and place, the drivers were the aristocrats here. Thin young men in their specialized suits, sexy, and it seemed that everybody wanted their attention or merely to be in their presence.
Of course it wasn’t FOB Maria, north of Danang, somewhere in Indian country, RVN, circa ’65-’73. It was the pits, that is, the center of the track, at the Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, Tennessee, and what towered above wasn’t mountains full of Victor Charlie, but the enveloping cup of the speedway itself, a near vertical wall of seats for one hundred fifty thousand or so fans. The seats were largely empty, but a few die-hards sat and watched or took notes or worked with stop watches.
Bob was in the pit next to a vehicle that was just as purpose-built as any Huey or Cobra gunship. It was called “USMC 44,” a Dodge Charger in the new, blurry digital camouflage just like the boys wore outside Baghdad, with the globe and anchor emblazoned king-size on hood, roof, and doors. Mechanics and submechanics leaped around, each, seemingly, with a special job to do, as they struggled to bring it to some kind of mechanical perfection. They worked in puddles of oil and fuel, and tracks crisscrossed the concrete as in Vietnam, the tracks of running men, the tracks of rolling, smooth, wide tires, and a myriad of smaller-scaled tracks for various wheeled devices that serviced the big machine. The USMC 44 carried a special-built V8 Hemi engine so brawny it was bursting to get out, rode on four smooth, wide tires instantly changeable, and devoured some poison brew of chemically adjusted fuel. Like any tool, it sported no softness for comfort, but was a hard, serious bucket of bolts meant for one thing only, and that was to zoom full-bore around a mile track five hundred times, spitting clouds of exhaust. It had all the gizmos: the spoiler on the rear to keep it from going airborne, the shocks made of Kryptonite or some other wonder steel, the four-inch ground clearance, all engineered to make USMC 44 go like hell. Inside it was like a hard devotional place, also lacking any softness for comfort, with one seat bolted in, the doors bolted shut, netting everywhere.
He stood there, on the outside of the ruckus, feeling like a tourist. But this is where he had been told to be, and this was the time, and the various obstacles to his penetration of the most intimate secret places of NASCAR had fallen when he gave his name, almost as if he were important.
It was the good old USMC retired NCO network in action. Bob had gotten a batch of pictures taken by Dewey’s Aviation Inc. out of Knoxville, and what he saw was mainly skidmarks down ten miles of descending road on Iron Mountain, and some skell in some kind of fast mover closing in upon and trying to kill his daughter. It was, even from the air, nonsense and gibberish to Bob. But he had friends, and he called the son of a friend, who was a lieutenant colonel in personnel at Henderson Hall, or HQ, and asked if the colonel could come up with some ex- marine who’d know a lot about car behavior, accidents, skidmarks, that sort of thing. Turned out, no, he didn’t, but he had something better. Someone who was fresh off the marine PIO at HQ where he’d been a part of the team that had worked with a big New York ad agency to recruit a NASCAR driver to run the USMC emblem on his car the upcoming season. Not for charity, because there was no charity anywhere in NASCAR these days. It was all marketing, done for the money. But still, the fellow, his people, his team, they all got it, and they loved running under the globe and anchor. In fact, he was still in the running for the Sprint Cup and he’d be right there at Bristol that very weekend. Calls were made, things were agreed to, and though the USMC-Chrysler team was working 24/7, there was no problem if Bob got there at eleven today, as qualifying didn’t start till tomorrow and they were still tuning.
So now Bob was standing, when a scrawny youngster in jeans and a baseball cap came up to him, smiled, shook his hand, and bid him to follow. No words were exchanged, because the noise was so loud, and Bob followed the boy through the hustle and bustle, dodging a rolling tire someone was wheeling toward the car itself, its top half-Bob wanted to call it a fuselage-visible over a wall. He ducked and bobbed and then found himself inside a trailer home that was way nice, like a hotel suite, clearly set up as some kind of relaxation area. When the door was sealed Bob popped out his ear plugs, as did the boy, and Bob introduced himself.
“Gunnery sergeant, eh? You were some kind of cowboy hero in that war all that time ago, is that right?”
“It was mostly squirming around, hoping not to get shot, was all,” Bob said.
“Well, I’m Matt MacReady.” Bob was stunned to see that this kid was the man he’d come to see, the actual driver himself, fourth in NASCAR standings, a real comer, had a shot at winning a few nights down the road and a shot at the big cup. So young. Freckly even, with a thatch of red hair. But then the chopper aviators were all young, and if you put a helmet on them and a bird under them, they’d go into hell to get the mission done. So he warned himself against holding the boy’s youth against him.
“Pleased to meet you. Congratulations on your fine racing career. Sorry I didn’t recognize you.”
“Being recognized is overrated, Gunny, let me tell you. And most of the folks who do just want something from you, from a signature to an investment. They all seem to have fancy haircuts, too. Don’t trust a man with a fancy haircut, all smoothed up like cake frosting, you know. Hell, I just drive cars around in a circle, don’t even get to go nowhere! I end up right where I started, what’s the goddamn point!”
Bob smiled at the joke and the boy tried another one. “If this don’t work out, I guess I’ll head back to the gas station.”
“Son, from the looks of it, it’s working out swell.”
The boy grinned, pleased to have impressed a genuine hero.
“So far, so good. The cars don’t crunch up so much no more, and I take crunching up seriously because it put my granddaddy in a wheelchair for the last sixty years of his life. And they don’t burn much no more neither, that’s the best thing. My daddy burned to death in one, so I take burning seriously. Anyhow, since you don’t want to tell me how damned great I am, that tells me you ain’t no ass-kiss haircut here who wants free tix. Or no corporate
