automobiles no longer looked hopelessly antique to me. I rather liked their rococo flourishes and useless adornments: tail assemblies that stuck up like shark fins, massive and totally functionless chromium 'bumpers,' kitsch statuary mounted on hoods, whitestriped tires, garish paint schemes, buffed wax finishes, radio whip antennae, blinding tail-light configurations, and other embellishments.
'Arthur?' Darla called into the communicator. 'Are you tracking them?'
'They haven't moved. You are now about five kilometers west of their position.'
I took the next cutoff and headed east on Roscoe Boulevard, then made a series of lefts and rights at Arthur's direction as he zeroed us in on the signal emitted by the communicator that Lori was carrying. We passed a big parking lot adjacent to a brilliantly lighted outdoor stadium.
'This might be it,' Darla said.
Howling engine sounds came to us from the other side of a curving grandstand. I hung a U-turn and headed back. The sign at the entrance to the lot read VALLEY DRAGWAY.
'You're right on,' Arthur said.
It cost fifty cents to park. We. got out, I locked up the VW and we jogged toward the entrance to the track, an opening in a corrugated metal fence blocked by turnstiles and a ticket booth. As we neared the booth, Darla stopped. She pointed left toward a row of cars. I looked and spotted Carl's Chevy.
'Which one is it?' Darla wondered. 'The double's?'
'No way to tell. Let's look around. If we find another one, that means our Carl's here.'
We searched the immediate area but came up empty. It would have taken us an hour to cover the whole lot.
'He might have parked out on the street,' I said. 'Let's go in.'
The ticket girl said that there were only a few heats left to run, but sold us two tickets anyway. We bumped through the turnstile and walked through a concession area littered with scraps of sticky paper, coming to a passageway between two sections of grandstand. We mounted steps and came out into the seating area.
The grandstand was crescent-shaped. A long, straight strip of asphalt began in the middle of the crescent and ended about two thirds of a kilometer out in brush-covered flats. Two bizarre vehicles, which were nothing more than long, low, open metal carriages with overgrown motors mounted on them, were poised at the starting line, bellowing like dinosaurs and shooting blue flames. An array of lights on a pole changed color, and the two things took off like demons loosed from hell, trailing smoke and fire. They reached the end of the course in no time, and parachutes blossomed from their back ends. The noise was incredible. A pall of gray haze hung over the track, and the air was pungent with fuel exhaust and the smell of burnt rubber. An announcement was made and a roar went up from the crowd.
'What's this all about?' Darla shouted above the din as two more outrageous vehicles approached the starting line.
'A display of exotic automotive technology,' I said, 'or a circus. Probably both. Let's look around.'
'What do we say if we run into Lori?'
'Nothing,' I said. 'We wink and act as if we don't know her. But we stick close, and if our Carl shows up, we try to intercept him. And don't ask me what we do if Carl Two catches sight of Carl One. I'm playing this strictly by ear, and my goddamn ears are killing me.'
'Right.'
We climbed to the last row and walked along an aisle, looking down over the heads of patrons. Besides the smoke and the fumes, I smelled women's perfume, tobacco, and cooking grease. It was a good crowd for a Tuesday night.
There were a good many young couples, some of which, at first glance, I mistook for Lori and Carl Two. Kids seemed to dress alike in this time and place. Maybe they do in all times and places. The grandstand was a huge affair and the crowd thinned out toward the far end of the crescent. No Lori in sight. We doubled back a ways, then went down-steps and walked along the bottom aisle, looking up and scanning for three familiar faces, two of which would be identical.
We saw nobody.
'Where could they be?' Darla fretted.
'Don't know. It's a huge place. Maybe we just missed spotting them. Let's go back to the concession area.'
The hot-dog stand was closing down for the night, and people were leaving the track in steadily increasing numbers, filing through an exit on the other side of the concession area. I sent Darla to check the women's room while I glanced in the men's. The latter was being used, but not by either Carl. Datla reported no luck. I told her to stand by the exit while I went back to search the grandstand one more time. The voice over the loudspeakers announced the last race, to be run by two vehicles which looked a shade more conventional. I walked along the middle aisle scanning up and down the grandstand. 'Jake?' came a quiet voice inside my pocket.
'Arthur?' I answered. A man in a green T-shirt turned his head to me with a curious look. 'Wait a minute,' I said.
I took steps up to the last row, found some empty seats, and sat down. I took out the communicator.
'Go ahead,' I spoke into it.
'I'm tracking the other beacon. It has left your area.'
I wondered how we had missed them. 'Right. We're leaving.
Hurrying back, I spotted Carl. It was our Carl-I recognized his clothes. He was caught in a crush of people at the head of the stairway leading down to the concession area. Just as I was about to close with him, he turned and saw me, then forced his way through the crowd, plunging down the steps. I followed, leaving jostled, angry teenagers in my wake.
As he neared the exit gate, Carl saw Darla and slowed. I caught up with him. Darla ran over.
'They left, Carl,' I told him.
'I know,' he said, continuing toward the exit.
'Did you see them?'
'No, they weren't up in the stands.'
'Where, then?'
'I finally remembered. Most of that night is fuzzy to me. We went to the races, but we didn't sit in the stands. I found out a buddy of mine was racing, and we went down to the pits. I still don't remember everything, but we must have left by the pit entrance and walked around back to the parking lot.'
'Let them go, Carl;' I said.
'I have to be there tonight,' he said vehemently.
'Carl, you can't,' I said. 'Look. Forces are operating here that we have no control over. I don't know what would hapIxw if you intervened and prevented the abduction. Nobody knows, but it's a good bet that the universe wouldn't be the name. You might throw it entirely out of whack.'
We walked through the exit and out into the parking lot. 'I know,' Carl answered. 'I still have to be there.'
'Carl, what is it with you? Something is bothering you, something you haven't let on yet.'
'That night, the night it happened,' Carl said. 'Tonight. It's about Debbie. The way she acted… the way I acted.'
'Are you worried she'll be hurt?' I said. 'We've gone over that. Arthur told us that when your double pushes Debbie-Lori-out of the car, she'll float. She won't fall. She'll still be in the gravitational beam the car is in. After Arthur tucks the Chevy into the small cargo bay, he'll lower her down and we'll pick her up.'
'That's just it,' Carl said. 'I remember now. I didn't push Debbie out of the car. That was where I was all screwed up in tny memory of that night. I wasn't trying to push her out. I was trying to keep her from jumping. But there was something else…' He stopped and looked around. 'Oh, God.'
'What is it?'
''The car. It's gone.'
We were in the general area where Darla and I had found it. 'This is where you parked yours?'
'Yeah. He was parked way over on the other side, but when he was walking back this way from the pits, he must have seen the super-Chevy here and figured he remembered wrong. I do that all the time-forget where I parked. Now he's got the super car.' He sighed, holding up a set of car keys. 'This is the original key. It fits both
