in?”
She shrugged. “Just a deal I’m putting together. It’s easier to impress people when you’re not representing a guy who finished last. I’ll be off now. Get back to your treadmill like a good little hamster.”
Before he could reply she swept out of the room, closing the door behind her, just seconds before an empty water bottle hit it and bounced back onto the floor.
CHAPTER XIX
“Congratulations,” said Melodie Albigre to the half-naked man. “Only two laps down at the end. At least you managed to finish. Nice race. Wish I could say the same about your underwear.”
Badger Jenkins, who had just stripped off his firesuit in the supposed privacy of the lounge of the hauler, wiped the sweat off his face with his forearm and glanced down at his faded blue boxer shorts. His eyes glittered with malice. “Well, I didn’t figure on anybody seeing my underwear,” he said.
She shrugged. She came the rest of the way up the steps into the lounge and sat down in the folding chair by the door. Badger had turned his back to her to finish dressing, but she was now peering at the screen of her PDA, which she contrived to find a good deal more interesting than an undressed race car driver. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just here on business. But, my, you are skinny, aren’t you?”
He held up the water bottle against his forehead and closed his eyes. “I lose about ten pounds in a race,” he said. “Maybe you should try it.”
She ignored this salvo. “Well, as I said, although I’m sure there are women who would kill to take my place at the moment, or so they tell me, I’m simply here to talk about your schedule. I would not have to be here if you bothered to return my phone calls.” She glared at him accusingly.
Badger scowled. “I was busy. I do have a job, you know.”
“Yes, I just watched you doing it.” She paused, letting her contempt go without saying. “You came in twenty- seventh. Nevertheless, we need to talk about what you’re going to do tomorrow.”
Badger finished pulling a purple Team Vagenya tee shirt over his head before he muttered, “I’m busy tomorrow.”
Melodie gave him her “humoring the delusional” smile. “Indeed, you are busy,” she said. “I have arranged for you to visit a local textile mill to sign autographs for the workers, who are apparently big NASCAR fans.” Her tone implied that there was no accounting for taste.
Badger finished chugging his water, tossed the bottle into the trash barrel, and reached for another. “Tomorrow is Monday,” he said, unscrewing the cap off the second bottle. “I’m off on Mondays.”
“Right. The team does not require your services on Monday. However, I do. Now this appearance I have scheduled for you tomorrow-”
“I go back home on Mondays,” said Badger. “Back to Georgia.” He wasn’t arguing. He was simply stating a fact with the calm certainty of one describing the action of the tides.
His personal manager was unmoved by this pronouncement. “Tomorrow you will be going to a North Carolina textile mill.” She peered the screen of her PDA. “At noon.”
Badger shook his head. “I didn’t agree to that.”
“I agreed on your behalf,” said Melodie calmly. “I will accompany you to the event. Meet me at the team office at ten. Shall I drive? Yes, perhaps I should. I have the directions, and there are no left turns involved.” She smirked at her little joke.
“Well, I don’t want to go,” said Badger. He was fully dressed now, and judging from the mutinous look on his face, he was seconds away from walking out of the hauler.
“But you will go. Your fee will be the standard one. Five thousand dollars an hour. Less our management percentage, of course.”
“I told you, I-
“Five thousand dollars an hour.” She sighed. “It was the best I could do. After all, you’re not Jeff Gordon. You’re not even Jeff Burton.”
Badger was still holding the cold water bottle against his forehead. He brushed a trickle of water away from his cheek. “How long do I have to stay?”
“Oh, an hour or so. I’ll pick you up at ten. Try to wear something presentable.”
“Like what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, God knows, Sunshine,” she said. “Maybe I’ll run you by the mall after we finish. Someone should see that you have some decent clothes. Too bad your beauty queen didn’t stick around.” With a faint sneer, she looked him up and down again. “Skinny
Badger sat down and contemplated the label of his water bottle, too tired to think what to do next. It had been a long, nerve-wracking race. They had never got the car dialed in, and he’d spent the entire evening fighting to keep the thing out of the wall on every turn. His arms and shoulders ached, and he had blisters down the sides of both hands from the rubbing of the wet leather of his driving gloves against his skin.
Tuggle came quietly into the room and sat down in the other chair. She closed the lounge door with her foot. She hadn’t changed clothes yet. The lines in her face were deeper, and she looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. No matter how many times she told sports journalists-and the team owners-that it took most of a season to pull together a competent team, it was still a frustrating experience to lose and lose and lose. It was always for a different reason: mechanical problems, wrecks, bad setups. There were a thousand ways to get it wrong, and Tuggle was afraid that they’d hit every one of them before they ever came close to winning.
At Texas and Phoenix they had finished in the mid-twenties. At Talladega, the other restrictor plate track besides Daytona, Badger had managed to come in twelfth, with the help of a multicar wreck that had managed to take out most of the big-money competitors. “Doing well by default,” one sports writer had called it.
Now tonight at Richmond it had hurt to watch him out there struggling with a car whose setup was a disaster. On every turn he had fought to keep the car from going into the wall. Given the enormous g-forces working against the left-hand turn anyhow, she knew he must be sore and exhausted. And tired of losing. He hadn’t needed that scarecrow manager of his berating him after that ordeal of a race he’d just endured.
“I’m sorry about the car,” Tuggle said, patting his shoulder. It was as close as she ever came to hugging anybody. “They did their damnedest, you know. Just couldn’t make it work.”
Badger nodded without looking up. “I hope they get the hang of this real soon.”
“We all hope so. They feel like they let you down. I’m sure every one of them would rather have the blisters on your hands than the feeling of guilt they’re carrying right now.”
“Tell them not to take it so hard,” he mumbled. “It’s all part of the game.”
“I did tell them.” She looked bemused. “Never saw a Catch Can cry before.”
He tried to smile at that, but she decided there was more wrong with him than a lousy race. Technically, the rest of it was none of her business, either, and Tuggle was fanatical about minding her own business. She was fond of saying that if she saw someone drowning, she’d ask permission before trying to save him. But Badger was her responsibility for the duration of his contract, anyhow, and she figured that made him her business. An unhappy driver wouldn’t be working at peak performance.
She wished she could just wish him good night and walk out, because she wasn’t looking forward to the discussion, but instead, she said, “Listen, Badger…I heard the conservation that just went on in here. Do you want me to call a team meeting tomorrow?”
“What?”
She spoke slowly and carefully. “I’m saying that
“But tomorrow is Monday.”
“Yes, Badger. I know that.” She sighed. Subtlety was wasted on race car drivers. “You don’t have to show up at