St. Dale

cars?…Hey, I was a big fan of yours…well, my friend was anyhow…and I just wanted to say how sorry I am…

The roar of the engine interrupted the flow of her thoughts.

He slammed the hood and walked back, dusting off his hands, one against the other. “It ought to get you home,” he said.

“What was wrong with it?” she called out above the noise.

He gave her a look that said Do you know anything about cars? and shook his head. “It runs fine now. Wanna race? I’ll spot you a quarter mile.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so…sir. Besides, I’m lost.”

“Oh. Well, the Interstate’s ahead a few miles. Keep on going. You’re on Route 136 in Iredell County.”

“Oh. Okay. But I think it’s Route 3 now. They renamed it.”

A smile flickered across his face, and she thought, He hadn’t heard about that, which emboldened her to say, “Well, thank you. Um-Thanks for your help. And-Look, before I go-do you have any messages for-well, for anybody?”

Again the smile. “Yeah,” he had said after a moment’s consideration. “For Mike Waltrip.” As he walked away, the man in the white firesuit said, “Tell him: next February, pray for rain.”

Chapter II

The Also-Ran

Harley Claymore

“You didn’t say nothing about having to wear this cap.” The scruffy man in front of Harry Bailey’s desk held up the black baseball cap with the white number 3 sewn above the bill. The script “3” had cartoon angels wings on either side and a halo encircling the top. “Now, I don’t mind staying sober for ten days. Well, I can, anyhow, but you didn’t say nothing about this fool cap.”

“Perhaps it was an oversight on our part.” Mr. Bailey consulted the folder on his desk more for effect than for information. Then he looked at the dribbles of rain sliding down his office window, obscuring the view of the Dumpster outside and the one tree in the parking lot, still leafless in early April. Finally he looked up at the scowling man in the damp leather jacket, who was leaving a puddle of rainwater on his tile floor. It was an odd jacket-it had black and white checkered patches from shoulder to elbow and red trim on the pockets. The perfect costume for the tour, Mr. Bailey thought; though perhaps he ought not to put it like that to this proud little man who apparently wore such outlandish garb in the street. And he was objecting to the cap? He repressed a shudder. At least it would have kept the fellow’s head dry.

“An oversight,” he said again, forcing a smile. “On the other hand, Mr. Claymore, you claimed to have won the Daytona 500 in 1992.”

The fellow had the grace to blush. “Well, I won a race at Daytona in 1992, anyhow. Same track, just not the hyped-up race. They have other events there during the year, you know.”

Mr. Bailey nodded. “We looked it up on the Internet. We here at Bailey Travel may not know much about stock car racing, Mr. Claymore, but I assure you that we do know how to Google. It says here that a driver named Davey Allison won the Daytona 500 in 1992. Perhaps we ought to see about hiring him for this job instead.”

Harley Claymore snorted. “Hell, mister, don’t you know anything? If Davey Allison was still on this earth, I reckon things would be so different that you could have hired Earnhardt himself for this damn bus tour, ’cause Davey could have driven rings around-”

“I thought you wanted this job, Mr. Claymore. I thought you needed some ready cash.” He was watching the scruffy little man, noting the signs of strain about the eyes and the tinge of sweat on the upper lip. He would take the job, all right. He just wanted to save face by protesting his reluctance. That was all right. Mr. Bailey had allotted three minutes for that.

“Well, that’s the God’s truth,” Claymore said, running a hand through his broom-straw hair and shrugging. “You think Brooke Gordon was a rottweiler, you should meet my ex.”

Mr. Bailey nodded sympathetically, wondering who Brooke Gordon was. “We pay a thousand a week plus expenses,” he said. “The tour begins in August at the Bristol Speedway. It will get you to the tracks should you wish to make contact with some of your former associates about future employment.”

“Well, you said you needed a NASCAR expert for a guide, and I sure qualify as that-”

Mr. Bailey glanced at his notes. “Although, in fact, you are not the third-generation NASCAR driver you claimed to be? Your father did not win the race at Talladega in 1968?”

Harley Claymore smiled and shifted his weight to the other foot. “Well, he didn’t lose it, either. Bill France didn’t build that track until ’69.”

Mr. Bailey continued to give him the unblinking stare of a monitor lizard. Harley blinked first. “Well, okay,” he said. “My dad drove dirt track in the fifties. Wilkesboro and Hickory, and all, before the sport got so jumped-up. He raced against Lee Petty and Ralph Earnhardt-none of ’em made enough to live on back then. And my grandaddy-he did his driving with a second gas tank full of moonshine on U.S. 421, and that ought to count for something ’cause Junior Johnson got started that way too. Only, Junior made it to the pros and my people didn’t. Until me.”

“Yes. You did drive in the Winston Cup circuit-until you lost your sponsor. A drinking problem.”

“Naw, I can hold my liquor pretty well. I think it was food poisoning that day. But, you know, when you throw up all over a Make-A-Wish kid, the sponsor finds it tough to forgive and forget. Uh-I won’t be driving the bus, will I?”

Mr. Bailey closed his eyes. “Mercifully, no.”

“Anyhow, I do know racing front to back. Stats, cars, trivia. All of it. Like…let’s see…like: Junior Johnson used to run races with a chicken riding shotgun with him in the car. Did you know that?”

“Indeed, no. Does it happen to be true?”

“It does. Google away, Mr. Bailey. But, see, about this trip-I thought you were just taking racing fans on a tour of Southern speedways.”

“That, incidentally, yes.” Mr. Bailey paused, choosing his words carefully, “But actually the trip is being advertised as an Earnhardt Memorial Tour.”

“Oh, sweet Nelly,” Claymore groped for the plastic chair and sank down in it. “You’re shitting me, right?”

“I assure you we are perfectly serious,” said Mr. Bailey, who had decided that sarcasm would be wasted on Harley Claymore. “Unlike you, Dale Earnhardt did win the Daytona 500, you know.”

“Well, finally. He lost it about twenty times, too. He and that soap opera lady who always lost at the Daytime Emmys ought to have got together.”

“Dale Earnhardt is a legend,” said Mr. Bailey. “Did you know him while you were on the circuit?”

Harley shrugged. “Seeing a black Monte Carlo in my rearview mirror still gives me the shakes.” He waited a moment for Bailey to correct him, but there was no response. Back when Harley was still racing they had been driving Luminas, not Monte Carlos but, in deference to Mr. Bailey’s ignorance of the finer points of racing, he had mentioned the model that was now synonymous with the Intimidator.

“I mean, do you have any personal anecdotes about yourself and Dale Earnhardt?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. He put me in a headlock once in a drivers’ meeting. Snuck up on me from behind, like he always did. And he gave me the finger a time or two when he went past me in a race.”

Bailey closed his eyes. “Perhaps we should forget about personal anecdotes. I’m sure we can provide you with some more heartwarming stories about Dale Earnhardt.”

“What the hell for?”

“Because he is a legend, Mr. Claymore-is that your real name, by the way?”

“Sort of. It was Harley Clay Moore. My dad was into cars, and he named me for Harley Earl and Willie Clay Call.” He could see that the names meant nothing to Mr. Bailey to whom the world of motor sports was a never- opened book. “Anyhow, I changed it when I was eighteen and needed a classy name for the pros. See, claymores are…”