The Last Open Road Page 9

SATURDAY , MAY 24

  Underneath the drawing, in much smaller type, it read: "Presented by the S.C.M.A. and the Bridgehampton Lions Club." And at the very bottom, in the smallest type of all: "By invitation."

  "Say, what the heck does S.C.M.A. stand for, anyway?"

  "Why, Sports Car Motoring Association, of course," Colin said like you had to be from under a rock not to know. But I didn't care. I was too busy imagining what a herd of Jaguars might look like barreling flat-out toward a hairpin turn at a hundred-plus miles an hour.

  Barry Spline nudged my elbow. "Wanter see the winning car?"

  "The winning car?"

  "Righto," Colin nodded.

  "Hey, wait a minute," I protested. "How can you know it's the winning car if the race doesn't even happen till this weekend?"

  "I'll lay yer a bloody fiver on it, mate," Barry grinned. "C'mon back and 'ave a look fer yerself." With that, Barry led me into the rearmost corner of the shop, and there, hunkered in the shadows, was the biggest, meanest, toughest- looking sportscar I had ever seen in my life. It was slippery jet-black with red wire wheels and roughly the same size and shape as the atom bomb they dropped on Nagasaki. It looked just as dangerous, too.

  "Jee-zus, Barry," I gasped, "what the hell is it?"

  "An Allard J2X, Buddy. Brand-new model fresh in from England last week."

  My God, what a beast! The grille was nothing but a monstrous chromium sneer and there were scoops and vents and louvers chopped all over to let the heat breathe out (or cool air in, I couldn't figure out which). Plus you couldn't miss how they had the hood fastened down with no less than five butterfly clips and a pair of leather straps hefty enough to harness a prize bull. Whatever sort of motor was in there, they weren't taking any chances on it breaking out.

  "Gee whiz, Barry," I asked in a dry-mouthed whisper, "what the heck kind of motor's in that thing?"

  "See fer yerself, mate," Barry grinned, and set about unbuckling the straps. When he finally lifted the hood, my eyeballs damn near popped out of my skull. Stuffed inside that black monster was an enormous, hulking, made-right-here-in-America Cadillac V-8. Just like the one in Big Ed's Sixty Special sedan.

  "B-B-But you said this was an English car. . . ."

  "English as the Queen, it 'tis."

  "But this is a goddam Cadillac engine."

  "Sure as bloody hell is," Barry grinned. "Sylvester and I just finished buttoning 'er in this morning."

  "Sylvester and you?"

  "Right," Barry nodded. "See, the chaps at Allard generally ship their cars across without engines. That way owners can put in whatever bloody pleases them. Some use Fords and some use Mercurys, but they're all great cracking American V-8s. Lots of bloody displacement. Bags of torque. Cheap to run. And reliable as a bloody ten-pound sledge."

  I let out a low whistle.

  "The owner wanted one of those new Cadillac 331s in this one. Bloody good choice." You could see this wasn't any garden-variety Caddy V-8, either, what with twin carburetors on a Detroit Speed Equipment manifold and a bright blue Scintilla Vertex magneto sticking up off the back of the block.

  "What kind of horsepower d'ya think it makes?"

  "Well, we've gotter bored and stroked to damn near six liters, so I'd reckon somewheres around 265," he shot me a wink, "give or take a few."

  "Jeez, Barry," I wondered, "is it faster than a Jaguar?"

  "Bloody hell yes! Why, just look at th bloody thing. There's not an ounce of fat on it! Not one. And do the bleedin' math. Six thumping liters to a tiddly three-point-four? No bloody contest."

  Somehow, the idea of anything as blunt and ugly as an Allard outrunning Big Ed's sleek, double-overhead-camshaft Jaguar didn't sound right. Especially with a homegrown Detroit sedan engine under the hood.

  Just then Sylvester shuffled over carrying a piece of throttle linkage. "This been one hell of a fuckin' deal," he growled, shaking his head. He positioned it between the carburetors and eyeballed it carefully. "Sheee-it! " he groaned, "I ain't got it right yet!" and went back to his workbench to shorten it up some more.

  "We've been working on this bleedin' job three days solid," Barry said softly, "and it's been some bloody rough going for old Sylvester there. Why, yer should've seen the bleedin' thing when it rolled through the door. Nothing but a bloody chassis and body with a great empty 'ole in the middle."

  You had to be impressed with something like that. I mean, it's one thing to take a car on a little test-drive and diagnose what's wrong, then tear a car apart, replace the bad pieces, and screw it back together so it works properly again. No sweat. But building from scratch is something else entirely. You have to be a real maestro to get away with that sort of thing. Every single part has to be measured and figured and worried over and cussed at a kazillion bazillion times before you get it right. If you ever do. And most guys don't.

  You could see there was still a bunch of plumbing and wiring yet to be done, and I wondered out loud if they'd get it all buttoned up in time for the race that weekend. "Yer can bank money on it, mate," Barry assured me, patting one of the Caddy's valve covers. "Why, old Sylvester's near got it licked already, and we've two bloody days in hand. Mark my words, Buddy. Yer lookin' at this year's winner at the bleedin' Bridgehampton road races." He sounded pretty definite damn about it.

  I walked around to the driver's side and stared into the cockpit. "Say, Barry, d'you think I could maybe sit in it? Just for a minute?"

  "Sure thing, mate. Climb aboard."

  So I opened the flimsy aluminum door that was about the size of a cigar-box lid and eased myself inside. Geez, what a view! The dash cowling was shaped like the top of Jane Russell's swimsuit, and there was a little half-moon plexiglass windscreen mounted on top of each hump. Speedboat fashion, you know? The instrument panel was all done up in shiny, engine-turned aluminum, and you couldn't miss how the tachometer was right smack in front of the driver's nose while the speedo was way over on the other side where it couldn't do much except scare the bejesus out of passengers. What a swell idea! You would've thought the steering wheel and shifter came off a damn school bus or farm tractor or something, and it obviously took a lot of muscle and moxie to wheel a brute like this around. Which got me wondering precisely what sort of human being was planning to set himself down behind that little plexiglass windscreen come Saturday morning and mash that new throttle linkage all the way to the stops. "Say," I asked Barry, "who's gonna be driving this monster, anyway?"

  "Tommy Edwards."

  "Who's he?" I'd never heard of the guy before.

  Colin St. John looked at me like I was a bad smell. "Tommy Edwards," he answered down his nose, "is only the premier Allard driver in the entire United States of America. Perhaps even the world."

  "He's won the bloody Bridgehampton race two years on the trot now," Barry added. "And last year at Watkins Glen, as well."

  I nodded like I knew what the hell Colin and Barry were talking about. "So," I said, "where'd this Tommy Edwards guy come from?"

  "Well, he's English, of course," Colin said like it should be obvious, "but I believe he makes his home in White Plains these days. Don't know exactly what the fellow does for a living—if anything—but no question he's one hell of a decent racing driver. In fact, he drives for the factory team at Le Mans every year."

  "Le Mans?"

  "Over in France, don't you know? Biggest bloody motor race in the world."

  "It is?"

  "Without a doubt, young man. Without a doubt. Why, it's a full twenty-four hours long—night and day, day and night—flat-out and balls-to-the-wall against the greatest teams, fastest cars, and most skillful drivers in the world."

  "Wow!" I said, my mouth hanging wide open. "And this Tommy Edwards guy has raced there?"

  "Indeed he has. In fact, Tommy most usually shares a car with Sydney Allard himself. Why, they damn near won the bloody thing outright two years ago. Would've, too, but the transmission packed up and the poor devils had to run the last eleven hours in
top gear. Rotten luck, that. But they came through to finish second in spite of it. Bloody gallant effort."

  "That's always the bleedin' problem with Allards," Barry grumbled. "Can't find a bloody gearbox stout enough ter 'andle all the bleedin' torque. The monsters tear up whatever yer put in 'em."

  "True enough," Colin agreed.

  "They're 'ard on brakes, too," Barry added. "An Allard driver either learns to baby 'is brakes or 'e bloody well learns t'do without."

  I swallowed hard, mulling over the potential consequences of 265 thundering horsepower and no brakes. "Jeez," I mumbled, "this Tommy Edwards guy must be pretty good."

  "He's quite a bit better than pretty good," Colin sniffed, looking at his nails.

  I laid awake the whole night trying to imagine what that twenty-four-hour Le Mans race might be like. I could see race cars hammering down a pitch-black midnight straightaway—the fast ones topping 150!—their headlamps burning furious holes into the night. And there I was, standing on the pit wall, watching my Allard bellowing out of the darkness and slithering to a halt right in front of me. Tommy Edwards (who looked exactly like Errol Flynn in the movie Dawn Patrol) jumped out, swiped a blackened hand across his brow, and informed me that first and second gears were gone. Gone! I leaped underneath while the rest of the crew gassed her up, but it was obvious the trouble was inside the box, so there wasn't anything I could do. Not in the middle of the race, anyway.

  I watched my pit crew finish up—they were good lads, every one of them—and then my second driver (a dead ringer for David Niven in the same movie) climbed aboard. "Take care," I told him. "You've nothing left but top."

  "Well then, we'll just have to make do," he grinned through one of those devil-may-care David Niven smiles.

  "Right then. Off you go."

  "Cheerio," David Niven shouted over the engine's growl and pulled away, slipping the clutch something awful. You could hear the busted gears gnashing around inside that poor transmission.

  I climbed up on the pit counter and put my arm around Errol Flynn's shoulders. "It looks a bit dodgy at the moment," I told him in my best Earl-of-Passaic accent, "but I reckon she just might hold together long enough to win this bloody race." He smiled and thanked me, the hint of a tear glistening in the corner of his eye.

  Of course the gearbox held together (what else?), and afterward everything went into one of those swirling Hollywood dissolves that ended with me up on top of a bunting-draped podium with a grimy Errol Flynn and an even grimier David Niven flanked to either side. The three of us were smiling and laughing and waving to the crowd, and it took an entire regiment of uniformed gendarmes with gold braid on their caps to hold the people back. Corks popped off a hundred bottles of the finest champagne, and Errol, David, and I toasted ourselves repeatedly. Meanwhile, beautiful French girls in cocked berets and slit leather skirts swarmed around us, begging for attention. They were all virgins (of course!) but the more adventurous ones would look you right square in the eye, wink, and smile. . . .

  You must admit, I've got a pretty lively imagination when it comes to stuff like that!

  5: BEATEN WITH A CLUB

  NEXT DAY Big Ed came in to pick up his Jaguar and I told him what I'd heard about those races out at Bridgehampton. Right away that big Cuban stogie started rolling from one side of his mouth to the other. Clear out of the blue, he asked if I'd like to join him on a little Jaguar excursion across Long Island for a personal look-see. Would I! He even said I could ask Julie along, which sounded better yet. Especially considering the amount of room you had in an XK120 once you had somebody the size of Big Ed Baumstein wedged behind the wheel. The notion of me and Julie riding out to the tip of Long Island and back with our laps mashed together had an undeniable appeal.

  But one of Julie's cousins or neighbors or something was getting married that day, so no way would she consider it. In fact, Julie wanted me to dress up in a dumb suit and tie and tag along. Can you believe it? I mean, who the hell cared about some stupid old wedding in Jersey City—two people you don't even know, for Chrissakes!—when an actual hundred-plus-mile-per-hour, wheel-to-wheel sports car race was happening out at Bridgehampton the very same day. Get serious! But Julie had her heart set (you know how women are when it comes to weddings) and she got pretty upset when I told her I wasn't about to miss that race. She even cried a little. But it wasn't a real cry—just one of those pouty whimpers girls pull out of their bag of tricks when they realize you're not gonna do what they want you to do. The whole idea is to make you feel guilty, see, so that next time you'll cave in and take 'em wherever it is they want to go.

  It's like an investment.

  Big Ed wanted me ready by 5:30 ayem that Saturday morning, but I was up much earlier on account of I couldn't sleep too well. Excited, I guess. And maybe even a little guilty about Julie and her stupid damn wedding. Ever notice how women can eat and eat and eat at you—even when you know in your heart that you're doing exactly what you want to do? It's the damnedest thing.

  Anyhow, it was still pitch-dark and there was no way I could fall back to sleep, so I just laid there, staring at the glow-in-the-dark numerals on my alarm clock and wondering why the hands barely seemed to move at all. I finally gave up about quarter past four, made myself a pot of coffee, and decided to put in a little housekeeping time, picking up the odd shirts, socks, and undershorts that were forever scattering themselves around my apartment. Sometimes I wondered where the hell they came from, you know? Especially the orphan half pairs of socks.

  Needless to say, I was out front waiting a good half hour before Big Ed was due, and gee whiz, was it ever quiet out there. The sky was just turning that serious purplish-gray it gets right before sunup, and the only sounds were a few trucks rumbling along the highway a half mile away and some of my mom's insomniac birds fluttering around in the treetops. It made me think about her, you know, and how she looked standing there at the kitchen window with those dumb-ass Army surplus binoculars pressed against the glass, making goofy chickadee twitters with her lips all pursed together like she'd been sucking on a lemon. And for a second it was like I was really there, for sure, because I thought I smelled bacon frying and muffins baking and waffle batter rising up golden-brown in the griddle. You move away from home for the Saturday nights, but you can sure miss your mom's kitchen on a Saturday morning.

  Then I heard the unmistakable growl of Big Ed's Jaguar tooling down the highway, and I could follow it with my ears as he turned off on Taft, cruised up the hill to Cherry—left on Cherry—and on down to Buchanan, where my aunt lives. Boy, it really got my blood pumping when Big Ed glided that XK120 up to the curb, all freshly waxed and glowing in the early light like polished ivory. He flashed me two halves of a smile with his fat Cuban stogie stuck in the middle, handed over a thermos of coffee, and off we went—without a word!—like we were on some mysterious secret mission that both of us understood.

  We headed east out of Passaic under a mother-of-pearl sky, drinking coffee against the chill and watching the sun come up clear and fine behind the Manhattan skyline. It was a perfect late-spring morning, but I was glad I brought my jacket on account of Big Ed had the top down (natch) and there was plenty of cold wind spilling over and around the XK120's fighter-style windshield. On the other hand, the crisp air and light traffic sure agreed with the Jag's engine and she was running cool, sweet, and strong. Which of course meant Big Ed had a huge smile plastered across his kisser—stogie angled up at about 45 degrees—and I remember he was wearing this bright yellow cap with a gold Jaguar emblem embroidered on top. He got it out of some mailorder catalog from California. Believe me, they've got every kind of car shit you can imagine out in California. As we continued east, we started seeing more and more Jaguars and MGs and such heading our way, all piled high with picnic baskets and folded lawn chairs and other assorted racing paraphernalia. It was like there was some enormous foreign car magnet out on the tip of Long Island, pulling every damn two-seat roadster on the eastern seab
oard towards Bridgehampton.

  If you closed your eyes, you could almost feel the suction.

  But the coolest thing was how those sporty-car people would wave and smile and flash their headlights and tootle their horns at us—like we were dear old close personal chums or something!—just because we were driving a damn Jaguar. That's all it took ... we belonged! Naturally, we waved and smiled and tootled right back, and if it happened to be another XK120 (or if there was an especially pretty girl on board) Big Ed'd give a blast off the Maserati air horns he had me install behind the Jag's radiator. They came from that same mail-order outfit out in California, and I'm not exaggerating when I tell you the sound would lift you clear off the seat if it caught you by surprise. It was like a damn crash-dive alarm on a submarine!

  Personally, I thought all this arm waving and horn honking and headlight flashing was really neat. I mean, Buick and Oldsmobile owners didn't do that sort of thing. Not hardly. And if (God forbid) your Jag was pulled over to the side with a flat tire or a duff fuel pump or a cloud of steam rising from the hood, another Jaguar driver would stop to help you out—even if he was on his way to his own kidney operation! Hell, a Buick owner could be lying in the middle of the road with his large intestine wrapped around his earlobes and nobody'd give the poor bastard so much as a courtesy head-swivel.