Manhattan Pit Stop

First Place we head for in New York is Mama Leone's Italian restaurant. Listen: They've got all the moves at Mama Leone's. I mean, they've got those trick little white statues out front--cement cherubs and real marble Roman ladies with their arms and nipples chipped off. And they've got a guy hidden somewhere deep inside the place and he's pumping that white clam sauce into the air conditioner, for crissakes. The smell fans out to maybe a block away. You wear a loose-weave sports coat into the restaurant and you can later boil it and come up with a pretty good soup. Besides, they treat race drivers nice.

And there we were. There was me, maybe the meanest racing man ever--you know, just trying to win them all and keep my NASCAR championship and not get hurt too bad. And there was Lugs Harvey, my chief mechanic. In the sort of garlic lighting they have at Mama's, Lugs is the one who looks a lot like a water buffalo.

We were sitting at this little table underneath a pretend grape trellis. Silvery ice bucket tucked up close, like a motorcycle sidecar, the neck of a bottle of Soave Bolla sticking out. We had driven up from Daytona to sign contracts before the Darlington race. Nonstop, naturally, and we had left a whole lot of highway back there with the concrete all curled up along both edges and barns leaning and trees bent over--plus at least two patrolmen I know of who probably still have their breeches down around their knees.

Well, that's because it was Lugs's car and folks don't notice it too much at first. It's a Z-28, all right, which is a sort of hotted-up Camaro, a little special-order item that Chevy makes to keep certain customers loose. But Lugs can't leave cars alone.

He had all the usual stuff: Edlebrock Torquer Intake Manifolds, Hooker Headers and side pipes, Accel Ignition, Cragar wheels and the fat Goodyears, 315-cubic-inch displacement, 510 rated horsepower, all of that stuff. But then Lugs had beefed up the steering and installed his own magic suspension setup that we use in our Grand National race car: You breathe on it just right and the damn nose comes down and the tail goes up. And he had touched up the basic block just a little bit. Not much--but you could hold it up to a dim light and still read the Akron Beacon Journal through it.

And then Lugs had painted the car gray, for God's sake, with the idea that maybe folks wouldn't notice it. Which is fine, of course. Except that sometimes it's pretty hard not to notice a car that is sitting there trembling.

Right now, the Z car was parked in the lot next door to Mama Leone's and Lugs had given the attendant ten dollars to see that nobody touched it. As an extra inducement, he had promised to break the guy's liver if there was a fingerprint on the car when we came out.

So Lugs snatched up the wine bottle and shook off all the water drops. "Y' know," he said, "nice thing about New York over Indy is that nobody knows us here."

Wrong. I was just lowering my glass, kind of sighting out over the edge of it--and I was looking directly into a belt buckle. It was roughly the size of a Mercedes hubcap.

So I leaned back and looked at the whole guy. And there was just about only one way to take him. From the top:

This guy was the tallest, skinniest dude I had ever seen. To start with, he was wearing a softly fuzzy, pure-white wide-brimmed hat. I mean wide. The brim hung out like an awning. Below that, he had:

1. A little fire opal sunk right into his right ear lobe. A mashed-in nose and a Zapata mustache.

2. An orange pure-silk shirt, unbuttoned right down to the belt buckle. Under the shirt, he had maybe 47 chains with jeweled things on them. Little, tiny knock-off wheels. Little, tiny racing emblems: Ferrari and STP. (continued on page 152)Manhattan Pit Stop(continued from page 107) A little, tiny phaeton. And a Jaguar with landau irons. Little, tiny MG-TDs. Little Shelby-Cobras in gold. Little wheels with gold and silver spokes. And teensy Champion sparkplugs.

3. Over the shirt, he had on a blue-velvet jacket and it had sort of champagne-colored mink lapels and mink trim around the pockets. And he was wearing dark-blue satin pants, tight fitting across the crotch and thighs, sweeping out at the bottom.

4. And red alligator shoes sitting up on top of those platform soles.

5. And a platinum watch with a black dial that kept flashing the time on and off in red. And a ring on every finger; two on some.

He just stood there and glowed on and off and when I got through looking at him, he cleared his throat and he said, "I don't fuckin' believe it."

"Listen, I don't believe it too much myself," I said.

He did a little shimmy, snapping the fingers of both hands and sending little bolts of light up into the grape trellis.

"Stroker Fucking Ace," he said. "My main man. Like, I mean: It's you!"

"It's me," I said.

The guy turned to Lugs and did a kind of long, lean grind and capped it off with a little bump, snapping his fingers some more. "And you," he said. "You Lugs Harvey, man. The magic wrench, man."

Then he twisted his body, without moving either foot, snatched a chair from the next table and arced it through the air and plunked it up against our table backward and then eased down onto it, cowboy style. He put both elbows out in the middle of the table and leaned way over until we were nose to nose. "Can I sit down?" he said.

"I insist."

He smiled: slowly, a little move at a time under the Zapata mustache, and with each move he showed two more great, big perfect teeth, until there were about 55 or so of them hanging there in the air. And then he folded his hands delicately under his chin to hold up all that weight and he kept shaking his head back and forth, looking at me.

One more item:

6. He was wearing sparkly fingernail polish. Not too much, so as not to appear gaudy, but pretty sparkly, all the same.

"It's you," he said. "And it's me. Sitting here at the very same table with you, baby."

"That's an upset right there," Lugs said.

The guy opened one thin hand and began to count, bending down one finger with each item.

"Indy five hundred," he said. "Day-tona five hundred. And Charlotte and Talla-dega, and Dar-lington and Po-cono, man, and Riverside and On-tar-io. And the title. And, like slamming that sum-bitch flat fucking sideways at At-lanta; I saw it all. Listen, I saw you. Like, you were limping so hard you could hardly walk--and I saw you get into that mother car...it was at Daytona...and you were peeling their humpin' doors off, baby. And you were comin' off that number-four turn and the brakes went out and the whole car suddenly--"

"Brakes," I said. "Uh-huh. Brakes. That's Mr. Magic Wrench over there. Mr. Magic Wrench and his four-hundred-and-ten-mile braking system."

"Yer ass," Lugs said. He pushed his plate away and began working through all his pockets, looking for a toothpick. "The idea is: You keep yer foot off the fucking brakes and they'll last longer. You want to play with the brakes, you can go out somewhere in the goddamn street."

The guy shook his head some more, blinking, and he did another sort of sitting-down shimmy in wonder. "Man," he said. "You guys. Like, here I am, me, sitting right here. Right here at this table, with the greatest racing driver ever."

"Well. If you go to all those races, you could come around to the pits and--"

He held up one delicate hand, the palm toward me. "Uh-uh. Look at me again, sugar. You think some honkie guard gonna let me anywhere near the pits? You think, like, even across the track?"

Lugs nodded. "I got to confess," he said, "fingernail polish ain't really all that big in NASCAR."

The waiter bent into view, looking at our visitor.

"Mr. Snapper," he said. "The girls want to know when you're coming back to the table. And they would like to know if they could please have another drink while they're waiting."

"I swear, I thought maybe I heard somebody just mention girls," Lugs said.

The guy nodded. He bent back a bit and reached into his pocket and swept his hand up. It was full of crumpled money. He pulled out a hundred and handed it to the waiter. "You tell the ladies that the Snappuh Man gonna be back when it suits the Snappuh Man. But you tell them to go right on ahead and have a little something."

Then he turned back to us. "Permit me," he said, and he swept off the white hat and dropped it onto the floor. His Afro sprang right up all around. "Permit me to introduce myself formally. I am none other than Beau-re-gard Snappuh. Uhh, the third. I would deem it an honor if you called me Beau, man. Beau Snappuh, at your service. Your biggest fan. I follow your career, Mr. Ace. I am your--"

"Beau," Lugs said. "Beau, never mind all that Stroker Ace fan crap. Beau, yer holding out on me. You mean to sit there and tell me that you gotta table full of girls somewhere here in this very restaurant, Beau? And not one of them knows that Lugs Harvey is in town? America's sweetheart? You tellin' me that, Beau?"

Beau smiled. "It's their night off," he said. "Man, like, Beauregard Snappuh is the kindest, most loving executive director in town. All work and no play is bad, man. The members of my staff get days off. And parties. Dinners and dressy clothes and all. And then they return to work happy, you dig?"

"Beau...." Lugs said.

Beau shook his head. "Uh-uh. No. We gonna get to the girls in a minute. I'll introduce you, even. But first, I wonder if you'd do me one little thing. I just wonder if you'd do me the honor of stepping outside for just a second to look at my car."

"Car? Car? Crissakes, Beau, I've seen cars. Now, about those girls...."

"Please? I mean, it'll jus' take a second. I mean: It's a machine, baby. Ain't another one like it in town. Nowhere. It's something else. I got, like, fifteen thou into it now and still spending. It's a mean car."

Beau's car was parked smack in front.

It had come off the line as a Lincoln Continental, a Mark Four, or whatever they call them. Which meant, for one thing, that the suspension system was made out of old artgum erasers. But that was just the basic car; a lot of folks had been tugging and pulling at it since. For openers, Lincoln doesn't usually do pink Continentals--and this one was metallic pink. There were so many hand-buffed coats laid on there that you could stare deep into it, through a gallon of Simonize rubbed on like rock crystal, and your reflection came back at you in wide (continued on page 178)Manhattan Pit Stop(continued from page 152) screen. But that was just the paint.

The grille had been rechromed and flecked with chips of something, maybe zircons. There were special-order white-wall tires; the snowy sidings wrapped practically into the goddamn treads; there were opera windows and the top was covered with armadilloskin dyed baby blue. Marching straight down the middle of the trunk deck were four aerials: one for a C.B. radio, one for a radio radio, a television antenna and one for a telephone. The whole inside was pink fur: dashboard, pedals, floor, inside door handles and all; everything. Well, except for the steering wheel. It looked like someone had taken a 200-pound sapphire and chipped it into the right shape.

"Baby, baby," Beau said. "Doan jus' stand there like you're growing out of the sidewalk. What do you think, man?"

"It's, uhhh, it's a whole bunch of car," I said.

Lugs was speechless, breathing through his mouth, like he always does when he is thinking hard; Lugs has an air-cooled brain pan. He marched down to the far end, looking at the Lincoln, then he marched up to the front end and, finally, he got down on both knees just a little bit behind the front tire and he looked in behind it at the steering linkage. He stood up and shrugged.

"Lemme see the engine," he said.

"Engine," Beau said. "Engine." And he opened the door, reached in and pulled the latch. He ran around front, shook out a pink handkerchief, reached down and lifted the hood. He peered in, quickly, and stepped back. "Careful," he said. "There's a lotta jive-ass horses just lyin' in there, waiting to jump out at you."

Lugs leaned over and looked in. Then he swung his head around and looked back at Beau for a long second, then he looked back under the hood. And then, still looking, he walked around on the street side and checked it from that direction. And then he straightened up, the car between us.

"I don't believe it," he said. "Stock. I'll be goddamned if this sumbitch ain't flat stock."

Beau shook his head up and down a lot. "Man, it all came with the body," he said. "You mean something is wrong in there?"

"Wrong?" Lugs looked like he had just been goosed. "Wrong? You mean to tell me that nothin' has been done to this here en-gine since you got it? I mean: This is it, for crissakes, just like it came from the fucking fac-tory? A stock engine. Oh, shit, oh, dear. I ain't seen one of them in years."

Beau spread out both hands, fingers apart. "But you...you cats race stock cars," he said. "You know. Uhh, well, I mean stock cars."

Lugs just looked at him in disbelief. Old Magic Wrench thought about it for a minute and then gave his very best critical assessment. "This here car here," he said, "is a fucking sled, is what it is."

Beau swung around to me. "What is he saying? What is that man SAYIN' to me? You know how many horsepower in that big ole motherhumper right there? Like, you know how much that car cost? Stock? Man, I got to tie that rascal down at night, keep it from runnin' off somewhere. You talk about that car, you're talking about mean, man. That's a bad car there."

Lugs jammed his hands into his back pockets and sighed a very sad sigh. "Listen, Beau," the said. "Rock-candy apple paint ain't gonna save it. That's still a stock engine there, Beau. Which makes it a shitbox, pure and simple. Case closed." He pointed at the parking lot. "If I couldn't take my poor little old Camaro over there and suck the doors off this goddamn sled here, I'll kiss your ass until you bark like a fox."

Hoo-boy.

Beau said something about your honkie ass you can, and Lugs said something about my pore old gray Camaro ain't even set up and I could smoke off this shitbox Lincoln, and Beau said something about not through New York traffic, you can't, and Lugs said something about traffic, my ass; I could blow you off in a fucking swamp. And we got out Beau's hand-worked silver flask and passed it around, drinking pure Seagram's Seven, the drink that makes better drivers of us all.

"Harlem," Beau said.

"Mrrrrrmmmmmph," Lugs said, passing back the flask. "Where's it at?"

Beau shook the flask next to his ear, listening. Then he spoke into the neck of it. "You in there, bubbles?" Then he took a long drink and passed it to me. "You know where Harlem is?"

"Hell, no," I said. "Listen: I get lost a lot just outside the main gate at Indy. And, besides, this here flask is damn near empty."

He fished in his inside pocket and came up with another one, gold. "Here, baby," he said. "Two flasks, no waiting."

"Look," Lugs said. "Are we gonna race or are we gonna fuck around? Just gimme a drink here and point me at the track. We get to Harlem or whatever it is and you tell me what happened to your goddamn fenders, kiddo."

Beau shimmied a little bit, snapping all his fingers. "Hundred-thirty-five and Lenox," he said. "Dig it? I own a bar up there. Know what the name of it is? The Beau-Regard. Two doors down from the corner. Can't miss it. Big-mother sign: The Beau-Regard. Got it? Long as you're with me, you're safe."

Lugs looked out at all the Manhattan traffic; he was weaving a little, not too bad. "No worse than the infield at Darlington," he said.

"Look, now," Beau said. "We leave here. We race up Eighth Avenue, dig it? Flash past Columbus Circle, man, and we keep on hauling ass uptown on Broadway. Mmmmm. We're on Forty-eighth here, right? And, well. Mmmm, say eighty-seven blocks or so."

We all looked over at Eighth Avenue, into the cars zinging along. Uh-huh.

"One little problem," Lugs said. "I hate to bring this up, but this here's a one-way street. Goin' the wrong one way."

We had a little shooter, thinking about it. And since I was the only racer present, I made the steward's decision:

"It ain't all that far to the corner," I said. "They got to forgive us that little distance."

"Eighty-seven blocks?" Lugs brought the flask down and surged the Seagram's around in his mouth, pooching out first one cheek, then the other. "Hrrrmmph. Thas' all? Hell, I can four-wheel drift that Z car all the way to yer place faster 'n you can drive that shitpot forwards."

"Wrong," I said. "I'll drive. You always wanted to be a riding mechanic, anyway, remember?"

"Man, that's it," Beau said. "Me against Stroker Ace. Me and the goddamn national champ, man."

"I don't know," Lugs said. "I got that clutch pulled up so delicate that--"

"OK. I won't use the clutch."

"And you gotta feather that throttle and--"

"Not if you got it on the floor, you don't."

"And, all right. You drive. No trick stuff, now. You get us belly up somewheres and I'm really gonna be pissed. Anyway, where's that flask?"

I went over and got the Z car. Beau fired up the Lincoln and looked over at us through his tinted windows, but it didn't matter. With the Z-28 running, all we could hear was black thunder and the vibration was rippling my bowels. Both upper and lower. Over on the other side of the Lincoln, all the statues started shaking and the cement dingus fell right off one of the little cherubs. I touched the clutch and popped it into first. And then, holding the clutch in, I braced the heel of my right shoe on the brake pedal, swung the toe around and mashed in on the gas and put them both down on the floor. The needle on the tach swung up hard and sat there steady.

Lugs looked over at it. "Gimme more rpms," he said. "What do you think this thing is, a goddamn sports car or something? Get on it."

I brought it up higher, until my liver started clenching off and on, like a fist.

Lugs flashed Beau a wait-a-second sign. And then he leaned across me and reached way up under the dashboard. Gently, almost so you couldn't see it, the nose of the Z-28 came down. Then it inched down a touch more, while the ass end came up just a bit until we were flat damn hunkered there on the street.

I glanced back at Beau and now he had on fancy driving gloves with cutouts across the knuckles, and he was punching them between the fingers to get them on tight. He flashed me a thumbs-up sign, like in Dawn Patrol, and then he put both hands on the sapphire wheel and took off. Hoo-boy.

Hell, that Lincoln was almost majestic, the way it waddled into a U turn and then ambled on down toward the intersection, waving goodbye with its aerials. I let go the clutch, held the brake on for a bit and goosed the gas. There was a long, long second while we just sat there stirring up mauve smoke from the rear wheels, and then, just about the time the cloud covered our back window, we fired it off the mark.

Lugs said, "Ooohhhh, yeeeaaahhhh," and we spun it around and came back in through our own smoke. And then we came around the Lincoln with our speedometer at 68 miles an hour and climbing--all crouched down and fishtailing just a teeny bit, our heads slammed back against the head restraints; it was like going past 20 miles of pink fence. I hung a hard right at the corner and we chopped him off, ducking under him with a ting that took off a foot and a half of pink paint from his left-front fender and got the leading edge of his bumper just a bit out of shape. And then we were out in it.

Eighth Avenue is New York City's straightaway. Every city has one. Nobody just tools along Eighth Avenue; everybody there is going for the pole position. Hell, it's maybe the only street in Manhattan that pedestrians cross at a dead lurch, even before the sign flashes Don't Walk.

Ahhh, hot damn. Never invite a NASCAR man to race; we all come from extremely bad-ass backgrounds. Three taxicabs came booming past us, Indian file--three feet between each one and each one gaining on the other. I stabbed it a little more and we slalomed through them, swinging it a bit to check the steering setup. Nice.

The cops picked us up at 53rd Street. Well, to be absolutely accurate about this, I picked them up. We had just chopped off a goddamn Triumph Stag and I had the Camaro in a drift, my arms all crossed over, and I was trying to sight down toward the next intersection. I drifted right past this squad car.

Understand, I couldn't hear him. We both had our windows up. But for one flash, we looked into each other's eyes. He had to be doing maybe 57 miles an hour or so--and here I came, sliding right past him, somewhat sideways.

Like in a silent movie, I could see his mouth open and then form the words: holy shit. And then he turned on the red bubble-gum machine on top of his car.

I spun the wheel back hard left and got us all snapped around, and slashed across to the other side of the street to get some more cars between us and the cops. And that's when two things happened:

Thing one: hot-dog vendor. Lord, Lord.

He popped out into the street at mid-block, just pushing the cart ahead of him, his mouth all pursed up in a whistle, and for a split second there, it was all printed inside my head: blue-and-white fringed umbrella advertising CinZano and some Italian ices stacked up on top and two bicycle wheels--and this poor sumbitch whistling Dixie or something.

Lugs put both hands up to his face and peeked out through his fingers and said, "Sheeeeee-itttttt!" and I cranked it hard right just about the time the vendor looked up. And just about the time Lugs was saying, "Ohhhhhh dearrrr," we ticked the cart just ahead of the bicycle wheels while I was trying to crank us the other way to get around a goddamn tiny Alfa Romeo that was looking for a place to park.

The Z car sheared off everything ahead of the bike wheels, and then I looked in the rear-vision mirror. And the cart was taking off on a sort of clockwise spin, picking up speed as it went and spewing out hot dogs and buns and a blizzard of colored ice. And the guy was still hanging on to the handle and he was picking up speed with the cart, his legs swinging straight out in the air. I have very fast eyes, naturally; some of the hot dogs were raining down from about two stories high.

And then the squad car ducked through, its front window covered with sauerkraut.

We snicked the rear-vision mirror and left-front hubcap right off the Alfa.

That was Thing one. Thing two was Columbus Circle.

It isn't really a circle. It's a goddamn triangle, is what it is. And I suppose it isn't usually all full of cops, but I guess somebody had got on the radio. They were all looking for a damn gray Camaro; but then, we really weren't all that hard to spot. We pulled in going about 80, double-clutching to beat hell and dragging down through the gears, looking for an opening--and you could hear that rascal Z-28 snapping and snarling all the way to Newark.

Zero openings, far as I could see; just a lot of rooftop red lights swirling off the monument. Central Park was off there on a soft right; the Colosseum was on the other side, soft left. Central Park West was over there somewhere on the other side of the monument, and so was upper Broadway.

"Awwwww, no," Lugs said.

I swung it around two squad cars parked nose to nose and got us into a slide going toward the big statue, then straightened it out. Sort of. We did a little frog jump right up onto the sidewalk, getting up in there with all the spectators, who were wondering what the hell the cops were looking for.

It's OK: I honked the horn a lot while the car was doing a slow 360 turn, and the folks were real nice about spilling out of the way, climbing the statue and all. And we bounced off the other side. Unhappily, we landed nose to nose with a big black police van, chicken-wire windows and all.

"Reverse," Lugs said. "You gotta goddamn reverse in here, you know."

"I'll drive," I said.

So we went back up on the plaza, this time going backward, and sneaked it around to the other side. And the rest was easy.

Easy. We fired it right up the steps going toward the Gulf and Western Building, across that high sidewalk and down the other steps. It was when we were high up on the sidewalk, where cars don't hardly ever go, that we glanced over at the entrance to upper Broadway.

"That sumbitch," Lugs said. "Lookit."

The pink Lincoln flashed by, flat out, and that goddamn Beau had the television set on and was talking on the telephone. And we came off the sidewalk--all airborne, which really cuts down your speed--and landed, bouncing, about six cars behind him.

The run to Harlem was like a parade, though you had to look pretty fast to see any of the floats: There was Beau and there was me and there were about 20 cops strung out behind, all weaving and honking and sireening.

Couple times, I inched right up behind that big pink Lincoln trunk-- though you can't really draft anybody too good when you're only running about 70--and gave Beau a couple of whaps. But then, every time I pulled over to slingshot him, he would ease it in my direction, waltzing me right over toward the parked cars on each side.

"If there was only an infield here," Lugs growled, "we could put that sum-bitch so far into the porta-johns you wouldn't believe it."

But then it happened; the cops began dropping away, closer we got to Harlem. And so did the people cars. In the 90s, we were zapping along pretty much on our own, and where there weren't cars parked on each side, there was garbage stacked up. There were fewer streetlights; about every other one had been shot out or something. Hell, some of the lampposts were missing. And about three blocks of buildings were flat burned out, all stained brick and empty, black windows.

"Does that say Beau-Regard?" I said.

"Uhhh, where?"

"Two blocks ahead. On the right."

He popped a beertop, taking all the spray in the chest. "Hell, listen: If I could see two blocks ahead, I'd be a fucking race driver."

"Well, hang on."

I slammed the nose of the Z-28 flat up against the Lincoln and when Beau bobbled it just a teensy bit, I popped it and dragged it down a gear. I could see him glance up at me in his mirror, one eyeball looking right into mine. So I feinted right on him, ducking that shoulder. And, grinning, he let old Pinkie drift over to the right to block me.

And I stood on it and came back left, really cranking it this time, taking off his whole goddamn rear bumper coming around; it bounced about 25 feet behind us. We came slingshotting around and when Beau suddenly glanced over, all he could see was Camaro roof line and Lugs sort of saluting him with a can of hot Coors, the foam still spilling out.

Then I chopped him off and hit the brake all at the same time and we crossed the finish line all ass-end to, smoking a bit. I got the front wheels up on the sidewalk and we took out two tin garbage cans; slammed it right up against the building and then fell back, rocking gently.

"Darlington finish," Lugs said. "Right off the wall. Though I gotta say, you embarrass me by driving like a damn Sunday-school teacher."

Beau came easing up to the curb, aerials fluttering, and he got right out, went around in back and kicked the Lincoln a good one in the ass. Then he came over.

"You want a statement?" I said. "Well, I just want to thank Mom and Pop and all my sponsors and all those wonderful people that worked so hard to make it possible for me to win this here race. And, of course, I couldn't of won it without the help of my excellent chief mechanic, whose name I forget right now."

"Jee-zuz," Beau said. "You a mean driver, man. Bad, is what you are. You wanna buy a used Lincoln?"

"Uh-uh. The TV set looks too small to me."

"C'mon in," he said. "Man, nobody's gonna believe this; me racing Stroker Ace. C'mon. Walk close behind me, now; you're safe with me, but sometimes it is a little bitty shock to see a honkie face in here."

Two minutes. It couldn't have been more than two minutes, because I have this racing clock inside my stomach--and we were standing there with these big glasses of Seven and Seven and Beau was just starting to tell everybody about the big race to Harlem--and Lugs turned to me and said something about Just a second, I gotta get me a cigar out of the glove compartment, and he went out the door. And very soon he was back inside, and he had this funny look on his face. That's how fast it was. Two minutes.

"Hey, Beau," he said. "It's about my car."

Beau half-spun around, his eyebrows up. "Hmmmm?" he said. And then he saw the look on Lugs's face and, suddenly, he slapped one long hand to his forehead. "Uh. No," he said.

"Uh, no, my ass," Lugs said.

"Oh, man. I forgot to tell them. I mean, the excitement and all. I forgot to tell them to lay off. Oh, oh."

"C'mon and look," Lugs said.

Beau said something about Lord, I can't bear to go out there and look, because I know what I'm gonna see, and we all pushed back through the door with a whole gang of folks from the bar and stood there and looked at the Z-28.

That little sumbitch was totally, flat stripped. It was sitting there on the naked axle hubs and the hood was up and the trunk lid was up and everything was gone. And the street was deserted. Two minutes.

And while we were standing there looking at it, the car gave a sort of soft little swooshing sigh, and the nose came back up and the tail settled down.

Lugs walked around it, taking inventory. He looked in under the hood and he lifted up a few loose wires and then let them fall back. He looked into the trunk and then inside the car at where the dashboard used to be. And then he came back and stood on the sidewalk with the crowd, looking down at the skeleton and sipping thoughtfully at his Seven and Seven. And finally:

"Allstate's gonna shit," he said.

"Man, I'm sorry," Beau said. "Like, I forgot to spread the word. You know, man. I was just so jazzed about the race and all. Like, what'd they get?"

"Well, lemme see," Lugs said. "We still got the floor boards and the taillight bulbs. I guess I prolly came back out the door too soon." He stepped up and unscrewed the bulbs, then carefully put them up on the roof. "There," he said. "Save somebody a little work. Now, then. Let's go back in and get us a little shooter here."

"Oh, man, I mean, I feel tragic about this," Beau said. "And I'd get all this stuff back for you cats, really. But, like, we been here"--he glanced at his digital, flash-on-and-off watch--"well, like, maybe five minutes now. And half the stuff is in Jersey City by now, man. No serial numbers or anything on it."

Lugs waved for a new round of drinks, and then he turned to Beau and got him by one arm and sort of half-bent him over, so they could look each other in the eyes. "Beau," he said. "Listen, Beau: Ordinarily, now, I would be...uhhhh, I would be...."

"Sore wrought," I said.

"Sore rot," Lugs said. "And, also, I would be pissed off. But I been in this business way too long and I got to salute a job like that out there. Shit, oh, dear, man, you see that little Z car? I mean: You see it? Crissakes, listen: I seen some fast goddamn work in my day; I mean fast guys who work like nobody's business, kiddo. But this here has got to be the hot-damnedest pit stop I ever...."

"Hey," I said.

"Oh, man!" Beau said. And he shimmied. "Pit stop!"

Lugs went right on talking and Beau and I stood there and looked at each other, the idea taking shape inside our heads.

"Nooooooo," Beau said.

"Why not?" I said.

"Yeah, but I mean: Stock-car racin' is Honkie City, man."

"Somebody's gotta be first," I said.

And Beau said, "Lord, can you dig it?"

And I said, "Maybe, maybe. Look: How many of them--"

"Six. Six cats and they been working together for years. Fast; Lord, they are so fast that on hot summer nights round here, folks come sit out on their front stoops just to watch them work. I remember last year they did a whole bread truck here and you could hear the clapping and cheering all the way downtown. They're fast. They got fifty-nine magic fingers, man. I say fifty-nine because one time one of them, it's Roosevelt, I think, still had his pinkie in a guy's electric window and the guy was pullin' away from the curb at the time."

Lugs had stopped talking and was looking at us. Then he took a deep breath. "I just got a hell of an idea," he said. "Now, listen: Hear me out before you say anything. But, listen. Get this: Maybe we ought to sign these guys as a pit crew."

Beau nodded. "How about that?" he said. "I just doan know how you come to think of such things."

"S'nothing," Lugs said.

•

The thing was coughing and hacking and doing everything but spitting up blood coming down the pit lane and, looking up ahead, I could see the crowd gathered. Where the crowd was, that was my pit; it had been like that ever since we had checked in at Darlington. And no damn wonder: When I slammed it to a stop and shut it down, here they came again.

Here's the way it worked: Roosevelt was standing lookout, because he was the smallest and had only nine fingers anyway. The rest of them were poised on tippy-toes, arms slightly out, watching and listening. Roosevelt identified with the car; he could look at it and tell what was hurting. And even before I got it stopped, he was chanting: "Aching inside, won't hardly ride, over the side--and do it." And when he said, "Do it," they came flowing over the wall like a goddamn ballet troupe. Each guy was carrying something: a tool, a wrench, something. Small Sam swept one forearm across the hood and the latches came out like magic; he leaned back and Flip popped up the hood, and then they both leaned in again. Then Small Sam straightened up and he had four sparkplugs in one hand; he held out the other hand and Stretch laid four new plugs on him and he leaned in again. On the beat.

Up front, Bonzo clapped his hands and ducked in out of sight and then quickly stepped back, both hands up. He was wearing the old fan belt around his neck. "Ta-dah," he said. Then the car slammed back down and Lucius flashed the "Tires on" signal, his thumb and forefinger together. And Roosevelt scooted around to my right-front fender and poised like Mercury on the front of the telephone book, bouncing a bit and snapping his fingers to the beat, ready to wave me out, keeping one eye on Lugs.

And Lugs, standing behind the wall, winked at Roosevelt and punched the stop watch. I kicked it and Roosevelt twirled right out of sight, like a bullfighter.

Behind me, when the roar died down, they say that the crowd sighed in unison, like air coming out of the Hindenburg. Everybody blinked and said something appropriate. Like: Jee-zuz, did you-all see that pit stop? I make it 14 seconds. And appropriate things like that.

•

Fifty-five laps to go and somewhere in there I had managed to work my way from first place down to second and all my leg bones ached--I think from clenching my teeth so hard in the turns.

Turbo Ellison and I were rubbing door handles going through the corners, and then--every time I drew a bead on that sumbitch--he would outgun me down the straights in that really big-mother Mercury and I would have to tuck in tight behind him while we both smoked off every other car in the race. Then he'd hit the turn in a slide, front wheels cocked over, and I'd slide right up alongside him, going absolutely flat balls-out. And we'd glance over at each other. We were scaring each other to death.

Then we both rifled off the fourth turn, where I was squeezing him so hard against the wall that I was gradually buffing all the paint off the far right side of his car and, again, he ducked down across me, ticking my right-front fender so hard that it made the palms of my hands hurt.

We went through the first turn side by each, nobody off the gas just the slightest bit, both into a full slide on the high banking, with the crowd all sucking up enough breath to levitate the goddamn speedway. Then Turbo hunched up and I hunched up and we did the whole back straight like the world's widest car. Old Turbo gave me a small glance and a nod indicating that he was going to cut me off and go into the pits--and I gave him a small glance and shrug indicating that, if he was, he was gonna have to drive right through about 27 hunnert pounds of full-bore Dodge, asshole. So we still hung together coming off turn four, with me snuggled up under him, and then I took a very deep breath and cocked it for the pit entrance. Still on the gas.

Down along pit row, I could sort of sense the retracting of testicles when they saw us both coming.

And that's when Lee Roy Harber--who was pitting fast but more or less amiably--blew his engine. First dumb thing he did was to flinch inside his seat belts when it went off, and when he flinched, that sissy goddamn humpty, he got his goddamn Plymouth sideways--and while he was flinching and sliding, he dumped a whole carload of oil. There just can't be that much oil in one car, can there?

There can be; trust me: I hit it and Turbo hit it and, suddenly, the whole Darlington International Speedway took off and began going around and around, picking up speed.

I sucked up my rib cage a lot and got off the gas, and then, next thing, I hit Turbo a ferocious lick: Bam! And I could see parts flying off his car and he caromed off the trackside wall and drove right back through me--ka-pow! And the sky started raining bumpers and rear-vision mirrors and stuff. And I did a reverse spin, catching a quick flash image of somebody's pit crew running for the stands. That's just about the time I hit their pit wall so hard that all their tires jumped and somebody's toolbox flew up into the crowd, throwing wrenches over about 15 rows of seats. But, still, I came off that one reasonably straight. So I dragged it down a gear and popped the gas a very quick shot and got the hell out of there. Making a clean stop at my pit was easy for two reasons:

One: All my tires were shredded.

Two: Turbo's car was welded to mine, T-boned, and that served to slow me down considerably.

"Do it," said Roosevelt.

And they came flowing out over the wall, moving around me in a smooth swirl.

Stretch leaned in and looked at me. "Your nose is all bleeding," he said.

"It always bleeds when it's broken," I said. "Never mind. Get moving. If you sumbitches ever stripped a goddamn car--strip one now."

Small Sam popped the bright flame on the welding torch and cut Turbo loose, while Turbo's own crew came swarming in with tires and things. Lugs ducked down and grabbed the sheet metal on the right-rear fender and gave a mighty heave and pulled it free like that; never mind the hernia. Then the car went up and down on all four corners like it had the hiccups and all four new wheels went on. Up front, Bonzo and Flip discovered that the hood was jammed crooked, locking the latch pins--and in a blur of motion, Flip reached into one pocket and whipped out some sort of small, shiny tool; he flicked it somewhere up near my windshield and simply snatched off the hinges--just like that--and picked up the whole goddamn hood while Bonzo ducked under it and did a major overhaul; he backed away, nodding, and Flip popped the hood back on and snapped the hinges back in, pocketed the silver tool and looked innocent, all in one sweep.

Lugs slapped the roof and I got the hell out of there.

The crowd was still yowling when I came around the first time: 13.3-second pit stop for a new, all-time NASCAR record. Jeez, a couple of more seconds there and they could have simonized me. Maybe even set my nose.

"With each move he showed two more great, big perfect teeth, until there were about 55 or so of them."

"The steering wheel looked like someone had taken a 200-pound sapphire and chipped it into the right shape."