Drag Strip Read online

  I don’t think the people of Wewahitchka feel like that about their town. When your biggest local attraction is a three-quarter-mile dirt track, you’ve got problems from a Chamber of Commerce perspective. Having dancers from the big metropolis of Panama City was not their cup of tea either. I could tell we were unwanted right away. When I pulled up to the pit gate in my ’88 black Camaro, there was a small crowd already waiting. Their signs read: NUDITY IS EVERYONE’S PROBLEM and GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE CLOTHED ADAM AND EVE.

  They were blue-hairs, mainly, who carried the placards, but there was a sprinkling of dark-haired, fresh-scrubbed Christian righters. The younger ones looked mean, in particular a man with a bull horn and black-rimmed glasses. I’d heard about protests, but usually they happened outside of clubs. Surely they didn’t think Ruby and I were going to get naked here? Ruby sank down in the passenger seat as we approached the gate.

  “Oh Gawd,” she moaned softly, “that’s Brother Everitt, from my mama’s church.”

  I looked over at her. She sat slouched down in the seat, a scarf around her head and huge dark glasses covering the top half of her face.

  “Didn’t you figure this might happen?” I asked. I stared out the window at the tiny crowd of protesters. The women were wearing pastel polyester, their eyes focused rigidly in front of them, ignoring the cars backed up behind us in line, seemingly oblivious to the incredibly loud sound of engines being pushed to their limits.

  “Well, I’d hoped not. I mean, Brother Everitt is bad to do stuff like this, but I just thought with the racetrack being technically outside the Wewa city limits, and closer to Panama City than anywhere, he wouldn’t come.” She sighed again, and her hand went nervously up to touch her hair. She was wearing a Dolly Parton blond wig.

  “So that’s why you wore a wig?”

  A small grin played across her face. “Yep. Pretty slick, huh?”

  No, not really, I thought. “Yeah, kid, slick,” I answered. “Now put them idiots out of your head and get ready to work your ass off. These gigs aren’t for your lightweight.”

  Ruby straightened up in her seat and took a deep, cleansing breath, just like I taught her.

  “Feel your inner child,” I said as we pulled into the pit entrance. “Be at peace with yourself.” It might have worked had we not come face-to-face with Roy Dell Parks, the self-proclaimed King of Dirt.

  I had gunned the accelerator of my Camaro and was just starting to cross the track to get to the pit area, when out of nowhere a dusty yellow Vega, vintage 1972, appeared, barreling across the straightaway, seemingly out of control.

  “Sierra, look out!” Ruby screamed. “Oh Gawd, Roy Dell’s spun out!”

  There was no time to slam the Camaro into reverse. Instead I braced myself, anticipating the shuddering thud that would jar every bone in my body. At the last second before impact, I saw a wild-eyed man with a bushy red beard and hair frantically fighting to turn the wheel of his battered yellow Vega. It was no use. Roy Dell Parks careened off the front right side of my car, throwing us backward into the line of waiting vehicles.

  For a moment I was too stunned to move. The impact had shaken me, but other than that, the only damage seemed to have affected my precious ’88 Iroc Camaro. Once I realized that a piece-of-shit Vega had demolished the front right side of my car, I was out of the door, heading for Roy Dell Parks and vengeance.

  Roy Dell had managed to extricate himself from his car, which to my amazement seemed to have suffered no damage, and was directing his pit crew and the others who’d raced onto the track to offer assistance.

  He saw me coming and headed toward me, his hand outstretched as if to shake mine.

  “Roy Dell Parks, ma’am,” he said. “That Vega’ll run like a scalded dog, won’t she?”

  That’s when I decked him. I pulled my arm back as far as I could and sent it steaming forward, hoping to punch right through his solicitous face and into the middle of the track.

  It was pure pleasure to connect with his big fat lips. Roy Dell Parks was a bleeder. His mouth gushed blood, his eyes rolled up backward in his head, and ever so slowly he pitched forward as his knees buckled under him.

  This brought about an instant reaction from his supporters. Half of them rushed to Roy Dell where he lay on the dirt track, and half just watched, trading looks of amazement for grins of admiration. I guess they didn’t see many women punch men in their neighborhood. Where I come from in North Philly, growing up with four brothers, learning to deliver a punch was as much a way of life as going to Catholic school. I just happened to have paid more attention during the defense part of my education.

  Ruby was standing by my side, her Dolly Parton wig slightly askew and her eyes wide.

  “Good God Almighty,” she said, “they’re gonna kill us.”

  “Kill us?” I said. “Because some self-proclaimed king of racing hit my car?”

  As if on cue, a scrawny man with thick muscled forearms and a wealth of tattoos stood up and headed in my direction. In the distance I could see two sheriff’s deputies walking quickly toward us.

  “What in the hell kind of thing to do was that?” the scrawny man asked. Others were falling in behind him, and the mood seemed to be heading toward a good old-fashioned lynching. Ruby jumped behind me, and I was thinking about how fast I could make it back to the car and grab my tire iron, when Roy Dell Parks rejoined the living.

  “Now, Frank,” he said weakly, “let me handle this. Can’t you see the little lady was acting out of shock?” He chuckled as he stood up and swayed ever so slightly. “And a hell of a shock it must’ve been, too, if that punch was any judge.”

  Frank looked at me and snarled, just like Fluffy does when she disapproves of someone. Roy Dell walked slowly in between the two of us and once again stuck out his hand.

  “Roy Dell Parks, ma’am, King of Dirt.”

  I looked at his outstretched hand for a second, then ignored it.

  “Sierra Lavotini,” I said, “the Queen of I Really Don’t Give a Shit.”

  Roy Dell laughed, then winced and touched his lip.

  “Don’t be mad, ma’am,” he said. “It really wasn’t nothing I could control. One of my boys must’ve left a bolt off the steering column.” He held up a hand as if to forestall any further comments from me. “I know, you’re worried about your vehicle, but ma’am, honest, ain’t nothing to it. Hell, the boys here’ll take that car over to the pit and have it right as rain before the night’s out.”

  Despite myself, I could feel my anger easing.

  “Thanks, Roy Dell,” Ruby said, taking over. “I know Sierra’d feel a lot better if you took care of her car. You know, Sierra’s car means the world to her.”

  Roy Dell seemed to see Ruby for the first time. His eyes widened and he wiped his beefy hand on the front of his coveralls before extending it toward her.

  “And who might you be, darlin’?”

  Ruby blushed and placed her hand in his. “Ruby Lee Diamond,” she murmured softly. “It sure is a pleasure to meet you.”

  I was gonna be sick. There was enough love juice and chemistry oozing out between the two of them to gag any self-respecting person. Roy Dell still hadn’t let go of Ruby’s hand, and she hadn’t taken her eyes off of him. If Mickey Rhodes and his entourage hadn’t joined us, accompanied by the sheriff’s deputies, we might have stood there all night waiting for the blessed consummation of Roy Dell and Ruby’s newfound romance.

  “Ladies,” said Mickey, “I am so sorry for this mishap.” His pudgy little face was wrinkled with concern. “Of course, the track will absorb any cost incurred by Mr. Parks’s negligence.”

  This snapped Roy Dell Parks back into the here and now. He whirled around to face the track owner, his face turning scarlet.

  “Let’s us just get one thing clear,” he said, his voice dropping by two octaves and assuming a menace I hadn’t thought possible. “This was an unavoidable accident. Weren’t nothing to it but a loose bolt, and Miss Sierra
and Miss Ruby know that. I’ll be fixing this Camaro up better than new, and ain’t none of your money needed.”

  Mickey puffed up like a rooster, and I was thinking that Roy Dell could fix my car for me, but there was no call to be turning down the track’s money. After all, I could be the victim of delayed whiplash. One could never be too careful.

  “Ouch,” I moaned, grabbing the back of my neck.

  “Sierra, what is it?” Ruby asked, rushing to my side. The little crowd had fallen silent, their total attention turned to me.

  “Ow, I don’t know,” I said, massaging the back of my neck tenderly. “I just felt this sharp pain.”

  Mickey Rhodes’s face paled as he smelled his liability burning. “Hey, Meatloaf, call them ambulance attendants over here. Looks like we might have a casualty.”

  A thick, tall man broke loose from the crowd and moved off at a trot toward the pit, and I stared off after him. From where we stood, at the top of the slanted dirt track, I could look down on the pit area and up over at the grandstands. Even though no cars were on the track, the sound coming from the pit where crews revved car engines was strong enough to feel as if it hit me square in the chest, pounding away like a bass drum.

  “I’ll be all right, I think,” I said. Ruby hovered by my side, her wig now completely twisted.

  “Miss Lavotini, I don’t want to take any chances on you being injured,” Mickey said. “We’ll get you checked out and your car towed over to Roy Dell’s crew.”

  There was no way I was letting some motorhead drive my baby. I’d worked too hard to obtain that car, and I wasn’t taking any more chances.

  “Nope,” I said, “no way. I’ll drive the car myself.”

  The EMTs arrived, accompanied by the man Mickey Rhodes had called Meatloaf.

  “Miss Lavotini may have a neck injury,” Mickey explained. I grimaced and allowed them to tilt my head this way and that.

  “Ow, fellas, take it easy,” I said. “You could do more harm than good here.”

  We were sailing along just fine with them prodding and me wincing, when I caught a flash of familiar movement on the edge of the pit where a crowd of onlookers had gathered. For just a moment, I thought I saw a man who looked a lot like John Nailor. I snapped my neck to the left suddenly and almost forgot to moan while I scanned the crowd. The man stood just on the back fringe of the crowd staring, if I was not mistaken, at me. If it wasn’t John Nailor, then it was his spitting double. Only thing was, I couldn’t imagine a man like him at a dirt track. It just didn’t match up.

  My stomach did that little flip it always does when I’m around him, the true test that my unconscious recognized him, even if my eyes were a little slow.

  “You know,” I said, pushing the prying hands away from my neck, “I think I’ll be fine. Moving my head back and forth seems to have fixed the problem. Let’s get moving.”

  Mickey Rhodes looked relieved. In fact, if I was any judge of human character, I was guessing there was going to be a very hefty tip from him at the end of the evening. Fluffy’d be chomping on gourmet dog food this week.

  “Come on, Ruby, let’s get to work.” I said. Ruby smiled happily and hopped back into my car. If John Nailor was at the track, then it could only be for one reason: He’d come to see me.

  “Follow us,” Roy Dell called, jumping into his battered Vega. Driving slowly, he led us to the pit entrance and down a narrow dirt lane. There were cars everywhere, hoods open, with men hanging half into the mouth of the car, tinkering. Big panel vans sat behind some of the cars, with wrought-iron railings around their roofs and aluminum lawn chairs perched up on top. Small children played in the dirt, pushing little cars and trucks around. But there was no sign of John Nailor.

  The track photographer rushed us as soon as I parked my battered baby. He was a short oval of a man, with a belt line that hit him just below the armpits, white socks, black sneakers, and a bald head. He looked like a brown shiny egg, and the closer he came, the more I realized that he smelled much worse than a rotten egg.

  “Ladies,” he said, but it sounded more like “lathies,” due to a profound lisp. “I am Harold VonCopage. We’re behind schedule. Follow me.”

  Harold quickly led us over to a small wooden platform, where he apparently intended to photograph us with every driver and crew member at the Dead Lakes Motor Speedway. I don’t know how he intended to do this because I couldn’t even see. Thick clouds of red-clay track dust whirled around us and car exhaust fumes made my eyes water. However, as soon as Ruby and I climbed the steps, men began appearing, lining up at the bottom of the platform as Harold had instructed.

  “Are you ready?” Harold asked, an eyebrow arching as if daring us not to be. I looked over at Ruby, who was slathering on blood-red lipstick and hitching up the bra of her little Dutch girl costume. She nodded to Harold. I made an attempt to brush off the dust from my French maid’s outfit. It was pointless.

  “Just a sec,” I called, more to irritate Harold than anything else, and pulled a compact from my purse. My long blond hair was piled high on my head, making me look even taller than my six-foot height in five-inch stilettos. It would be a rusty-red color by the end of the night. I licked my lips slowly and heard the men in the front of the line moan. I wanted to bend over and shift my cleavage even farther north, but this was a family event. My 38DDs probably wouldn’t be appreciated by everyone.

  I stowed the mirror, looked over at Ruby, and nodded. Then I stretched out my arms to the first man in line.

  “Come to Mama, big boy,” I crooned, and the night began.

  We’d been standing and posing for about an hour when the smile faded from Ruby’s lips.

  “Sierra,” she hissed between photo ops, “why didn’t you tell me they pinched? My derriere is going to be black and blue, and my costume’s gonna look worse. Honey, they didn’t even wipe their hands off first!”

  I smiled. “Welcome to the life, kid. You’re building yourself a consumer base. They’ll walk off with your picture, and within a week, half of them’ll be in to see you. Think of your bruised ass as an investment in your financial future.”

  Ruby looked dubious, but she put on a big smile when the next driver climbed the steps. Throughout the evening I’d look over at her and she never lost that smile, although once or twice I saw her grab a man’s hand and pinch the fleshy part between his thumb and forefinger, just like she’d seen me do. But she kept her smile, and the men smiled right back.

  Roy Dell Parks was the worst. He kept finding reasons to wander over and talk to her, and Ruby didn’t seem to mind him at all. She smiled and spoke softly to him. I couldn’t figure what she saw in the big guy.

  It was getting late in the evening when I spotted John Nailor for certain. There’d been God knows how many races, all announced over a loudspeaker that was too distorted to understand, and everyone was gearing up for the main event of the evening. Roy Dell Parks and about twenty others were getting set to go fifty laps around the track for the big money purse of the evening. In another half hour the race would take place, and then Ruby and I could leave. I was counting the moments when I looked up and saw John staring at me.

  I opened my mouth to call out to him when I realized there was something very wrong with the picture. John, the same guy who’d come into the club on numerous occasions and not all of them professional, the same guy who’d driven me home after some bozo coshed me on the head, was standing not twenty yards away from me with his arm around some tiny brunette.

  I should make it clear, here, that John Nailor and I were smoldering somewhere between chemical reaction and friendship with intent to distribute the affection into the physical realm at some point in time.

  As such, I recognize the fact that I had no possessive claim on the son of a bitch, but the sparks that had passed between us on a number of occasions led me to believe we meant a lot to each other.

  He was watching me not the same way he always did when we first met, from a distance, with an
impassive expression on his face, as if I didn’t faze him, but I knew different. I’d seen that same look on his face the first time we met, when he was investigating a murder and thought my girlfriend and I had something to do with it. Every time he came to talk to me, he’d look like that, but he kept coming back, even when he didn’t have to.

  So my mouth dropped open, and my eyes got wide, and I froze, staring at him. He looked at me with those dark eyes of his. Then his companion saw him looking and started to pull at his arm, as if she intended to bring him up to the stage to have his picture taken. He looked down at her, then back at me for just a flash, and that’s when he turned away, leaned down, and kissed her.

  He kissed her just the way I’d always imagined he’d kiss me one day: hard and like he meant it, like he played for keeps. Then he grabbed her arm and spun her around and they walked off. He was walking rough, and she looked a little surprised but was clearly enjoying this new side to his behavior. I could’ve told her I’d seen it all before, but I was busy having my picture taken by a smelly egg and my ass pinched by yet another psycho dirt racer.

  You’d think by now I wouldn’t let stuff like that get to me. It’s not as if that was the first time some guy did wrong by me. Far from it. It’s just that the kind and quality of man I usually associate with can be expected to be mean. John Nailor was about the last man I thought would deliberately hurt me, and I decided on the spot that I had to know why.

  “Break,” called Harold. “Big race is in fifteen minutes. We’ll take one last round with the winner, and then you girls can go on home.”

  Ruby was looking wistfully after Roy Dell Parks, who seemed to be beckoning her toward his car. Mickey Rhodes was heading in our direction. He was leading Vincent Gambuzzo and some guys in suits. More publicity, and I was in no mood for it. I wanted to look John Nailor in the face, up close and personal, and see if he was as brave eye to eye as he’d been a few seconds ago.