The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Black TigerThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Black TigerAuthor: Patrick O'ConnorIllustrator: Ray Scott CampbellRelease date: March 6, 2022 [eBook #67571]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Ives Washburn, Inc, 1956Credits: Tim Lindell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK TIGER ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Black TigerAuthor: Patrick O'ConnorIllustrator: Ray Scott CampbellRelease date: March 6, 2022 [eBook #67571]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Ives Washburn, Inc, 1956Credits: Tim Lindell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
Title: The Black Tiger
Author: Patrick O'ConnorIllustrator: Ray Scott Campbell
Author: Patrick O'Connor
Illustrator: Ray Scott Campbell
Release date: March 6, 2022 [eBook #67571]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Ives Washburn, Inc, 1956
Credits: Tim Lindell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK TIGER ***
THE BLACK TIGERBy PATRICK O'CONNORIVES WASHBURN, INC.NEW YORKCopyright 1956 by Ives Washburn, Inc.All rights reserved, including the right to reproducethis book, or parts thereof, in any form, exceptfor the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.Manufactured in the United States of AmericaDedicatedto Bill and Steve Dredge and thehappy fraternity of sports-car racingdrivers in the United States of America.Also to their hero mechanics.Also by Patrick O'ConnorTHE SOCIETY OF FOXESFLIGHT OF THE PEACOCKTHE WATERMELON MYSTERY
IVES WASHBURN, INC.NEW YORK
Copyright 1956 by Ives Washburn, Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproducethis book, or parts thereof, in any form, exceptfor the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dedicatedto Bill and Steve Dredge and thehappy fraternity of sports-car racingdrivers in the United States of America.Also to their hero mechanics.
Also by Patrick O'ConnorTHE SOCIETY OF FOXESFLIGHT OF THE PEACOCKTHE WATERMELON MYSTERY
Woody Hartford, seated upon a four-legged stool of uncertain design, examined the pieces of a carburetor that lay on a bench before him, and contemplated a problem of the nicest delicacy.
The problem had nothing to do with the carburetor. Woody at seventeen could put that back together without even thinking of what he was doing. He'd cleaned and adjusted a score of them since he first started working at McNess Union Service Station, Hermosa Beach, California, two years ago. The problem concerned the matter of whether to spend ten dollars on Cindy Lou or on Mary Jane. It was not one that could be lightly decided.
There were, Woody was dimly aware, certain ethical factors involved. Cindy Lou needed the money spent on her in the worst way. On the other hand, if Mary Jane ever found out about it, she would, in a ladylike manner, raise a great deal of trouble.
Again, if, to avoid strained relations with Mary Jane, Woody spent the money on her, it would be a long time before he would have a ten spot to spend on Cindy Lou.
"A guy with a hot rod and thirty bucks a week," Woody said to the float chamber of the carburetor, "has no right having a girl friend, too. On the other hand," he added, "a guy with a hot rod is going to wind up with a girl friend whether he wants one or not. There's no arguing about that."
He sighed, reached for one of a number of remarkably dirty rags on the workbench, and thrust it into the float chamber of the carburetor. He'd have used a clean rag if one was available. Clean rags were delivered every Monday to the McNess Union Service Station, but Mondays were Woody's days off. When he arrived for work on Tuesday the rags were all uniformly dirty. This was one of the minor oddities about the service station that Woody had long ago ceased to trouble himself over.
Cindy Lou was Woody's hot rod. Or to be more precise, she was Woody's 1940 Ford coupé, which he was converting into a hot rod with the hope one day of competing in drag races. He'd already milled her head, worked over the chassis, changed the gear ratio, and moved the engine so that it was no longer in front of the driver's seat. Instead it was alongside the driver, and separated from the driver by a makeshift firewall. All that was needed now was to buy a four-carburetor manifold and Woody figured that Cindy Lou would hit a hundred miles an hour in a quarter mile from a standing start. A hundred miles an hour wasn't championship speed or anything like it. Some of the boys were getting a hundred and thirty out of their mills. But it would be good for Cindy Lou, and with more expansive engine modifications, it could be improved even further.
But the final payment on the carburetor rig, secondhand, would cost ten bucks. And Mary Jane was expecting to be taken out that night with the same ten bucks.
"Maybe," said Woody hopefully, still cleaning the float chamber, "I could give the guy five on the manifold and squeak by with Mary Jane on the other five." But he knew even as he said it that the compromise wouldn't work. Bob Peters, who had the manifold, wanted cash and spoke darkly of several other offers. And Mary Jane wasn't the kind of girl you could take to the corner drugstore for a lemon coke, then to the movies, and call it an evening.
Every now and then Mary Jane got it into her head that she wanted to go out in style. And Woody knew he'd better take her. She went through phases of being very sophisticated and looked upon drugstore entertainment as kid stuff. During her sophisticated intervals, she read books by Aldous Huxley and talked about the social obligations of the upper strata.
At such times, and this was one of them, Mary Jane didn't want to hear a word about Cindy Lou, in which she was normally interested. And the mention of carburetors and manifolds left her slightly hostile.
The telephone rang, interrupting Woody's reflections. He wiped his hands briefly on his khaki pants, got down off the stool, and went over to the phone, which was fastened to a wall of the garage.
"McNess Union Service Station," he said into the mouthpiece.
"Hi," said a cheerful voice at the other end. "That you, Woody?"
"Yep."
"How are things?"
Things, Woody replied, rubbing the end of his nose with an oil-blackened hand, were pretty good. He knew what was coming. Bob was on the line and after a little more palaver would want to know whether he was going to hand over the final payment on the manifold. Bob was never one to get right to the point. He was studying salesmanship and had read somewhere that most big sales were made in the course of friendly discussions with clients about their own problems and affairs. So Bob asked Woody whether he felt good and whether his dad was in good health and had he gone to the dry lakes racecourse last weekend and what he thought of the weather. Woody replied noncommittally to all these inquiries while he weighed Cindy Lou in the balance against Mary Jane. Finally Bob decided that he'd done enough of the friendly discussion part of salesmanship and should get down to the point.
"Say, Woody," he said, "I don't want you to get the idea that I'm rushing you. But I've had a couple of offers for that manifold, and I was wondering whether you could give me the last payment and pick it up today. I'd like to have you have it rather than these other guys, but I need the dough today."
"Wouldn't settle for five now and five next payday, would you?" asked Woody.
"No," said Bob. "I'd like to oblige a pal. But I've got a real hot deal on myself, and I've got to have the skins."
"O.K.," said Woody. "I'll pay it off."
"Swell," said Bob. "You going to be there this evening?"
"Until seven," Woody replied.
"I'll buzz by with the plumbing and pick up the dough about six-thirty. S'long."
"S'long," said Woody and put down the receiver.
Only when he had hung up did he realize the enormity of his offense. Without consulting her, he had in one second rejected Mary Jane for Cindy Lou. And Mary Jane was definitely expecting to be taken out that night. When he'd paid for the manifold, he would have exactly one dollar and fifteen cents left. That was not sufficient for even a lemon-coke-and-movie evening.
Furthermore there wasn't any hope of raising a loan this late in the day. Woody's father, who would be good for a loan after a slight lecture, was out of town. His mother, he knew, had only three or four dollars of housekeeping money around and probably needed that. And Worm McNess, proprietor of the McNess Union Service Station and Woody's boss, was as tight as a tappet. His idea of a loan was fifty cents, and Woody needed at least seven or eight dollars.
Worm McNess came by his nickname fairly enough. His full name was William Orville Randolph McNess, the initials spelling "Worm." But beyond that he was long and thin, rather as if a piece of spaghetti had been brought to man size and given human features and limbs. And over and above all, this Worm could wiggle and twist around a car in positions next to impossible for mechanics built on more normal lines.
Woody liked Worm. He was a good boss with a quiet sense of humor and an inexhaustible knowledge of the insides of automobiles. Woody could never make up his mind whether Worm really liked cars or not. He seemed to view them all with a certain contempt. "Bucket" was his terse term for any automobile brought into the service station for repair—though it was a term he did not use in the presence of the owner. Cadillacs, Thunderbirds, or Chevvies—all were buckets to Worm. Yet he worked on them with the greatest care, and when he was through, had always done an expert job. It was hard for Woody to understand why he viewed all automobiles with such contempt and yet worked on them with such care.
Worm was putting the pan back on a Chevvy now—the same car whose carburetor Woody was busy cleaning. He rolled out from underneath, got to his feet somewhat unsteadily, and hunched his thin shoulders forward. This done, he reached gingerly with two long greasy fingers into the breast pocket of his shirt and took out a cigarette.
"Hurry oop wi' yon carburetor and let's get this bucket o' bolts oot of here," he said. His accent, after fifteen years in America, was still straight from Aberdeen, Scotland.
Woody by now had the carburetor back together again and got busy installing it. All the time he kept wondering whether he ought to call Bob Peters and tell him he found he hadn't the dough and the manifold deal was off. Or whether he ought to call Mary Jane and tell her something had come up and he couldn't take her out that night. Or whether, just on the chance that this was a day for miracles, he ought to ask Worm for a loan of six or seven bucks.
He decided, since Worm was close at hand and relaxing with his cigarette, that he'd try him first.
"Say, Worm," he said in as offhand a manner as he could manage, "how about letting me have a couple of bucks until payday?"
"Bucket o' bolts," he said ignoring the question completely and shaking his head more in sorrow than in anger over the Chevvy. "Mon, they ought to take the poor beastie and gie her a decent Christian burial. She's eighty thousand miles on her if she's been driven a yard."
Woody was used to these tactics and knew what to do about them. He said nothing for a minute or two while he connected the gas line to the carburetor. Then he said, "How about letting me have a couple of bucks until payday, Worm?"
"It's a wonder her wheels aren't square," said Worm, concentrating with great determination on the car. "I tell you, laddie, there's no one but McNess could have got her running again."
"You could take it all out of the first pay check," Woody persisted.
"Her cylinders have been bored so many times, her pistons will be slapping aroond in water before long."
"Worm, I just got to have the dough."
"Hoot, laddie. What's all your concern aboot money? Ye'll only be spending it. When I served my apprenticeship in Aberdeen, I worked five years without getting a nickel."
Woody sighed. "O.K.," he said. "Forget it."
So easy a victory disturbed Worm. He felt that he had been perhaps something less than generous. He was sensitive about being considered tight with money (undoubtedly because this was the truth) and would tell anyone who was prepared to listen that the Highland Scots are the most generous people in the world. He was a Highland Scot.
"Ah weel," he said, "I recall as a laddie that it was hard to be walking around without a groat to comfort me fist with. How much do ye want?"
"Six or seven bucks," said Woody. He hoped for ten, but it was a desperate hope.
"Whist, mon," said Worm, a look between astonishment and outrage showing in his pale blue eyes. "Do ye think I'm the Bank of England? I'll let ye have two dollars to payday and not a penny more."
He went over to the cash box, opened it as if it were the main vault of Morgan's bank on Wall Street, and came back with a dollar bill and some silver in his hand. He gave Woody the dollar, solemnly pronouncing the word "One" and then counted out three quarters, two dimes, and a nickel.
"Ye'll be takin out yere lassie, nae doot," he said when this was done.
"Not on this," said Woody. He didn't want to sound ungrateful, but the money was just not enough.
"Laddie," said Worm, "I'm a man that knows a great deal aboot womenfolk. And there's naething truer aboot them than that if they really love ye, they'll be wanting ye to save yere money and not go splashing it around on them."
Woody wondered what kind of girl friends they had in Scotland when Worm was a boy. Mary Jane wasn't a gold digger. But she liked to be taken out now and again, and he didn't blame her for it. He looked at the long, pale length of Worm standing before him as solemn as a preacher and decided that he probably hadn't had any girl friends when he was serving his apprenticeship in Scotland. From what he could gather, his closest friends seemed to have been a kit of mechanic's tools and a book called Davie'sProblems and Principles of Internal Combustion Engines.
There was just about time, now that Worm had failed to come through with a loan, to call up Mary Jane and see whether he could postpone their date. He hated to do it, because he suspected that Mary Jane had had her hair done or received some other kind of unnecessary and expensive beauty treatment in preparation for the evening.
He dialed her number, not knowing quite how he would put it, and was further distressed when she answered the phone right away. Almost her first statement was, "Oh, Woody, there's a movie based on one of Somerset Maugham's books at the Criton, and I'm just dying to see it. You ought to see it too. It got raves from the really good critics. It would do you a lot of good."
Woody groaned. Somerset Maugham. That meant that his instincts were correct and Mary Jane was intent upon an adult-type evening out.
"Gee," he said. "I don't think I can make it tonight, Mary Jane. I've, er ... well, something's happened."
It seemed to Woody that the temperature around him fell about ten degrees when he said that, and the slight silence that followed seemed to last about five years.
"What's happened?" asked Mary Jane, and Woody could have sworn that there was cold water trickling from the receiver which he held to his ear.
"Well ... I just haven't got the dough right now," he said lamely.
"Woody Hartford," said Mary Jane. "You knew ten days ago about this date. You asked for it then. You had plenty of time to call me before—"
"But, honey—" said Woody.
"Never mind," snapped Mary Jane. "I'm going to the movie, and it won't be with you. I just hope I never see you again—you and that silly old car of yours." Woody thought he heard a sob before the receiver clicked in his ear.
At ten minutes to seven, Bob Peters came round with the manifold. He swept into the service station in a yellow Buick convertible that Woody knew he'd bought out of spare-time earnings. Woody took one look at him, and his heart sank. Mary Jane, dressed up as lovely as a princess, was seated beside Bob, and she looked right through him.
"The manifold's in the back," said Bob cheerfully. "Do you mind getting it out? I don't want to soil my duds."
Woody opened up the back of the convertible and took out the manifold. When he had put it on the ground carefully, Bob said, "That'll be ten bucks—cash."
Woody gave the money, a five and five singles, to Bob, and Mary Jane said, "Oh," putting more scorn and contempt into the word than Woody would have thought possible. Then the two drove off, Mary Jane with her nose very high in the air and her brown eyes surprisingly stony.
"What have ye got there, laddie?" Worm asked when they had gone.
Woody looked at the manifold and after the departing car. He thought of Worm's book, Davie'sProblems and Principles of Internal Combustion Engines.
"I think I've got the same sort of girl friend that you had in Scotland," he said.
In the week that followed, Woody caught only a few glimpses of Mary Jane. She cut him dead each time. They'd had their quarrels before, but Woody realized that this time it was pretty serious, and there was little he could do to alter the situation.
"When a dame spends five bucks fixing up her hair to be taken out and you spend ten bucks fixing up a hot rod and don't take her out, you're back in the stag line again," his friend Steve Phillips told him philosophically. "Why don't you forget about that pile of junk and spend your time straightening things out with Mary Jane? She's a nice kid. You ought to take more care of her."
"Wouldn't do any good," said Woody. "Besides, if she's going to be my steady, she's got to take the hot rod as well. I'm not interested in dames that want me to spend the rest of my life catching up on Aldous Huxley and Somerset Maugham. Betcha neither of them can drive a car."
Woody spent the week fixing up Cindy Lou in the intervals between working in Worm's garage. He wanted to get her ready for a trial run at the salt lakes out in the Mojave Desert by the following Saturday. The salt lakes were where the drag races were held. But there could be none that weekend. However, the quarter-mile, half-mile, and mile markers would be there, and he would be able to test Cindy Lou's speed.
In the drag races, hot rods do not compete directly with each other. They go singly over the measured straightaway. Their speeds are electrically timed and the winner picked on a fastest-time basis. Steve had agreed to come out to the salt lakes to help with the timing. And even Worm began to show an interest in Cindy Lou now that she was nearing her test run.
He came over one evening while Woody was adjusting the tappets and looked at Cindy Lou with enormous disfavor.
"Mon," he said, "ye're not intending ta drive that contraption, are ye?"
"Sure," said Woody. "Ought to go like a bomb. Figure I can get her up past the hundred mark."
Worm made no reply to this other than to give a disapproving cluck of his tongue. He was fascinated by the weird engine position and got down on the ground on his back to examine it and the differential hook-up.
"It's all contrary to Davie'sProblems and Principles of Internal Combustion Engines," he said when he emerged from beneath the hot rod. "That Davie was a sound mon, now. Ye'd do better ta spend more time studying his book, of which I have a copy in the office. How many gears do ye have on this beastie?"
"Two," said Woody highly flattered, despite Worm's disapproval, that he was taking any interest in Cindy Lou at all. "Low will take her up to about sixty-five from a standing start. I have to hit sixty before I can shift up. Then she'll really take off."
"Hae ye figured out yere flywheel revolutions?" asked Worm.
"About six thousand revolutions per minute at maximum torque," said Woody.
"Mon, mon," said Worm. "Davie would na' like it at all."
Nonetheless, Worm was obviously fascinated by the hot rod and gave a grunt of approval at the way in which the various engineering problems of its unorthodox design had been solved. Indeed, he became so interested that after inquiring cautiously whether it would be very expensive, he agreed to come out to the salt lakes and help with the speed trials.
"Ye'll be needing some cold plugs, I'm thinking," he said. "The ones ye have there'll never do the trick. I've eight I can lend ye. But ye must gie them back when ye're through wi' them." He went into his office while Woody looked in wonder at Steve. He'd never known Worm to show so much interest in a car before.
"Wonder what's come over him," he said.
"Maybe he's trying to make up for not lending you that dough the other night," Steve suggested.
Woody shook his head. "He thinks he did me a favor," he said. "His idea of dames is that the more money they let you spend on them, the less they are worth."
"Maybe he's got something there," said Steve.
Worm now returned with the eight plugs. They were of an Italian make, each wrapped in a piece of greased paper on which instructions on their care and setting were printed. Happily these were printed in English as well.
"I'll set them myself for ye," said Worm. "But ye'd best not use them until the speed trial. Hoo are ye going tae get yon bucket of bolts oot to the track? Ye canna drive it through the streets wi' only two gears. Onyway, I don't think the police would let ye, wi' the engine beside the driver."
Woody explained that the car would have to be towed. He had a tow bar and hoped to borrow somebody else's car for the job.
Again Worm surprised him.
"We can use the Dodge," he said. This was indeed a concession, for the Dodge, a 1928 model, was Worm's greatest love. He'd bought it in a junk yard for ten dollars and rebuilt it himself. Every year he took the whole engine apart, renewed any parts that were worn, and put it back together again. New parts he had to make himself or have made. Yet he would not consider buying another car and puttered back and forth in the Dodge at a maximum speed of thirty miles an hour.
The Dodge had solid wheels and strange thin tires. Its seats compelled their occupants to sit bolt upright. It was a roadster, with a canvas top set on oak supports. When it rained, and the top was put up, side curtains of isinglass had to be installed to keep the rain out. The windshield wiper operated spasmodically off the manifold vacuum, and the gas tank, made of brass, was outside the car, slung in the rear.
Nonetheless, it never failed to start at the press of a button, and since it couldn't go any faster than thirty miles an hour, its two-wheel mechanical brakes were adequate.
That evening Woody worked late making up a batch of dope for Cindy Lou. The highest octane gasoline available was not good enough to give her top performance. She needed special fuel of which the base was gasoline. But, to this, Woody added alcohol and nitro-methane, the whole concoction smelling vilely and promising an explosion at any moment.
He mixed up a total of six gallons, which he placed in three two-gallon containers and put them in a cool part of the garage.
When he got home that evening—it was Friday—he was dog tired and almost too excited to eat. Cindy Lou was hopped up as well as he could do with his present equipment. She ought to do well. And if she did, he'd enter her in the Southcal Drag Races at the old Burbank airport in two weeks. That could mean winning a cup.
"Woody," his mother said when he came through the kitchen door. "Somebody called you on the phone about ten minutes ago. But she hung up without giving her name when I said you weren't in."
"Any idea who it was?" Woody asked.
"It sounded like Mary Jane," his mother replied.
"Gosh," said Woody and went immediately to the telephone. His father, now back from his business trip and sitting in the living room reading, sighed. He served on the City Council at Hermosa Beach and was having a hard time analysing a report on street improvement.
"Try and keep it short," he said, but he didn't think it would do much good. Telephone conversations with Mary Jane seemed to last a minimum of half an hour.
"Hello," said Woody into the phone. "Mary Jane? Were you calling me?" There was a short interval of silence during which Mr. Hartford was shocked to discover from his report that it had cost the city $217 to replace damaged rubbish-disposal bins during the year. Then Woody said plaintively, "Gee, Mary Jane. I can't. I've got Cindy Lou all fixed up and I'm going to try her out—" He didn't finish the sentence but hung up despondently.
Mr. Hartford looked up from his report. Vague memories of similar unsatisfactory conversations many years before with Woody's mother came back to him.
"Something wrong, son?" he asked.
"Oh, Mary Jane wants me to go to somebody's birthday party, and now she's mad because I have to take Cindy Lou out for a fast run."
Mr. Hartford took off his glasses and looked at his son strangely. It was as if he had suddenly discovered a completely new aspect of his character.
"Cindy Lou for a fast run?" he said.
"Cindy Lou is Woody's hot rod," Mrs. Hartford explained, and his father relaxed.
"Oh," he grunted. There were times when he realized that Woody lived in a world completely different from his own, and this was one of them.
"Never mind," said Mrs. Hartford comfortingly. "Mary Jane's a sensible girl. She'll see things in their right light after a while. Your father and I had many misunderstandings before we were married."
"Yes," said Woody gloomily. "But there wasn't a Bob Peters with a yellow Buick convertible hanging around in the background."
"As I recall it," said Mr. Hartford, "there was a young medical student by the name of Saunders who drove a Stutz Bearcat. But for my happy intervention, my boy, you might be the son of a doctor, devoting your life to the dissection of frogs."
Mrs. Hartford laughed, and for a moment she seemed, even to Woody, a young girl.
Woody was up at four in the morning and met Steve and Worm at the garage. Steve had brought two stop watches as promised, and everything was ready, including the sandwiches that Mrs. Hartford had prepared for the three of them. It took six hours in the Dodge to get to the Mojave salt lake where Cindy Lou was to undergo her trials. Nobody else was there, and during the last-minute preparations for the first run even Worm seemed a little nervous. The cold spark plugs were put in after Worm had gapped them properly; Woody drained the fuel from Cindy Lou's tank and poured in his special dope.
When all was ready, Woody got into the hot rod, which, after a complaining cough and a whirr or two, fired up.
"Warm her oop a little," said Worm. "Mon, dinna' ye install yer safety belt?"
"Sure," said Woody. "It's on the floor." He buckled it around him and squirmed into as comfortable a position as possible behind the wheel.
"Everybody knows what he's got to do?" he said. "Steve, you stand by the starting line. Worm's going to be at the half-mile mark. Don't watch me. Watch Worm. The moment I start to move, press the stop watch. When I pass the half-mile mark, Worm will bring down the checkered flag. Stop the watch right then. Maybe we ought to try it a couple of times to see if everybody understands."
He made two trial runs, not pressing Cindy Lou but giving her a chance to warm up. Everything went as planned.
"Swell," said Woody, "this time it's for real. Ready?" Steve nodded, and Woody brought Cindy Lou to the starting line. He stopped her dead, and then, with a slight nod of his head, slipped her in low and stepped on the gas. The take-off flung him back against the seat. The flat salt bed of the desert sped beneath him like a gleaming white ribbon. Woody looked at the speedometer. Forty-five. Fifty. Fifty-five. Sixty. Sixty-five. He slammed the clutch down and flung the gearshift back toward him. Cindy Lou seemed to leave the ground in a clean leap forward. Woody grinned. Smooth as silk and swift as an arrow. Boy what a rod, he thought. He hardly saw Worm as he flashed by. It took him a mile across the salt flats to slow down. When he got back Steve said, "Twenty seconds."
"That's an average of ninety miles an hour over the half mile from a standing start," said Woody. "Man, she goes like a bird. But she ought to do better than that. This time I'll really pour the coal to her."
The second run showed an average of ninety-two miles an hour from the standing start.
"Try her over the mile," Steve suggested. "Then you can see what she'll do when she has time to get rolling."
Woody waited until Worm had driven out to the mile mark in the Dodge and waved his flag to show he was ready. Then he took off again. This time he decided that he'd wind Cindy Lou up real tight in low as fast as he could, and jam her into high with his foot all the way down on the accelerator. The hot rod fled down the salt flat with a defiant snarling roar. For the split second when she was in neutral between gear shifts, it seemed to Woody she would shake herself to pieces. Then he flipped her into high and again experienced that clean lancing forward as the gear took hold.
With the accelerator all the way down it seemed as if Worm and the ground he stood upon were being flung toward him. Then, from the engine by his side, came a strange and ominous sound. It started as nothing more than a heavy knocking but in seconds was as if forty blacksmiths were beating on a boiler with sledge hammers. Cindy Lou slowed down so fast that it seemed as if her brakes had seized. Woody slipped her into neutral and turned off the ignition. The clanging and hammering stopped immediately.
Worm came loping up. "What happened, laddie?" he asked.
"I don't know," Woody said. "She just blew up."
"Turn her over," said Worm. Woody pressed the starter, and the grinding and banging started immediately. Worm got down and looked under Cindy Lou.
"Connecting rod," he said. "A piece of it has come clear through the pan. Yere oil's leaking oot. Worse than that. It must have broken through the cylinder wall. There's water wi' the oil."
He looked at Woody and decided not to say anything more. There was nothing more that could be said. Cindy Lou was a wreck. She'd need a completely new engine if she was ever to run again.
They towed her home in silence.
Woody was so depressed after Cindy Lou threw a connecting rod during the trial runs at the salt lakes that neither Worm nor Steve could do or say anything to cheer him up. It is possible that Mary Jane might have been able to remove his depression, for part of it at least stemmed from the quarrel between them. But if Mary Jane knew anything of Woody's troubles, she left him severely alone. Woody heard through Steve that she was going around with Bob Peters, and he wondered at times whether he ought not to go around to Bob Peters and punch him on the nose.
"I'd sure feel a lot better," he told Steve, "if I punched him right in the snoot."
Steve was somewhat undersized, a freckled, sandy-haired youth who was growing a mustache distinguishable only because it made him look as though there was something wrong with his upper lip.
"You might feel better right when you punched him," Steve said. "But one second later you might not feel so good. That Peters is a pretty big guy."
"Just a sack of hog fat," said Woody savagely. "Coming right here with my girl so she could see me handing over the ten bucks to him that I was supposed to take her out with."
"Well, maybe he did," said Steve. "But you gotta admit it was you who made the deal."
"Say, whose side you on anyway?" Woody asked fiercely.
"Yours, pal," said Steve. "But you won't get anywhere blaming other people for what you did. Anyway, that's all over. Did you take the head off Cindy Lou and see how much damage had been done?" For answer Woody reached up to a shelf above his work bench and threw Steve a piston. Part of a connecting rod was fastened to it, but it was snapped off in the middle and twisted like a stick of liquorice.
"Gee," said Steve, deeply impressed. "Sure made a mess of that."
"You should look at the cylinder," said Woody. "There's a hole in the cylinder wall big enough for an elephant to get through." He led Steve over to a corner of the garage where the engine block of Cindy Lou lay on the floor. There was a rent in one of the cylinder walls and deep score marks on two others.
"What did Worm say caused it?" Steve asked.
"Jeepers, I know what caused it," said Woody. "The connecting rod snapped in that cylinder, and I busted some rings in those other two. That's what caused it."
"Don't get sore, pal," said Steve. "I know that's what caused it. Any kid in the block can tell you that. But why did the connecting rod pop? What does Worm say?"
"He says it popped because it wasn't according to Davie'sProblems and Principles of Internal Combustion Engines," snarled Woody.
"That's right," said Worm coming up unexpectedly. "There's a sweet little chapter in there that will tell ye all aboot it. Noo, frae the look of that I'd say that yere crankshaft was no properly in balance—just enough to set up a bit of a whip in yon connecting rod. Though it's possible the metal was a mite tired. Ye're lucky it did'na go clean through the block and spray ye wi' scalding water and hot oil. But dinna worrit. Nae doot one day ye'll get another and do the same foolish thing all over again."
Woody, however, for the time being had had enough of hot rods. Every time he looked at Cindy Lou or at the engine block lying disconsolate on the garage floor, he felt sick. In the end, he decided to sell what he could of her. He'd spent a total of four hundred dollars on the car, not counting innumerable hours of his own labor. Disposed of piecemeal, he got back eighty, reselling the carburetor manifold to Bob Peters for eight dollars. He wasn't very happy when he heard that Bob sold it a week later for much more.
With the eighty dollars he decided that he'd better try to patch things up with Mary Jane. The point was, should he buy her a present and call on her, or should he telephone her and get a date and then turn up with a present?
He decided to telephone, and it was just as well, because she wasn't in. She wasn't in when he called the next day either, though her mother, Mrs. Jackson, sounded encouraging.
"I think she'll be in in a few minutes," she said. "Mary Jane just went down to the library."
"Gee, is she still reading those swell Huxley books?" asked Woody, determined to ingratiate himself wherever he might.
"Huxley?" said Mrs. Jackson. "No. It's not Huxley, Woody. The last book she had was called, I think,The Philosophy of Salesmanship. She's become very interested in selling lately. Last night she gave her father quite a questioning on whether he was carrying sufficient insurance."
"Oh," groaned Woody. "Well, thanks, Mrs. Jackson."
"Shall I tell her you'll call again when she comes in?" Mrs. Jackson asked.
"No," said Woody. "I don't think I will, Mrs. Jackson."
"All right," said Mrs. Jackson. "I think I understand."
The next day Steve called him up. Steve was worried about Woody's attitude, which was very gloomy, and had devised a plan that he hoped would cheer him up.
"Listen," he said. "Got a real good deal for us. There's a tech inspection for the sports cars for the Torrey Pines race tonight. How about going along? Lots of cars of all kinds. Ferraris, Maseratis, Austin Healeys, Jags, TR2's. What d'ya say?"
"Mickey Mouse stuff," was Woody's reply.
"What d'ya mean, Mickey Mouse stuff?" demanded Steve.
"There isn't enough horsepower in any one of them to go over a cardboard box without changing gears," said Woody scornfully.
"I got news for you," said Steve. "One of the Type D Jags at the Le Mans race recently developed two hundred and eighty-five horsepower with a two hundred and ten cubic-inch engine. And it was running on just plain old gasoline. You know any hot rods can do that?"
Woody admitted that he didn't.
"Well, you want to come and see these little bugs, or aren't you interested in anything that hasn't got an engine big enough to drive a tank?"
"I guess I can take a look at them," Woody said grudgingly.
"I was hoping you'd see it that way, on account of I need a ride."
"Just a minute," said Woody. "What kind of a deal is this? I haven't got any transportation."
"I know you haven't, pal," replied Steve. "But if you're going, you can talk Worm into taking us there. Tell him every one of these cars was built by a guy who studied under Davie that wrote the book on internal combustion engines. S'long."
Worm, however, was strangely hesitant about going to the technical inspection. He displayed an odd mixture of keenness and reluctance, as if half of him was excited at the prospect and half of him deeply disturbed. His long fingers trembled slightly as he lit his cigarette, and it took him two matches to achieve the task.
"Och," he said finally, looking queerly at Woody, "I wish ye'd said naething of it tae me."
Woody thought that Worm was merely reluctant to take them there in his car but, priding himself on the generosity of the Highland Scots, did not wish to appear stingy.
"Gee, Worm," he said, "if you don't want to take the Dodge, Steve and I can find some other way of getting there."
"It's nae that, laddie," replied Worm, remarkably serious even for him. "It's nae that at all. It's something I had put oot of my mind a long time ago, and I dinna ever want it to come back again. And here it is." In his distress his Scots brogue grew thicker. Woody couldn't make any sense at all of what he was saying.
"Skip it," said Woody. "It isn't that important."
"It's nae so easily skipped, laddie," said Worm and went into his office.
Woody returned to his work of grinding valves, a task that demanded all his care. By the time he was done, he had all but forgotten his date with Steve and his strange conversation with Worm. Indeed it was nearly time to close down the shop, and it was Worm who reminded him of his appointment.
"Meet me here after dinner," he said. "I'll take ye tae the tech inspection. It's a thing I must do."
After dinner he was back at the garage to find Worm there dressed in a clean suit of coveralls. He had a box of tools with him, and Woody was surprised that he hadn't changed into his ordinary clothing and should have the tools with him. However, he said nothing to him about it. On the way, Steve did most of the talking. He explained that the inspection had two main purposes. The first was to see that all the sports cars entered for the race were in perfect mechanical condition. Every feature would be checked for safety, from the seal of the gas-tank cap to the amount of tread on the tires.
"Man," he said, "they really give them the works on that safety check. They go over everything with a fine-tooth comb—safety belts, brakes, brake lights in the rear, steering-wheel play, anything dangling underneath that might give trouble—they don't miss a thing. I've seen guys ruled out because their spare tires were a little worn. It's kind of hard to get tires for some of those foreign jobs in a hurry."
The second purpose of the inspection was to ensure that cars racing "stock," that is, without any changes from the factory model, hadn't been secretly souped up in some way to give the driver an advantage over his rivals.
"You take air filters," he said. "If the factory in England or France puts a particular kind of air filter on the car, that's the one it's got to race with. The same kind of filter may be available over here. Looks the same and does the job no better and no worse. But if it isn't the factory filter, the car can't race as a stock model."
"Heck," said Woody disgusted, "if they can't soup them up, what fun is it? Any stock car will turn in about the same performance as another from the same factory."
"Tuning, driving skill, experience, and guts, that's what makes the difference," said Steve. "Wait until you see these babies race. It isn't like Indianapolis, where they just go round in a circle as hard as they can lick. Once you get into high gear at Indianapolis, you stay there until the race is over. These boys race on tracks that are full of hairpin bends, S-bends, and right-angle corners. They have to know when to shift down and when to shift up. They have to know how to shoot a blind corner so as to skid round it and still stay on the track. It's no game for sissies. You get into a hairpin with a cloud of Jags and Ferraris steaming around you and about three inches to maneuver in, and you learn how to say your prayers all over again."
It was not hard to find the building in which the technical inspection was being held. The streets for several blocks around were jammed with sports cars of every make. It was as if some kind of automobile carnival was being held. There was a tenseness and excitement in the air that was infectious. From being slightly scornful of all the proceedings, Woody found himself increasingly interested in the cars and the people who drove them, and a little ashamed of his previous "Mickey Mouse" label.
With Steve he sauntered over to a green MG whose owner was screwing an air filter in place. He was surprised at the size of the engine. It didn't look powerful enough to run a lawn mower.
"What will it do?" Woody asked.
"Ninety. Maybe ninety-five when she's wound up real right."
"With that?" asked Woody in surprise, pointing to the little four-cylinder engine.
"Sure," replied the owner. "Never seen one of these babies before, huh? What do you drive?"
"Used to drive a hot rod," said Woody.
"Me, too," replied the other. "But when I found out about these I switched. That little engine there has a displacement of just under fifteen hundred cc.'s—"
"What's cc.'s?" asked Woody.
"Cubic centimeters. One thousand cc.'s is sixty-one cubic inches. In other words, with a displacement of around ninety cubic inches, she develops sixty-five horsepower. That's darn close to three quarters of a horsepower for every cubic inch of piston displacement. Not bad, huh?"
Woody admitted that it wasn't bad at all.
"Some of the Jags will turn out one point three six hp. per cubic inch," the MG owner said. "That's on gasoline. That's better than those Offeuhausers do at Indianapolis using gas, alcohol, and nitro."
"Let's go look at some of the Jags and Ferraris," said Steve. "Say, what happened to Worm?"
"Probably crawling around under one of these buggies," said Woody. "I don't think he's ever really happy unless he's got crankcase oil dripping in his face. He brought his tools along."
"There he is," said Steve. "Talking to that little guy over there."
They pushed their way over through a tangle of cars, drivers, and mechanics. The cars looked mostly like toys to Woody, but he had an increasing respect for them. Worm was talking excitedly to the other man. The two seemed to be old friends, and this surprised Woody, for he hadn't known that Worm had any close friends, particularly in sports-car circles.
"Gee," the stranger was saying as they approached, "I haven't clapped eyes on you in ten years. What are you doing with yourself these days?"
"Running my own shop and service station," said Worm.
"Anything else?" said the other.
"Nae," Worm replied.
The stranger looked at him in silence for a minute. There seemed to be some understanding between the two of them that Woody could not fathom.
"Like you tae meet me friends," Worm said, catching sight of them and breaking the awkward silence. "Woody Hartford and Steve Phillips. Meet Captain Jim Randolph."
"Randy for short," said the stranger, holding out his hand. Randy was one of the smallest men Woody had ever met. He was slim, fair-haired, and almost boyish in appearance. There were wrinkles of humor around his blue eyes, and he sported a mustache that would have done credit to a guardsman. Woody guessed that he was British—either Canadian or English.
"You the same Captain Randolph that drove with the Morgan team in the last Le Mans?" asked Steve.
"That's me," said Randy.
"Boy, you must have got a kick out of that," said Steve.
Randy nodded. "It was a lot of fun," he said quietly.
"What are ye driving noo?" asked Worm. Randy's whole face brightened.
"Something absolutely new," he said. "I was awfully lucky to get it. It's the only one in the country, and none of them have been raced before. Come along and take a look." Without waiting for a reply, he led them down the road to the back of a large building where the technical inspection was being held. There was a crowd of drivers and mechanics gathered around a car parked in the rear of the building, and it was difficult to get through them. When they did, Woody found himself looking at an automobile like something out of the next century.
The body was gleaming black, and the hood shaped like the nose of a shark. There was no radiator, the big wheels had wire spokes, and the dashboard had so many instruments on it that it looked like the cockpit of an airplane. Randy pushed his way to the back, the drivers and mechanics around making room for him, and opened what should have been the luggage compartment.
"Rear-opposed engine, air cooled, twelve cylinders, four thousand cc.'s. Develops three hundred horsepower at just under six thousand revolutions per minute," he said.
"Wow," said Woody. "What do they call her?"
"She's made by Milano of Italy, and she's called the Black Tiger," Randy replied.
Woody sighed. Here was a real dream car. No other car could ever take its place for him. But he would never have anything to do with it, let alone drive it. The thought left him vaguely unhappy.
There are certain cars that those who love automobiles fall in love with at first sight. The Black Tiger was just such a car for Woody. For the next few days he could do little but think of it. He longed to be associated with it, even in the humblest way. He would have cheerfully washed and polished the Black Tiger for nothing more than the privilege of being able to look it over in detail, from the small compact wicked-looking power plant in the rear to the sable tiger emblem, set on a field of silver on the front of the hood.
It would have been heaven to be behind the wheel of the Black Tiger, a racing helmet and goggles on his head, taking her down the straightaway of a race track at full throttle.
He besieged Worm with questions about the Black Tiger, and Worm told him a great deal about European sports cars of all kinds. Worm seemed to be familiar with every kind of car that had ever been manufactured, and Woody was abashed to discover that in Worm's opinion the kind of mechanical work they were doing in the garage was closer, as he put it, to butchery than surgery.
"These buckets o' bolts don't call for a real mechanic," Worm said. This so annoyed Woody that he protested American cars were acknowledged the finest in the world.
"Aye," said Worm, "for what they're built for—plenty of horsepower so ye don't have to change gear, fast getaway, and enough springing for a feather bed. Ye can no beat them there. But they'll no take a sharp corner fast. They carry aboot a ton of chrome fittings just tae make them look pretty. They'll nae gie ye more than twelve or fourteen miles tae a gallon of gas. Hoot mon. Do ye call it engineering when somebody builds a two-ton car to take a two-hundred-pound man tae work?"
That quieted Woody for a while, and he went back to his dream of the Black Tiger.
In the meantime, Mary Jane was beginning to find that the philosophy of salesmanship and the company of Bob Peters left something to be desired as a steady diet. It was fun, to be sure, to drive around town in a yellow Buick convertible with the wind whipping through her dark, curly hair. Bob had taken her out three times since their first date and each time for the kind of adult evening that she wished Woody would get interested in. The first time he'd taken her to a nice quiet place where there wasn't a juke box (always a mark of sophistication for Mary Jane) and then to a lecture at the civic auditorium. The lecture was given by the sales manager of a big rubber company, and he had discussed selling techniques for an hour and a half.
Bob had spent the hour and a half taking notes in a black notebook with his name in gold letters on the front of it. Mary Jane was slightly piqued because he hadn't said anything about her hair, which she had fixed specially for the evening. But she reminded herself that she was being childish and told Bob that she had found the lecture very exciting.
This had the effect of encouraging Bob to invite her to two more evenings of a similar nature. At one of them, a personnel manager had discussed factors in the making of young executives. Bob took notes on that too. At another, an advertising manager had discussed the results of an experiment in which five hundred people had been sent circulars in which they were promised a dollar if they returned the circular with their names and addresses on it.
The only bright point in that lecture was that somebody had apparently collected twenty copies of the circular from other people's trash barrels and so got twenty dollars for himself.
When, therefore, Bob called her again with a proposal to hear a visiting psychologist lecture on "Egotism as a Factor in Sales Resistance," she decided she had had enough and said she was busy.
"I just don't know what's the matter with men," she said putting the phone down. "When Woody takes me out, all he does is talk about cars. And when Bob takes me out, he keeps trying to improve my mind. Isn't there anybody who will take me out just because I'mme?"
Her mother, busy with ironing, made no comment.
"Didn't Daddy ever take you out just for you before you were married?" Mary Jane asked.
"Oh, yes," her mother replied.
"What did you talk about?" Mary Jane asked, intrigued.
"His business mostly, I think," said Mrs. Jackson.
"Didn't he take you dancing, or for a ride in a horse and buggy in the moonlight?"
Mrs. Jackson put down her iron and contemplated her daughter. "Horse and buggy!" she said. "How old do you think I am? Your grandmother probably went on dates in a horse and buggy. I went in my car. It was a Chrysler two-seater—one of the first they ever produced. And, young lady, I owned it. Sometimes I used to think that your father dated me just to drive the car. He said when we were married he'd buy me a much better one."
"Did he?" asked Mary Jane.
"No, dear," her mother replied. "He bought me a house full of furniture. It was much more practical. But anyway, if you're not doing anything this evening and you want to, why don't you call up Woody?"
"Oh, Mother, I can't," said Mary Jane. "We're not speaking. Besides, he's probably busy with his silly old hot rod."
Mrs. Jackson said nothing but went on with her ironing.
"Do you really think I ought to call him?" Mary Jane asked. "Sometimes we used to have a lot of fun together. Though he's so boyish."
Mrs. Jackson still remained silent, and Mary Jane said, "I wonder if he's still at the garage?" She went to the phone and dialed the number.
Woody was so surprised by the call that he could only answer Mary Jane's seemingly very casual questions in nonsyllables. He said yes he was feeling well, and no he hadn't been sick. He almost let Mary Jane hang up before he recovered himself sufficiently to ask her for a date. And when he came away from the phone, he was grinning as he hadn't grinned since he sold the wreckage of Cindy Lou.
"Ye'll be taking yere lassie out tonight, nae doot?" said Worm.
"Yes,sir," said Woody all smiles.
"Nae doot ye'd like a leetle advance on yer pay," Worm went on. "Or are ye fixed for money? I could let ye have maybe a dollar."
"Thanks," said Woody, "but I think I've got enough."
"Weel," said Worm, "dinna spend a lot on her. Them that takes yere money aren't the housekeeping kind."
When Woody called for Mary Jane he had the whole evening planned. He'd borrowed his father's car—a '54 Merc—and was dressed in the dark blue suit that Mary Jane liked. He had spent half an hour cleaning the grease from under his fingernails, and passing a drugstore, had had the happy inspiration to buy a box of candy.
Mary Jane kept him waiting for only twenty minutes. When she appeared she looked slimmer and more vivacious and more attractive than Woody ever remembered. She was not an exceptionally pretty girl but had a certain grace to her ways and walk that completely captivated Woody. Her nose was perhaps a little too snub for perfection, but her dark brown eyes, set wide apart, gave her a frankness of expression that was especially appealing.
"Hi, Woody," she said as she entered. "Sorry to keep you waiting. My hair just wouldn't stay in place this evening." Woody glanced at her hair, thick, dark, and curly, and didn't mind the twenty minutes of thumb twiddling in the Jackson living room.
When they were in the car, he suggested that they go to Merton's for dinner. Unfortunately Merton's was the place to which Mary Jane had been with Bob Peters, and she now associated it with a certain amount of boredom.
"We could eat there and then go to the civic auditorium," he suggested. "There's somebody giving a lecture there on something to do with psychology. I thought you'd like to hear it." Woody had been briefed on tactics by Steve, who knew that Mary Jane had developed a passion recently for lectures.
"Woody Hartford," said Mary Jane. "If you mention the word 'lecture' to me again, I won't speak to you all evening."
They went instead to the College Try, a place halfway between a soda fountain and a restaurant. It had a juke box, and Mary Jane played all the new swing records she could find, and they danced. Woody decided that Steve had given him a bum steer, but he didn't mind. He was having a wonderful time, and Mary Jane was even more vivacious and attractive than usual. She even asked him about Cindy Lou, and Woody told her that it had blown up and he'd sold what was left of the hot rod.
If he'd been a little more observant, he'd have noticed that there was the tiniest expression of satisfaction and even victory on Mary Jane's face when she got this news. But Woody went on to describe how he'd gone to the tech inspection and seen the Black Tiger. And when he talked about the Black Tiger, it was with such enthusiasm and devotion that Mary Jane realized Cindy Lou had merely been replaced by another rival.
"I don't see what you get out of all this car business," she said a little pettishly. "It's all so boyish. You just work in grease and dirt all day long and then you take a car to a race track and perhaps drive it two or three miles an hour faster than anyone else. And that's all you get for your pains."
"Oh, it's a lot more than that," said Woody. "There are things in it that are hard to explain. There's making an engine work better. It gives you a sense of having done something. And there's challenge to it. And some danger. And there's a feeling of belonging to a bunch of really good guys. It's exciting all the time. Look. Steve and I are going to the road races at Torrey Pines near San Diego next weekend. It's a two-day event—Saturday and Sunday. And the Black Tiger will be racing for the first time in America. Why don't you come along? You'd really get a kick out of it. I know you would."
"Oh, I don't think Mother and Daddy would let me," said Mary Jane.
"Worm's going," said Woody, "and he'd take care of you. Your Mother and Dad both know him. And Randy will be there." He launched into an enthusiastic description of Captain Randolph that made it quite clear that the owner of the Black Tiger was now Woody's hero.
"Well, I don't know," said Mary Jane. "We'll just have to see."
Mr. Jackson was at first reluctant to let Mary Jane go to the Torrey Pines race. But Mrs. Jackson came to her daughter's aid.
"She's almost eighteen," she said, "and you've just got to get used to the idea that she's very nearly grown up. She isn't a child any longer."
"Young people these days haven't any sense," grunted Mr. Jackson. "I'm just concerned about whether she'll get hurt at the races. That's all."
"Well, she could just as easily get hurt crossing the main street here," said Mrs. Jackson.
"Oh, all right," said Mr. Jackson, who had suddenly recalled that his grandmother came West in 1865 in a wagon train at the age of fifteen. Secretly he realized he was rather pleased at his daughter's enterprise. It would be something to mention casually at the club next time Wilson mentioned his son's speedboat.
The Torrey Pines Road Race shaped up even better than Woody had expected. He and Steve had proposed to pay their own admission, which would not have allowed them to mix with the cars and their drivers in the pits where the cars were serviced and given emergency repairs. But on the Wednesday before the event, there was an unexpected development.
Woody was busy installing a new set of points on a V-8 on one side of the garage when he heard the deep throbbing note of a car pulling into the garage. It was not an engine he had heard before, and he looked up quickly from his work. There was the Black Tiger and Randy stepping out of the seat without going through the formality of opening the door.
Woody dropped his work on the V-8 and went right over.
"Hello," said Randy genuinely pleased to see him. "Busy?"
"Just putting some new points on that job," said Woody.
"I didn't realize you were a mechanic," said Randy. "Been working at it long?"
"I've worked with Worm nearly two years. But I studied automotive engineering for three years at night school."
"Hmmm," said Randy. "Say, is Worm around? I've got a problem for him."
Worm had by now come out of his office, where he was totaling up the day's business with a stub of a pencil in a notebook whose pages were gray with greasy thumb marks. It was an invariable practice of his.
"What's the trouble?" he asked.
"Got a job for you," said Randy. "I didn't want to bring it anywhere else because I think you're the only mechanic in this area who can tackle it. I've tried a couple of other places, but the Tiger is so new I'm not quite satisfied that they can do the work. It takes the kind of special training that you have."
"I'll do what I can," said Worm. "What's the problem?"
"Basically it's a matter of tuning," said Randy. "She's not tuned right. We've been working on her all week, and she's sluggish at around fifty-eight hundred rpm. That's just where I need to get real power. What do you think?"
"I can do it," said Worm for false modesty was not one of his vices. "But it'll take all day. I'll have tae shut doon on all me other work tomorrow if the job's tae be done right."
"You couldn't work on it tonight, could you?" asked Randy. "I'd like to get her tuned really fine and then try her out sometime tomorrow to make sure everything's super. The race is the day after."
"Aye," said Worm. "We can work taenight for old time's sake. I'll close the shop tomorrow, anyway. Woody, can ye stay and help a bit, laddie?"
Woody said he could with such enthusiasm that Randy smiled. They closed the garage doors after driving the Black Tiger into the building, and in the overhead electric light the car gleamed sleek, powerful, exciting, and yet oddly menacing. The thought occurred to Woody that here was a car it would take a real driver to master. It seemed to have almost the spirit of a pedigreed stallion. With the right, sure touch at the controls, it would perform obediently. But any unsureness, any hesitation, and the car would master the driver.
Randy lifted the engine cowling in the back, and they set to work. Woody could follow most of what the two were doing easily enough. They checked the distributor, coil, points, spark-plug gaps, and timing. All were in tiptop shape. Tappets, tiny as toys, were checked also and proved to be correctly adjusted.
Then Worm did something that Woody had never seen before. He went to his own tool kit, which he always kept locked, and brought it over. He opened it up, and inside lay his tools, each contained in a velvet covering and glittering like the operating instruments of a surgeon. He took out the two top trays and laid them carefully on a cloth on the workbench. From the bottom of the toolbox he extracted a stethoscope such as doctors use for chest examinations. Woody nearly laughed. Worm with the stethoscope around his neck, dressed in his soiled coveralls, looked like a caricature of a mad doctor.
"Fire her oop," said Worm. "She's no breathing right."
Randy turned on the ignition and pressed the starter button, and the Black Tiger purred contentedly to herself.
"Rev her oop tae five thousand," said Worm. The Black Tiger snarled in anger and impatience as Randy pressed the accelerator down. Worm put the stethoscope to his ears and the listening apparatus to the carburetor intake pipe. How he could hear anything above the deep roar of the engine Woody could not understand. But Worm was listening as intently as any doctor to the chest of a tuberculous patient. He raised a long finger in the air, and Randy depressed the accelerator further. The Black Tiger's roar was now such that it seemed it must bring down the building. Worm nodded and took off the stethoscope as the roar of the engine died to a quiet purr again.
"It's as I thought," he said. "She's no breathing right around five thousand eight hundred. The air's no ramming through as it should. It's a delicate matter, and I hae me doots whether we can fix it."
"Have to change the contour of the intake and exhaust ports, huh?" asked Randy.
"Aye," said Worm. He saw the mystified look on Woody's face and explained. "It's a matter of using air pulsations tae shoot air through the intake port and suck it oot of the exhaust. I've not got the time tae explain it further. Ye'd find it in Davie if ye ever looked. But it's controlled by the size and contour o' the intake and exhaust ports. It's like using the air as a supercharger for itself."
Woody now began to understand what Worm had meant when he talked about the difference between butchery and surgery in servicing automobiles.
"I'm thinking," Worm said to Randy, "that if the intake ports were polished a bit it might do the trick."
Worm bent over to look. "Somebody installed the wrong gaskets," he said, straightening up. "Yon gaskets are too thick. A sixteenth of an inch will make a difference."
He took the intake manifold off and found two gaskets had been used on them in place of one. Then he took off the exhaust headers and found the same. When they fired up the Black Tiger once more, and Worm listened to her breathing with his stethoscope, he smiled his approval.
"She'll do all right noo," he said.
That, however, was not the end of the evening's, or rather the night's, work. Worm went over every detail of the engine, working slowly but expertly, and Woody's job was mostly to listen and supply cups of hot coffee. He had called up his mother to explain he would be home late, but it was nearly one in the morning before Worm pronounced himself satisfied.
"Ye can try her out tomorrow," Worm said to Randy, "and if there's any further trouble, bring her in and we'll tickle her again tomorrow night."
"Look," said Randy to Worm, "I don't know whether I can swing this, but I've got a vacancy on my pit crew. One of my men is sick. In any case I'd sooner you worked in the pit than he. Do you think you can do it for me—as a favor for old time's sake?"
To Woody's surprise, Worm hesitated. He himself would have jumped at the opportunity of being one of the crew of mechanics who would service the Black Tiger during the racing. But Worm seemed loath to take the job. Then Randy said something that surprised Woody.
"You've got to get over that, Worm," he said. "It was a long time ago. You've got to turn round and face it, and you might as well do it with your friends."
Worm didn't reply immediately. Woody sensed that there was a great deal of tension in the moment, and that Worm was being asked to make some critical decision in his life. Worm fished into the breast pocket of his coveralls for a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit it, his hands trembling slightly.
Randy was looking at him steadily—a look between sympathy and challenge.
"I made oop me mind fifteen years ago to hae nae more tae doo with it," Worm said.
"That was the wrong decision," said Randy calmly, "and you know it. The only way you can get it straightened out is to get back into the game again. Otherwise you'll spend the rest of your life with this thing in the background." Both seemed to have forgotten Woody's presence.
"I won't think any less of you if you refuse," Randy said slowly. "I could never think any less of you, Worm. You've done too many splendid things. But let me put it this way. If you accept, then you're an even bigger man than I thought you were."
Worm took a long drag on his cigarette and looked at Woody for the first time during the conversation. There was a softness in his eyes, and quite suddenly Woody felt a great warmth for both Worm and Randy.
"All right," said Worm still looking at Woody. "I'll do it."
Randy didn't say anything. He just grinned and gave Worm a firm little punch in the chest, and Worm looked a little foolish.
Woody, Mary Jane, Steve, and Worm went down to San Diego in the Dodge, starting early on Friday morning. In San Diego they met Randy and all had dinner together. Mary Jane said afterward that Randy was the most fascinating man she had ever met. Certainly he was an excellent talker, full of wit and optimism. Perhaps in deference to Mary Jane, he didn't limit the conversation to racing and racing cars but spoke as readily of the different countries of Europe, with an anecdote to adorn each of them, as a man would speak of his own home town.
He talked of sailing on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland, and of the mistrals, or sudden winds, coming out of the mountains, which made the sport dangerous; of the Casino at Monaco and the Tivoli gardens in Copenhagen. All in all he enchanted everybody, so that Mary Jane wanted to know all about him and both Steve and Woody made him number one on their hero list.
Woody noticed when dinner was over that Randy was a little awkward in getting out of his chair. He thought nothing of it at the time, but the detail had not escaped Mary Jane.
When they returned to their motel and Randy had left them, Mary Jane turned to Worm and asked, "Has Randy got something the matter with his legs?"
"Ye're a noticing young body," said Worm. "His legs are all right, but he's only got five toes."