The Driver Page 8

  The Avalanche’s fuel economy and handling would be terrible.

  But with those jerry cans… I walked over to peek inside at the Avalanche’s interior.

  Holy shit.

  Rawlings had installed virtually everything I had in the M5—radar detector, CB radio, two (!) police radio scanners—along with a stack of backup paper maps I’d reasoned I wouldn’t need because of my GPS.

  Rawlings was now Polizei Enemy number one.

  I began scoping out the cars in the hotel garage.

  A yellow Porsche 996 Turbo X50’s left rear sat on its red-rimmed spare.

  I remembered one thing I’d forgotten.

  The M5 rode on wheels and tires too large to fit a donut—let alone a full-size spare—in the trunk. I was stuck with a temporary inflation kit, which was basically a small pump with a foam canister. It was now four years old and it had never been tested.

  If I got a flat, I’d lose a fortune and have to drop out not only of Gumball, but of the race.

  I’d have to wait another year to find The Driver.

  My fear of a flat was but a pebble in the shadow of what I felt upon seeing the four-foot CB aerial two cars down. It was only the second big aerial after Rawlings’s. I walked up to a black Ferrari 550 Maranello.

  The exterior was stock. A Valentine 1 was suction-mounted top center of the windshield. A police radio scanner was professionally mounted between the seats. A CB radio hung under the glove box.

  The car had Texas plates. He had to know Rawlings, and if two or more technically prepared drivers knew one another…we had the beginnings of a race.

  I’d found the first, tenuous, possible sign. I was one small step closer to finding The Driver.

  CHAPTER 8

  Dorsia

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2003

  FAIRMONT HOTEL GARAGE

  GUMBALL-1

  I’d lost track of how many times I’d been asked where and how to get into the Gumball kickoff party. I’d heard there was one party on the roof, a second one at nearby club, then a secret after-hours party at yet another club. “Your badge is your only access,” the Gumball staffers warned, “so do not lose it.”

  “Where’s the party?” I asked each and every one I saw, often multiple times.

  “As we said, seven P.M., on the rooftop.”

  “What about the other party, the big party?”

  “We’ll let you know.”

  I was reminded of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho. The protagonist, Patrick Bateman—serial killer/banker plagued with insecurity over his social standing—is obsessed with getting into, eating at, saying he ate at, and/ or being seen in New York’s most exclusive fictional restaurant, Dorsia.

  Whenever its name is uttered, a delightfully loaded ritual begins.

  “Lunch at Dorsia?”

  “Dorsia? Impossible to get a reservation.”

  Or—

  “Have you been to Dorsia?”

  “Dorsia? Impossible to get in.”

  Or—

  “Can I bring one more person?”

  “To Dorsia? Are you insane?”

  Dorsia entered my vernacular, becoming the Holy Grail of my social life. Once I turned twenty-one and could get into bars legally, Dorsia became any one of the new clubs. Even once I passed through the velvet ropes of one Dorsia, another Dorsia beckoned. Dorsia became a basement restaurant with an unlisted reservations number, then an after-hours club with a secret door and open bar after dawn, then a Bulgarian prince’s loft packed with models. Yet no matter how many Dorsias I somehow talked my way into, the same people—or type of people—were there, and I wondered if this was it, if this was all there was, and if there might not be some other Dorsia I’d not yet heard of.

  I eventually abandoned that self-perpetuating quest and became grateful for a night of sushi, war movies, and Gran Turismo with The Weis or Nine, and whichever girlfriend had the patience to wait up until their departure.

  But now there was a new Dorsia. And The Driver might be there.

  My CB-radio antenna base mount wasn’t locking to the M5’s trunk lid. I was trying to install a four-foot antenna—effective up to five critical miles—which would make mine the third tallest after Rawlings and the one on the Texas-plated Ferrari.

  It was time for the emergency backup RadioShack 12-inch antenna and magnetic mount. I slapped it on the roof with a satisfying thunk. I wondered at what speed it might fly off and smash another Gumballer’s windshield.

  I wanted to ask Maher what he was wearing, but he’d already gone upstairs to bask in the attention already given him—at six three he was the tallest Gumballer of 2003—by most of the unattached (and some of the attached) women on the rally. It had to be dressy, even if the invite didn’t say so. A tuxedo would therefore be perfect. But I hadn’t packed one.

  My parents agreed on almost everything except party protocol. My mother said to dress as if one owned the place, and my father said to act like one owned the place.

  I’d go with Mom on this one. I put on my black pin-striped suit, white dress shirt, bloodred tie, and black shoes, inserted a crisply folded white pocket square in my jacket pocket, clipped a silver tie bar to my tie, and inserted my favorite cuff links—one a tiny barometer, the other an inclinometer—in my cuffs.

  “Roy!” Maher called out from between two girls with their backs to me. “What took you so long?”

  “Forgive me, ladies, but I’ve got to borrow Maher for a few minutes.”

  “Thank goodness!” said Jessica, a gorgeous young photographer from Stockholm. “We’re done with him anyway!”

  “Great party girls,” said Maher as I led him into a corner so I could survey the room. “I love Gumball already. You need to learn how to relax. Those two girls I was talking to are with two more blondes smoking on the balcony. All four of them are with this guy Eyhab from London, and he brought two cars and a support truck!”

  “Who is this guy? What’s he driving? I want to see him.”

  “There.” Maher nodded across the room.

  A well-tanned, handsome, athletic man of medium height with short, curly black hair—somewhere between thirty-two and forty, and probably of Middle Eastern descent—stood in the far corner. He wore a black T-shirt that read China White—the Dorsia of 2003 London. A tall brunette had just walked up to him, and Eyhab flashed a broad white smile of sincere joy contrasting with the serious demeanor of the two enormous men beside him.

  The two wore large black bug-eye sunglasses, Gumball’s signature black baseball caps with reflective stripes, black shoes, jeans, and T-shirts.

  One of them was a guy I’d met in the lobby named Rob. “I know that guy!” I said.

  “You know Eyhab?”

  “No, the guy on the left. Rob. One of the big guys. Nice guy.”

  “Looks like a good friend to have.”

  “Great guy,” I said. “Let’s go introduce ourselves to this Eyhab.”

  Rob and his partner moved in and out of Eyhab’s orbit based on the proximity of other people, the second one even putting an enormous arm around Eyhab’s shoulders in an unsubtle gesture of I-may-have-to-shield-your-body-with-mine-while-Rob-returns-fire. The second man moved in front of Eyhab as we approached. When Rob spotted me, he leaned over to Eyhab and whispered in his ear.

  “These guys are okay,” Eyhab said to the man blocking our path, who immediately stood aside.

  “Alex,” said Rob, “this is Eyhab.”

  “Good to meet you, Mr. Police Car Man!”

  At any other time and place Eyhab and his entourage would have been the most bizarre people in the room, yet among all the Gumballers I’d seen or met in the last few days, they were by far—from the instant we’d met—the warmest, most unintentionally hilarious, and human.

  “And,” Rob said, “this is Mike.”

  “A pleasure,” said Mike.

  “And this,” I said, “is Maher. My copilot.”

  “I heard,” Maher said to Eyhab, “
you brought a couple of cars.”

  “I’m driving the Murcielago, my girlfriend’s taking the 360 with Jess.”

  “Nice,” Maher and I said in unplanned unison.

  “Rob and Mike,” said Eyhab, “are in charge of logistics and support.”

  “High-speed support,” said Rob.

  “Lincoln Navigator,” said Mike.

  “I heard you two,” Eyhab said as his grin further widened, “are in that Polizei M5.”

  “You,” I said “are the first person who actually pronounced it correctly.”

  “We’re the good guys,” said Eyhab, “so please don’t pull us over.”

  Oh. My. God.

  The whole point of Team Polizei was to confuse and/or amuse real cops so as to avoid tickets or jail time. But if Eyhab actually thought we might use our police lights on him—we could actually use the lights as an offensive weapon on other Gumballers. It might not work in daylight, but at night…they’d never know if the flashing lights behind them were real or my StuttgartAutobahnVerfolgungAchtungPolizei M5.

  They’d have to slow down every time, just in case. We might even be able to pull one over if we used the PA system.

  But we’d lose valuable time. Better just to pass anyone who fell for it.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “you guys are safe.”

  “I’d like a water. Care to join us at the bar?” Eyhab may have looked exactly like the poster boy for Gumballer playboy, but he wanted a water. Maybe he’s just not drinking tonight…because he’s here to race. He was clearly someone to keep an eye on. He’d be hard to miss.

  “We’ll catch up with you later,” I said, jabbing Maher with my elbow. “Tell me what else you learned.”

  “Rawlings, the cowboy guy in the tricked-out Avalanche, is not as crazy as he looks. I think he’s an ex-cop or fireman who made a bunch of money.”

  “Has he seen our car?”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t know we’re the guys driving it.”

  “Good. Let’s go find him.”

  Maher led me out onto a terrace packed with at least fifty Gumballers. Even in my suit I shivered against the brisk evening air. Near the ledge a bare arm raised a beer bottle over a cowboy hat. “I see him,” I said, and began slowly and politely inching toward our quarry.

  “That blonde”—Maher leaned closer to me and nodded at a tall woman in her late thirties, in tight jeans and a low-cut T-shirt—“is his wife. I heard them talking about their kids. She’s also his copilot.”

  That might mean—even if he was as serious about racing as his preparations suggested—he might back off in the critical moment of commitment that was the difference between first place and second.

  “Interesting. Who are the guys with him?”

  “The one on the right”—a boyish thirtysomething with professionally cut yet shaggy dirty-blond hair and expensive-looking tinted glasses—“is Dennis Collins.”

  “Collins have kids?”

  “I’m not a mind reader,” said Maher.

  I watched Rawlings jab Dennis in the arm. “They seem to know each other.”

  “Old friends.”

  “What car is Collins in?”

  “Black 550 Maranello.”

  “Maher, that’s the Ferrari with the huge aerial and the scanner! They have almost all the same stuff we do! Did they tell you anything else?”

  “Dude, I just met them, I wasn’t gonna interrogate them. Relax.”

  I stared at the jovial contingent from Texas—the four of them laughing as they ordered another round—while I’d come to stalk the crowd in cold sobriety.

  The Collins brothers were now Polizei Enemy number two.

  I snapped out of it upon spotting a beautiful blond girl’s face hovering a full head above everyone else on the terrace.

  “Yeah.” Maher sighed. “I saw her before. She’s gotta be six three…my height. Jodie Kidd, famous English model. I heard she races professionally.”

  “Finally, a model who does something.”

  “Yeah.” Maher nodded approvingly. “Next to her…see that shorter guy?”

  “Everyone’s shorter than her.”

  “That’s Joe Macari—”

  “The guy who looks like a lovable bulldog? Good work, Maher. I guess you haven’t been talking to girls all night. So who is he?”

  “Check out his hand,” said Maher, “for a burn scar. I think he’s a retired pro driver. He’s in a Mercedes SL55 AMG.”

  Good car, but shit gas mileage, and no dash space to install equipment.

  “What about the frat-brother-looking guy next to Macari?”

  “Jamie McCloud. I think he’s a banker. He’s got an F50.”

  “Wait, a Ferrari F50?”

  “The real deal.”

  The F50 was the Koenigsegg of the late 1990s—a low-slung $500,000 race-prepped barely street-legal Ferrari resembling the cartoon cars ten-year-old boys draw in their notebooks instead of paying attention in class. The few collectors who could even find one never dared to take it out of the garage.

  Anyone who brought an F50 this far with friends like Macari wasn’t on vacation.

  “Is Jodie Kidd riding with one of them?”

  “Hmm,” said Maher as we both watched her speak down—literally, but only physically—to McLoud and Macari.

  “From the looks of her…” Maher started.

  “…no one tells her what to do,” I finished.

  “How old do you think she is?’

  “Nineteen,” I said, “going on forty. Girls like that never age. Out of your league, Maher. Anyone else?”

  “That’s it so far.”

  “Okay, let’s reconvene in thirty.”

  “If we get split up, I’ll meet you at the club.”

  “Club?” I exclaimed. “What club? You know where the club is?”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I know. Dude, you’ve got your Gumball ID. You’ll get in.”

  People like Maher always got in, even without ID.

  Fucking Dorsia.

  “You’re late!” said the Gumball staffer just inside the club entrance. “Just head right upstairs!”

  “Dude!” said Maher. “I’ve been looking for a bald guy in a black suit, and you show up in a white suit? How the hell was I supposed to find you in here?”

  We headed to the downstairs bar. “That guy,” I said, surreptitiously pointing at the slender, knowledgeable Englishman I’d seen outside the hotel that afternoon, “is hard-core veterans. Nicholas Frankl. He does every event, he knows everybody. He won the Gumball Spirit Trophy last year in a Porsche 911. He was arrested with a guy named Nick Connor, but they got out and flew to the finish in their jail stripes.”

  “Holy shit,” said Maher. “I spoke to Frankl. A ton of track experience.”

  “Did he say what he’s driving?”

  “Mitsubishi EVO.”

  Of course. The highly-rated-but-underappreciated-by-car-snobs EVO was equivalent to the Subaru WRX The Weis had recommended for my Manhattan run. With a fuel cell it’d be an excellent endurance racer, and at $35,000 it had 95 percent the performance and handling of the Porsches, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis on Gumball.

  Only someone with a limited budget—or Frankl’s experience—drove an EVO.

  “What color?” I said.

  “Yellow.” Maher shook his head.

  A veteran? In a yellow car? “Are you sure?” I said.

  “I saw it in the garage.”

  “Frankl better pray the cops are color-blind.”

  Maybe Frankl wasn’t so smart after all. But wait—Frankl was English. He didn’t care. Anything short of arrest would have no effect on his license. Frankl was now Polizei Enemy number three.

  The Koenigsegg duo walked past.

  “I heard that one of the Koenigsegg guys,” I whispered, “said to someone he was gonna kick ass, and that someone said, ‘Even those crazy guys in the police car?’ and you know what the Koenigsegg guy said?”

  “Just te
ll me.”

  “He said, ‘Oh, that piece of shit?’”

  Maher nodded. “Let’s just see how far that Koenigsegg makes it.”

  There. You see that fortyish redhead in the black leather jacket? That’s Alison Cornea. Big Microsoft exec. Rumor is she just got divorced, bought a brand-new M5, and signed up for Gumball. “Gray M5, license plate M-TROUBLE. But we still have to find the big drivers. Keep a look out for Kenworthy. I want to know what he’s in. And Kim Schmitz.”

  “I heard Schmitz isn’t coming,” said Maher. “I heard he was in jail.”

  “I think a lot of these guys are gonna be in jail before the week’s up.” We had $3,500 ready for fines, court fees, lawyer fees, bail, bribery, and as-yet-unknown miscellaneous emergency Gumball expenses. “But not us, Maher, not us.”

  “Did you hear about the after-party?” said a French-accented girl behind me.

  Maher nodded and silently mouthed Let’s go.

  This was going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Eleventh Hour

  THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2003

  GUMBALL START DAY

  “Good morning, Mr. Roy! This is your eight A.M. wake-up call.”

  BEEP BEEP BEEP went the alarm I’d set—just in case.

  “I hate you, Roy,” Maher groaned, then turned and pulled the pillow over his head.

  In the middle of the night, half asleep, I overheard him on the phone describing how good the party had been. On his behalf I reset the alarm for 11 A.M.—enough time for him to complete our research.

  Quietly I slipped on—for the first time since purchase—my dark blue Polizei pants with the yellow highway patrol stripes, then a white Polizei officer’s shirt with “144” and “GB3K” collar dogs, then a dark blue wool Polizei sweater with German flags on each sleeve. If I was ever going to be beaten up, shot, or arrested, today was the day.

  It was time for the M5’s final refuel before that night’s Gumball flag drop. I presumed everyone would sneak out for one last refuel, if only to avoid traffic jams at what few gas stations lay between the Fairmont and any one of the city’s exit points I’d scouted.