“Herr Roy! Come now for a first-stage strategy discussion now, bitte!”
Frankl’s staccato speech was normally delivered in a confidence-inspiring English accent, but wouldn’t for the next six days.
“Herr Frankl, you would like zee first leg?”
“Ja, I vill use zee geography learned from lifing heeeer, Herr Kapitaaaan!”
Frankl and I settled into Vegas Mike’s/Jesse’s brand-new, $150,000, obsidian-black, Renntech-modified, twin-turbocharged, 612-horsepower, 197-mph-capable Mercedes-Benz StuttgartAutobahnVerfolgungGeschutzActhungPolizei CL600. The dashboard was a mass of black plastic centipedes intertwined, Velcroed, cable-tied, and taped down to the black and gray leather. Mike had insisted I leave everything, including stickers, in and on the car when I returned it.
Any damage was my responsibility.
“Herr Roy! I still can’t believe you haf installed all of zee equipment from zee M5 in our new Interzeptor!”
“It vas most difficult, Herr Master Co-piloten, but it is a big battle coming, no?” I didn’t know how much longer I could keep talking like this.
“Ja!” Frankl laughed, drying the tears running down his face. “Herr Rowwwwlings does not look very confident!”
“Nein!” I burst into laughter. “Rowwwwlings is nicht macht happy mit Team Polizei!” We’d brought a box of tissues for just this eventuality, one-quarter of them already damp and crumpled in both sides’ door pockets.
“Frankl,” I said, trying to calm down, “can we speak English for just one minute?” He nodded, his chest heaving. “Frankl…Krispy Kreme’s sponsoring Bullrun…and donuts are the international gift of Polizei friendship—”
“Roy, don’t say another word.”
With one of the rear seats designated for Ollie, our TV cameraman, and the other for Helga the Au Pair Love Sexy Inflatable Sex Doll, there wasn’t much room for the seven boxes of Krispy Kremes we needed in case of a police traffic stop.
“I think der Krispy Kremes vill be fine in her lapppp, Herr Kapitaaan!”
I adjusted my uniform in the CL600’s window—a white summer Polizei shirt with rank chevrons, Team 144 badge, and nameplate, useless but cool-looking blue-tinted bubble goggles dangling from my neck, black police pants with blue highway-patrol stripes, NYPD-issue black leather motorcycle boots and duty belt, and a Motorola belt radio with coiled-wire handset clipped to my left shoulder.
“Frankl,” I said, “it’s time to talk nav.”
Rawlings was parked at the very front of the hundred-odd Bullrun grid, arrayed three lanes abreast on Hollywood Boulevard, thick crowds of fans packing the sidewalks to both sides. The Polizei CL was two cars behind him. Paris Hilton sat on the bed of my enemy’s Avalanche, posing for photographers until Handsome Dave handed her the Bullrun start flag.
“Systems check?” said Frankl.
“Eine moment,” I said, restarting both Garmin 2760 GPSs, the Uniden BC520XL CB, V1, Escort ZR3 laser jammers, the as-yet-untested Uniden BC796D scanner, and both backup cell phones. “Alles gut, Herr Frankl.”
Paris dropped the flag.
PAHRUMP RACEWAY
BULLRUN LUNCH CHECKPOINT
PAHRUMP, NEVADA
58 MILES TO LAS VEGAS CHECKPOINT
“Herr Roy! Herr Rowwlings did not look pleased mit our First Place Position!”
“No,” I said as Rawlings drove away, “he didn’t.”
“You see, Roy? Rawlings is totally beatable. Now can we eat and celebrate our vikktoreee? By the way, your driving is not as bad as I thought…perhaps with some practice you might be mediocre!”
“Danke schön, Herr Frankl.”
“Now that we’ve beaten your little nemesis in a proper race, can we put on some fucking music in the car?”
“Only if it’s clear to him we’re not racing that day, or we’ll never hear the scanner.”
“You figure it out and let me know the rules of your funny little competition. Just remember that you can win whenever you feel like it, if you’re focused, if you’re prepared, if you don’t make mistakes, my Kapi-taaaaan! “Maybe if you’re nice I’ll take you out on the track sometime.”
“Just not in Mike’s car.”
“The CL’s not appropriate. That’s what all those Ferrari lawn mowers and washing machines are built for, Herr Roy!”
Frankl stepped into the lunch tent while I watched Rawlings’s Avalanche disappear in a dusty haze. The Vegas overnight checkpoint was 40 minutes away. After our treacherous, police-infested, 270-mile desert run from Los Angeles, if he wanted to take his route card, skip lunch, immediately turn around, and race to claim the day’s second, less meaningful checkpoint, he could have it. He knew what it meant. He knew the difference. He and I had never discussed rules.
We didn’t have to.
U.S. ROUTE 93 SOUTHBOUND
40 MILES SOUTH OF THE HOOVER DAM
“Herr Kapitan, I respect your desire to impress me with your driving skill, but driving a hundred sixty miles per hour is not the way to do it.”
“No?”
“Anyone can drive this car this fast in a straight line on a perfectly flat desert road. You could drive 200 and I would still think you’re terrible. Of course, this is only possible for a long duration because of your expert programming of the scanner, and for that I do commend you.”
“Thank you.”
165
“Roy, seriously, we could catch up with Rawlings easily if we maintained a steady one-thirty.”
“So, Roy, you’re telling me that based on what we’ve heard, you’re quite certain that there are no more police cars between us and Kingman. It’s a notoriously bad place to speed, you know.”
“Trust me. Why don’t you call the guys behind us and tell them it’s clear up to where we are?”
“Dummkopf! You forgot I did that five minutes ago? They’re not far behind us, and almost got caught by a cop you didn’t pick up on the scanner!”
“Frankl, I promise you the scanner works. Here, I’ll reset it.”
I let off the gas, leaned forward to double-check the scanner settings, disabled and reenabled the Arizona police-frequency channel bank—
158
BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
—and shot past a police car hiding behind a bush in the median.
“Good job, Roy. Now you better hope he’s more interested in the bright red Ferrari behind us than our Polizei Interzeptor.”
Distant, tiny police lights flashed in the rearview mirror. “We’re toast, Frankl, I’m sorry.”
“You’re toast, moron, for relying on this scanner more than your eyes.”
“Frankl, the next exit is too far for us to make a run for it. Do you think I should be respectful and just pull over and wait?”
“That’s two mistakes, Roy, because if you even wanted the option to make a run for it, you shouldn’t have slowed from 160 to 90. Do you think he possibly could have caught up with us? And if this fancy scanner worked as well as you said, you could have run for it and known if there were any more cops ahead!”
I shook my head. “Too late now, here he comes.”
“He’s pulling us over, but it looks like we have more lights than he does!”
I pointed at the green/green dash-top flasher unit. “Pull that one down, now!” I slowed and stopped onto the right shoulder.
“Roy, be polite, it usually works, and don’t laugh.”
“I won’t laugh if you won’t. Leave the scanner on until he gets out…I wanna hear what he says about us. And pull out the car documents.”
“You mean the ones I put in the air-conditioned center armrest along with these nice chocolate bars and Red Bull? Better drink it now, honey, so you’ll have energy to fight off your new boyfriend in jail tonight.”
The scanner lit up.
AZ DPS MOB B: “Thirty-three southbound…got a black Mercedes, see the word Bullrun—”
“He’s running our plates,” said Frankl.
AZ
DPS MOB B: “Boy, Union, Lincoln, Robert, Nora—”
“So,” said Ollie, who rarely spoke, “tell our viewers what the tactic is now.”
Frankl turned to the camera. “The tactic is Herr Roy vill be punished for this crimes!”
The officer got out of his car. “Frankl, here’s my emergency bail money. You will get me out, right?”
“Yes, Captain, even I would miss the likes of you.”
“Hey, Officer?” I said from the backseat of the Arizona Department of Public Safety cruiser in which I sat uncomfortably cuffed, hands behind my back. “Do you think I’ll spend the night in jail? I’ve never spent the night before.”
“Maybe,” he said, smiling at me in the rearview mirror, “but you won’t be lonely…we just pulled over your buddies in that red Ferrari and a BMW back there.”
Macari and McCloud. I was moving up in the world.
THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2004
U.S. ROUTE 19 SOUTHBOUND VICINITY OF PERRY, FLORIDA
185 MILES TO TAMPA CHECKPOINT
BULLRUN + 5
“Don’t play stupid, Roy, you’re only curious because you want to know more about Cannonball, and you think that because you’re getting a little superficial fame for being good at rallying, you know anything about what it’s like to Cannonball. Let me tell you, all this fun we’re having racing around in police uniforms, driving for 6 or 7 hours then having a nice dinner and going to a party…Gumball, Bullrun, these are nothing like the original Cannonball. Rallies are supposed to be fun, that’s why people pay all this money. How many of these guys can you see driving cross-country nonstop for 35, 40 hours? They’d be crying after hour 10! Crying! Think about it, here we are, driving around with stickers all over our car calling attention to ourselves even when we’re getting gas. We get to sleep every night for at least a couple of hours while the police look on the Internet and plan how to stop us the next day, and we play these little games with the scanner and CB.
“Roy, you and Rawlings are the only ones so serious about it. I really enjoy our Polizei Stra-teg-eez, but I have a mind to turn off the scanner and turn on the radio. I had quite good fun rallying before I met you, you know, and I never had any of this stuff.”
“What about your dad?” I asked, pausing before the question I’d waited on all week. “The Yates book said he did the ’79 Cannonball, but what about after? There had to be guys who wanted to keep racing.”
“You read the book, Roy,…there was too much publicity, it became impossible to continue Cannonball with all the press tipping off the authorities to the start. Think about it…if the police know where and when everyone is leaving and there are only a few possible routes to Los Angeles, the whole thing is pointless. It was no longer underground, so they stopped it.”
“Surely, Frankl, there had to be Cannonballers who wanted to go out again. But if there was a race like that, a real race, totally secret, would you go?”
“Of course I would go, but only with a few people I trust so it won’t get all fucked by some idiotem. If you knew how to drive, then we could start something.”
“What about Rawlings…and Collins?”
“If Rawlings could keep quiet about it, sure. You could invite Collins, too, if you trust him.”
“I do.”
“Well, get cracking, Mein Kapi-taaan! Let me know when you’ve got it all set up!”
“Frankl, how’d your dad do in ’79?”
“He came in last.”
FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2004
SEBRING INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
LUNCH CHECKPOINT
171 MILES TO MIAMI FINISH LINE
FINAL DAY BULLRUN 2004
“Kicked yo’ ass again, Mr. Pol-eez-eye! What’s your excuse this time?”
Rawlings—having stood to get the attention of the hundred-plus Bullrunners eating barbecue trackside while waiting to take their cars out—sat down in a flurry of high fives to finish his burger.
I ignored those staring and pointing at me as I approached his table, pulled up a plastic chair, sat beside him, and explained.
How our car had been sabotaged. How the air had been let out of our tires. Again.
“Wait,” said Rawlings, “you’re not making this shit up?”
“Look at my face.”
“I can see you’re upset, but we’re all friends here, but, man…I’d be mighty pissed off if somebody laid a finger on my truck!”
“I know, I know.”
“Well, you woulda have to have beaten me here and Miami to win it for the Pol-eez-eye. I reckon best you coulda done was tie with me, so let’s just shake hands and call it.”
“You’re a good man, Richard.”
“Richard? Hell! You never call me that! We must be getting too friendly. Better not let anyone see us talkin’ too long.” I stood up. “Don’t worry, Alex, we’ll find out who did it, and I’ll even help y’all kick his ass!”
“Thanks, man. I’m gonna go watch Frankl do his thing.”
“Now excuse me while I finish my burger, I gotta do an interview after where I tell ’em how much y’all suck!”
“Fear not, Herrr Rowwwwlings! I shall have my vengeance next year!”
“Hey, Alex.” It was Vegas Mike, still not entirely recovered from food poisoning that had plagued him all week. “I heard what happened. Good thing you checked the tires, or you, my rims, and the CL would have been toast.”
I nodded. He patted me on the back.
“Why don’t you take out the CL? It’ll cheer you up some more…when you’re done, I’ll let you take out the Murcie.”
Oh my God.
As lucky as I was to be able to afford to enter this, my third rally in two years, as lucky as I’d been to have Mike lend me a $150,000 car on a handshake, the mere possibility of driving a $300,000 Lamborghini Murcielago on a track—in its domain—had seemed inconceivable.
“Mike…you’ll let me…take your Lamborghini on the track?”
“Alex, I totally trust you, but there’s one catch.”
“Don’t go over 100?”
“You better go over a hundred, because I told that girl back there you’re my personal, ex-military, professional high-speed escape and evasion driver, and that you’d take her for a ride…you know, since I’m not feeling well.”
He waved at a slender, tan five-foot nine-inch brunette—her flat stomach exposed between a tight white baby T and black low-riding sweatpants—who smiled and waved back.
“Alex, Michelle over there really wants a ride.”
I wasn’t a race-car driver, nor had I ever claimed to be. All I was, and had ever expected to be, was a long-distance endurance driver. That was what I’d prepared for since my father first spoke of Cannonball, The Driver, and the Wall—the unbroken 32-hour barrier between New York and Los Angeles. Gumball and Bullrun were my research, school, proving grounds, and—I was increasingly convinced—recruiting grounds for The Driver and his associates. Everything I’d done, bought, tested, and learned in 9,000-plus miles of rally driving had been in that context, toward one goal.
Find The Driver. Climb the Wall. Break 32 hours.
I considered myself a pretty good semiprofessional driver, a B-looking to move up at least one increment per rally. I knew I was too cautious, too scared. Driving well required practice. Driving fast required discipline. Driving fast and well required instincts I needed to hone.
The 6.2-liter, 12-cylinder, 580-horsepower Lamborghini engine roared behind us like a pack of caged lions peering at a pile of raw meat just beyond their reach. Its acceleration pressed my lovely passenger and me back in our seats, squeezing high-pitched squeals from her. Comically wide tires gripped through turns that would have spun or flipped my M5. The Audi-derived four-wheel-drive system allowed me to take turns far faster than I thought possible. I gained confidence and completed yet another, faster lap, until I entered the first turn at 130 mph, spun, and hit the wall.
CHAPTER 20
Whatever It Costs
My
quest—having once merely chipped at my dwindling (and not so great) fortune—had become a wrecking ball. If only I gave up my ludicrous quest, then normal life—alien to me since the morning of my father’s death—could resume. I returned to Europe By Car for the first time in a month, and with teary eyes Alfred lifted me off the ground in a first-ever-between-us bear hug. The entire staff made a point of saying how glad they were to see me safe, although Genia, my ever tough-loving godmother scolded me in heavily Russian-accented English for being stupidstupid, then hugged me as if I’d never left.
Perhaps my quest was over. The Driver would never call now, and I had a $30,000 debt to pay.
“I’m delighted hear from you, Mein Kapitan, but you better not ask me to help cover the Lambo damage.”
“No, Frankl.”
“So how much do Murcielago front ends cost these days?”
After trading friendly insults, Frankl surprised me when he said, “Now go dig into your Polizei gadget budget and find a way to pay our friend in Vegas. I do admire you for being a man about it. A lot of people would have tried to weasel out of it. You’re almost a grown-up, which is quite rare these days!”
“You told him what?!?!?”
The Weis, now expecting a son, was the last person I wanted to tell. “The Weis…I…I told Mike I’d pay, whatever it costs.”
“You’re not crazy, you’re stupid. Just plain stupid. Did you sign anything?”
“I gave him my word.”
“Oooooooooh, Aliray’s word counts for something now?”
“I hate you.”
“I hate you, too. How much do you owe this…”
“Mike,” I said. “The Weis, I’ve got thirty thousand reasons not to tell you.”
“Holy shit! Thirty Gs…wait…that car runs about two seventy-five. You know something, you might actually be the luckiest idiot in the world, since it was your fault. Poor Aliray, there goes your 2005 rally budget. Maybe it’s a reality check. You’re thirty-two now, you’re not a kid. Wake up and think about what you’re doing with your life.”
The Driver Page 17
