The Highway Kind(41)

I did know, and nodded. The heat of the coffee was making my nose run; I dabbed it with my napkin.

“The car did skid, though? You saw it?”

“Oh yes.” He’d flushed from the coughing but now went a little pale. “Yes, definitely. It was just before the Morfelden clearing—before the bridge, you know? That bridge...He moved to the right, there, I’m sure of it—maybe because of the wind that was coming from the right—but the car’s left wheels, they went off the concrete, into the grass of the median.” He glanced at me. “We’re sure of that; the wheel marks were plain in the grass, when we looked...afterward.”

He reached for the calvados.

“A good half meter into the grass. I saw the skid and thought, Oh God but still hoped he’d pull out.” He took a drink. “At that point, the bridge was only four hundred meters or so away. He knew, he saw, he was doing anything he could to try to save himself, countersteering, braking—there were marks—trying to aim through the bridge.”

He stopped and pressed his lips hard together.

“He didn’t make it,” I finished for him, quietly. He shook his head and drained his glass.

“So young,” he whispered.

Design Note 22.3—Air intake plate [Dr. Porsche]

The air intake vents should be increased from three to seven, and the foot pedal shortened and rotated approximately five degrees in a clockwise direction for quicker response. Maintain present size of plate until further measurement. [See further note for discussion of spring.]

I couldn’t find Otto Geyer; he’d gone to Munich, I was told, to visit relatives. But in the process of looking for him, I discovered that the pieces of the wreck had been taken to a garage in Darmstadt, close to where the accident had happened.

I drove there, filled with equal parts dread and curiosity. When I introduced myself, the proprietor of the garage raised his eyebrows in respect and ushered me at once to the end bay, its sliding door discreetly closed and fastened with a padlock.

“Here, Herr Doktor Porsche,” he said, beckoning me to the side of the building, where a door gave access. “The lady came just a little while ago.”

“The lady?”

“Frau Rosemeyer, ja,” he said, and opened the door for me.

The last thing I had expected was to meet the grieving widow over what was, in effect, Bernd’s coffin, and I entered with some diffidence. Elly Beinhorn—she seldom called herself Frau Rosemeyer—turned when I came in, her eyebrows raising with surprise.

“Ferdinand,” she said. Then she smiled, a little sadly. “Of course—you would need to see it too.” She stepped back, a hand sweeping low to invite me to look at what lay on the stained concrete under the glare of a big work light overhead.

“It” was what was left of the 6.5 L 1938 Stromlinienwagen. Or the “Death Car,” as the newspapers all too accurately called it. There was no visible blood, but the crumpled metal and exploded tires bore eloquent witness to that accuracy.

The Streamliner’s dismembered parts were laid out on the ground like sections of a slaughtered, crudely butchered beast. The garage smelled of racing fuel. I loved that smell, but now I imagined the scent of blood mixed in and started to take shallow breaths.

Elly came up bravely to my side but then faltered a little, not quite reaching for my arm.

“I—I don’t think...”

I took her hand and tucked it into the crook of my elbow.

“It’s all right,” I said. “He didn’t die in the car, you know.”

She’d been holding her breath; she let it go with a sigh like a punctured inner tube.

“You’re sure of that?” she asked, and swallowed. She’d been thinking the same things I had; how could she not have been?

“I’m sure,” I said, and consciously took a good, deep breath. “He was thrown free.” He had been; that much I knew.

The cockpit was enclosed. Normally, it took tools, time, and more than one mechanic to get a driver out. It had taken a fraction of a second for Bernie to be thrown free as the car burst apart. They found him in the grass, lying very peacefully there, his cloth helmet still fastened, not a mark on him (or so they said. You can’t trust public reports of anything, especially anything the chancellor takes a special interest in).

My assurance seemed to relieve her, and she let go of my arm and went forward, squatting down to look at the detached fairing, lying nearly paired beside the rest of the wreckage. A side panel lay just beyond, the metal hideously crumpled at one end, and nearby a big, solid metal chest.

“The ice tank?” she said, pointing her chin at the chest. “Bernie told me about it.”

“Yes.” I squatted myself, with much less grace, and ran a hand over the tank. It hadn’t broken open but was very battered. The car had flipped, then, at least once...the ice tank had replaced the water-filled radiator in function, but not in position, I saw—they’d left the radiator in the front. I could see the fastenings where it had been, and shattered pieces of grille still set in the braces.

The fairings were detached—I saw that the bolts had been too short; half of them had pulled out completely. But what did that matter, as this had clearly happened as a result of the impact with the bridge.

“Do you think they did it?” Elly turned to me, sudden as a stooping hawk.