The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(62)

Would that be me?

You’re too late, Bobby. The day of the gentleman racer is over. I’ve seen a lot of blokes who were rich and dumb become poor and smart. Everything in racing is a tradeoff. Except big brakes. The only edge you might have is that in Formula racing there actually is a substitute for cubic inches. It’s called engineering.

He walked out of the Gare du Nord carrying his two leather bags and stood in the Paris night. He stood there a long time. Just getting his shit together. Finally he got a cab and gave the driver the address of the Mont Jolí in the rue Fromentin near Pigalle. The hotel was favored by traveling entertainers and any morning there would be jugglers and hypnotists and exotic dancers and trained dogs in the lobby coffeeshop. He rented a garage in the ninth arrondissement and began to collect tools. The car arrived on a transporter a week later and Armand arrived a day after that. Every day he’d take the bus out through the bleak suburbs and unlock the door and take down his coveralls and pull them on. The Lotus stood on jacks and he and Armand would roll around the concrete floor on mechanics’ dollies setting the caster and camber and toe-in on the car. Adjusting the sway bars. Then recalibrating the injection and the timing on the tiny screaming engine. They would tow the car out to the track with Armand’s truck and trailer and take turns driving it with the new settings and then tow it back, sometimes in the dark.

In those first evenings he sat by himself at the bench rebuilding the spare engine. Chapman had done the machine work and sleeved the cylinders. Everything was aluminum and the clearances were enormous. He tightened the connecting-rod bolts and measured the boltstretch with a dial indicator. He checked the book and measured again. There was a paraffin heater in the shop but he was always cold. He and Armand would eat lunch at a tabac two blocks from the garage. The regulars were astonished to see an American in greasy coveralls sitting among them.

She left school and came to Paris and in the evening he would take her to dinner at Boutin’s down the street from the hotel. Miller used to eat here back in the thirties. Wonderful veal dish with a cream sauce that cost seven francs. The prostitutes couldnt take their eyes off her. The first race was at Spa-Francorchamps and the Lotus ran like a train for twenty-seven laps and then quit cold when the petrol pump packed up.

He took her down to IHES and they found a room for her and said goodbye. Chapman sent the other car over in March. He and Armand would travel all over Europe in a thirdhand transporter living in the transporter or in cheap hotels and eating well. They ran okay but they never won a race. At the end of the season he sold the car and in November of that year he had a letter from John Aldrich. For the following year he was invited to drive Formula Two cars for the March team. He wasnt sure why. He met her for dinner in Paris and she talked to him feverishly about mathematical ideas that to him threatened to abandon reality of any kind he’d a stake in.



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When they walked into the operations room Lou was on the phone. He nodded and rang off and looked up at Western. The prodigal son. Are you back?

I’m back. You got anything for me?

No.

Why cant I go to Houston?

Because you werent here when we made up the crew. Maybe you can get Red here to explain it to you.

I had to go see my grandmother.

You said that. And we had to go to Houston.

When are they leaving?

They left this morning. For the most part.

You dont have anything.

Nothing I’d recommend.

What have you got that you wouldnt recommend?

Lou pushed back in his chair and studied Western. There’s an outfit out of Pensacola that’s looking for a diver. I dont know anything about them. You might not even get paid.

What’s the job?

You’ll have to ask them. They want somebody to meet their crew on a jack-up rig. They’ll fly you out in a chopper.

For how long?

A week. Maybe. I’d take extra socks.

How do I get to Pensacola?

That would be on you. Nobody’s picking up the tab for that.

All right.

All right? That’s it?

That’s it.

Lou shook his head. He copied out a phone number onto his pad and tore off the sheet and handed it to Western. Be my guest, he said.

Western looked at the phone number. If you thought this was so questionable how come you took their number?

I love this job. Look. I’m sure you know that company policy here is to run this shop for the convenience and entertainment of the employees. Taylor just wants you to be happy. If they can make a couple of bucks on the side, well, that’s all right too.

Red nodded at the piece of paper. You want some good advice, Dear Heart?

Sure.

Ball that thing up and pitch it in the trash over yonder.

How deep are they going to be working?

I dont know. It’s a jack-up rig so it cant be all that deep. My guess is they’re going to unstack some rigs.

Coldstacked.

Yeah.

What do you think?

I might go if somebody had a gun to my head. Maybe you should listen to Red. The first rule in hazardous duty work is to know who it is you’re working for.

Red nodded. Amen on that, he said.



* * *





The chopper dropped through the partial overcast almost directly over the derrick. The rig with its lights looked like a refinery standing in the black of the sea. The landing lights of the helicopter picked up the letter H on the landing pad and above it the name of the rig. Caliban Beta II. The pilot settled onto the deck and killed the lift on the rotor and looked across at Western. All right, he said. You understand that this is supposed to be a pretty good blow coming.