The Race by Clive Cussler (red white royal blue .txt) 📗

“What people?”

“A kindly farm family. They nursed me through winter into spring before I began to remember.”

Challenging the man who Danielle had called a thief and a confidence man, who had changed his name from Prestogiacomo to Celere while fleeing his past, and who James Dashwood suspected might have murdered Danielle’s father in San Francisco and disguised the crime as a suicide, Bell kept peppering him with questions.

“Any idea how you happened to get amnesia?”

“I know precisely how.” Celere ran his fingers along the scar on his scalp. “I was hunting with Harry Frost. He shot me.”

“What brings you to the Arizona Territory?”

“I have come to help Josephine win the race in my flying machine. May I see her, please?”

Bell asked, “When did you last read a newspaper?”

“I saw a scrap of one last week in the Kansas City yards.”

“Are you aware that your heavy biplane smashed?”

“No! Can it be fixed?”

“It ran into a mountain.”

“That is most disturbing. What of the driver?”

“What you would expect.”

Celere put down his fork. “That is terrible. I am so sorry. I hope it was not the fault of the machine.”

“The machine was as worn out as the rest of them. It’s a long race.”

“But a magnificent challenge,” said Celere.

“I should also warn you,” said Bell, watching his eyes closely, “that Josephine has remarried.”

Celere surprised him. He would have thought Celere would be troubled to learn that his girlfriend had married. Instead, he said, “Wonderful! I am so happy for her! But what of her marriage to Frost?”

“Annulled.”

“Good. That is only right. He was a terrible husband to her. To whom has she been married?”

“Preston Whiteway.”

Celere clapped his hands in delight. “Ah! Perfect!”

“Why is that perfect?”

“She is a racer. He is a race promoter. A marriage made in Heaven. I can’t wait to congratulate him and wish her happiness.”

Bell glanced at Texas Walt, who was listening at the door, then asked the Italian inventor, “Would you care to get cleaned up first? I’ll find you a razor and some fresh clothes. There’s a washroom in the back of the hangar car.”

“Grazie! Thank you. I really must look a sight.”

Bell exchanged glances with Texas Walt again and answered with a smile that didn’t light his eyes. “You look pretty much like a fellow who crossed the continent in a freight car.”

Bell and Hatfield led him to the washroom and gave him a towel and razor.

“Thank you, thank you. Could I ask one more favor?”

“What would you like?”

“Would there be some brilliantine?” He ran his fingers through his dirty hair. “That I might smooth my hair?”

“I’ll rustle some up,” said Texas Walt.

“Thank you, sir. And some mustache wax? It will be wonderful to be myself again.”

“LIKE A FELLOW WHO CROSSED the continent in a freight car?” Texas Walt echoed Isaac Bell’s assessment with a dubious grin.

Bell grinned back. “What do you think?”

“Looked more to me like the man rode the cushions,” said Hatfield, using the hobo expression for buying a ticket for a parlor car. “Doubt he hit the rails ’til the last hundred miles.”

“Exactly,” said Bell, who had ridden many a freight train while investigating in disguise. “He’s not dirty enough.”

“Ah suppose some lonely ranch wife might have sluiced him off in her horse trough.”

“Might have.”

Texas Walt rolled a cigarette, exhaled blue smoke, and remarked, “Can’t help wonderin’ what Miss Josephine is gonna think. Suppose she’d have agreed to marry Whiteway if she had known Celere was alive?”

“I guess that depends on what they meant to each other,” answered Bell.

“What do we do with him, boss?”

“Let’s see what he’s up to,” answered Bell, wondering whether in Marco Celere’s miraculous return lay the explanation for Harry Frost’s angry You don’t know what they were up to.

MARCO CELERE EMERGED from Bell’s hangar car bathed, shaved, and brilliantined. His black hair gleamed, his cheeks were smooth, his mustache curled at the tips. Bell’s own mustache twitched in the thinnest of smiles when Texas Walt glanced his way. The sharp-eyed Texan had noticed, as had he, that Celere’s clean-shaven cheeks were slightly paler in color than his nose and chin. The difference was almost imperceptible, but they were looking for false notes, and there it was, an indication that he had until recently worn a beard.

Josephine expressed astonishment that Celere was alive. She said she had never given up hope that he had somehow survived. She took his hand and said, “Oh, you poor thing,” when he told his story. She seemed happy to see him, Bell thought, but she turned quickly to the business of the race.

“You couldn’t have come at a better time, Marco. I need help keeping the aeroplane running. It’s getting pretty worn down. I’ll have my husband put you on the payroll.”

“There is no need for that,” Celere replied gallantly, “I will work gratis. After all, it is in my interest, too, that my machine win the race.”

“Then you better get to work,” said Bell. “Weather’s clearing. Weiner of Accounting just announced we’re taking off for Palm Springs.”

MINDFUL THAT ISAAC BELL was watching him like a hawk, Marco Celere waited patiently to have a private conversation with Josephine. He made sure he was never alone with her until after she arrived at Palm Springs. Only the next morning, while they fueled the machine for the short flight to Los Angeles, did he dare to chance speaking. They were alone, pouring gasoline into the overhead gravity tank, while the mechanicians joined the police in clearing spectators from the field.

Josephine spoke first. “Who died in the fire?”

“I found a body in the hobo jungle. Now Platov doesn’t exist.”

“Dead already?”

“Of course. A poor old man. They die all the time. What did you think?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Maybe married life confuses you.”

“What do you mean?”

“What is it like?” Marco teased. “Being Mrs. Preston Whiteway?”

“I postponed my ‘honeymoon’ until after the race. You know that. I told you I would.”

Marco shrugged. “This is like opera buffa.”

“I