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

“Poor little Wally,” he muttered sarcastically. “Who knows what the little bastard could have made of himself.”

“He made a memory of himself,” said Isaac Bell.

“How’d he do that?”

“He had a kind soul.”

BELL STOOD UP and gathered his weapons.

Harry Frost called after him. Suddenly there was fear in his voice. “Are you leaving me here to die alone?”

“You’ve left crowds to die alone.”

“What if I told you something you don’t know about Marco Celere?”

Bell said, “Marco Celere showed up in Yuma three days ago, fit as a fiddle. You ran from the only murder you didn’t commit.”

Frost levered himself up on one elbow and shot back, “I know that.”

Intrigued, Bell knelt beside the dying man, watching his hands for a hidden knife or another pocket pistol stashed in his smoldering garments. “How?”

“Marco Celere showed up at Belmont Park six weeks ago.”

“Celere gave me the impression he was in Canada six weeks ago.”

“He was right in the middle of the race,” Frost crowed. “Prancing around the infield like he owned it. You damned Van Dorns never knew.”

“Platov!” said Bell. “Of course!” Marco Celere was the saboteur, though proving it in a court of law would be next to impossible.

“A little late on that one, Mr. Detective,” Frost sneered.

“How did you happen to see him?”

“He spotted me one night I was trying to get near Josephine’s machine. Walked up to me, big as life, and offered a deal.”

“I’d have thought you’d kill him on sight,” said Bell.

“You know that sawed-off coach gun the Italians call a lupa? He had it pointed at my head. Both hammers on full cock.”

“What deal?”

“Should I give you a gift for little Wally?” Frost asked mockingly. “Information you can use to get Celere? You think if I do you a favor, they’ll be nice to me in Hell?”

“I don’t see you getting a better chance than this one. What was the deal?”

“If I held off killing Josephine until after she won the race, then Marco would take me to a place where I could hide out in luxury for the rest of my life.”

“Where would this paradise be?” Bell asked skeptically.

“North Africa. Libya. The Turkish colonies that Italy is going to win in North Africa. He said we’d be safe as houses and live like kings.”

“Sounds like con-man palaver.”

“No. Celere knows his business. I’ve been over there, I seen it with my own eyes. The Ottomans—the Turks—they’re on their last leg and Italy’s so poor and crowded, they’re itching to grab their colonies. So Celere’s setting himself up to be the Italian Army’s gold-haired boy by supplying aerial war machines. He’ll be the national hero when Italy beats Turkey with his machine-gun aeroplanes and bomb carriers. But he knows he’s got to prove himself. They’ll only buy his machines if Josephine wins the race.”

“Why didn’t you take him up on it?”

Rage stiffened Frost’s ravaged face. “I told you, I’m not a chump. If he was so fixed there in North Africa that he could protect me, then he’d hold the key to my cell. I might as well be back in the orphanage.”

“Why didn’t he blow your head off with his lupa?”

“Celere’s like a juggler, always tossing a bunch of balls in the air. He bet on you protecting her and hoped I would change my mind—and that I would kill Whiteway when the time came.”

“What time came?”

“The wedding. He knew Whiteway was angling for Josephine. Marco figured I’d be so mad, I’d kill Whiteway, and Josephine would inherit the money and marry him. And if later I killed her, too, he’d get it all.”

Frost’s one good eye sought Bell’s two. “Marco started this. He’s the one who turned her head. So I reckoned the juggler seeing all his balls come crashing down was my sweetest revenge.”

“Another reason to kill her?” asked Bell.

“Marco knew the Stevens biplane would never make it. He needed Josephine to prove that his flying machines can be fighting machines.”

Bell shook his head. “All she wants is to fly.”

“I gave her the chance, she turned it against me. She deserves to be killed,” Frost whispered.

“You’re dying with hatred on your lips.”

ISAAC BELL WAS DEEPLY RELIEVED to find Texas Walt, sitting in the rain, holding his head.

“Feels like John Philip Sousa’s playing a steam calliope where my brain used to be.”

Bell walked him to the Rolls-Royce and drove it to the trestle, Walt cussing a blue streak at every bump. The mechanicians had repaired the Eagle’s undercarriage. Bell made Walt comfortable on the train. Then he took to the air and headed for Fresno, the last overnight stop before San Francisco. Josephine’s yellow machine and Joe Mudd’s red tractor biplane were tied down fifty yards apart on a muddy fairground. Joe Mudd leaned on crutches, joking with the mechanicians working on his undercarriage.

“Hard landing?” Bell asked.

Mudd shrugged. “Just a busted leg. Machine’s O.K. Mostly.”

“Where’s Josephine?”

“She and Whiteway are at the fairground hotel. I’d steer clear, if I were you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Stormy weather.”

Bell beckoned Josephine’s detective-mechanicians, who were ferrying tools and parts for Marco Celere, who was shaking his head over her motor. “Keep a sharp eye on Celere. Do not let him near Joe Mudd’s machine.”

“What if he makes a run for it?” asked Dashwood.

“He won’t. Celere’s not going anywhere as long as there’s any chance Josephine will win the race.”

He went to the fairground hotel. Preston Whiteway had rented the top floor of the two-story structure. Bell quickened his pace up the stairs when he heard the publisher shouting at the top of his lungs. He knocked loudly and entered. Whiteway was standing over Josephine, who was curled in a tight ball in a parlor chair, staring at the carpet.

Whiteway saw Bell, and instead of asking what had happened with Harry Frost he shouted, “You talk sense to her! Maybe she’ll listen to you!”

“What’s the matter?”

“My wife refuses to finish the race.”

“Why?”

“She won’t tell me. Maybe she’ll tell you. Where the hell’s my train?”

“Just pulled in.”

“I’ll be