In the weeks that followed Randy's death, nobody made any mention of road racing or the Black Tiger around Worm's garage. There was a tacit understanding that both topics should be ignored. Woody worked harder than ever at his job and tried to put both subjects out of his mind. He saw Rocky only at the funeral, and then she went back to San Diego to live with an aunt. Woody did not know what happened to the Black Tiger. And he hoped he would never hear of it or see it again.
Worm made only one comment on the fatal accident that killed Randy. "Yon Black Tiger is a killer car," he said to Woody. "I told Randy so and tried to warn him against racing it. But he was no a man that ye could warn."
It was not, however, as easy to get away from road racing as Woody hoped. When he went into a drugstore for a hamburger, he found himself eying the road-racing magazines. When he bought a newspaper, the sports pages with their columns on road racing had an irresistible fascination for him. He did not want to look at them. Yet he found that he could not refrain from doing so. Names seemed to leap out of the pages at him—Tom Wisdom, Kurt Kreuger, Dave Kingston. It was strange how out of several thousand printed words on a page, one word would stand out as if it were printed in a different color.
A week after Randy's death, Woody called up Mary Jane and asked her for a date. She sounded neither cold nor very friendly on the phone, and said she was doing nothing that night. Woody asked her out to dinner. When he called for her, he began to realize how much he had missed her. It seemed as if he had been only a portion of himself and now he was made whole again. They spent a pleasant evening, not saying anything about what was past or about any plans for the future. It seemed as if the two of them just wanted to enjoy the present for the moment.
Mary Jane seemed much more grown up to Woody that evening. She talked neither of Somerset Maugham nor of boys she'd been out with while they were quarreling. Woody felt peaceful while he was with her for the first time in many weeks. When he went home, he slept well, and the following day was whistling at his work and much more his old self.
Worm noticed the change and was pleased by it. He was not a man to pry into others' affairs, but he had been worried about Woody, toward whom he adopted an attitude part father and part elder brother.
For the next month things went smoothly in this fashion, and Woody almost managed to forget about road racing and the unconquered fears with which the whole subject filled him.
Then one day the telephone rang, and when he answered it Rocky was on the line.
"Hi, Woody," she said. "How have you been?"
"Pretty good," Woody replied. "How are things with you?"
"Just fine now that—now that everything's settled. I called you up because I just had some wonderful news. Guess what?"
"What?" said Woody and he felt curiously ill at ease.
"The Italian factory that made the Black Tiger had a representative over here to look at Daddy's car. You know there are only three of them in the world. They were worried about the two accidents"—she hurried over the words—"because they gave the car a bad name. You know people have been saying that the car's a killer, and nobody can be found to drive it. Anyway, they've offered to pay the expenses of repairing the Black Tiger, and they'll provide all the new parts needed and everything if someone will race it again over here."
"Oh," said Woody, trying to keep the dismay out of his voice.
"Daddy really believed in that car," Rocky continued. "He said it was the finest he'd ever seen in all the time he'd been driving. I thought that since you'd worked with him on it that you'd like to know the news right away."
"Gee," said Woody. "I'm sure glad to hear it. Let me know if they find a driver, huh? Maybe Tom Wisdom. He was a friend of your father's."
"No," said Rocky. "I asked Tom. But he has the same opinion of the Black Tiger as the others. He says it's a killer—too unorthodox a design to be raced safely. Kurt Kreuger says the same. He won't touch it. But I'll find somebody. Of course, there are lots of people who would do it, but they haven't got the kind of driving flair that the car needs. Anyway, I'll let you know if anything happens."
She sounded a little disappointed.
"Thanks," said Woody and hung up.
"Who was that?" Worm asked when he put down the phone.
"Rocky," replied Woody. "They're fixing up the Black Tiger, and they're going to race her again."
Worm gave him a queer look. "Come into the office," he said. "I've something I want to tell ye. And I might as well tell ye noo."
When they were inside Worm's tiny office and Worm had lit a cigarette, he took a long hard drag at it, examined the glowing end, and addressed himself to the smoldering cigarette rather than to Woody.
"Ye may have been wondering," he said, "for ye are a noticing body, how it was I came to know Randy so well mony years ago. And ye may have heard some remarks pass between us that made nae sense tae ye at the time. Ye'll recall, nae doot, that the first time he came tae the garage here to ask me tae work on his pit crew, he said that that was something I had tae face and I'd do better tae face it wi' me friends."
Woody nodded but said nothing.
"Weel," said Worm, "the fact o' the matter is that many years ago, before ye were born likely, Randy and I were both racing drivers over there in Europe. We raced against each other in the Tourists' Trophy in Ireland and in the Le Mans in France and sometimes in road races that took us frae the Channel ports tae the toe of Italy and back. Clean across the Alps, mind ye, on narrow roads, twisting and curving, through the passes, wi' snow all aroond, and sometimes ye couldna' see tae the end o' yere headlight beam.
"Ah weel, that was when I was young and foolish. Well, there came a time when I was approached by a Swiss company tae race a new car for them in the Le Mans. 'Twas a car ye probably never heard of, for they don't make it any more. 'Twas called an Albinet."
Woody shook his head. The name was completely strange to him.
"Well, 'tis as I thought. Few these days have ever heard of the Albinet, though at the time 'twas the wonder car of the year. Like that Black Tiger noo.
"No tae make too long a tale of it, I agreed tae drive the car, and Randy was in the race too, driving a Bugatti if I remember right.
"Now I don't know if you know anything about the Le Mans. 'Tis held in the city of Le Mans in France, and the roads are blocked off tae form the track. The race is laid down through the streets of the city, and there's every kind of a turn and twist and hill and blind corner and every kind of surface ye can think of to be negotiated. 'Tis a twenty-four-hour race. There's cobbles in some parts and asphalt in others and concrete and all the rest. And sometimes it's raining and sometimes it's dry, so ye've never seen a race like the Le Mans over here, and I hope ye never will.
"I mind I was third on the eightieth lap. There was a Frenchman ahead of me in a Hispano-Suiza and a German in the lead with a Mercedes-Benz. Randy was on my tail, and we were going hell for leather down a cobbled hill with a wall on one side all covered wi' sandbags and houses on the other. At the bottom of the hill there was a sharp right turn and then a sharp turn to the left and up another hill.
"The trick was to change doon and brake hard, drift aroond the first corner, regain traction on the second, and on your way.
"The crowd was as thick as flies along the sandbags lining the wall as I came roaring down the hill. I hit my brakes to change doon, and my foot went tae the floor. The brakes had failed. I was doing a hundred and ten down the cobbled hill when I passed the Italian and tried to make the turn tae the right. The car swung around like an ice skater and hit one of the sandbags. I got doon on the floor and Randy piled intae me. There were five cars in that wreck, and three of the drivers were killed. Four people who were watching from the sandbags died too. Randy lost his foot.
"After that, I swore I'd never race again. And I never have. Randy tried tae get me back driving. He said if I didn't go back I'd be a beaten man all me life. Well, maybe I am a beaten man. But to this day I canna' look at a racing car without being filled wi' mortal fear. When I agreed tae go wi' you and Steve tae the technical inspection, I was trying tae get over some of that fear. I thought it might have left me. But it hadn't. And when I agreed tae work in the pit wi' Randy, it was for the same reason.
"I'm sorry now I did. Randy would hae been killed, nae doot. But I'd have had no part in it." He paused and flicked the butt of his cigarette deftly into a bucket of water.
"Ye'll be wondering why I'm telling ye all this, nae doot," he said. "Weel, it's on account of yon Black Tiger. Mark my words, they'll no find any racing driver wi' any experience that'll undertake tae handle her. Yon car's a killer as I said before. I'm thinking that they'll be asking you. Ye drive well. I've watched ye. Ye drive like I used tae drive when I was racing. I've looked at ye going roond the track and seen meself twenty years ago.
"But dinna make the mistake I made—Randy too. Dinna' go on wi' yere driving until ye've killed seven people just because ye wanted tae drive a new car first past the finish line.
"I'll never forget those people, laddie. Never. And I've a horror of racing now that won't leave me until I've drawn my last breath."
Woody now understood fully Worm's strange reaction to the Black Tiger and his reluctance to be associated with road racing in any way. But there was something else he wanted to know. He remembered how Randy, over dinner, had told him that road racing condensed all the challenges of life into a few minutes. He recalled Randy's saying that all drivers were scared but if a man gave way to fear he would be beaten for the rest of his life.
"Tell me, Worm," he said. "Did you quit racing because of the accident—because of the people you killed though it was not your fault? Or did you quit because you were scared of getting killed yourself? Because you didn't want to take any more chances."
"'Twas the people," said Worm, slowly.
"But they knew the risk they were taking when they came to watch the race," Woody persisted. "They knew a car might get out of control. Yet they came and sat on top of the sandbags."
Worm made no comment on this for a while. He got up moodily from his seat and looked out of the window. "Randy told me that mony a time," he said. "If I face the matter squarely, I quit because I was afraid." The sentence was uttered in almost a whisper.
"I've been afraid ever since," said Worm. Woody felt a deep compassion for him.