Once Around the Track (32 page)

Badger was looking even smaller and paler than usual, tucked under the white sheets of the hospital bed and surrounded by vases of flowers covering almost every flat surface, sent in by fans and by well-wishers who lacked Tuggle’s horror of sentimental gestures. God knows where they had obtained them at that hour on such short notice. Wal-Mart, maybe.

He looked gaunt and weak, but at least he wasn’t bandaged up. The one good thing you could say about smoke inhalation and a head injury was that they weren’t messy conditions.

An article on one of the motorsports Web sites had likened the brain in a high-speed car crash to “putting a tomato in a cocktail shaker.” The brain bounced around hitting the inside of the skull, and it got badly bruised and swollen, but with luck and care, it would revert to normal in a few days or a week. Now all they could do was wait to see how badly he was hurt—and how permanently.

Laraine was sitting in a straight chair at his bedside. Tuggle remembered her from the Atlanta race, but now she was looking exhausted and disheveled, as if she had been there for days without leaving, instead of only a few hours. Her clothes were rumpled, and there were dark circles under her eyes, but she had managed to smile when Tuggle came in. Then she touched Badger gently on the shoulder and nodded toward the door.

Badger’s eyes lit up when he saw his crew chief standing there. That was good, Tuggle thought. At least he knew who she was.

“Hey, Tuggle!” he called out. “What the hell happened?”

Tuggle sighed. “Well, you were running second behind the 38 car—”

He brightened. “I was running second?”

“Yeah, it was looking good, but then you came up on a lapped car right after Turn Two, and the Weapon was running with you on the inside, and he got into you…”

Badger scowled. “The Weapon, huh?”

Tuggle nodded. “And you both went into the wall. Hard. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” said Badger. “Just a headache. I’ll be fine. Ready to race next week.”

Tuggle said nothing. She had noticed the stricken look on the face of Laraine, who was shaking her head very slightly, perhaps to forestall wherever the conversation was going next. Tuggle wondered what there was that she didn’t know, and if it could possibly be worse than what Badger didn’t know.

Which was that he had been fired.

They weren’t going to announce it just yet. In fact, Tuggle suspected that the team owners had been relieved when Badger ended up in the hospital, because then they could get rid of him without seeming heartless.
“Let go for health reasons.”
It wasn’t true, though. They had been planning to fire him before he ever got in the car for the All-Star race.

Christine Berenson and a group of her fellow dilettantes had summoned Tuggle to a meeting in the skybox at nearly midnight. The race, which had begun at 7:40, was over, but the traffic jam of departing spectators would take almost as long as the race, so perhaps having nothing better to do, they decided to hold an impromptu business meeting.

Tuggle went in, feeling scruffy but morally superior, in her grimy purple coveralls and dusty Vagenya-86 cap. In skyboxes, the aristocratic fans sipped champagne and ate nouvelle cuisine from laden buffet tables, while beyond the plateglass window forty-three men played hit and run with Death. The Roman games must have been like this, she thought, and it made her shudder. Of course, the drivers these days were rich people, too, so maybe it wasn’t quite as unequal as it looked, but it still felt wrong to her to sip champagne while you watched people risking their lives.

Badger could be dying for all they knew. Maybe they didn’t care, but she sure as hell did. She thought of her first husband—the one who had taught her to put a restrictor plate on her heart. Maybe if they’d had a son together he would have been like Badger, who was a weasel, but so brave and beautiful that you couldn’t help but love him. She was his crew chief. That made him
her
weasel, and she would fight for him. Because these people were up to no good.

“You wanted to see me?” she said to the assembly of elegant women.

“Grace Tuggle, so good of you to come!” murmured Christine, using her name for the benefit of the assembled partners. “We wanted to know if you’d heard how Badger is doing?”

“They’ve transferred him from the infield care center to University Hospital,” said Tuggle, using the locals’ name for the Carolinas Medical Center-University. “I’ll go down there in the morning. It’s too late to see him tonight, but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

Christine Berenson motioned her to a chair. “Sit down, Grace. That isn’t actually the reason we called you here, although, of course, we are all terribly concerned about Badger.”

Tuggle sat down in the chair, taking care not to get too comfortable, and eyed her employers warily.

“We have a situation,” said Christine, dropping her voice to a steely purr.

“We may need a relief driver next week,” Tuggle conceded. “Badger may well insist on driving with a concussion, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let him.”

The women exchanged glances. Christine said, “You’ll be glad to know that we already have a relief driver. A talented young woman who has been doing well on some local speedways in Virginia. Rookie of the Year at one of them.”

Tuggle frowned. “Judith Burks? “She made it her business to know who was up and coming in motor sports.

“Oh, good. You’ve heard of her. And she’s a lovely little blonde, too. Very photogenic.”

“Nobody’s prettier than Badger,” said Tuggle.

“If you like the over-thirty-five redneck type,” sniffed Diane Hodges. “He’s no Rusty Wallace.”

“Fans love Badger. He’s kind to people,” said Tuggle. “Besides, he may not need a relief driver.”
The race has just ended and they already have a replacement lined up?

The owners exchanged glances. “We’ve decided to let Badger go,” said Christine.

Tuggle’s jaw dropped. “But he just won Darlington!”

“Oh, nobody remembers who actually wins these races. There are so many of them. We think a woman driver would be a better image for the sponsor.”

“True, Faye, but that’s really beside the point,” said Christine. “The fact is NASCAR is like a small town. If you misbehave, people know about it.”

If she could have thought of anything to say, Tuggle would have said it, but fortunately no one was interested in being interrupted by incredulous protests, anyhow.

“One of the other owners clued us in, Grace. Badger has been working on a deal to change teams and take the sponsor with him.”

“He’s not that smart!” The words were out of Tuggle’s mouth before she could think better of them.

Suzie Terrell, the team’s attorney, said, “It’s true, though. His manager Melodie Albigre has been talking to at least one of the multicar teams about his switching over to them for more money, and taking Vagenya with him as the primary sponsor.”

At the sound of the Dominatrix’s name, Tuggle’s scowl became a snarl. “Have you talked to Badger?” she asked. “No. Of course, you haven’t. I’ll bet she is doing this behind his back. You need to hear his side of it.”

“No,” said Suzie Terrell. “They don’t. His degree of involvement is really of no consequence. I’m sorry, Tuggle. I like Badger. We all do. But this is business, and the decision is made. Effective today. Judith Burks is the 86 team’s new driver.”

“How did you hear about her?” asked Tuggle.

“Jeff Burton saw her race at the South Boston Speedway, and he mentioned it to some of the owners, who in turn recommended her to us.”

Tuggle nodded. She was thinking,
Judith Burks from Virginia. Not bad. Wonder if Brian Burton would spot for her.
But the fact that she approved of the replacement driver still didn’t make it right about Badger.

“She’s a college graduate from Amherst, Virginia,” said Christine. “Quite well-spoken. And she has done some modeling. She’s much more in keeping with the new face of motor sports. Let’s face it, Badger is a throwback to the old redneck days of racing. He’ll never change.”

“Thank God for that,” said Tuggle.

“Of course, we’ll wait until he has recovered to announce this officially.”

“
Engine Noise
probably has it already,” said Tuggle. “But tell me, who’s going to be your crew chief for the rest of the season?”

“Why, you are,” said Christine. The others nodded emphatically.

“I’ll finish out the year,” Tuggle told them. “Because I gave you my word, and at least on my end, that means something. But after that, I’m gone.”

Laraine’s gesture had meant for Tuggle to follow her out into the hall. “We’ll be back in a minute,” Laraine promised Badger. She touched his shoulder, letting her hand linger there for a moment, and he smiled up at her and closed his eyes. “We’re going to see about getting you some juice, hon.” She closed the door behind them.

“Have you had anything to eat today?” asked Tuggle. “How long have you been here?”

Laraine summoned a wan smile and tried to smooth down her tangled hair. “I came up for the race. I don’t think he knew I was coming, though. I sent a letter to his P.O. box and an e-mail, but he doesn’t seem to be getting his messages lately.”

“I think I know why,” said Tuggle, who knew that Melodie had taken over Badger’s correspondence on the pretext of “helping” him. Nothing got through to Badger anymore unless she approved of it. Unfortunately, she didn’t check for messages as often as she should have, and as a result, Badger had missed vital appointments and opportunities. It had cost him dearly.

“I got to the hospital about the same time he did,” Laraine was saying. “They let me stay with him. I told them I was family.”

“You are, aren’t you?”

Laraine shrugged. “Sure—along with everybody else in Marengo, to one degree or another. I think the law is the only one that sets a store by blood ties these days. The rest of us know that family is whoever you decide it is. I think Badger considers
you
family, Tuggle.”

“Not for long,” said Tuggle. She told Laraine what had happened in the owners meeting.

Laraine had listened without comment, but she had the same dark, sad eyes as Badger, and they said it all.

“So, as of now, whether he gets better or not, he’s gone.”

Laraine said softly, “You fought for him, of course.”

“I did,” said Tuggle. “What they did to him wasn’t fair.”
But I didn’t fight very hard,
she was thinking. Maybe it wasn’t Badger’s fault that the Dominatrix had tried to pull a fast one on the 86 team, but that didn’t mean that Badger was otherwise perfect. For starters, he should have been smarter in his choice of management, and he should have supervised her more closely. Besides, he never was much of a team player. He just wanted to race, but NASCAR had stopped being all about racing years ago. Now sponsors and fan base, image and publicity made the wheels go around. Lose your accent; get plastic surgery if you’re not handsome enough; learn to project a bland and genial media-friendly persona. But Badger just kept on being himself, no more capable of brown-nosing and expedient insincerity than a racing greyhound. Which made him just as vulnerable as they were.

Laraine sighed. “Everybody gives up on Badger sooner or later.”

“I didn’t want to,” said Tuggle. “I hope he never finds out how much I cared about him. He’s all pride and courage—and not a lick of corporate savvy. Just skin and bones, but when he puts on that firesuit he thinks he’s a lion. It made my heart turn over to watch him pulling that kid out of the wreck tonight. But I have to be realistic. I have a multimillion-dollar team to run. And you can’t count on him anywhere but on the track.”

“I know. He will break your heart and never know it. He never means to hurt anybody, though.”

“Well, he’s flushing a career down the toilet. He’d better clean up his act.”

“That won’t happen. He’s been handsome all his life. People let him slide on account of that. Sure, people leave him, but somebody else always comes along to take up the slack.”

“Not forever,” said Tuggle.

“Oh, you can’t explain to Badger about
forever.
”

“But you’re still here. How come you never left him?”

Laraine blinked back tears. “Because I understand about
forever,
” she said.

“Is that idiot awake yet? I need him to sign some papers.”

Tuggle and Laraine turned at the sound of the corncrake voice echoing down the hall. Melodie Albigre, who looked as if she had dressed for vampire prom night, came tapping down the hospital corridor in her stiletto heels, wearing an expression that suggested that Badger had wrecked solely in order to inconvenience her.

“I don’t suppose he’s too badly hurt if it’s only a head injury,” she said to Tuggle, tapping her forehead with one finger. “Not much up there to get damaged.”

Laraine’s eyes narrowed and she took a deep breath, but Tuggle flashed her a warning look, and she said nothing.

Heedless of the effect of her personal charm on her audience, Melodie went on, “I might have known he’d screw everything up. After he won Darlington, I thought I might actually have some good business deals lined up for us. And now this nonsense!”

“Badger was a hero tonight,” said Laraine. “He pulled that kid out of a burning car.”

Melodie Albigre sniffed. “Grandstanding,” she said.

“Don’t you care how he is?” asked Tuggle in a dangerously quiet voice.

“Oh, I expect it’s too soon to know. But I have made some contingency plans, anyhow.” She dug into her oversized purse and fished out a thick sheaf of papers.

“Good thing he has me around to look out for him.”

“Good thing,” said Laraine evenly.

Something in her tone attracted Melodie’s attention. “I don’t believe I know you,” she said, favoring Laraine with a patronizing smile. “I am Badger Jenkins’s manager. Are you a fan?”

“Yes,” said Laraine. “I am a fan of Badger. Always will be, always was.”