He got in and backed the tractor kingplate into the big receiver at the trailer's front end, where it went clang as it slid in. He got out and pushed in the kingpin to lock the trailer on. Then he cranked up the trailer stand. He connected the trailer's electrical connection to the tractor and the trailer's rear lights went on. He fitted the airline ends together and gave them a locking twist. He reverified the Caddy chocks and turnbuckles.
He pulled the trailer out of the garage and went back and forth a couple times, testing the trailer's air brakes.
He ran around then and locked everything up and put a nearly invisible thread along each door. He was learning, but he just wasn't suspicious enough in his nature to make a good spy even now. He should have done that before those hoods had gotten in! A real spy has to be downright paranoid all the time. Heller would never learn. In espionage, insanity is mandatory. Heller was crazy, of course, but not in the right direction.
The big rig plowed its way through the snow. He got to a bigger roadway and, though it earlier had been snow-plowed, it was again inches deep. But the snow for the moment had let up.
He was converging now with mobs and traffic from New York and the going was much slower. Cars jammed full of people, people jammed into blankets and coats, all hurrying along to be able to get parking space or a seat for the big race.
Heller topped a small rise. From it the speedway was plainly visible. He went a bit further, looking for something through his windscreen peephole. He finally centered on Pit 1. It could be seen because of the angle of a distant open gate. He got off to the side of the road and stopped hundreds of yards short of what should have been his destination.
He pulled the diesel down to idle. Mobs and mobs of people and cars were passing on the road to his left. A big sign ahead said PARKING $20, with an arrow.
I wondered why he was hiding like that. For hiding it was. Nobody would recognize the Caddy or see who was in the cab. He must suspect somebody was after him.
Heller took a hamburger out of the sack and pushed it into a miniature microwave oven in the panel. After a moment he took it out, heated. He looked at it. There was nothing wrong with it I could see but he put it down. He seemed upset.
He was watching Pit 1 through the windscreen peephole. He shifted and looked at the grandstand lights and then at the enthusiastic crowd flooding along to the left of the Peterbilt. He seemed to be trying to figure something out. Plainly, he was worried.
Well, if he thought something odd was on schedule for this coming race, believe me, he was right!
He laid the hamburger aside and got out the sack of I.D.'s. They were mostly Italian names—Cecchino, Fiutare, Rapitore, Laccio, Scimmiottare, Cattivo, Ladro, Pervertire and Serpente. One wasn't Italian: Benny Heist. What was peculiar was that every one of them had a U.S. passport, up-to-date, and every one of them had five one-thousand-dollar bills except Heist, who had fifty-five thousand! There was a hundred G's plus small bills in those wallets!
Heller went back to Benny Heist's. He said, "You could have shot me as I drove up, Benny. Or did you find your gun was jammed or what? What did you intend to do and why? And what did that have to do with this race?"
He threw them back in the garbage bag and put it under his seat. He didn't eat his hamburger.
It was just past 7:00 A.M. The excited crowds were thickening. It was still dark. It began to snow again.
Heller closed his eyes. Maybe he was taking a rest. He'd need it before this day was out, I vowed. I had not even begun on him yet!
At 7:30 A.M., Heller turned on his radio: ".. crowds. From Manhattan, from Queens, from Brooklyn and as far away as New Jersey, they are pouring to this race. Route 495 is jammed, State 25 is crammed and State 27 is slammed with cars and buses. Somehow the overloaded Sunrise Highway is being kept open.
"Despite the storm, the army has flown in snowplows from as far away as Fort Bloomindales. But as fast as highways are swept, there is more snow.
"Several of the drivers and their crews are here. There is no sign yet of that idol of America, the Whiz Kid. He will be Car 1. He has been assigned Pit 1.
"Ah, here is Jeb Toshua. He is 101 years old. Jeb, how does this snowstorm stack up to you?"
"Well, Jerry, I can't reckamember a storm this bad since way back in '65 or was it '75. No, maybe it was '82. Let's see, I lost my cat...."
"Thank you, Jeb," said the sportscaster hastily. "There's a lot of money, not on just the race but also on the weather: will it be clear or will it be snowing at flag time?
"Hey, here is Killer Brag, the top bomber driver of Georgia. Killer, what do you have to say about this race?"
"It's the craziest lot of racing commissioners in history. It's snowing and the God (bleeped) commission won't change bomber rules and let us use chains and spikes. The (bleepers)..."
"Thank you, Killer Brag. The crowds are still coming. There's a bus load, the Jackson High School Marching All Girls Virgin Band. There seems to be an awful lot of them...."
Eight o'clock. The snow had let up. It was lighter. The crowds, as I could see from my hill, still converged upon the speedway. Long Island trainloads were being bused the last lap of the journey. Snowplows were spraying geysers of white off the roads. One was working on the track to clear it.
Eight-thirty. A new, ominous wall of gray-black clouds was rolling in. It began to snow twice as hard as it had.
The radio said, "According to local meteorologists, brought to you through the courtesy of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, there are two weather fronts at work here today. One is icy cold, sweeping in from Manhattan with temperatures of minus ten degrees. The other is battling it with heavy snow pushed north by the warm and sultry breezes of Miami Beach, Florida. It is eighty-two on a beautiful, tropical morning at Hialeah where the most beautiful girls in Florida watch the thoroughbreds run. The two embattled fronts are bashing at each other right above Spreeport, Long Island. We pause for this commercial from Tropical Airways. ..."
Whatever lies the Floridians were telling about Florida, it only served to emphasize the brutality of the weather that was going on here. Sheets of white snow blanketed down upon a completely frozen landscape. Traffic churned the roads into slush which instantly froze again into dirty ice. When I stuck my nose and binoculars out of the van window, both froze up promptly and I had to hang the glasses outside to keep them usable. I was looking for my snipers. I should be able to see them from this height. But the snow curtained everything.
The crowds weren't heading for Florida. Wrapped into mobile mountains, they were converging here at Spreeport to see the Whiz Kid race.
Heller was trying to see Pit 1. Even the hole in his snow-covered windshield kept closing and he had to heat the glass behind it to see at all.
It was creeping on toward nine. The radio said, "... and still the crowds come. No sign of the Whiz Kid as yet. The other drivers have been having a meeting with the officials. Ah, here's Hammer Malone. How did the meeting go, Hammer?"
"God (bleep) it, it's going to snow off and on all day.
You can't keep that God (bleeped) track clear. We got to have chains and spikes to race at all. And the God (bleeped) officials won't suspend the rules. The race is off!"
Loudspeakers in front of the grandstand: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are sorry to have to announce that the drivers have refused to race without chains and spikes. The officials will not change the bomber..."