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"Okay," Dave said nervously. "I'll stay here in the dimen-
sion of imagination."
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"Hm? Right."
A balmy, subtropical California night, traffic-choked and many-peopled. We
raced north on the San Diego Freeway. By this time I could dart and weave
between lanes like a native.
"I wish there were some way for Arthur to contact Lori," I
said.
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"It might be awkward for her if Arthur's voice suddenly came out of her
handbag," Daria ventured.
"It might. Again, where did Lori say they were going?"
"Out somewhere in the San Femando Valley, to watch a drag race."
"A which?"
"Drag race?" Daria nipped both hands palms up.
"Do you have any idea "
"It has something to do with automobiles, but beyond that..."
"In this culture," I said, "what doesn't have something to do with
automobiles?"
Traffic thickened as we got into the valley. I was used to the incessant rush
of traffic by now. The automobiles no longer looked hopelessly antique to me.
I rather liked their rococo flourishes and useless adornments: tail assemblies
that stuck up like shark fins, massive and totally functionless chro-
mium "bumpers," kitsch statuary mounted on hoods, white-
striped tires, garish paint schemes, buffed wax finishes, radio whip antennae,
blinding tail-light configurations, and other embellishments.
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"Arthur?" Daria called into the communicator. "Are you tracking them?"
"They haven't moved. You are now about five kilometers west of their
position."
I took the next cutoff and headed east on Roscoe Boule-
vard, then made a series of lefts and rights at Arthur's direc-
tion as he zeroed us in on the signal emitted by the communicator that Lori
was carrying. We passed a big parking lot adjacent to a brilliantly lighted
outdoor stadium.
"This might be it," Daria said.
Howling engine sounds came to us from the other side of a curving grandstand.
I hung a U-turn and headed back. The sign at the entrance to the lot read
VALLEY DRAGWAY.
"You're right on," Arthur said.
It cost fifty cents to park. We got out, I locked up the VW, and we jogged
toward the entrance to the track, an opening in a corrugated metal fence
blocked by turnstiles and a ticket booth. As we neared the booth, Daria
stopped. She pointed left toward a row of cars. I looked and spotted Carl's
Chevy.
"Which one is it?" Daria wondered. "The double's?"
"No way to tell. Let's look around. If we find another one, that means our
Carl's here."
We searched the immediate area but came up empty. It would have taken us an
hour to cover the whole lot.
"He might have parked out on the street," I said. "Let's go in."
The ticket girl said that there were only a few heats left to run, but sold us
two tickets anyway. We bumped through the turnstile and walked through a
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concession area littered with scraps of sticky paper, coming to a passageway
between two sections of grandstand. We mounted steps and came out into the
seating area.
The grandstand was crescent-shaped. A long, straight strip of asphalt began in
the middle of the crescent and ended about two thirds of a kilometer out in
brush-covered flats. Two bi-
zarre vehicles, which were nothing more than long, low, open metal carriages
with overgrown motors mounted on them, were poised at the starting line,
bellowing like dinosaurs and shooting blue flames. An array of lights on a
pole changed color, and the two things took off like demons loosed from hell,
trailing smoke and fire. They reached the end of the course in no time, and
parachutes blossomed from their back ends. The noise was incredible. A pall of
gray haze hung over the track, and the air was pungent with fuel exhaust and
the smell of burnt rubber. An announcement was made and a roar went up from
the crowd.
"What's this all about?" Daria shouted above the din as two
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ey.txt more outrageous vehicles approached the starting line.
"A display of exotic automotive technology," I said, "or a circus. Probably
both. Let's look around."
"What do we say if we run into Lori?"
"Nothing," I said. "We wink and act as if we don't know her. But we stick
close, and if our Carl shows up, we try to intercept him. And don't ask me
what we do if Carl Two catches sight of Carl One. I'm playing this strictly by
ear, and my goddamn ears are killing me."
"Right."
We climbed to the last row and walked along an aisle, looking down over the
heads of patrons. Besides the smoke and the fumes, I smelled women's perfume,
tobacco, and cooking grease. It was a good crowd for a Tuesday night.
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There were a good many young couples, some of which, at first glance, I
mistook for Lori and Carl Two. Kids seemed to dress alike in this time and
place. Maybe they do in all times and places. The grandstand was a huge affair
and the crowd thinned out toward the far end of the crescent. No Lori in
sight. We doubled back a ways, then went down steps and walked along the
bottom aisle, looking up and scanning for three familiar faces, two of which
would be identical.
We saw nobody.
"Where could they be?" Daria fretted.
"Don't know. It's a huge place. Maybe we just missed spotting them. Let's go
back to the concession area."
The hot-dog stand was closing down for the night, and people were leaving the
track in steadily increasing numbers, filing through an exit on the other side
of the concession area.
I sent Daria to check the women's room while I glanced in the men's. The
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