Need for Speed Read online

  Julia was puzzled.

  “You’re going to hit traffic on this trip,” she said matter-of-factly. “Every city has traffic. Won’t that be a big problem?”

  “Under the best conditions, we need to average just over 80 miles an hour to get to Cali in time,” Tobey told her. “But for every hour we lose, we’ll need to go 160 miles an hour to make it up. So yes, there will be traffic. It’s just up to us to avoid it as much as possible.”

  Benny’s voice came back on the radio.

  “Give me a dollar on the next exit,” he told Tobey.

  “What’s a dollar?” Julia asked.

  Tobey smiled. “You’ll see,” he said.

  He quickly upshifted, and a moment later, the Mustang was screaming down the breakdown lane, heading toward an off-ramp. At just the right moment, Tobey hit the brakes, drifted to the right, and took the exit going 100 mph—aka “a dollar.”

  Julia’s education on the monetary term came with a price. With one hand holding tightly to the dash, the other tightly to the door, she turned a little green at the sudden, violent deceleration and then acceleration.

  The Mustang rocketed up the off-ramp.

  Benny’s voice came back again. “Okay, go hard right for lane three in three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  This sounded like Greek to Julia, too, but she was quickly realizing that Tobey and Benny were using a precise shorthand language to converse with each other.

  Each lane of the highway was numbered one through four. All Benny had to do was say one of those numbers and Tobey would know immediately what lane would be freest of traffic or delay. What fascinated Julia the most, though, was how this language showed the tight bond between the two friends. Traveling in excess of 100 mph Tobey would switch lanes totally on blind faith.

  It was crazy, but admirable, too.

  At the end of the off-ramp, Tobey burned through the intersection and turned right onto a three-lane, one-way street.

  Benny’s voice crackled over the radio again: “We need to get you clean,” he told Tobey. “Hard left U in three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  Tobey steered the Mustang violently to the left, executing a perfect 180-degree turn. He suddenly rocketed into a car wash.

  Benny kept talking. “Soft right through the full service bay and then go hard right.”

  The Mustang roared out of the car wash and turned right. Suddenly they were going straight into the oncoming traffic.

  Benny yelled, “Go, three . . . now!”

  With a flick of his wrist, Tobey zipped the Mustang into the slow lane of the oncoming traffic. They were heading toward a merging intersection. Those cars coming in the opposite direction that saw the Mustang speeding toward them immediately stopped or got out of the way. For his part, Tobey weaved around them with remarkable skill.

  Julia was trying desperately to maintain a poker face throughout all this harrowing maneuvering. But it was hard to do. Everything was going by so fast.

  Suddenly the rear of a stopped SUV was looming large in the Mustang’s windshield.

  “You do see the SUV you’re about to plow into, right?” she asked Tobey as calmly as possible.

  Instantly, Tobey jerked the Mustang into an oncoming lane, just missing the back of the SUV.

  “You mean that SUV?” he asked her with a smirk. “The white one?”

  That crisis passed—but another immediately took its place. A large commuter bus was heading right at them.

  “Maintain speed,” Benny calmly advised from above, even though that speed was 100 mph on a very crowded street.

  The bus flashed its lights madly as the driver went into a sudden full-blown panic. The Mustang was heading right at it, now topping 105 mph.

  “And the bus?” Julia asked Tobey urgently. “You see that, don’t you?”

  “What’s that?” he replied.

  “The bus . . .” she repeated urgently, her voice rising in tone.

  “The what?” Tobey asked again.

  Julia finally lost it.

  “The bus!” she yelled. “The bus! The bus!”

  She braced for impact—but Tobey maintained his cool. The front of the bus filled the windshield. The driver blew his horn again. Julia screamed loudly, almost drowning out everything else.

  Then, from above, came Benny’s voice: “Go, two, now!”

  Tobey swerved right, missing a head-on collision with the oncoming bus by inches. And suddenly that crisis had passed as well.

  Julia took a deep breath and tried hard to regain her composure. Tobey glanced over at her.

  “You mean that bus, bus, bus?” he asked her.

  But Julia refused to take the bait. She put her poker face back on and just stared straight ahead.

  Then, from Benny again: “Hard left in three . . .”

  Tobey downshifted, resulting in a violent deceleration. At the same moment, Julia’s cell phone began ringing. But it was somewhere behind the front seat. She undid her seat belt, turned around, knelt on the seat, and began searching for it.

  It was ringing urgently, yet she couldn’t find it.

  “Shit—where is it?” she cursed.

  From Benny: “. . . two . . . one . . . now!”

  The Mustang went across three lanes of traffic in less than three seconds, blowing through a red light for good measure.

  “Give me a dollar for a quarter,” Benny then requested from on high.

  Leaving the traffic behind, the Mustang went back to accelerating. It was soon tearing down a one-lane rural road.

  But Julia was still upset.

  “You and Benny have this cheeky language,” she said, still facing backward and kneeling on the seat. “You think it’s adorable, do you? Well, it’s not! If I’m going to help you, I need to know what you’re saying!”

  She launched into a near-perfect imitation of their strong, upstate New York, thoroughly American accents.

  “Gimme a dollar!” she said. “Roger that! Soft right! Three, two, one! You need to speak English, Tobey.”

  But at that moment, still traveling at 110 mph, the Mustang hit a huge speed bump. The supercar went airborne, all four tires leaving the ground. Julia went airborne as well, ass over teakettle, landing in a heap on the front-seat floor.

  Tobey couldn’t resist. He called up to Benny and asked, “Are you having fun up there yet?”

  “Roy Rogers,” was Benny’s reply. “Hard left in ten . . .”

  Just as Julia was crawling back into her seat, Tobey downshifted and slid through the upcoming intersection. Amid a gaggle of traffic, he also managed to turn a hard left.

  Benny radioed down: “On-ramp in three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  Tobey hit the ramp, topping 112 mph.

  The radio crackled again. “Okay, Beauty,” Benny said finally. “You’re all clear from here.”

  Julia’s eyes were firing daggers at Tobey by this point. But he stayed quiet, as if nothing unusual had happened.

  “I understand that driving fast is going to be necessary,” she half-yelled at him. “But driving like some mental patient just to scare me out of the car is not going to work.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Tobey asked her.

  “Well, if that’s what you thought,” she said to him angrily, “then, whatever you think of me, I’m sure it’s wrong.”

  Tobey just stared straight ahead. “Then educate me,” he finally told her.

  And so she did.

  “So you think,” she began, “that just because I make a living buying cars designed to triple the speed limit, and drive a Maserati—and oh, by the way, I am an awesome driver—that you can condescend to me? If you think that, then I guarantee you, this will be the longest forty-four hours and eleven minutes of your life.”

  Tobey almost laughed at her. He’d
spent many months in solitary confinement. He knew well what a “long” forty-four hours could feel like.

  But then he thought about it a moment, and finally said, “One request? You talk less.”

  “I know,” she replied. “Like a dead mouse?”

  She put on a high, mouse-like voice and continued, “Squeak, squeak—here I am. I’m a mouse—I’m dying. I’m dead. I’m a dead mouse and I’m not talking now. Right? Like that?”

  Tobey couldn’t help it. He smiled a bit.

  She is very cute, he thought.

  Now that the atmosphere inside the Mustang was eased a bit, Tobey laid on the gas and headed for the western horizon, still traveling in excess of a dollar.

  Thirteen

  THE RESTAURANT WAS one of the most expensive in the country.

  In one corner, at the best table in the place, were Dino, Anita, and a man and wife. The man was a multimillionaire and, even better for Dino, he was an investor. This meant he was a mark for Dino. A person from whom he could siphon money. A sucker.

  That was the underlying reason for the dinner. Doing her part as Dino’s arm candy was Anita, who looked stunning.

  “Believe me,” the investor was telling Dino, “I’m not trying to be an asshole.”

  “You don’t have to try that hard,” his wife interjected in a perfect deadpan, sipping her drink.

  “It’s just that the idea of a guy called ‘Monarch,’” the investor went on, a bit uncertain, “and that he hosts a secret race and all? Well, it’s just a bit hard to believe.”

  Dino nodded sympathetically. “He’s supposedly from a blue-blood, wealthy family,” he said. “Real old money. People who made their fortunes during the industrial revolution.”

  “And no one knows who he is?” the investor asked.

  Dino shook his head. “No one,” he said.

  “Well, Dino does,” Anita said, suddenly interrupting.

  Dino looked at her. He was both surprised and amused.

  “Oh, I do?” he asked.

  “It’s just a feeling I get,” she said.

  “You calling me a liar?” Dino asked her.

  “Sometimes I think you’re not telling the whole story,” she replied.

  Dino waved her quiet, then turned back to his dinner companions.

  “Monarch has sponsored Formula 1 race teams,” Dino told them. “Always under other names. But that I know about him for sure.”

  “Really an underground type,” the man’s wife said.

  “With a bad ticker,” Dino said. “Word is, he used to drive in big races, but he could drop dead at any moment, so he quit the hands-on racing business.”

  Dino knew the mark was warming up, though it might have been the alcohol.

  “I’d love to see his podcast,” he said.

  “Monarch’s site is private,” Anita told him. “It’s by invite only.”

  Dino took a long swig of his scotch. Wonder when she’ll shut up, he thought.

  “What’s the prize for the De Leon?” the mark asked.

  “Big rewards come with big risks,” Dino answered. “Any car that’s in the race and loses automatically belongs to the winner. I won it last year and left with more than six million dollars in cars. And one of them was a new Pagani.”

  “Sounds like a good day’s work,” the man said with a laugh.

  “Yes, it was,” Dino replied, turning mock serious. “But listen, I’m not trying to push you—however, I’ve got another interested party. Now, I’m not a hundred percent sure about them. You know that feeling?”

  “I know it well,” the mark replied. “And I liked what I saw at your garage. That’s quite a dealership you’ve got going there. The problem I have is you haven’t shown a hard profit yet, at least not in cash.”

  Dino shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Frustration was starting to show around the edges of his face.

  “Let me be blunt,” he said. “What do I have to do to get a real commitment from you?”

  “I’ll be blunt right back,” the investor replied. “What do you consider a ‘real commitment’?”

  “Five million,” Dino said. “With that kind of money, we can be one of the biggest high-end car dealerships in the country.”

  “Win this ‘secret’ De Leon again, then,” the investor said.

  “You mean, if I win this year’s De Leon,” Dino said, “you’re in for five million?”

  The man reached over the table and shook Dino’s hand. “Yes, I am,” he said.

  “Can I get that in writing?” Dino asked him.

  “Just send me a contract,” the man replied.

  * * *

  The couple was gone a few minutes later. Once they were out of sight, Dino collapsed back into his chair. He sucked down what was left of his scotch and then tossed the glass back on the table.

  “I need that guy,” he said worriedly. “I need that deal.”

  Anita was surprised to hear this.

  “What do you mean?” she asked him. “You told me your dealership made a big profit last year.”

  “It’s paper profit,” Dino told her dismissively. “I need some fresh cash to survive.”

  He looked away from her, his features turning dark. Anita continued staring at him, though.

  At that point, she really didn’t know what to think.

  Fourteen

  NIGHT HAD FALLEN on Ohio.

  The Shelby Mustang roared down the highway, relentlessly heading west, traveling more than twice the speed of those few cars and trucks sharing the dark road with it.

  Tobey was driving in silence—at 120 mph. Julia was asleep. It was almost midnight. He punched a number into his iPhone.

  Joe Peck’s voice came on immediately. “Checking in,” he said.

  “Mile marker four seventeen,” Tobey replied. “We’re on schedule.”

  Joe Peck was driving alone in a vehicle they all called the Beast. It was the team’s support truck. Big and boxy, it looked like a combination tow truck and delivery van. It was full of spare tires, parts, water, batteries, oil, and transmission fluid—everything they might need during the high-speed cross-country dash. But it also carried the most important thing of all: fuel.

  “It’s a miracle that we’re still on schedule,” Joe told Tobey. “Maybe we have an outside chance of actually pulling this thing off. I was just sitting here thinking, ‘Pete would have loved this trip.’”

  The words hit Tobey right in the gut. “Yeah,” he replied sadly. “He loved the impossible.”

  “Dino should be in jail for what he did to Pete that day,” Joe said.

  “I’ll never forget what I saw when I found him,” Tobey replied. “I still have nightmares about it . . .”

  “He wrecked him, Tobey,” Joe went on. “He picked him and flipped him. Let me ask you . . . what if you get behind Dino’s back bumper? What if you end up back there in the race? What will you do?”

  Tobey thought deeply about what Joe was asking him—and not for the first time. But he didn’t reply. His silence said it all.

  “That’s what I thought,” Joe said. “Okay, brother, I’ll see you in Detroit. Beast out.”

  Still mulling over his conversation with Joe, Tobey glanced at Julia. He expected to find her still sleeping.

  But he got a surprise. She was wide awake and looking right at him.

  “I’m sorry about Pete,” she told him. “I only met him those two times. Remember? At the exhibit hall in Manhattan and then the next day at the Shepperton Racetrack. But I could tell what kind of person he was just by his smile. He reminded me of my own little brother. Always in motion. Always smiling—a real pest, he is. But I love him to death.”

  “Dino just left him there,” Tobey said angrily. “That’s what I can’t forgive. The trial, the prison, everything that happened. None
of that would even matter to me if Pete were still alive. I realize what we do isn’t pretty, but there is one unwritten rule: You always go back.”

  “That’s what this is really all about?” Julia asked him. “To somehow avenge Pete’s death?”

  Tobey didn’t reply. He didn’t want to. He just fixed his gaze back on the road and kept on driving.

  Fifteen

  IT WAS FRIDAY, nearly 8:00 a.m., and heavy morning traffic was clogging the streets of downtown Detroit, as usual.

  Inside one of the many buildings in the downtown area, one office was particularly busy. Phones were ringing, mail was being delivered to people working in endless rows of cubicles. This fourth-floor office was full of hustle and bustle.

  Finn was sitting in one of these cubicles, feeling not unlike a rat in a maze. He was dressed in business attire, a far cry from his grease-monkey days back at Marshall Motors.

  His iPhone suddenly rang. He looked at the caller’s number, shook his head, and let it go to voice mail. But then the iPhone rang again. This time, he picked it up.

  It was Joe Peck.

  “We’ve already had this conversation,” Finn told him plainly.

  “Just go to the window,” Joe replied.

  “No,” Finn said. “Why would I do that?”

  “Just go, now,” Joe insisted.

  Finn just shook his head again. Then he got up and walked to the window.

  He looked down to the street below and was surprised to see the Shelby Mustang idling loudly on the curb right outside his office building. Even in a place called Motor City, the car stood out, a stark contrast to the fuel-efficient, home-by-five cars making up most of the morning rush hour around it.

  The Mustang’s engine started to rev higher. It was incredibly loud—so much so, it could be heard four stories up. Half the people in Finn’s office immediately rushed to the windows to see what was making the racket.

  Down inside the supercar, Julia was mystified, as always.

  “What are you doing?” she asked Tobey as he continued revving the engine with earsplitting results.