The Delaware Avenue Drags
Stan reached the waterfront on Bigler Street and made a right onto Delaware Avenue. He drove south for one long block until he crossed over Packer Avenue. Immediately beyond Packer, on the inland side of Delaware Avenue, was a vacant block filled with people and parked cars. Stan drove his car into the lot and parked. David followed in Walt’s station wagon. He parked next to Stan’s car and got out.
Ever since Stan’s explosion of temper, he’d been downright agreeable. I decided to take advantage of his attitude. “David and I are going to look around.”
“Enjoy.” Stan said like he really wanted me and David to enjoy ourselves. He pointed through the windshield toward the far end of the block. “I’m gonna get in line to make a run.”
“Alright.” I agreed. “Keep your eye out for Mel. You’ll let us know if you see him.”
Stan chuckled a little and grinned like the cat who ate the canary. “You bet!”
I got out of the car and shut the door behind me. Stan throttled his motor again and roared away to go race. David crossed the spot where Stan had been parked and handed over the keys to Walt’s car. I stuck them in my pocket. I thought for a second that it might be wise if I left them in the car, that way either David or I could drive the car away if we needed to separate for some reason, but I decided against that. I didn’t know what kind of crowd we were in and didn’t want to risk coming back to find the car missing. I made certain the doors were locked and the windows rolled up before I left the car.
David asked me about the incident on the road. “What happened back there? I almost wrecked your husband’s car.”
“I honestly don’t know.” I replied. “He started off mouthy, then he settled down enough to make small talk. I asked him a question about his car, and he started laughing. He laughed so hard he almost lost control of the car. I grabbed the wheel, and he went nuts.”
David asked an excellent question. “Do you think there’s something wrong with him?”
“No doubt in my mind he’s got a screw loose.” I said. “He put his hands on me last night. Kellerman warned me that Stan was sensitive about Ted. When we were at the bar, I purposely needled him to shake him up. It’s easier to get the truth out of people when they’re angry or upset. I wonder if it’s not just Ted that he’s sensitive about. Maybe he’s sensitive about anything that belongs to him, like his precious wheel.”
David looked along the block toward where Stan was negotiating his way through the crowd to get in line to race. “He really is crazy then.” David observed. “I mean, it’s not just that he has a bad temper. You used to put your hands on people for slights, but I couldn’t imagine you almost causing an accident because you were mad.”
“I want to be offended by the comparison,” I said honestly, “but I get it. You’re not wrong. Once upon a time, my first reaction was to put my hands up. I wouldn’t have done it when I was at the wheel of a moving car though. I think our Smug Stanley is definitely unbalanced.”
“Could he be the killer?” David asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t rule him out, but I don’t think the circumstances fit. If Stan is touchy about his possessions, and he looked at Ted like he was a possession, he wouldn’t have killed him. Stan would have been more likely to kill someone who touched Ted like I touched Stan’s wheel.”
“Makes sense.” David agreed.
“Forget all that for now.” I said when I realized how long we’d been standing still. “Let’s get moving. We’ve got a man to find.”
* * * *
I surveyed our surroundings to decide how to deal with the search for Mel. The vacant block that was occupied by the racing crowd was bordered on all sides by industrial properties. To the west was the brick pump house of the sewage disposal works, to the south was railroad property, to the north was the massive, wooden produce warehouse, and to the east were the temporary trash dumps. The dumps served as terminals for river barges which would load out the city’s trash to be disposed of in the ocean.
Two of the four neighbors to the vacant property, the sewage works and the dumps, were known for foul smells. Luckily for us, the wind was in our favor. It blew in from the river and kept the stench of the sewage works at bay. There was some odor from the dumps, but the cool weather kept the garbage smell to a minimum. The most obvious scent was that of automobile exhaust. The air was thick with the acrid odor of leaded gasoline as it was spent to rev engines getting ready to race.
I remembered being surprised when the lawyer Scofield said Ted had monoxide in his blood and it was likely from the races. I didn’t believe the boy could have breathed enough of the noxious gas at an open-air event for it to show up on a blood test. Now that I could smell it for myself, I understood. Between the heavy air at the racing venue and the poisoned air in Stan’s car, I figured Ted could have easily breathed enough of the gas for it to show up on a blood test.
Within the vacant block was a literal horde of racers and spectators. Most of the racing cars, the ‘iron’ as Larry had termed them, were gathered into two uneven rows along the middle of the lot. The cars faced each other and many had their headlights lit and their hoods open. I quickly realized this was a matter of practicality. There was no natural light and no streetlamps close enough for people to see by to work on their cars. They used the glare of the headlights from opposite cars to see to do their work.
People milled around by the light of the headlamps and the distant glow of a few streetlamps staggered around the edge of the property. Many of the racers and spectators allowed their car engines to idle to keep their headlamps powered without running down their batteries. Most of crowd kept their focus on the ‘iron’ while some paid attention to the other attendees.
The vehicles were a cornucopia of different makes and models. To add to the variety of sizes and shapes, the cars wore a rainbow of hand-applied colors. They also sported all manner of modifications. Many were open-wheeled cars with their fenders removed. Most were lowered close to the ground. Some wore letters or numbers on their doors. Some even had names stenciled on their roofs. The air stank of exhaust fumes and roared with the sound of engines being throttled.
The crowd held more women than I expected to see. Some of them wore demure dresses and carefully applied makeup. The rest wore tight blouses and tapered slacks. The women in slacks had their faces made up with bright red lipstick and ‘go to hell’ glares. I watched one of these hard numbers glide past on a pair of rolling hips. She cruised David like a shark might cruise its prey. When she got near enough to see that he was far older than she was, she turned on the toes of her high heels to survey the crowd for someone younger. She struck a match on one of her blood-colored talons, lit a cigarette, and cruised away.
I used my tongue to push the chewed-up cigar tobacco out of my cheek and spat it on the ground. I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jacket and tried to decide on a strategy. I hadn’t expected the scale of the event which surrounded us. I’d assumed illegal street racing would attract maybe a dozen cars and not more than two or three dozen people. What we’d found was more than forty cars and two or three hundred people.
I wished I’d enlisted more help than just David and me. I thought of Wiry and his crew. I wondered if I should find a phone booth to try to call them. I dismissed that idea as too little too late. I reminded myself that the races ran both on Friday and Saturday night, and it was only Friday. If David and I had no luck by ourselves, I could call Wiry in the morning and ask him to help us search the next night.
With that in mind, I decided not to divide the only help I had. “Let’s stick together for now.” I suggested and jerked my head toward the side of the block which ran along Delaware Avenue. That edge of the property seemed to be the most heavily populated. It was also parallel to the double row of parked racing cars. David fell into step with me as we began our stroll to the south.
With nothing more to say for the moment, he and I lapsed into silence as we walked and searched for Mel among the crowd. The races started when we were about halfway along the block. We paused near the edge of the street to watch the first couple. I didn’t care much about the races, but I wanted to understand how they worked.
The way things were set up, two cars would exit the vacant lot and drive onto Delaware Avenue. They would stop behind a white line painted on the asphalt at the corner of the intersection where Geary Street joined Delaware. The cars would line up on either side of the solid yellow line of the lane divider. A man stood between the lanes with a white handkerchief in his hand. He would start the races by raising his arm in the air and dropping it.
The two cars would speed along Delaware Avenue from Geary to the finish line between Packer and Bigler. Once they crossed the finish line, they would slow and turn left onto Bigler Street. From Bigler, they would circle around and return to the vacant block, either to work on their cars or to get back in line to race again. There were two men at the finish line who would decide the winner and provide the time of the race. The racers were racing each other, but they were also racing the clock.
Once I understood the process of the races, I ignored the action to focus on the crowd. David and I paid sharp attention to anyone whose head stuck above the mob. We knew we needed to find a tall man, someone as tall or taller than David. Our initial observations didn’t show us anyone who came even close to David’s six feet four inches.
I tried not to get discouraged. The races had only just started, and David and I had only made one pass of the crowd. I reasoned that Mel might not have arrived yet. He might not come at all that night. I decided if we didn’t find Mel after an hour or so, we could canvas the crowd for people who knew Ted or Larry. As soon as I had that thought, I realized I didn’t have a photo of either of the men. I’d met Larry and could describe him, but most people couldn’t identify the person standing next to them from a detailed description.
As for Ted, I’d only seen him after he was a corpse. I had Hank Kellerman’s memory to tell me what Ted looked like when he was alive, but a second-hand description was even more useless than a first-hand one.
‘Shit.’ I said in my mind. I felt stupid for not asking David if he had a photograph. The mistake made me feel like an amateur. I rubbed my face to smear my frustration across it. “Fuck.” I muttered to my palms. My stomach tremored as I swore. I lowered my right hand to hold my guts. They didn’t crawl like they had in the past, but they didn’t feel good either.
David heard me swear. He looked along his eyes at me, but he didn’t say anything. He paid me no mind and redirected his attention to the people around us. I guessed he was getting used to my occasional outbursts. With David occupied, I tried to lay aside my inwardly directed anger because it was of no help. I did as David had done and put my attention on the people around us. ‘I’ll just have to hope like hell that Mel is here.’ I told myself.
Our stroll and our searching eventually brought David and I to the end of the block where it bordered the railroad property. This corner was where the racers lined up to wait their turn to run on the street. We paused to look at the cars.
The sight of the stripped-down jalopies, all rigged up for racing, made me wonder about the characteristics of the man we searched for. ‘I wonder if Mel is a racer.’ I thought well after I should have. Stan had described Mel, but he never said who he was or what he did at the races. I didn’t know if he owned a car, or was a mechanic, or merely a man who liked the smell of automobile exhaust. I realized that if Mel had a car, especially one which was somehow conspicuous, it would make him easier to find.
I told myself to ask Stan when we saw him again. I planned to turn David and me around to take a slow stroll back up the block. I wanted to search the far side of the line of parked racing cars. I was in the middle of trying to figure the best way to find Stan again when a hoarse and raspy voice shouted over the noise of the car engines and the crowd. The sound of it snatched me out of my thoughts. I looked to find its source.
I used my eyes to trace the row of cars which was queued to race. The cars at the front of the line either idled or sat with their engines off. The drivers spoke to passers-by or nervously ran their hands around their steering wheels while they waited. Further down the line, some cars still had their hoods open for last minute adjustments to the motors before the run.
I was still looking at the cars when the voice shouted again. It repeated the same words over and over. “SMILEY!” The raspy voice called. “SMILEY, OVER HERE!”
I followed the sound of the voice with my eyes until my gaze came to rest on a yellow-fingered man who was in the middle of chain-lighting a cigarette. The man stood next to a massive, two-door sedan which was shorn of its fenders and painted with red lead primer. The primer-painted car was close to the front of the line to race. The yellow fingered man who stood near it tossed away the stub of a cigarette he’d used to light his fresh one and waved to David and me. “Smiley, Big Guy, over here!” He called in his smoke-coarsened voice.
I elbowed David and pointed. He and I moved in the direction of the yellow-fingered man. “Look, it’s Smokey.” I said to indicate the medium sized man who called David and me by the nicknames Wiry had assigned to us.
We approached the big red car. When we got close enough, I noticed that Sunshine, the small, sullen man from Wiry’s crew, was at the wheel. Sunshine wrinkled his Roman nose at a cloud of smoke from Smokey’s cigarette and greeted us with a slight lift of his head. Smokey was more demonstrative. He shook hands with David and me like we were his long-lost friends. “Fancy seeing you here!” He rasped at us. “What are you doing?” Smokey asked and then had a short coughing fit.
“We’re looking for Mel.” I answered once Smokey stopped hacking. “Do either of you know him?”
Smokey drew on his cigarette and talked the smoke from his chest. “Mel…Mel, I don’t know anyone named Mel.”
Sunshine asked a sensible question through another cloud of Smokey’s smoke. “What’s he look like?”
I answered that question as well. “Big guy, real tall, underbite, resembles Frankenstein.”
Smokey’s face lit up like he knew who I meant. He didn’t get a chance to say one way or the other because Sunshine cut him off. “Talk later, Smoke.” He commanded. “We’re up next.”
Smokey complained about being silenced. “I just wanna tell ‘em.” He said on a smoke-laced exhale.
Sunshine wouldn’t have it. “We’re up!” He snapped.
“Fine!” Smokey snapped back. He ran around the car to get in the passenger side. I barked after him. “Where will I find you after?”
Sunshine responded with a question I didn’t understand. “How much do you weigh? Both of you, how much?” He asked David and me.
“Two-hundred.” I answered, then I looked to David for his answer.
“About the same.” David said, then he added a modifier. “Maybe a little more. No more than two-twenty.”
Sunshine opened the long driver’s door of the car and jumped out. He flipped his seat forward and waved us into the back. “Get in.” He said.
David looked to me for permission. “Get in.” I said to repeat Sunshine’s order.
David got in the back and slid across to the passenger side behind Smokey. I got in and sat on the driver’s side. There was a ton of room in the back seat. Most of the space was due to the large size of the car, but some was because short-statured Sunshine had the front bench seat adjusted very far forward. The seat was so far forward that larger-sized Smokey looked like he was pressed into the dashboard.
Once David and I were in, Sunshine flipped his seat back and jumped into the car. He closed the door and cranked the engine. The car started with a deafening roar. “Glad you’re here.” Sunshine yelled over the roar. “I want to see what she’ll do with more weight in the back. Four hundred pounds is just about right.”
David and I sank into the plush burgundy upholstery of the back seat of the vast two-door sedan. The interior of the car was luxurious. I guessed that at one time the car had been very fancy. I wondered what model it was. David asked before I got the chance. “What is this thing?”
Smokey answered. His raspy voice loud and enthusiastic through a cloud of his ever-present cigarette smoke. “Forty-eight Lincoln. Got the big V-12. Sunshine and I souped her up. She’ll do the quarter in a little over seventeen seconds.”
I was about to ask Smokey if I should be impressed by the time, but I didn’t get the chance. Sunshine shoved the floor-mounted shifter into gear and let out the clutch. The big car shot forward with a chirp of the rear tires. Sunshine seemed pleased. He let the car idle toward the starting line. He worked at the steering wheel which was as wide as a manhole cover as he guided the car to the outside lane on the river side of the street. Sunshine stopped on the starting line at the direction of the man who flagged the race.
“Didn’t even break the tires loose.” Sunshine said when we were motionless. “We might have to add some permanent weight, Smoke.”
Smokey wasn’t convinced. He shook his head. “Weight’s no good. Slows you down. We just need to get the weight we got on the back tires. I’m telling you, we need jack the nose up in the air. Point her up like she’s gonna climb a hill. The angle will push the weight onto the back. She’ll run like a scalded dog!”
Sunshine refused Smokey’s suggestion with a determined shake of his head. “I ain’t gonna drive no car with its nose up like a sniffing rat!”
Sunshine revved the engine once more like the car wanted to give its opinion on the argument. He pushed the clutch down and put the gearshift into what I assumed was low gear. He let the engine drop to an idle, then gave it gas to wind it back up. The man who flagged the race held his arm up with a white handkerchief between his fingers. I glanced at our opponent in the opposite lane. The car next to us was a much smaller vehicle, but it wasn’t chopped up like Sunshine’s Lincoln. It still had its fenders and all its trim.
The flag man dropped his arm. Sunshine stomped the gas and held it down. The great car shot from the starting line like a sprinter from the blocks. The engine sounded like Armageddon’s trumpet. Black smoke and fire belched from short lake pipes which turned out under the concealed running boards. Sunshine stood out of his seat to wrench the shifter from one gear to the next. He shifted at full throttle without the clutch. The shifter moved easily in Sunshine’s practiced hand. It slipped from one gear to the next like the bolt of a Springfield rifle.
Smokey tossed his cigarette from the open window and screamed over the straining engine. The tortured rasp of his voice was the loudest thing of all. “YEAH! YEAH! YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!” He cried and beat his fist on the top of the passenger door. “GO! GO! GO!”
Smokey’s cries deteriorated into a coughing fit just as Sunshine rammed the floor shifter from third gear into fourth. Sunshine held onto the shift knob like it was the only thing keeping him in the car. The muscles in his lean arm flexed and bulged from his shirt sleeve. The back of his neck was bright red and the tendons stood out from strain. His face, visible in the sideview mirror, was as red as his neck. His set and grim expression made him look like he’d been possessed by a demon.
Sunshine didn’t take his foot off the gas until after we’d flown by the timekeeper at the finish line. Sunshine shook the shifter to take the car out of gear and left it in neutral. The engine returned to an idle as Sunshine relaxed into his seat to let the car coast along Delaware Avenue.
Smokey twisted around in his seat to check on the other car in the race. He celebrated what he saw. Smokey beat the top of the seat with his fist and shouted. “TWO-LENGTH SUNSHINE! YOU BEAT HIM BY TWO WHOLE LENGTHS!” He punched Sunshine’s shoulder in his excitement. “YOU MANIAC! NO CLUTCH! JUST SHIFTIN BY EAR! AIN’T NOBODY CAN DRIVE LIKE YOU!” Smokey started to hack again. The choking cut short his praise of Sunshine’s driving.
Sunshine’s sullen expression didn’t change. “I told you weight was the answer.” He said.
Smokey finished coughing and fished a cigarette from his front pocket. He disagreed with Sunshine about the weight. “We would-a won by three lengths if you’d jack the nose like I told you.” He struck a kitchen match on his thumb and lit his cigarette with the sulfuric flare of the matchhead. He puffed the waste smoke and tossed the match from the window. He nursed smoke from his cigarette like he hadn’t had one all day, then he coughed again.
Smokey’s coughing made me wince. The sound of it kindled a distant memory that wouldn’t percolate to the surface of my mind. I chased it, but it got away. The wince made me notice a throb of pain from my recently sore shoulders. The pain alerted me to the fact that I’d had my whole body clenched for the entirety of the race. I forced my muscles to relax and rolled my head back to stretch the tension out of my neck. I decided that racing wasn’t for me. David, on the other hand…
“THAT WAS SO FUN!” David enthused into my right ear. “I get it now! I get why people do this. I wonder if Larry would want to build a race car when we go home. I bet Eddie would like it too!”
David’s mention of his oldest sons brought two thoughts into my mind. The first was to renew my bewilderment that David had named his boys after me. The second was to remind me why we were at the races in the first place. I asked Sunshine for some time to talk.
“How long before you can race again?” I asked to preface the request I planned to make.
Sunshine checked his dashboard gauges. “She’s hot.” He said sullenly.
Smokey explained what that meant. “We gotta let her cool a while. Why?”
“Can we park somewhere and talk?” I asked.
“Sure.” Sunshine agreed and made a left on Bigler Street. He drove along the road until we passed the next side street. The car we’d won against turned down the side street and sped back toward the racing crowd. Sunshine let his car coast to a stop near one of the many vacant lots which surrounded the desolate section of the city. He set the brake and shut the engine off.
Smokey twisted around in his seat to face us while Sunshine faced forward with his hands on the wheel like he was still driving. Smokey breathed more smoke from his cigarette and exhaled it toward me. “His name was Melvin Christiansen, but no one called him that. Everyone called him ‘Karloff.’”
“Karloff?” I asked in surprise. “I thought he looked like Frankenstein.”
Smokey nodded his head. “He did, but no one ever called him that. Everyone called him Karloff. The Frankenstein movie is old. Mel was a young guy. He never saw the Frank flick, but he knew who Karloff is. Everyone knows him.”
I didn’t understand why Stan would say Mel looked like Frankenstein if he really looked like Boris Karloff. I thought it especially strange because everyone called him Karloff. ‘Why didn’t Stan tell me about Mel’s nickname?’ I asked myself.
I skipped over those ponderings to deal with Smokey and his news. “Do you know where I can find him…Mel…Karloff?” I asked.
Smokey drew on his cigarette and nodded some more over the front seat. “In the cemetery. He’s dead.”
