"Brixton, Danvy - Dead Hands On The Wheel (Avenger 4203)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brixton Danby)

cheering him! Their dough was riding on him! So why not?

Me? I stood to lose a fortune--go broke! Damn that smart-aleck fixer Milligan! He
must've slipped up somewhere! The fix wasn't on! Oh, well, that's what I get for being
a bookie! It's a sucker's racket. But I've gone broke before! This wouldn't be the first
time!

Fancy thinking we could bribe a guy like Landi to stay out of a race like this!
Why, it's the breath of life to him! He loves the roar of the crowd, the glory, the thrill
of driving a car faster than any other human! I believe he even enjoys a crack-up.

Landi was far in the lead now. He hadn't been headed once.

Five laps to go! All around me, I heard voices, half sobbing, half groaning with
savage emotion. Hundreds of the spectators were already in the throes of victory; already
counting their winnings.

With a lead of almost two laps, Landi slowed to a stop. He wasn't taking any chances.
His mechanic--Carlo Vetti--jumped out, made a hasty inspection, applied oil where a smoking
axle showed need of cooling, looked to the gears, the gas and other essentials; found a
pinched tire, which he adjusted, and jumped back beside Landi--all in thirty precious
seconds.

Landi was in the race again. Sensational sprints were made by the other competitors,
but they cut Landi's lead only a little--not enough to put him in any danger of losing.

One car dropped out under the jinx of continually fouling sparkplugs another careened
against a telegraph pole, killing the Mexican Ruiz and his mechanic.

McCarthy, the Argentino, ran full tilt into the sandbags at a turn of the course,
leaping up like a horse to a barrier, breaking the bags, and whirling the sand upward
in a cloud. The car crashed into a building and collapsed in a heap of twisted metal,
from which the driver and his mech managed to crawl with only slight injuries.

Landi's car escaped all mishaps. Some of the dopes around me were saying there was
black magic in his driving. But that's a lot of hooey--or so I thought at the time! The
guy was just good! He made the rest of them look like beginners at the game.

Final lap now! My eyes were fixed on the finish line. The result wasn't in doubt. It
hadn't been for some time.

Landi won: Jack Pelham, the Indianapolis champ, came in second--three minutes behind
--after cutting down Landi's lead with some daredevil driving.


I got up from my seat and moved to the front of the grandstand. Already there was a mob
gathering around Landi's car, shouting his name. The guys who'd bet on him, most likely.

The judges were coming down from their places to congratulate him, and there was a
bunch of his admirers carrying a big floral horseshoe for him to sit in.