The Way to Dusty Death by Alistair MacLean Page A

them. MacAlpine was panting heavily. He said: ‘Where’s that young bastard Harlow?’
    Dunnet did not reply at once. He seemed more concerned with shaking his head slowly from side to side.
    ‘God’s sake, man, where’s that drunken layabout?’ MacAlpine’s voice was almost a shout. ‘He mustn’t be allowed anywhere near that damned track.’
    ‘There’s a lot of other drivers in Monza who would agree with you.’
    ‘What’s that meant to mean?’
    ‘It means that that drunken layabout has just broken the lap record by two point one seconds.’ Dunnet continued to shake his head in continued disbelief. ‘Bloody well incredible.’
    ‘Two point one! Two point one! Two point one!’ It was MacAlpine’s turn to take up the head-shaking. Impossible. A margin like that? Impossible.’
    ‘Ask the time-keepers. He did it twice.’
    ‘Jesus!’
    ‘You don’t seem as pleased as you might, James.’
    ‘Pleased. I’m bloody well terrified. Sure, sure, he’s still the best driver in the world-except in actual competition when his nerve goes. But it wasn’t driving skill that took him around in that time. It was Dutch courage. Sheer bloody suicidal Dutch courage.’
    ‘I don’t understand you.’
    ‘He’d a half-bottle of scotch inside him, Alexis. ’
    Dunnet stared at him. He said at length, ‘I don’t believe k. I can’t believe it He may have driven like a bat out of hell but he also drove like an angel. Half a bottle of scotch? He’d have killed himself.’
    ‘Perhaps it’s as well there was no one else on the track at the time. He’d have killed them, maybe.’
    ‘But - but a whole half-bottle!’
    ‘Want to come and have a look in the cistern in his bathroom?’
    ‘No, no. You think I’d ever question your word? It’s just that I can’t understand it.’
    ‘Nor can I, nor can I. And where is our world champion at the moment?’
    ‘Left the track. Says he’s through for the day. Says he’s got the pole position for tomorrow and if anyone takes it from him he’ll just come back and take it away from them again. He’s in an uppish sort of mood today, is our Johnny.’
    ‘And he never used to talk that way. That’s not uppishness, Alexis, it’s sheer bloody euphoria dancing on clouds of seventy proof. God Almighty, do I have a problem or do I have a problem.’
    ‘You have a problem, James.’
    On the afternoon of that same Saturday MacAlpine, had he been in a certain rather shabby little side street in Monza, might well have had justification for thinking that his problems were being doubly or trebly compounded. Two highly undistinguished little cafes faced each other across the narrow street. They had in common the same peeling paint facade, hanging reed curtains, chequered cloth-covered sidewalk tables and bare, functional and splendidly uninspired interiors. And both of them, as was so common in cafes of this type, featured high-backed booths facing end-on to the street.
    Sitting well back from the window in such a booth on the southern and shaded side of the street were Neubauer and Tracchia with untouched drinks in front of them. The drinks were untouched because neither man was interested in them. Their entire interest was concentrated upon the cafe opposite where, close up to the window and clearly in view, Harlow and Dunnet, glasses in their hands, could be seen engaged in what appeared to be earnest discussion across their booth table.
    Neubauer said : ‘Well, now that we’ve followed them here, Nikki, what do we do now? I mean, you can’t lip-read, can you?’
    We wait and see? We play it by ear? T wish to God T could lip-read, Willi. And I’d also like to know why those two have suddenly become so friendly — though they hardly ever speak nowadays in public. And why did they have to come to a little back street like this to talk? We know that Harlow is up to something very funny indeed —the back of my neck still feels half-broken, I could hardly get my damned helmet