St. Dale. Sharyn McCrumb

driving the bus, will I?”

      Mr. Bailey closed his eyes. “Mercifully, no.”

      “Anyhow, I do know racing front to back. Stats, cars, trivia. All of it. Like…let’s see…like: Junior Johnson used to run races with a chicken riding shotgun with him in the car. Did you know that?”

      “Indeed, no. Does it happen to be true?”

      “It does. Google away, Mr. Bailey. But, see, about this trip—I thought you were just taking racing fans on a tour of Southern speedways.”

      “That, incidentally, yes.” Mr. Bailey paused, choosing his words carefully, “But actually the trip is being advertised as an Earnhardt Memorial Tour.”

      “Oh, sweet Nelly,” Claymore groped for the plastic chair and sank down in it. “You’re shitting me, right?”

      “I assure you we are perfectly serious,” said Mr. Bailey, who had decided that sarcasm would be wasted on Harley Claymore. “Unlike you, Dale Earnhardt did win the Daytona 500, you know.”

      “Well, finally. He lost it about twenty times, too. He and that soap opera lady who always lost at the Daytime Emmys ought to have got together.”

      “Dale Earnhardt is a legend,” said Mr. Bailey. “Did you know him while you were on the circuit?”

      Harley shrugged. “Seeing a black Monte Carlo in my rearview mirror still gives me the shakes.” He waited a moment for Bailey to correct him, but there was no response. Back when Harley was still racing they had been driving Luminas, not Monte Carlos but, in deference to Mr. Bailey’s ignorance of the finer points of racing, he had mentioned the model that was now synonymous with the Intimidator.

      “I mean, do you have any personal anecdotes about yourself and Dale Earnhardt?”

      “Nothing out of the ordinary. He put me in a headlock once in a drivers’ meeting. Snuck up on me from behind, like he always did. And he gave me the finger a time or two when he went past me in a race.”

      Bailey closed his eyes. “Perhaps we should forget about personal anecdotes. I’m sure we can provide you with some more heartwarming stories about Dale Earnhardt.”

      “What the hell for?”

      “Because he is a legend, Mr. Claymore—is that your real name, by the way?”

      “Sort of. It was Harley Clay Moore. My dad was into cars, and he named me for Harley Earl and Willie Clay Call.” He could see that the names meant nothing to Mr. Bailey to whom the world of motor sports was a never-opened book. “Anyhow, I changed it when I was eighteen and needed a classy name for the pros. See, claymores are…”

      “Scottish swords. I know.”

      “Well, I was going to say antipersonnel mines in Nam. I thought it sounded cool.”

      Mr. Bailey’s face was impassive. “No doubt,” he said. “We were discussing this job. Bailey Travel has been inundated with requests for a tour in honor of Dale Earnhardt. More than a year since his death, people are still grieving. They are putting the number three in Christmas lights on their houses and I’m told that they raise three fingers during the third lap of every race as a tribute to him.” He paused, shaking his head wonderingly at the improbability of such a thing. “We have received considerable correspondence and even e-mails from articulate and respectable people”—People with valid credit cards, he thought—“who tell us that they want such a tour, a gesture of mourning if you will, in honor of the late Mr. Earnhardt. People want to say goodbye. The speedways where he drove are now shrines. People want to pay homage at his racing shop in Mooresville. They long to lay a memorial wreath on the track at Daytona.”

      Harley Claymore shook his head. “I never would have believed it.”

      “Well, he died on camera in the biggest race of the sport, so that was a factor. Our firm offers a Graceland Tour as well, so we are familiar with the mindset of the devoted fan and the fact that people need closure. They feel that they know these celebrities. It is a personal loss. I grant you that we here at Bailey Travel did not expect to find this phenomenon in a NASCAR milieu. But there it is.”

      “But he was just a regular guy who had a knack for driving,” said Harley. “He was good at it, but so was Neil Bonnett. So was Tim Richmond. And nobody’s painting their numbers on billboards.”

      Mr. Bailey shrugged. “Why Elvis and not John Lennon?” he said. “Who can explain these things? Still, Mr. Claymore, the demand is there and we have devised this tour accordingly. To celebrate the life and sport of NASCAR’s most illustrious driver. And now we need someone—a name, if you will, to host it.”

      “Well, I guess I ought to be flattered that y’all picked me instead of Geoff Bodine.”

      “Mr. Bodine was unavailable. So do we have a deal?”

      Harley Claymore looked at the Winged Three on his cap and sighed. “Eleven hundred plus expenses?”

      “And you are to be sober and reliable. And you will wear that jacket and the number 3 cap.”

      “Deal.” Claymore spit in his palm and held out his hand.

      Harry Bailey pointedly ignored the gesture. “We will write down some suggestions for the commentary you will be making on the tour. For instance, you might begin by explaining why Dale Earnhardt is associated with the number three.”

      “Why?” said Harley.

      “Well, because that was the number painted on the top of his race car.”

      “No,” said Harley. “I meant why should I explain that? Will there be people from other planets coming along on this tour?”

      “Ah-hah. Most amusing,” said Mr. Bailey. “And one last thing—for the duration of the tour you must say and think that Dale Earnhardt was the greatest driver who ever lived.”

      “Oh, sweet Nelly.”

      So Harley Clay Moore had taken the job. What choice did he have, really? What choice would any of them have had? Dale Earnhardt with his ninth-grade education had worked in the mills in the lean years and back in Alabama Neil Bonnett had been a pipe fitter. Their educations mostly took place out of school, hanging out in local garages or watching their fathers tinker with stock cars. Cars were what mattered; everything else was a distraction.

      He sat on the sagging bed in the cheapest motel room he could find and watched the SPEED channel on the television, but it was showing drag racing. Nobody he knew. The brown polyester bedspread was patterned with stains and cigarette burns. He’d lived better than this once, but those days were getting more distant all the time and now he was used to rundown places like this. Why spend good beer money on fancy digs?

      All Harley had ever wanted to do was race. The new face of NASCAR—the sponsors, the autographs, the hat and tee shirt sales were all necessary evils—the cost of the ride. Money buys speed, and the only way to get enough money to race these days was to cozy up to the national sponsors. Forget swearing, or chewing, or fighting off-track. Hell, you even had to knock the corners off your accent these days, because NASCAR was national now, and vanilla was the flavor of the month—every month.

      He had mugged it up in Bailey’s office because showing your desperation never gets you anywhere, but he couldn’t fool himself. He had to find a way back in.

      Chapter III

      Tri-Cities

      “Wake up, Bekasu! We’re coming into Tri-Cities, and Stewardess Barbie wants your tray table put back before we land.”

      Rebekah Sue Holifield squinted one eye long enough to close the tray table, and then resumed her former upright and locked position.

      From the window seat Cayle said, “She’s not asleep, Justine. She’s just being passive-aggressive again.”

      “Being a spoilsport is what it is,”