Fever Heat - as Angus Vicker

230 Pages·2016·40.73 MB·English

by  Felsen Henry Gregor

BYTHE
^n5^^^^ AUTHOR OF
HOTROD
—AHELL-FOR-LEATHERBREED
OFMENANDWOMEN
WHO LIVE FORTHRILLSALONE
ki

LOOK
THE WILD
I lifted my head to look tenderly into her
face. Iwasjolted by herexpression. Itwasn't
love, or tenderness, or passion, but a wild,
lost look. Her body trembled against mine,
but I held her fast.
"Please, Ace •"
. .
"Sandy ..."
"No, Ace . . .No . . J'

n
FEVER
HEAT
BY HENRY GREGOR FELSEN
CURTIS
800X3
NEWYORK, N,Y.
©
Copyright 1954 by Angus Vicker
©
Copyright 1961 by Fawcett Publications, Ina
Published by arrangement with,the author
AU characters in this book are fictional
and any resemblance to persons living or dead
is purely coincidental.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
An rights reserved, inchiding the right to reproduce this book
or portions thereof.
n The guy shouldn't have passed me the way he did be-
cause it made me mad, and it's not good to get mad behind
—the wheel. It leads to what I was doing when he pruned me
driving aimlessly from one side of the United States to the
other, wondering what I was going to do when I ran out of
gasmoney.
The road had been straight, and I'd been cruising along in
over-drive at an indicated seventy-five. Td seen the guy come
up from behind,.and if he wanted to travel faster than I was
going, thatwashisbusiness. UntQhemadeitmine, too.
I led as the flat ended and we had a hill to climb. A hill
with a blind right turn at the top. As soon as I felt the grade
imder my tires I kicked down into direct drive to keep up my
revs and my pace. I checked the guy behind me and saw him
take a couple of quick, nervous jerks toward the center line. I
didn't speed up for him or slow down. I drove my own speed,
figuring that once we were up the hill and aroimd the turn,
I'dwavehimbyiftheroadwas clear.
Then he did it. Just as we hit the yellow no-passing line.
He pulled out and started past, racing toward that blind turn
at the top of the hill. And just about that time a cattle-truck
poked its big nose around the turn, coming down the hill.
Maybe I was slow because I was used to professional driv-
ers. It took me a big second to realize that the guy wasn't
going to back oflE and duck in behind me. He was going to try
passing if it killed him, and me, and the load of steers on the
truck.
I knew he couldn't make it, cursed him for a fool, and
backed oflF, so he coidd cutin ahead of me. When he went by
I saw him look at me, spit out a dirty word, and go for my
frontend.
I hit the brakes as he looked over his right shoulder and
cut across my left fender, trying to shave it and scare me oflE
5
the road. Then he was past, and pulling away, and I was
afterhim.
A race driver who takes up a challenge on the highway is
like «a fighter who lets himself get sucked into a barroom
brawl, it's dumb, it doesn't pay dime one, and you can ruin
yourself. But I wasn't a race driver any more. I was an
ex-racedriver. AndIwasmad.
Itookafterhim.
I don't know why he picked that particular way to choose
me. Maybe he noticed the signs of a track-weary stocker.
Hubcaps missing, a body whose rippled and battered skin
showed the wounds of competition and the effects of being
imder the hammer too many times. Maybe he saw where the
big 22 I used to carry had been painted out. Maybe he saw
all that, and wanted to do it the hard way, on a hiH with a
turn.
Whatever it was, the minute the guy went past I was after
him. It was as though his passing car had ripped away the
apathy Td felt ever since I hit the road to nowhere. Suddenly
Iwasalive again, andmad.
Stupid? Sure it was stupid. But the second my foot went
down I was in a race. And a race is a race, whether it's at
Langhome, Darlington, Gardena, Daytona Beach, or High-
way6.
Imovedup.
The guy ahead of me was driving an Olds. Faster than my
car on Ae straight, and more lightning from a stop to a start
But he wanted to race aroimd turns, and that's where I had
hirnbytheshims.
I watched him. When he saw I was after him he opened
up and almost stood the Olds on its ear going through a hard
right turn. I slid aroimd behind him, in the groove, and came
up on his tail. I was close enough to see him take a quick
look in his rear-vision mirror as I closed in, then the Olds
coughedalittle smoke asheflooredit.
There was no hurry. I was mad, but I wanted to teach him
a lesson he'd never forget A lesson about passing other peo-
ple on hills and turns, and cutting in too soon. I teased hhn. I
moved in closer, until I was almost breathing down his neck.
He kept sneaking looks in therear-vision mirror, to see what I
was doing. When he did, I was close enough to see that he
had a fat red face and egg-like eyes. There was a dark suit
6
jacket hung up on a window hanger on the right side of the
car. I guessedthesamplecaseswereinthetrunk.
I pushed him, and he was easy to push. It's an old racing
trick, and it can make even a good driver blow up once in a
while. He hit into turns with his tires screeching and his front
end dipping like the bow of a small boat. I stuck with him,
pushing,.making him go faster than he wanted to go, or
shouldhavegone.
I stayed on top of him imtil he got rattled and tried too
hard. He began taking the turns faster, rougher/ and I
dropped back a little. I was still close enough to crowd, but
with room to swing away ifhe got panicky and braked wrong
'on a turn androlled. Because Iwantedhim toroll.
A nice game for a grown-up man to play. Sporting thing
for a pro to do to an amateur. Proud deed to recite to St
?eter. There had been a time, not too long ago, when I did
my bit beginning at ten thousand feet It began gracefully,
and then out of the steep turn I would roll on my back and
point down. That's the way a dive-bomber went. Slightly up-
side down. When you were hanging by your safety belt you
had the right angle, and you went for your target. And when
you leveled off you were at eight hundred feet, flying through
the smoke and dust of other bombs, bouncing back into ti&e
skylike arubberball.
Some guys never pulled out They had what the psycholo-
gists call **target hypnosis." You look so hard at where you're
going, you go into a trance and keep going imtil you hit But
Qiat never bothered me. We were flying close support for the
army troops outside of Davao in the southern Philippines,
and bombing was a chore to be performed every other day.
There were no enemy aircraft and practically no groimd fire.
It was just a long, dull flight to a dive, and then back home
again. Impersonal, routine. Nothing to get wound up about,
andnothingtounwindagainst.
Butithad been different on the track.
Different when the guys you were fighting were wheel to
wheel with you, when you ate their clods and breathed their
fmnes and smelled their burning rubber. Especially different
when the sound of yom: engine winding out became the ugly
sound of Thelma's mocking laughter. Because she knew you
were a prisoner of the race, and she knew where you were
and what you were doing, but you didn't know about her.
7
—
And after what she had done once and got away with it, she
liked to tease, and keep you in doubt Hoping you'd get so
wild youd loll yourself. But you didn't oblige. You had death
on your mind, all right, but itwas for the guy ahead ofyou
who suddenly became the one she'd cheated with or, for all
you knew, was still cheating with. And everytime somebody
got too close, it was the same thing, until you'd been thrown
off all the tracks. And here you were trying to Idll again, on
the highway. Because it was a race, and a race brougnt it all
back.
The Olds was climbing toward ninety again when I was
ready. I had my plan worked out and I was ready to make it
work. Even if it killed us both. That Olds was my target and
I had to go in on it Had to. Whenever my turn showed
ahead.
It hadn't taken me long to figure the guy's driving habit?.
He went like hell on the short straights, waited until he was
almost in the turn to brake hard, then picked up his speed
coming out It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good. It got him
around the tiuns, but it was rough on his brakes, and they
were beginning to show signs of fade. I kept my foot off the
brake. I'd seen so many turns I could judge them at a look.
Coming on a turn I'd back off the throttle a little so I could
hit it fast, but with plenty of reserve horses to pull me
around. That way I'd get into the turn fast, with the revs up,
just a little slower than it could be taken. When I got in I
tromped, andtherewasthepowerIneededtopuD me aroimd.
It's the way to take turns when you know your car and a way
to die if you misjudge how much power you'll have to call
up on the turn. But, I knew how much I had, and when.
I set the guy up by faking a couple of passes on the left.
I'd move up on him, and when I did he played it ture to
fomu He moved in front of me. I grinned and nipped at his
flanks again, pulling him over to the left to block me. He
began to worry more about me than the road.
Then I saw my turn. A wide curve to the right Itwas time
tomoveinfortheIdlL
We roared at the turn and I faked to the left again. When
he pulled over to block me, he was going into the turn, and
caught on the outside. He started around on the rim in a big,
wide arc. The kind that rolls nice new automobiles on their
thin, shiny tops. I kicked the Hudson and took the straight
8