MINDFUL THAT ISAAC BELL was watching him like a hawk, Marco Celere waited patiently to have a private conversation with Josephine. He made sure he was never alone with her until after she arrived at Palm Springs. Only the next morning, while they fueled the machine for the short flight to Los Angeles, did he dare to chance speaking. They were alone, pouring gasoline into the overhead gravity tank, while the mechanicians joined the police in clearing spectators from the field.

Josephine spoke first. “Who died in the fire?”

“I found a body in the hobo jungle. Now Platov doesn’t exist.”

“Dead already?”

“Of course. A poor old man. They die all the time. What did you think?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Maybe married life confuses you.”

“What do you mean?”

“What is it like?” Marco teased. “Being Mrs. Preston Whiteway?”

“I postponed my ‘honeymoon’ until after the race. You know that. I told you I would.”

Marco shrugged. “This is like opera buffa.”

“I don’t know anything about opera.”

“Opera buffa is the funny kind. Like vaudeville comics.”

“This is not funny to me, Marco.”

“To me, it’s worth getting shot.”

“How? Why?”

“It’s just that if something were to happen to Preston Whiteway, you would inherit his newspaper empire.”

“I don’t want his empire. I just want to fly aeroplanes and win this race.” She searched his face, and added, “And be with you.”

“I suppose that I should feel grateful you still feel that way.”

“What would happen to Preston?”

“Oh, now Mr. Whiteway is ‘Preston’?”

“I can’t call my husband Mr. Whiteway.”

“No, I suppose you can’t.”

“Marco, what is it? What are you getting at?”

“I just wonder, will you keep helping me?”

“Of course . . . What did you mean, if something happens to Preston?”

“Such as Harry Frost, your insanely jealous former husband, murdering your new husband.”

“What are you saying?”

Marco reached over and turned back the sleeve of her blouse, uncovering the bandaged bullet wound on her forearm. “Nothing you don’t already know about the man.”

Chapter 38

38

A LOUD, BRIGHT CARNIVAL pitched its tents near Dominguez Field, just south of Los Angeles, and was doing a roaring business from the spillover of the quarter-million spectators who thronged to cheer the arrival of the last two contestants for the Whiteway Cup and send them off to Fresno in the morning.