Quick (19 page)

Yep, that’ll work just fine.

~ * ~

10

Ding.

A light blinks on over the second elevator to the right and Billy moves to it. Though his subconscious didn’t decipher the riddle of Kurt’s list, the Australian did sleep well. He can’t help but wonder if it had something to do with him thinking about Ms Jolie Laide before he nodded off.

Though it was a good sleep it was also a short one. He woke at four a.m. to relieve the Frenchman who was staking out Kurt’s room, from, of all places, the spot near where Billy hid in the ceiling. The stakeout revealed nothing except the fact that the Austrian didn’t leave his room all night, then had room service deliver a continental breakfast at eight a.m.

The elevator door slides open.

Ms Jolie Laide stands inside, beside the right button panel in all her alabaster-skinned, platinum-blonde glory. Billy steps in, takes up a position on the opposite side of the elevator and smiles pleasantly.

Man, it’s like staring at the sun.

She is the most interesting-looking woman he has ever set eyes on. Are those butterflies in his chest? What the hell is that about? He
never
has butterflies.

She nods. ‘Hello there.’

‘Hey.’

‘We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Franka. Franka Edlebrock.’ She extends a hand.

Billy shakes it. ‘Hello Franka Franka. I’m Billy Hotchkiss.’

‘No no, just one Franka.’

‘Oh. My bad.’ A moment passes. ‘I thought it might be a German thing to do a double name thing ... ‘ He trails off.

‘I’m Swiss.’

‘Oh, I thought German was a Franka name. I mean Franka was a German name. I apologise for the error. No one should be German unless they have to be . . .’ He trails off. ‘That didn’t come out right. I love Germans. They’re good at soccer and they make the best stuff . . .’ He trails off again. ‘Mercedes and Bosch and—Leica—to name just a few of them …’ He trails off once more.

Good God that was embarrassing.

She points at the button panel. ‘Going up or going down?’

‘Down.’ He points down, then realises it’s redundant and looks silly, so he puts his finger away. ‘Ground lever please. I mean ground
level . . .
Ground
lever
would mean there were a bunch of levers instead of buttons, which would just be ... weird …’

What on earth was that?

She presses the button. ‘That was very odd. Are you okay?’

‘Fine. No worries. Good.’

‘You seem nervous.’

‘Oh no no no.’

‘What are you nervous about?’

‘I said I wasn’t nervous.’

‘I think we both know that’s not true.’

A moment passes.

‘Why didn’t you come back to the pit lane after the race last night?’

‘I had to—I helped Kurt dig his car out of the kitty litter.’

‘Right. So you weren’t playing hard to get?’

What?

‘Oh, no no no.’

‘Good, that kind of nonsense never works on me.’

‘Right. Okay.’ He takes this in, extremely surprised. ‘You’re very ...’ He trails off.

Franka turns to him. ‘You start a sentence and not finish it a lot.’ She illustrates it by moving her hand so it looks like a sea snake swimming through water while it sinks.

‘I don’t do that.’

‘Sure you do.’

‘
Forthright.
That’s what I was going to say. You’re very forthright.’

‘You don’t have forthright women in Australia?’

‘Oh God yes.’

‘Would you have said that to me if I was a man?’

He’s surprised by the question. ‘Umm, yes. Probably. I don’t know actually. Maybe not. No.’

‘Let me give you a tip: don’t say it to women.’ She whispers conspiratorially: ‘Makes you sound like a bit of a misogynist.’

‘I didn’t mean it in a negative way. I was—it was just an honest observation, like how you pointed out the trailing off thing . . .’ He trails off.

She makes the snaky hand movement. ‘You’re doing it again.’

‘I’m hearing it now.’

She studies him. ‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’

Billy raises his eyebrows, genuinely confused. ‘Good at what?’

She smiles. ‘Exactly.’

What does that mean?

She smiles. ‘You seem uncomfortable.’

‘To be uncomfortable I’d have to understand what’s happening —’

Ding.

‘See you.’ The elevator doors slide open and Franka steps into the busy lobby. He watches her disappear into the crowd.

~ * ~

Sweet FA.

It’s five in the p.m. and Billy’s been trawling the Sepang track pit paddock looking for clues since nine this morning. He has discovered sweet FA. He’s spoken to at least a hundred different people but picked up no leads, or even mildly interesting information that could in any way help him identify the Three Champions. It has ended up as the equivalent of a fishing expedition during which he has caught an old boot.

This is one of those days that make him wonder if instead of chasing jewel thieves maybe he could be doing something more worthwhile with his life. He instantly pushes the thought from his mind. There’s no point ruminating about such things in the middle of an investigation. And if he really thinks about it, by arresting the Three Champions he will be making the world a safer place— certainly if the destruction they caused on Collins Street is anything to go by.

The only saving grace for the day is that conversation he had with Franka this morning. Was it his imagination or was she flirting with him? Man, he’d really like to see her again and find out.

He enters the Iron Rhino HQ. It’s nice and cool in there. He stands in the middle of reception, looks up at the television screen that hangs on the wall and watches the race as the air-con does its thing. The Grand Prix has been running for an hour and barring a catastrophic mechanical problem, the Mercedes of former world champion Lewis Hamilton will lead home his teammate, Nico Rosberg.

The Iron Rhino HQ is a hive of activity, technicians hard at work crunching data that is being harvested from the cars in real time. Their number one driver, the wiry Belgian Christophe Vandelay, is currently fifth, an excellent position considering the Iron Rhino is not the fifth fastest car. It is, in truth, the seventh fastest, after the Red Bulls, the Ferraris, the Lotuses, the Mercedes, the McLarens and the Force Indias, not a great position when there are only eleven teams. Considering each team has two cars, fourteenth is pretty much the best Iron Rhino can hope for. So finishing fifth today would not only be a very successful outing, it would net the team a swag of championship points, which are extremely valuable when the prize money is divvied up and paid out at the end of the season. The more points a team has, the more dough they get from the commercial rights holder, which runs Formula One. Even one point for a tenth place finish can be worth millions.

Vandelay’s car will have difficulty holding on to fifth though, which he reached after a good start from the rear of the grid when he overtook twelve cars by going around a bottleneck at the first corner. Unfortunately only the great drivers can make a mediocre car perform above its inherent design flaws and Vandelay, as good as he is, is not one of them. The second Iron Rhino car is long out of the race, having been flamboyantly introduced to the kitty litter at the end of the pit straight on lap one. The driver, New Zealander Kevin Webster, overcooked his entry into the first corner, hoping to brake late and make up positions. Unfortunately his ego was writing cheques his talent couldn’t cash and he bumped wheels with a McLaren as he turned in, broke the right front suspension strut then skied across the gravel trap to an ignominious DNF (did not finish) against the safety fence.

Once sufficiently cooled by the air-conditioning, Billy makes his way along the walkway to the room Dieter assigned them. The Australian wants to collate everything he knows with the Frenchman, see if there are any connections to be made, then scan some more security tapes before they leave for the next race, in Dubai, this evening. He hopes Claude has had more luck and uncovered something useful.

Billy sees the Frenchman enter their room. ‘Anything?’

A scowl and a shake of the head tells him Claude’s had no luck either. They push open the door, walk in—and realise they’re in the wrong room.

‘We’re the next one along.’ The Frenchman turns to go but Billy doesn’t move, just stares at the machine in front of him. It’s a platform elevated three feet off the ground by hydraulic actuators. Bolted to the platform is the cockpit section of an F1 car, from the air intake behind the driver forward to a point halfway along the nose where it disappears through a gigantic, curved, one hundred and eighty degree video screen.

‘Cool beans.’

Claude studies the machine. ‘What is it?’

‘A race simulator.’ Billy moves towards it, drinks it in, fascinated. ‘For drivers to practise on, so they can learn different tracks.’

‘Yes, I know that. What I meant was, what are these “cool beans”?’

‘Oh. It’s just a saying.’ Billy climbs the short flight of steps to the platform, studies the simulator.

‘Should you be doing that?’

Billy studies the curved screen. ‘Relax, I’m just having a stickybeak.’

A moment passes.

‘But why is it a saying? “Cool beans”.’

‘I don’t know. It’s just a—it’s nothing, a turn of phrase.’ The Australian leans into the cockpit section of the simulator. Up close it’s surprisingly small and narrow, like a kayak with delusions of grandeur. ‘No wonder they prefer tiny drivers. They’re the only ones who could fit in the thing.’

‘But why are the beans cool? If they’re not cold they must have been cooked. Were they warmed up then left out because they were too hot, which is why they’re now cool?’

‘You’re overthinking the beans, mate.’ Billy kneels down, takes in the tiny steering wheel which is covered in a myriad of buttons, switches and dials. ‘It’s not cool as in
temperature
, it’s cool as in, you know,
cool.
Like ... Don Draper.’

‘Is he the one who cooked the beans?’

‘Nobody cooked any beans. And Don Draper is, you know— don’t you guys have
Mad Men
in France?’

‘We have plenty of crazy people but what has that got to do with the beans?’

‘Nothing
. It has nothing to do with the beans. And I’m not talking about actual crazy people, I’m talking about the American TV show
Mad Men.
You know, Don Draper, the ad guy played by Jon Hamm. He’s always smoking cigarettes and rooting around. I’m surprised you don’t know it. I thought the French loved doing that stuff.’

Claude stares at Billy in total confusion: ‘Does this mean you serve
ham
with the beans?’

Billy’s head drops to his chest, exhausted by the conversation.
‘‘Ohmigod, forget
the fuckin’ beans. Please. I meant “cool” as in, you know, unflappable.’

‘Unflappable beans?’

Billy regards him wearily. ‘Yes Claude,
unflappable
beans.
That’s
what I meant.’

The Frenchman looks at him brightly. ‘Really?’

‘Of course not! I’m being sarcastic.’ Billy turns and steps into the simulator’s cockpit, squeezes himself through the narrow opening and sits down on the sculpted yet rock-hard carbon fibre seat. It’s an extremely tight fit. He tries to get comfortable but grazes the back of his right hand on the rough carbon fibre edge of the cockpit as he does it. It stings like a mofo.

‘Should you be doing that?’

‘Good Lord, take a pill Claudette, I’m just having a look. I may never get the chance again.’ Billy studies the instrument panel. ‘How is it that you’re such an old scaredy-cat?’

‘I’m not a scaredy-cat, I’m
cautious
and that’s how I became old. I know plenty of young
dead
guys who weren’t —’

‘It was a rhetorical question.’ Billy scans the cockpit and notices a small flat switch to the left that looks out of place. It’s labelled with two words:
Boot Rom.
He flicks it on and the cockpit lights up, the giant curved screen in front of him blinks to life and a computer hard drive spins up with a high-pitched whirr somewhere nearby. The screen flickers and an image is displayed. Billy takes in a bright blue sky above a dark grey track. It’s like he’s looking down the Sepang circuit’s pit straight while sitting on the start line. The animation has been painstakingly rendered and almost looks lifelike. Representations of the vehicle’s wheel are visible to the left and right beside the point where the cockpit’s nose meets the screen. ‘Excellent.’

A three-word instruction blinks up on the screen in front of him.

PULL TO START

‘What do I pull?’ He says it to himself.

Claude hears it. ‘You’ll work it out. I’m sure you’ve done plenty of it in the past.’

‘Wow, that was so funny I forgot to laugh in the present.’