She nestled against him once more, and her hand moved between his thighs. ‘Jeez, you should get a license for that... So you want me to tell you why you got nowhere with Goldengirl. She’s a monster, that’s why. I tell you, lover hoy, Frankenstein had nothing on William Serafin. Maybe in time you’ll get to understand, but if it’s the real thing you want, you’ll have to settle for me.’ She rolled on her back, tugging him with her. ‘Now you can fuck me, Jack Dryden, and I don’t give a damn if it’s Goldengirl you think about, so long as you fuck me good.’
‘Nine-eight’ vows Manley screamed the sports page of San Diego’s daily, the
Crushed to the foot of the page by the promises of Manley and other stars appearing at the Coliseum, a paragraph coyly announced:
The state of the newspaper, saturated by exposure to steady rain, said more than all the column-inches of predictions. There would be no world-beating performances in the speed events. The guarantees issued with a rubberised, plastic-coated, nonskid, all-weather track didn’t yet include the sunshine essential to superlative sprinting. Even in San Diego in June it could rain on a Saturday.
Up in the Sierra Nevadas the visibility had been so poor by ten-thirty that the Jet Ranger was grounded for an hour, and even when they took off, the prospects of finding a safe route through the cloud screen looked slender.
As scheduled, Serafin, Lee and Klugman had left with Goldine in the Sikorsky, piloted by Lee’s technical assistant, Robb, at eight o’clock, before the visibility had deteriorated. The second party was made up of Dryden, Valenti, Brannon (one of the coaching team, who seemed to have the idea he was in charge) and the pilot who had flown them up from Cambria.
‘Ten flat in seventy-three. Compton Invitational,’ Brannon said, as if that established incontestably his status as flight commander. As he was six foot three in height and must have weighed 200 pounds, the assumption went unchallenged. After that, he relaxed enough to tell them, ‘I’m called Elmer,’ and said no more for the rest of the flight.
Piloting a helicopter through low cloud in the Sierras is not to be rushed. They eventually touched down at the San Diego Heliport at two twenty-five. A taxi delivered them to the stadium at two thirty-eight.
With the rain had come a gusty wind and a sharp drop in temperature. Spectators, dressed in the lightweights the climate entitled them to wear with confidence, had clustered in the center of the covered stand along the home stretch on the principle that there was warmth in numbers. The numbers actually ran to about one hundred fifty. If each competitor was represented by a relative or friend, that didn’t leave many there for the sport. This in no way discouraged the man in the public-address booth, who was working as hard as any World Series announcer.
