“Would there be an advantage to a team member operating it? A spotter, for instance.”

“I imagine a spotter would have a better sense of when to turn it on and when to turn it off.” Sikulski closed the file on his computer. “You understand, this wireless technology could have other uses. It’s total James Bond, Mission Impossible shit.”

Hooker and I were in his Mooresville house, in front of his big-screen plasma, watching a ball game, eating Thanksgiving pizza. Beans was on the couch with us, waiting for scraps of crust, looking happy to be home.

I was happy to be home, too, but I couldn’t get rid of the anxiety that periodically fluttered through my chest. Helping Gobbles had seemed like the decent thing to do. And if I had to do it all over again, I’d still try to help him. I just wish it had turned out better. If only we hadn’t left Beans in the hauler…

“I was just so tired,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking right.”

Hooker looked over at me. “I missed the first half of that.”

“I’m worried.”

Hooker slid an arm around my shoulders. “It’ll work out okay. I’ve got a feeling.”

“Another feeling? You’ve got a lot of feelings these days.”

“You don’t know the half of it. I’m a hotbed of feelings. If you’d just stop being mad at me, I’d explain some of them to you.”

“I’m not mad at you. I’m disappointed. You broke my heart.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Do you want the last piece of pizza? Would that make us even?”

“You slept with a salesclerk! You can’t equate that with the last piece of pizza.”

“You don’t know much about men,” Hooker said. “And this isn’t any old pizza. This is extra cheese and pepperoni.”

“Not many people working the day after Thanksgiving,” Hooker said, looking over my shoulder.

I was at my desk in my little cubicle at the Stiller R amp; D center, and I’d been the only person in the building until Hooker showed up.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Process of elimination. You weren’t home, and it’s too early in the morning for the mall to be open.”

“I wanted to look at race tapes. And I had some models I wanted to run.”

“Trying to gather evidence?”

“Yes.”

“Having any luck?”

“I went over Shrin’s car and found a chip on the engine. It’s in worse shape than the one I got off the sixty-nine, but I’m hoping Steven can do something with it. I looked at it under a microscope, but I only know enough to see some remains of basic circuitry.”

“What about the second chip? The sister chip to the one you found in the gearshift knob?”

“I didn’t take Nick’s car apart, but I looked in the obvious places and I didn’t find a second chip.”

“Maybe we should take it apart.”

I’d tossed and turned all night with a long list of crimes replaying in my head. Multiple counts of grand-theft auto, destruction of personal property, withholding evidence, assault and battery, mutilation of a dead guy! I didn’t want to add to the list.

“It would be good if we had permission,” I said to Hooker.

“I’ll call Bingo,” Hooker said. “It shouldn’t be a problem. The car is trash anyway.”

Bingo is Nick’s crew chief. He has three terrific kids, and a nice wife, and he was probably at the breakfast table eating leftover pumpkin pie.

I saved my computer program and swiveled in my seat, waiting for Hooker to get off the phone.

“Bingo wants to be here when you tear the car down,” Hooker said.

“No he doesn’t. He has a family, and he doesn’t want to be part of this. Tell him if we find something, we’ll tell him when it’s safe for him to know.”

By noon I was fairly certain there wasn’t a second chip. Either it had been removed, or for some reason it wasn’t part of the program.

Hooker was helping with the cleanup. “Most drivers know about cars,” he said, wiping down a wrench. “I pretty much only know about driving. I can change the oil, I know the language, and I know some engineering, but I can’t rebuild a carburetor. Didn’t have an aversion to it, just never got around to it. I’d drive, and the guys I hung out with would drink beer. And then they’d fix my car, and I’d drink beer.”

“You had a division of labor.”

Hooker grinned. “Yeah. We were all specialists.”

I wrestled the last tire back onto the car and tightened the lug nuts. “I love everything mechanical. I’ve been working with cars for as long as I can remember. I like the way they fit together. I like the way they sound, and the way they smell. I like the challenge of getting all the parts to work efficiently. I love my job in R and D, but sometimes I miss working in my dad’s garage.”

“Why do you suppose Shrin’s car didn’t have the second chip?”

I jacked the car down. “I don’t know. I guess someone could have removed it, but that would mean there was a third Stiller employee involved, and I find that hard to believe. The car was immediately loaded into the truck by its crew, so I doubt Horse or Baldy had access. I’m guessing that for whatever reason, the second chip wasn’t needed.

“I’m meeting Steven at four o’clock. I’m hoping he can tell me something interesting. And this time let’s remember to bring the remote. I thought it might be helpful if we took it with us for Steven to see.”

“This is very interesting,” Sikulski said, studying the new chip. “This is diabolical. It looks to me like this little gem self-destructed.”

He had all three chips under magnification and the guts of the remote exposed. He turned his attention to the chip I’d taken off the 69 engine.

“The two chips appear to be similar. Same size and same materials used in construction,” he said. “They’re both too damaged to get a good read on the circuitry. Do you see this little bump right here on the original engine chip? I suspect this is the self-destruct charge. It wasn’t activated. The remote you brought doesn’t talk to this chip. I could probably blow the charge manually, but it will melt what remains, and probably you don’t want to do that just yet.”

We left Steven with more questions than answers and couldn’t find much to say on the ride back to Huntersville.

“Would you feel safer at my house?” Hooker asked.

“Yes, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

He dropped me at my door and rolled away. I trudged upstairs and went to my desk to catch up on e-mail. A little after seven I took a break and looked out the window at Topper’s. Everyone was back from the holiday and the bar was filling up. I suspected Spanky would be there tonight to bask in his glory. It was the place Hooker would most like not to be, but I thought a Spanky spectacle held some potential. At the very least it was a diversion from my dead-end thoughts.

I swiped on some mascara and lip gloss, gave my hair a shot of hair spray, sashayed across the street to Topper’s, and claimed the bar stool next to my upstairs neighbor Dan.

“Has he come in yet?” I asked.

“Spanky? No. He’s waiting to make an entrance. He’ll be in around eight when he knows the place will be packed. Did you come to see the show?”

“I thought it might be fun.”

“It’s going to be painful. I had to get shit-faced before I could write the story for the last race. I can’t believe this guy won. There’s no justice in this world. I swear, halfway through the season it was like the sixty-nine car was driving itself.”

“Huevo had a good setup on that car.”

“Huevo had a magic setup on that car.” Cox looked around. “Where’s Hooker? He’s usually half an inch behind you.”

“He’s staying in tonight.”

“There were two guys looking for him earlier. Not from around here, but I think I saw them at Homestead. One guy looked like he’d had his head run over by a train.”