Midnight Club by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page B

one for Mike’s Submarines.” The old man finally cracked a wry, country smile.
    It took another twenty minutes to get the participants in the miracle mile ready at the start. Stefanovitch spotted Pierce a few places down the line. The two of them laughed and flashed victory signs. He could tell that Pierce was primed to kick his butt, ready to mop him up in the four-lap race.
    He remembered two things Pierce had told him about racing the first time they’d met. One was to watch the lead racer, no one else. Otherwise you could get lost back in a slow pack and wind up completely out of the race.
    The second thing was that the difference between first place and the middle of the pack was a matter of how you stroked your wheelchair. Stefanovitch had been working on his stroke almost every night in Gracie Square Park, even out on the streets of New York while he was working.
    The starter’s pistol suddenly exploded, and the fifteen men in wheelchairs accelerated off the line with surprising quickness and agility.

18
    THIS WAS HIS first really top-drawer competitive race, and he wanted to do respectably. Certainly, the torture sessions at his gym had given him a body that looked as if it could compete with the others. He’d know soon enough.
    The lead racer for the first quarter-mile was a black guy in a fireplug-red T-shirt and white visor. He was burning up the track. Stefanovitch wondered if he could last at that pace. He doubted it, and he was right.
    In the second quarter, the black racer dropped back to second. Then to third. Stefanovitch stayed in his position, about halfway back in the pack.
    The new leader was in a low-slung racer that looked like a soapbox-derby special.
    Pierce Oates was in third place now, stroking beautifully. Pierce looked as if he could race at that speed all day.
    The third quarter was physically and mentally tougher, even in the middle of the cruising pack. Stefanovitch’s arms began to tense up, becoming hard as rock, petrified from the biceps down into the finger joints.
    He started to panic. He was losing steam, noticeably so. He wondered about the others. He was jerking the chair instead of stroking. The other racers all looked smooth and relaxed.
    Another racer passed him, a balding, willowy man with “Stokes-Manville Games” emblazoned in bright blue on his shirt. Stokes-Manville was the important international race held in England every year. If the willowy guy had competed there, he had to be good, and dedicated, too.
    Stefanovitch didn’t feel like he was gliding now. His arms were almost rock-hard; the pain was spreading like fire into his upper shoulders.
    If he had anything left, he had to make a serious move soon. If he had anything left.
    He went for it at the start of the fourth quarter. A strong shot of adrenaline kicked in. Second-wind time. Pride, fear, one or the other was working on him. Fingers of some powerful unseen hand were making him stroke.
    He passed Stokes-Manville.
    Then the bullet-headed black guy who had led the race in the beginning.
    Pierce Oates was moving into the lead now. Pierce looked invincible. He was stroking, really stroking!
    A fast final quarter would take about fifty-five seconds in a top wheelchair race. He’d done that well in practice. The average mile time might be anywhere from three minutes and forty-five seconds to four minutes.
    The pain in his arms was excruciating—his biceps were numb. His chest was on fire.
    The crowd was screaming at all the racers. They were really into it. That part of the feeling was great, exhilarating and completely unexpected.
    Each breath Stefanovitch took roared through his lungs. He felt as if his chest were being torn apart.
    He had to make his move. He had no idea what he had left inside, how much of the second wind remained.
    He kept his eyes on Pierce Oates’s golden yellow shirt, the sheath of his back muscles.
    The stroke is everything, he reminded himself one more time. Nothing but the stroke