“The Pretenders to the Throne”

aka

“Re:  Nite Run to Cal-Neva”

aka

“The Chase gets Sticky (but we’re all using protection, right?)”

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CHAPTER 1

Two weeks after a mysterious package was left in Duiffin's car while he
attended a car show, Duiffin and the Funkraum were pushing the battered
412 towards the Cal-Neva, an AAF hideaway on the fringes of the
California-Nevada desert.  Tucked away in the tiny hamlet of Hell's
Gate, near California's border with Nevada and within the confines of
the Death Valley National Park, the Cal-Neva had once been a bordello,
operating illegally as a rest stop for miners heading north.  By the
1930's, it was a rumrunner's paradise.  Al Capone's west coast
lieutenants were moving hundreds of cases of Mexican tequila into Los
Angeles and San Francisco, and they needed a waystation.  Soon, the
Cal-Neva went nearly underground.  Tunnels had been carved beneath the
main structure, and in every nook and cranny booze was hidden from the
authorities.  After Capone was imprisoned, all the lieutenants scattered
or were killed by Bugsy Siegel's hunter-killers as he began his scouting
(some said scouring) of the Nevada deserts, a sort of prerequisite
leading up to the creation of his empire in Las Vegas.  The Cal-Neva
sank away into first a legend, then lore, and finally completely
abandoned and forgotten.

Then, one fine day late in the late 1960s, two AAF members were out at a
tiny race track in Bakersfield, California, turning some hot laps in
their 250 GTs and enjoying a little nip of Remy Martin to brace against
the stiff low desert wind.  John Karlson, the ageless wonder, still not
looking a day over 35 though he was rumored to be nearly 70, and his
good friend Eddie Pastorelli, who'd made his fortune in pizza dough,
co-owned the track and used it exclusively for running laps in their own
cars.  (They later sold the track to some hick outfit called NASCAR, and
they re-named it the Mesa Marin Raceway.  It's now used mainly for
Monster Truck qualifiers on Friday nights for the local tobbacco-chewers
and their horsey girlfriends.  There isn't much else to do in Bakersfield.)

On this day the two were preparing to run one last lap.  Karlson wanted
to sweeten the pot a bit.  "I've got some land on the Nevada border.  It
isn't worth sh.t now, but if Vegas keeps taking off it could be someday.
On the other hand, there's an abandoned whorehouse somewhere on it
that might make a great AAF pit stop, don't you think?  We could put
electric fences in, a gun range, the whole works.  Nobody comes in
except AAF and significant others.  This lap – slowest gets to build it,
winner gets to sit in a lawn chair with a drink and watch."  Karlson was
generally the faster driver of the two, but he was reckless.  It wasn't
for nothing that Pastorelli was known as "Slow and Steady Eddie".

"Deal, ice cream boy.  I'm gonna wax ya this time.  I got the fresher
tires."

"Fat chance, Steady Eddie.  Your tires are fresher because you're slower
than a granny driving a pace car.    You'll be so far back you won't
even see my dust."

Sure enough, Karlson spun into the dirt on the second turn and Steady
Eddie played the tortoise, crossing the finishing line first.  The
following spring, he sat in a lawn chair drinking a Pina Colada while
Karlson, wearing a Scuderia Ferrari hard hat and sitting atop a Bobcat,
snifter of VSOP in hand, cracked ground on the new parking lot for the
AAF Cal-Neva Club.

The club was a hit when it opened.  It had that "James Bond hideaway"
feel, with its private martini lounges and downstairs humidor/wine
cellar and cigar lounge, but with sleeping accommodations for 20 and
room underground for 50 cars.  It also had a hunting-lodge feel, with
rough-hewn logs and polished railroad ties for walls and flooring.
There were discreet downstairs gun ranges, weapons storage and
maintenance, and also a garage and full-time mechanic.  Some of the
European AAF members stored a car there for their trips to Vegas or
Scottsdale.  The invitation-only Christmas parties were the stuff of
legend.  The only nod to glamour came from the silver 1958 250 LWB Tour
De France, beautifully restored, that hung from a chandelier
installation in the foyer.  Serial number 1113GT, it had narrowly
survived a horrific crash at an old-timer's event at Monza, and its
owner/driver feared driving it again.  Seeing a wonderful, hanging-car
installation at the previous year's Goodwood Revival, he'd hired the
artist to do the same at the Cal-Neva with his beloved car.  Funkraum
sighed deeply every time he saw that car.  He had made several bids on
it over the years, only to have the owner turn him back, saying it was
cursed to drive but beautiful to look at so it must stay where it is.
Funkraum often wished it were legal to shoot him and take the car outright.

In the later years the Cal-Neva had become something of anachronism;
many of the Ferrari owners in the region now were new-monied, gold chain
playboy types who knew nothing of the Ferrari mystique and were
therefore barred from the Cal-Neva and in fact the entire AAF network.
Though it was possible for them to "get it", it took time.  The regular
AAF members did not consider themselves ambassadors for a cause.  They
were not there to teach the way of the tifosi, the mystery of the Rossa
Corsa.  There were no courses offered on proper Ferrari appreciation at
the Cal-Neva, or any of the AAF properties.  When a Ferrari owner
achieved the proper level, when he or she "got it", of course entry was
automatic.  But for now, the Cal-Neva entertained only a trickle of club
members and their guests, though the facilities had been kept up to
snuff.  Occasionally, royalty arrived from the Monterey Historics or the
Corsa; one year Dan Gurney and Phil Hill swore they drank Drambuie with
the ghosts of Mike Hawthorne and Gilles Villeneuve in the upstairs
library.  Sometimes big-shot Ferrari dealers or customers visited the
Cal-Neva - Ron Tonkin and Jamiroquai had blown through recently, and
they were granted an honorary membership for the day only, with limited
privileges.  If anybody's level of Ferrari devotion was lacking, or
their story smelled too much like bullshit, they were out on their ear.
 Shields on a road car got you laughed off the premises.  Even a
much-renowned NBA player was physically ejected onto the Cal-Neva
driveway when his F50 was discovered to be repainted purple, shod with
non-OEM tires and sporting twenty-two inch, gold-chromed Daytons with
spinners.   Yes, the Cal-Neva remained exclusive and exclusionary, even
in its declining years.  So it was only fitting that now, in a time of
danger for the Cal-Neva, the two AAF members most in decline themselves
were now halfway across the desert speeding towards it – desperately
trying to think of a way to save it (or at least some of the wine
cellar) from total destruction!

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CHAPTER 2

Our dashing duo were, indeed, halfway across the Mojave desert, an hour
or so from the Cal-Neva.  After driving through Ballarat, a real ghost
town, they lost an hour's time somewhere called Surprise Canyon, where
they had stopped to urinate in the open desert only to be the subject of
a small-scale but painful fire ant attack.  There were only 30 or so
ants, but these ants had the human male anatomy down cold and soon
Funkraum and Duiffin were doing the Funky Chicken around the 412.

Now they were stopped at a convenience store in Harrisburg, just inside
the Death Valley National Park gates.  Harrisburg was a forgotten husk
of a town sprawled over 47 acres of prime California low desert
wasteland.  At the minimart Duiffin went inside to inquire about
imported beer and Bactine while Funkraum used the pay phone, which was
in the parking lot at the edge of the asphalt and quite close to what
was very obviously a rattlesnake hole.  Funkraum scratched at his
privates while dialing the international number and amusedly kicked dirt
at a lazy and engorged female rattler sunning herself on top of a dirt
mound.

"Smithers.  What do you hear about Blofelt?"  Funkraum now kicked a bit
more excitedly at a large-ish male rattlesnake pouring out of a hole in
the mound to investigate this big, foul-smelling heat source.  Funkraum
listened intently to Smithers but eyed his potential adversary's movements.

"The Brosnan Iteration?  Hmmm ... heavy artillery.  Wouldn't have
expected it over a videotape.  What about the Cal-Neva?"  Another kick
at the now-coiling male, about to be joined by the agitated female.
Funkraum was happy he'd picked the Red Wing ST ankle-highs to complement
his safari suit.

"8:30?  Thermite delivery system.  North Korean in origin.  Total
destruction.  Right.  We'll make a stop prior to impact, then leave by
Lear from Las Vegas if all works out.  Have the plane gassed and ready.
 That should be it, Smithers.  I'm afraid stopping at home is out of
the question; we won't be near St. Thomas for a few days.  Please tell
the Missus I can't take her to dinner, but that she can take the
hovercraft up to Coki Point and eat at Romano's, if she cares.  Thank
you, Smithers - goodbye."  Funkraum hung up, drew a Ruger .22 from his
belt and fitted a silencer in one fluid motion, and dispatched the two
snakes.  He shook the dead male from it's fang-lodged postion on his
boot toe.

"Sorry, mates.  You made a wonderful couple."

He dug into his front pocket for his tin of Gawith Red Bull snuff and
had a couple snorts while waiting for his compatriot to secure the
provisions.

Duiffin struggled out the door of the AM/PM.  He had four six-packs of
Heineken, two pints of brandy, a jumbo bag of mini powdered donuts, a 32
oz. squeeze bottle of Bactine and what looked to be two four-packs of
rasberry wine coolers balanced in a shaky pyramid.  He looked at the
carnage around the Funk's feet.  "They don't stock Leffe!  Hey, are you
going to help me, St. Patrick, or are you going watch me boot it all away?"

Funkraum grabbed the wine coolers and the brandy.  "What in hell is this
– 'Night Train Razzy Sparklers', it says – are you using this for the
Alka-Seltzer, or in the tub?"

Duiffin looked petulant.  "I like to gargle with it in the morning.
What's it to you?  It adds a pleasantly boozy component to my morning
breath, which I happen to find a little 007-ish.  Piss off if you don't
like it."

They both lunged for the Bactine but Duiffin got it first, pulling the
front of his pants forward and spraying the cooling anesthetic directly
onto his groin area for at least 20 seconds.  Funkraum set down the wine
coolers and peered into Duiffin's pants.  "Going commando style these
days, old friend?  I told you it's more comfortable letting everything
swing!"  Duiffin looked at his area again, sighed contentedly, and
handed the Bactine to Funkraum, who repeated the application procedure
while continuing his report.

"Speaking of Bond, Smithers told me that Blofelt commissioned another
Brosnan Interation from that Russian scientist.  The old shithead.  How
sporting is that?  He would use TBI on us over something like a bloody
videotape.  On us, of all people.  I thought Blofelt used to like us.
Remember when we played cards with that ugly old bastard, paying for all
the Tokaji Aszu he could drink?  7 Puttonyos, yet.  I heard he never
bought anything better than 5 Puttonyos."

Duiffin sighed.  "That was one of the worst days of my life.  Apparently
you don't remember our quickie tour through downtown Monaco."

Funkraum acted as if he didn't hear Duiffin's lament.  "The man is an
international criminal, a kingpin, and we got to hang with him in a
private room at the most exclusive place in the municipality.  And now,
just because he couldn't play Texas Hold'em for sh.t, he has to come to
a knife fight with a nuke.  Imagine, sending a Brosnan Iteration after
merely a couple of Ferrari lovers who indulge in a little muckracking in
world politics once in awhile ..."

Duiffin scratched his balls.  "Could you shut up for one bloody minute?
I'm trying to think over here."

"And we know how hard that is."  Funkraum was always one for the witty
retort.

"Oh, for f.ck's sake.  Piss off."  So was Duiffin.

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more to come .... no additions at this time, please

MC