Chapter 40: New Wheels
"Mr. Lewis — this is what just came in."
Paulson led Simon to the center of the showroom floor and stopped.
The car sitting under the display lighting was a Ford Mustang GT — current model year, black with a broad blue racing stripe running nose to tail. The body was aggressive without being theatrical: muscular fenders, a hood that suggested the engine underneath meant business, the kind of presence that didn't need to announce itself.
305 horsepower, 4.6-liter V8. Five-speed manual. The GT package.
Simon walked around it once without saying anything.
"We have this floor model and one additional unit in our inventory," Paulson said, falling into his professional rhythm. "The second one is a premium trim, same engine. For the floor model we're looking at—"
"How much," Simon said.
Paulson gave him the number. One hundred thousand for the premium trim, out the door. Which was an interesting sentence given that the additional charges for registration, dealer fees, and California sales tax brought the actual number considerably north of that.
"We also have a relationship with the DMV office nearby," Paulson added, in the slightly quieter voice people used when describing arrangements that worked but weren't worth examining too closely. "Same-day plates, if you need them."
"Color on the second one?" Simon said.
"Red base. Blue stripe."
Simon thought about this for approximately four seconds.
Red with blue racing stripes was not low-profile. Red with blue racing stripes was the opposite of low-profile. Which meant it was the wrong car for surveillance work — but it was absolutely the right car for the quarter-mile invitational in December, which was what he was actually buying it for. The operational vehicle was a separate project. This was a racing investment.
"The red one," Simon said. "Today. Full cash."
Paulson blinked — the fractional pause of a salesperson recalibrating their read on a customer. Then he composed himself and got to work.
By eleven thirty, the paperwork was done, the plates were attached, and Simon was holding the keys.
He thanked Paulson, walked to the car, and got in.
The interior smelled like new upholstery and ambition. He adjusted the seat, checked the mirrors, inserted the key.
The 4.6 came to life with the low authoritative rumble of an engine that understood its purpose.
Simon pulled out of the dealership lot, found an on-ramp, and merged onto the freeway.
He gave it throttle.
The Mustang surged — not the measured, considered surge of a car that had been tuned for efficiency, but the honest, slightly raw surge of a machine that had been built to go fast and was now doing exactly that. Simon ran it up through the gears with the unhurried precision of someone who was simultaneously driving the car and reading it — listening to where the power came in, feeling where the suspension loaded up in corners, identifying the tolerances he'd need to understand before he started taking them apart.
The speedometer passed 100. Passed 110. Settled at 120 on a clear stretch of freeway with no traffic for a quarter-mile ahead.
Simon held it there for ten seconds. Long enough to hear the engine clearly, to feel the aerodynamics, to understand what the car was telling him about itself.
Then he backed down, moved to the right lane, and took the next exit.
The car was a foundation. A very good foundation. In its current form it was fast enough to be interesting and not fast enough to be useful. That was exactly where you wanted to start.
With six months of work and the mechanical knowledge he carried at Expert level, Simon could build it into something that would embarrass cars costing three times as much.
The timeline was the constraint. The invitational was in December — roughly ten weeks out. That wasn't enough time to do the full build, but it was enough time for the first phase: intake, exhaust, tune, supporting modifications to the fuel and cooling systems. Enough to push the output past 450, maybe 480 horsepower reliably. Add his driving skill to that number and the competition math started looking favorable.
The full build — the thing he was actually envisioning — would take until spring. By then the car would be unrecognizable under the hood and indistinguishable from a stock Mustang from the outside, which was exactly the profile he wanted.
He drove to Dom's garage.
The Mustang pulled into the lot and everything stopped.
Letty set down her wrench. Jesse leaned out from under a lift. Vince appeared in the bay door. Dom looked up from whatever he'd been doing to the Charger's engine bay.
"When did this happen?" Letty said.
"This morning," Simon said, getting out.
Jesse reached the front of the car in three seconds. "Pop the hood."
Simon released the latch.
The hood went up. The 4.6 V8 sat in the engine bay in the particular way that stock engines sat — tidy, conservative, every component where the factory had put it, none of it yet approaching its actual potential.
Letty stood at Simon's elbow and looked at it with the assessing expression of someone running numbers. "If you built this right — I mean really built it — you could push past a thousand horsepower."
"Eventually," Simon said.
"The cost would be—" Dom said.
"I know what the cost would be," Simon said. "That's phase three. Phase one is getting it to the invitational."
Dom looked at him. "You're running this in December?"
"That's the plan."
"You have ten weeks."
"I've seen what you can do in less."
Dom didn't argue with that. He looked at the engine bay again, then at Simon, with the particular expression he used when he'd decided something but wasn't going to announce it as a decision.
"We'll help," he said. Just that.
Simon nodded. He'd expected it, and he appreciated it, and he didn't make a production of either.
"Nobody's asking how I afforded it," Simon said.
"Nope," Letty said.
"Good."
He left the Mustang in the garage — Dom's people would do an initial inspection while Simon sourced the first round of parts — and borrowed Mia's car for the afternoon.
Race's Edge Automotive was on a commercial block fifteen minutes from the garage — a specialty shop that dealt in performance components, racing parts, and the specific knowledge that separated a car that went fast from a car that went fast reliably. It had no sign visible from the street, which was intentional, and a parking lot that was always full of vehicles in various states of becoming something better than they'd started as.
Simon pushed through the door.
Brian O'Conner was behind the counter, cross-referencing a parts list against a computer screen with the focused energy of someone who had found a professional context that suited him.
He looked up.
"Simon. You're not here for Supra parts."
"No."
Brian's expression shifted toward curiosity. "What happened?"
"I bought a Mustang this morning."
Brian was quiet for a moment, processing this. Then: "GT?"
"GT."
"Current year?"
"Current year."
"Full cash?" Brian said, with the tone of someone who had been around Simon long enough to anticipate the answer.
"Full cash."
"Racing money," Brian said — not a question, just placing it in the correct category.
"Something like that," Simon said.
Brian accepted this with the equanimity of someone who had learned that asking Simon for detailed financial explanations was a low-yield activity.
"What do you need?" Brian said.
Simon reached into his jacket and produced a single sheet of paper — handwritten, precise, organized by category. He set it on the counter.
Brian picked it up and started reading.
The list was thorough: cold air intake, long-tube headers, high-flow catalytic converters, performance exhaust, fuel pump upgrade, injectors, tune-ready ECU flash, upgraded cooling system components, reinforced motor mounts. The first phase of what would eventually be a comprehensive build.
Brian read it twice. Looked at the screen. Started cross-referencing.
"Some of this I have in back," he said. "The headers and the intake for sure. The ECU flash — I'll need to order the tune software, which takes a few days. The rest—" He scrolled. "Call it three to four days for everything."
"I need whatever you have tonight," Simon said. "The rest as fast as you can."
Brian looked at him. "The invitational?"
"December."
"That's tight."
"I know. How tight?"
Brian thought about it. "If we start this weekend and work it hard — Dom's bay has the space and the lifts — ten weeks is enough for phase one. You won't have the full build but you'll have a car that can race." He paused. "What are you planning to run it at?"
"Quarter-mile primarily. Maybe a few bracket races if the setup works out."
Brian nodded. "Then the headers and the intake get you the most immediately. The tune unlocks the rest of the gains. I'd prioritize those."
"Do that," Simon said. He reached into his jacket again and produced a folded envelope. Set it on the counter. "Whatever's here covers tonight's parts and puts a deposit on the rest. Whatever's left after, apply it to the next order."
Brian looked at the envelope without opening it. "You always do this."
"It keeps the transaction simple," Simon said.
Brian opened it. Counted. Looked at Simon.
"There's a lot left over," he said.
"Then the next order's mostly covered," Simon said. "Keep a running tab. When I owe you something, tell me. When I don't, don't."
Brian shook his head in the way he did when he'd given up arguing about something and moved directly to acceptance. "Tonight at the garage," he said. "I'll bring what I have."
"Good." Simon picked up his jacket. "And Brian."
"Yeah."
"You're doing good work here," Simon said. Not effusively — just as a statement of fact, delivered because it was accurate and because Brian had come a long way from the guy who'd blown his engine trying to beat Dom in a stock Eclipse. "Dom's crew thinks so too. They just don't say it."
Brian was quiet for a moment.
"Tell them I know," he said.
Simon walked out into the afternoon.
The Mustang would be ready in time. The invitational was going to be profitable. And somewhere between now and December, he'd figure out the rest.
He got in Mia's car and drove back toward the neighborhood.
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