The rest of the day passed without anymore upsets. In fact no one saw any signs of Markus after he finally finished putting the new glass in and fixing the dents in the door. They assumed he was either out joyriding in the desert or had taken their advice after all and left. No one ventured to find out. They figured that someone like Markus was best left alone. What he did was none of their business, unless it involved disturbing the peace.

That evening, when the sun was setting, everyone was gathered at Flo's café like any normal night. Everyone was gathered in a group and talking about the day's events while Lightning McQueen and Sally stayed far off to the other side on a date of sorts. It wasn't that private and one could hardly call it a date, especially when all of their friends were sitting across from them. But the good part is that none of them noticed. The day's excitement was enough to keep them all busy chatting for hours without so much as peering over at Sally and McQueen. As usual, something would spark a long forgotten memory in Lizzie's mind and she would go off jabbering about something that was only significant to her. And naturally she had to bring up the subject about Markus being somewhat handsome despite his attitude problems, which got a lot of weird stares and looks from everyone else. And when Flo wasn't talking and snuggling up to Ramone, she was busy serving refreshments to anyone who asked or wanted any, which distracted her from even coming over to where Sally and McQueen were.

McQueen silently smiled at Sally as they watched the chatter party across from them. She smiled back, softly nuzzled McQueen's cheek and sighed happily.

"I want to thank you for rescuing me the other night." She breathed. "With everything going on I haven't had a chance to say it."

"You're welcome." McQueen smiled even bigger.

Sally had hoped that what she said would begin a conversation, but somehow it didn't go into that. She was glad in a way. The evening was quiet and still, aside from the cars in front of them. Evenings like that didn't deserve anymore talking.

"Where's Red?" McQueen broke the silence when he noticed that Red was the only one missing.

"I don't know." Sally chuckled. "Why?"

"Oh, I was just wondering."

"What is it with you and Mater? You two have been busy stalking Red all day."

"I'm just worried about him, is all. I didn't like the way Markus looked at him at the trial this morning. I feel like he's up to something."

"You think he's going to hurt Red?"

"I hope I'm wrong, Sally. I told Mater that we needed to keep an eye on Red to make sure Markus doesn't go near him."

"That explains all of the stalking." Sally nodded. "I doubt if Markus is around here anymore. No one's seen him all day, ever since he finished his work."

"Yeah," McQueen smiled nervously. "That's what worries me."

As soon as McQueen got the words out of his mouth, without any kind of warning Red came speeding through the café, sending Flo's displays flying in all directions and sending everyone running for cover. Flo screamed and dropped the orders she was, at that moment, carrying out to her friends. The fire engine paid no attention to the damages he caused and ran, bawling and crying, behind the café.

"If that was Markus, I'm seriously going to take him out back and whip up on him myself." Flo angrily blurted out while trying to pick up the mess.

"That wasn't Markus," Sally shouted over the chaos. "It was Red." She turned a concerned face to McQueen. "Maybe you were right after all."

"What's bothering him this time?" Sarge asked.

"I'm going to go find out right now." Sally answered, already driving off in the direction Red had disappeared in.

Behind the café, Sally found Red hiding out in the darkness, silently crying to himself. She approached him carefully, knowing how timid and skittish he was.

"Hey," she softly said, as if speaking to a child. "What's wrong?"

Sally knew it was useless to ask Red anything because his shyness always got the best of him and made him unable to speak, but she wanted to make Red feel comfortable. Actually she didn't need to do that. Red knew Sally well and he considered her a friend. Sometimes Red would even do things for Sally that he wouldn't normally do for anyone else.

"Is everything okay?" she continued talking softly. Red violently shook his head 'no' and continued crying, turning his face away from Sally and pushing himself up next to the back of the café building.

"Did someone do something to you?"

Red nodded, sniffing a few times. Sally remembered what McQueen had told her moments before and knew what her next question was going to be.

"Red," she started. "Is Markus involved with what you're crying about?"

Red quickly nodded and burst into even more tears.

"Did Markus do something to you?"

Red again nodded.

"What did he do?"

Red silently eyed the ground, the biggest and saddest frown Sally had ever seen across his face. Tears continued to roll down his cheeks and his bottom lip quivered as if he would suddenly burst out crying again.

"Did he make fun of you? Did he smash your flowers? Did he hit you?"

Red nodded his head to all that Sally had asked.

"He made fun of you, hit you and smashed your flowers?"

Red nodded before turning away and starting to cry again.

Sally softly shook her head and sighed. "Markus, what is wrong with you?" she breathed silently to herself.

When Sally came out from behind the café, everyone eagerly drove up to her in hopes of getting the information they needed to satisfy their curiosity.

"What is it, Sally? Was I right?" McQueen was the first to ask questions.

"Markus didn't hurt poor Red, did he?" Mater asked.

"I'm afraid I have to say yes to both of your questions." Sally sighed.

A startled gasp came from everyone.

"What did Markus do this time?" Ramone asked, a little bit of anger appearing in his voice.

"From what I could get out of Red, he made fun of him, hit him and then smashed his flowers. Red is out back right now crying his heart out."

"Aw, poor little guy." Said Mack.

"It's an outrage!" Sarge bellowed. "That car should be flogged until he can't drive straight!"

"Why do ya wanna flog Red!" Mater turned a worried look towards the army jeep. "He ain't done nuthin'. You can't whip an innocent car jus' 'cause he's sad."

"I don't mean Red, you idiot. I meant Markus!" Sarge hit the pavement with his wheel.

"Oh!"

"I agree." Luigi rolled up beside Sarge.

"He's determined that he's going to stay here or else even though he said that no one could pay him to stay here another day." Said Sheriff.

"He was just lying." Said Flo.

"Do I go arrest him again?" Sheriff asked.

"What for?" Doc Hudson calmly rolled up into the angry mob in front of him. "He hasn't done anything else to break the law. As much as we'd all like to, you can't arrest him for being his hardheaded and troublesome self. He'd sue this town and everyone in it for committing false arrest, false charges and goodness knows what else."

"You have a point there." Agreed Sheriff.

"So what do you suggest?" Mack asked. "We can't allow him to continue on like he's doing. We have our rights. From our side and view, he's a stranger who wandered into our town and started causing trouble without us asking him to do it."

"And no one provoked him either." Flo added.

All the time everyone had been discussing their problems, McQueen silently stood off to the side, thinking. Finally, he rolled forward and edged his way into the middle of his friends.

"Listen, guys. I've been thinking. Markus has proven one thing since he got here."

"Yeah! That he's a major pain!" Sarge grunted.

"That he loves challenge."

Everyone turned a puzzled look towards McQueen.

"It's true. Think about it. When he first pulled into the café, he tried picking a fight with me and Mater as soon as he could by calling us names. He wanted to get us so mad that we'd fight him. Then he came at Sally. He saw that she was too afraid of him so he got pleasure out of scaring her more than anything. But when I tried stopping him that night, he seemed to enjoy my game more. You notice that he didn't move when I rammed him. It was almost as if he was daring me to come toward him to show how tough he is. And tonight he tried making Red mad, not realizing that it was a loss cause."

"So you're saying that Markus wants to fight someone? And he's getting mad and frustrated because no one in this town will heed to his threats?" Said Sally.

"Exactly!" McQueen turned his gaze towards the blue Porsche. "Although I'm not saying that he necessarily wants to fight. He just wants something challenging to prove he's better than anyone else."

"And fighting one of us is the only thing he's come up with so far." Sally finished. "Or scaring one of us."

"It makes sense." Said Sheriff.

"So if this guy, like, wants to fight or whatever," Fillmore said in his slow, groggy voice. "How are we going to solve the problem?"

"Leave that to me." McQueen mischievously grinned. "He's bound to come back to me sooner or later and when he does, I'm gonna be ready."