icebox.”
“Why would I call it that?”
“I thought-”
“Some of that coffee I smelled would be great, actually.”
Driver went into the kitchen, poured two mugs, brought them back.
“Kind of a strange place to live,” she said.
“L.A.?”
“Here, I meant.”
“I guess.”
“Guy below me’s always peeking out his door when I come in. Apartment next to me, their TV’s going twenty-four hours a day. Spanish channel. Salsa, soap operas with half the characters getting killed and the rest screaming, godawful comedy shows with fat men in pink suits.”
“See you’re fitting right in.”
She laughed. They sat quietly sipping coffee, chattering on about nothing in particular. Driver hadn’t developed the capacity for small talk, could never see the point of it. Nor had he ever had much sensitivity to what others were feeling. But now he found himself talking openly about his parents and sensing, in his momentary companion, some deep pain that might never be lessened.
“Thanks for the coffee,” she said at length. “For the conversation even more. But I’m fading fast.”
“Stamina’s the first thing to go.”
They walked together to the door. That long, narrow hand came out again, and he took it.
“I’m in 2-G. I work nights, so I’m home all day. Maybe you’ll come by sometime.”
She waited and, when he said nothing, turned and walked away down the hall. Hips and rear end a marvel in her jeans. Growing ever smaller in the distance. Carrying that pain and sadness back with her to the lair where it, and she, lived.
Chapter Six
Second job he ever drove on, everything went wrong that could. Guys had passed themselves off as pros. They weren’t.
The mark was a pawn shop out towards Santa Monica, near the airport, by a couple of buildings that put you in mind of old time computer punch cards. Shop wasn’t much to look at if you went in the front door, the usual accordions, bikes, stereos, jewelry and junk. All the good stuff went in and out the back door. The money to pay the toll on that back door was stashed in a safe so old that Doc Holliday could have kept his dental tools in it.
They didn’t need any accordions or jewelry. Money in that safe was another thing.
He was driving a Ford Galaxie. Right off the line this thing had more power than made any kind of sense, and he’d been seriously under the hood. From an alley alongside, he watched the principals, two of whom he figured as brothers, head towards the pawn shop. Minutes later, he heard the shots, like whip cracks. One. Two. Three. Then a sound like a cannon going off and a window blowing out somewhere. When he felt a load hit the car behind him, without even looking to see, he peeled out. Half a dozen blocks away, cops pulled in hard behind, two cars at first, then three, but they didn’t have much chance against the Galaxie or the route he’d mapped out- not to mention his driving-and he soon lost them. When it was all over he discovered he’d got away with two of the three principals.
Fucker pulled a shotgun on us, you believe it? A fuckin’ shotgun.
One of the presumed brothers they’d left behind, shot dead or dying on the pawn shop floor.
They’d also left the fuckin’ money behind.
Chapter Seven
He wasn’t supposed to have the money. He wasn’t supposed to be a part of it at all. And he damned well ought to be back at work doing double-eights and turnarounds. Jimmie, his agent, probably had a stack of calls for him. Not to mention the shoot he was supposed to be working on. The sequences didn’t make much sense to him, but they rarely did. He never saw scripts; like a session musician, he worked from chord charts. He suspected the sequences wouldn’t make a lot more sense to the audience if they ever stopped to think about them. But they had flash aplenty. Meanwhile all he had to do was show up, hit the mark, do the trick-“deliver the goods,” as Jimmie put it. Which he always did. In spades.
That Italian guy with all the forehead creases and warts was on the shoot, starring. Driver didn’t go to movies much and could never quite remember his name, but he’d worked with him a couple of times before. Always brought his coffeemaker with him, slammed espressos the whole day like cough drops. Sometimes his mother showed up and got escorted around like she was queen.
That’s what he was supposed to be doing.
But here he was.
The score’d been set for nine that morning, just after opening. Seemed ages ago now. Four in the crew. The cook-New Guy-who’d put it together, engineer and pit boss. Fresh muscle up from Houston by the name of Dave Strong. Been a Ranger, supposedly, in the Gulf War. The girl, Blanche. Him driving, of course. They’d pulled out of L.A. at midnight. All of it pretty straightforward: Blanche would set up the room, grab and hold attention, as Cook and Strong moved in.
Driver’d been out three days before to get a car. He always picked his own car. The cars weren’t stolen, which was the first mistake people made, pros and amateurs alike. Instead, he bought them off small lots. You looked for something bland, something that would fade into the background. But you also wanted a ride that could get up on its rear wheels and paw air if you needed it to. Himself, he had a preference for older Buicks, mid- range, some shade of brown or gray, but he wasn’t locked in. This time what he found was a ten-year-old Dodge. You could run this thing into the side of a tank with no effect. Drop anvils on it, they’d bounce off. But when he turned the motor over, it was like this honey was just clearing its throat, getting ready to talk.
“Got a back seat for it?” he asked the salesman who’d gone along on the test drive. You didn’t have to push the car, just turn it loose, see where it went. Watch and feel how it cornered, if its center stayed put when you accelerated, slowed, cut in or out. Most of all, listen. First thing he’d done was turn off the radio. Then, a couple of times, he had to hush the salesman. There was a little too much play in the transmission for his taste. Clutch needed to come up some. And it pulled to the right. But otherwise it was about as perfect as he had any right to expect. Back at the lot, he crawled underneath to be sure the carriage was straight, axles and ties in good shape. Then asked about the back seat.
“We can find you one.”
He paid the man cash and drove it off the lot to one of several garages he used. They’d give it the works, new tires, oil and lube, new belts and hoses, a tune-up, then store it, where it would be out of sight till he picked it up for the job.
Next day, his call was at six a.m., which in Hollywoodese translated to show up around eight. Guy working second unit held out for a quick take (why wouldn’t he, that’s what he got paid for) but Driver insisted on a trial run. Buggy they gave him was a white-over-aqua ’58 Chevy. Looked cherry, but it drove like a goddamned mango. First run, he missed the last mark by half a yard.
Good enough, the second-unit guy said.
Not for me, Driver told him.
Man, Second Unit came back, this is what? ninety seconds in a film that lasts two hours? That rocked!
Plenty of other drivers out there, Driver told him. Make the call.
Second run went like a song. Driver gave himself a little more time to get up to speed, hit the ramp to go up on two wheels as he sailed through the alley, came back down onto four and into a moonshiner’s turn to face the way he’d come. The ramp would be erased in editing, and the alley would look a lot longer than it was.
