James Sallis - Driven

“I’ll never sing,” he said.

“You never did.”

“And I’ll never be able to shout when I get angry.”

“You don’t get angry. Not so anyone can see.”

“I’ll never spend hours on the phone talking to friends, never talk back to the television, hum along with the radio. Never whisper in your ear. And I’ll never laugh.”

Janis just looked at him then and said, “I’ll be your laughter.”

They didn’t laugh much anymore, either of them, but he remembered her saying that, and how she looked when she said it, and how he felt.

He’d never forget that.

The discussion in the kitchen had run about two minutes. Even out here, you could smell burned flesh. Nonetheless, Capel kept looking that way.

“Your man’s in the walk-in freezer,” Driver said. “Cooling off.”

A waiter stepped up to a table with two plates of food only to realize that his diners had jumped ship. Customers were quick-stepping away from others. Three over, by the wall, Driver watched a man turn in his chair and pull back his sport coat. Carrying, no doubt.

“This is personal,” Driver said. “I’m not armed.” The man nodded.

Capel looked up. He was older than expected, late sixties, early seventies, wearing a robin’s-egg-blue shirt, darker blue tie, and black suit shot with silver pinstripes that matched his hair. He held both hands out to show they were empty, then reached for a small cylinder on the table by his plate. That was silver too. Held it to his throat. The voice that came out was surprisingly warm and inflected. “You would be the driver.”

Driver didn’t respond.

“Did you come to kill me?”

Again, Driver said nothing.

“And with your bare hands.” Capel looked around. “But of course there are knives, aren’t there? Dangerous objects everywhere.” He pointed. “And that man’s gun. A Glock-the new favorite of the feds. My wife says they keep investigating me only because it allows them to eat well.”

“Maybe we should talk outside. Before all your customers leave.”

Capel came to his feet easily, a man who kept himself in shape. He plucked a breadstick from the tumbler filled with them. Electrolarynx in one hand, breadstick in the other. “To defend myself.”

They walked outside, where two cars, a gleaming black BMW and a kickass old Buick, were pulling away. The restaurant sat on a dogleg off major streets, so there was little traffic. Up toward Goldwater a restaurant’s outside patio was choked with young people, misters going full-out. From here, it sounded like flocks of birds. And it looked as though the birds were washing down, drink after drink, food that hadn’t happened yet.

“You, this thing with you, that’s business too, you know,” Capel said.

“Look at it a certain way, everything’s business. The simplest conversation becomes an economic exchange.”

“Yes. Both sides want something.” Capel took the cylinder away for a moment, as though on a microphone and clearing his throat. “True, too, that generally the desired ends are not so transparent. You want your life, and me out of it. As of but minutes ago, I would like the same.”

A black Escalade eased along the street and into the lot. A tall, thin man, pale with feathery white hair, climbed out.

“They’ll have called, from inside.” Capel’s hand lifted, made a slight push at the air. The man leaned back against the van, watching.

“It’s no easy thing,” Capel said, “but I can call this off. I have the weight to do that. But it won’t be over.”

“I understand.”

“I’m sure you do. Neither, then, are our negotiations.”

“No.”

“You’re an unpopular man. Memorable-but remarkably unpopular. You have no friends, for instance, in Brooklyn. Around Henry Street, say, where old women sit on the stoops in their aprons and men play dominoes on cardtables by the curb.”

Capel looked past him. “These would be yours.” Driver turned. A gray Chevrolet sedan coming in slow. Two heads. “The PPD, subtle as ever. Completely anonymous in their unmarked car.”

The driver’s door opened and a man got out who looked like an accountant. Room for half of another neck in his shirt collar, bad tie, wayward elbows and knees.

Billie’s father got out on the other side.

“What you described, how things were getting handled, it had to come back to Bennie. No one else locally has the machinery, the people in place. Figured I’d swing by, talk to him about it. The two of us go back some years.”

“When you were a cop.”

“Before that.”

Bill’s companion was Nate Sanderson, who Bill said had done time in the FBI, then in the DA’s office, before settling in with the department, and had now gone too lazy to move again. Not to mention the excellent pay and job security, of course.

“You found out what you needed?” Sanderson asked.

“Hell if I know.” It was turning into one of those situations, Driver thought, where every answer you get confuses you more. To Bill he said, “Aren’t you missing Andy Griffith back at the home?”

“I’ll catch up next time.”

“What, you escaped?”

“Man walks in, flashes a badge, they’re not likely to ask a lot of questions. One reason I needed Nate here.”

“The other?”

“He works organized crime. Squeezing the rag. Knows where to find Bennie this time of day.”

They were in a cavernous, mostly empty restaurant off Missouri. The handpainted sign out front read only Chicken Ribs, with a primitive cartoon of a fox licking its lips. Those would be some mighty small ribs, Bill had said. He and Sanderson were eating slices of pie that looked to be about 80 percent meringue. Driver had coffee. He watched as a light-skinned man passed on the sidewalk wearing a t-shirt with We Are All Illegal Aliens in bold capitals front and back.

“I can’t seem to find a straight line anywhere in this,” Driver said.

Bill glanced out the window to see what he was watching. “Nature’s never been big on straight lines.”

“Or people,” Sanderson said.

Driver had assumed that once he had the handle, once he made his way to Capel, everything would tumble right back onto the guy in New Orleans, Dunaway. But it didn’t. The road curved, and you couldn’t see around the bend. Capel didn’t know Dunaway from hot mustard. Word came down, he said, “from one of the motherships,” and when Driver asked where the ship was harbored, he said Brooklyn.

Dunaway was from Brooklyn. Old connections? Or just work for hire?

Bill shook his head. “Conceivably they’d lend their guys, but they don’t hire out.”

“Calling in old markers, then?”

“Or favors. Borrow your tool for the day? Could be.”

Came in as a simple take-down, Capel had said. But then when he passed word up the line, he was told the situation had changed, he was to keep his men out there.

“What changed?” Sanderson said.

They sat quietly. Finally Bill spoke. “They have history with our friend here.”

Both looked at Driver. He nodded.

“A long time back. A man named Nino, big up that way. And his right-hand man.” Bernie Rose.

“You killed them?”

“Yes.”

“These guys don’t have short memories.” Bill peered out the window. An elderly man who looked like a weathered piece of rope had pulled his bicycle into the crosswalk, slammed down the kickstand, and walked away. He stood on the corner watching as one car, trying to avoid running into it, slewed into another.

“People will do anything to make their mark,” Sanderson said.

“Maybe just to prove to themselves that they’re alive.” Bill looked back. “But Bennie told you he sent word up the line. Never mind how the job came about. Source, Channels. Bennie sent word, it means that as far as he knew the job was done.”