James Sallis - Drive

He’d never thought of himself as a political person, but hey.

Thing was, it made him a kinder man. He went out on a collection to a doublewide or a co-op some idiot had paid two mill for, that kindness went with him. He tried to understand, tried to put himself in the others’ shoes. “You’re going soft, boy,” Uncle Ivan said-the only person back east he kept in touch with. But he wasn’t. He was just seeing how some people never had half a fucking chance and never would have.

In China Belle, well into his third cup of green tea, nibbling at the edges of an egg roll too hot to eat, Bernie sat thinking about the guy who’d set sights on Nino.

“Everything all right, Mr. Rose?” his favorite waitress, Mai June, asked. (“My father owned little aside from his sense of humor, of which he was inordinately proud,” she’d told him when he asked about her name.) Like everything she said, even so phatic a statement, with its lilt and rising tones, sounded like a poem or a piece of music. He assured her the food was exemplary as always. Moments later, she brought his entree, five-flavor shrimp.

Okay. Run it down, then.

Nino out here in Wonderland had begun fancying himself some kind of goddamn producer, no longer just a good maintenance man (and he’d been one of the best), but a mover and shaker. Such unwarranted ambition was in the very water and air, and in this pounding sunlight. Like a virus, it got into you and wouldn’t let go, dog of the American Dream gone dingo. So Nino’d set up the grab, or more likely had it foisted on him, then farmed it out, probably to the foister. Director put a team together, a package. Brought in the driver.

Shouldn’t be too hard to step in those footprints. Not that he knew offhand who to call, but there’d be no problem getting numbers. He’d put it out that he was a mover and shaker himself, of course, one with a heavy job waiting on the runway, only before takeoff he needed the best driver to be had.

Mai June materialized beside him, refilling his tea cup, asking if he needed anything else.

“Brave shrimp,” he said. “Heroic shrimp.”

Bowing her head, Mai June withdrew.

As Bernie Rose chomped egg rolls and five-flavor shrimp, Driver was approaching the Lexus where it sat in the empty lot next door. Thing had an onboard alarm system that hadn’t been activated.

A black-and-white swung by, slowed momentarily. Driver leaned back against the hood as if it were his own ride, heard the crackle of the radio. The cruiser went on.

Driver straightened and moved to the window of the Lexus.

Steering wheel crossed with a Club-but Driver had no use for the car, and it took him less than a minute to slimjim the door. The interior was spotless. Seats clean and empty. Nothing on the floorboards. A scant handful of refuse, drink cup, tissues, ballpoint pen, tucked neatly into a leatherette pocket hanging off the dash.

Registration in the glove compartment gave him what he wanted.

Bernard Wolfe Rosenwald.

Residing at one of those woodland names out in Culver City, probably some apartment complex with a half-assed security gate.

Driver taped one of the pizza coupons to the steering wheel. He’d drawn a happy face on it.

His eyes went up, to plastic IV bags hanging on trees above the bed, six of them. Below those a battery of pumps. They’d need to be reset every hour or so. One beeped in alarm already.

“What, another goddamn visitor?”

Driver had spoken with the charge nurse, who told him there’d been no other visitors. She also told him his friend was dying.

Doc raised a hand to point shakily to the IVs.

“See I’ve reached the magic number.”

“What?”

“Back in med school we always said you have six chest tubes, six IVs, it’s all over. You got to that point, all the rest’s just dancing.”

“You’re going to be fine.”

“Fine’s a town I don’t even visit anymore.”

“Is there anyone I can call?” Driver asked.

Doc made scribbling motions on air. There was a clipboard on the table. Driver handed it to him.

“This is an L.A. number, right?”

Doc nodded. “My daughter.”

At a bank of pay phones in the lobby, Driver dialed the number.

Thank you for calling. Your call is important to us. Please leave a message.

He said that he was calling from Phoenix, that her father was seriously ill. He left the name of the hospital and his own phone number.

When he got back, a Spanish-language soap opera was playing. A handsome, shirtless young man came struggling up out of swampland, plucking leeches off well-muscled legs.

“No answer,” Driver said. “I left a message.”

“She won’t call back.”

“Maybe she will.”

“Why should she?”

“Because she’s your daughter?”

Doc shook his head.

“How’d you find me?”

“I went by your place. Miss Dickinson was outside, and when I opened the door she rushed in. You two had a routine. If she was there, then you should be. I started knocking on doors, asking around. A kid across the street told me paramedics had come and taken you away.”

“You feed Miss Dickinson?”

“I did.”

“Bitch has us all well trained.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, Doc?”

His eyes went to the window. He shook his head.

“I figured you could use this,” Driver said, handing him a flask. “I’ll try your daughter again.”

“No reason to.”

“Okay if I come back to see you?”

Doc tilted the flask to drink, then lowered it.

“Won’t be much reason for that, either.”

Driver was almost to the door when Doc called out: “How’s that arm?”

“The arm’s good.”

“So was I,” Doc said. “So was I.”

This son of a bitch was beginning to piss him off.

Bernie Rose came out of China Belle picking his teeth. He tossed the fortune cookie in the Dumpster. Even if the damn thing held the gospel truth, who in his right mind would want to know?

Ripping the coupon off his steering wheel, he balled it up and sent it after the fortune cookie.

Pizza. Right.

Bernie drove home, to Culver City, not far from the old MGM studios, now Sony-Columbia. Jesus, one hand wrapped around a hamburger, held two fingers of the other up to his head in greeting, then hit the button to open the gate. Bernie gave him a thumbs-up in reply, wondering if Jesus knew he’d just passed a good facsimile of the Boy Scout salute.

Someone had shoved over a dozen pizza ads under his door. Pizza Hut, Mother’s, Papa John’s, Joe’s Chicago Style, Pizza Inn, Rome Village, Hunky-Dory Quick Ital, The Pie Place. Son of a bitch probably went around pulling them off doors all over the neighborhood. On every one of them he’d circled Free Delivery.

Bernie poured a scotch and sank into the swayback sofa. Right alongside was a chair he’d paid over a thousand dollars for, supposed to correct all your back problems, but he couldn’t stand the damn thing, felt like he was sitting in a catcher’s mitt. So, though he’d had it almost a year, it still smelled like new car. The smell, he liked.

Suddenly he felt tired.

And the couple next door were at it again. He sat listening and had another scotch before he went and knocked at 2-D.

“Yeah?”

Lenny was a short, red-faced man who’d carry his baby fat with him to the grave.

“Bernie Rose, next apartment over.”

“I know, I know. What’s up? I’m kind of busy here.”

“I heard.”

His eyes changed. He tried to close the door but Bernie had reached up and grasped the edge, forearm flat against it. Guy got even more red-faced trying to shove it closed, but Bernie held it easily. Muscles on his arm stood out like cables.