James Sallis: Drive

Around five, he pulled on jeans and an old sweatshirt and went out for breakfast at the Greek’s.

Things go wrong on a job, sometimes it starts so subtly you don’t see it at first. Other times, it’s all dominoes and fireworks.

This was somewhere in between.

Sitting in the Dodge pretending to read a newspaper, Driver watched the others enter. There’d been a small line waiting outside the door, five or six people. He could see them all through the blinds. Blanche chatting with the security guard just inside the door, brushing hair back from her face. Other two looking around, at the point of putting guns in the mix. Everyone still smiling, for now.

Driver also watched:

An old man sitting on the low brick wall across from the storefront, knees stuck up like a grasshopper’s, struggling to get his breath;

Two kids, twelve or so, skateboarding down the sidewalk opposite;

The usual pack of suit-and-dress people heading for work clutching briefcases and shoulder bags, looking tired already;

An attractive, well-dressed woman perhaps forty years old walking a boxer from both sides of whose mouth strings of gluey saliva hung;

A muscular Latino offloading crates of vegetables from his double-parked pickup to a Middle Eastern restaurant down the block;

A Chevy in the narrow alley three storefronts down.

That one brought him up short. It was like looking in a mirror. Car sitting there, driver inside, eyes moving right to left, up, down. Didn’t fit the scene at all. Absolutely no reason for that car to be where it was.

Then sudden motion inside caught his attention-everything happened fast, he’d put the pieces together later-and Driver saw the backup guy, Strong, turn toward Blanche, lips moving. Watched him go down as she drew and fired before hitting the floor as though she’d been shot herself. Cook, the guy who’d put it all together, had begun firing in her direction.

He was still thinking What the fuck? when Blanche came barreling out with the bag of money and threw it onto the new back seat.

Drive!

Drive he did, pulling out in a brake-accelerator skid between a FedEx truck and a Volvo with a couple dozen dolls on the shelf by the rear windshield and a license plate that read Urthship2, not at all surprised to find the Chevy wheeling in behind him as he watched Urthship2 crash-land into the sidewalk bins of a secondhand book-and-records store.

Air would be thin up there for Urthship2, the new world’s natives hostile.

The Chevy stayed with them for a long time-the guy was that good-as Blanche sat beside him hauling money by the handful out of the gym bag, shaking her head and going Shit! Oh shit!

The suburbs saved them, just as they saved so many others from the city’s damning influence. Finding his way to the subdivision he’d scouted earlier, Driver barreled onto a quiet residential street, tapping the brakes once, again, then again, so that by the time he reached the speed trap he was cruising a steady, sure twenty-five. Not knowing the area and not wanting to lose them, the Chevy had come charging in. Driver watched in the rear view mirror as local cops pulled it over. Squad pulled up at an angle behind, motorcycle mountie in front. Guys would be telling this story back at the station for weeks.

Shit, Blanche said beside him. There’s a lot more money here than there oughta be. Has to be close to a quarter of a million. Oh shit!

As a kid, new to town, he’d hung around the studio lots. So did a bunch of others, all ages, all types. But it wasn’t the stars in their limos or supporting players arriving in Mercedes and BMWs he was interested in, it was the guys who sailed in on Harleys, muscle cars and jacked-up pickups. As always he stayed quiet, hung back, kept his ear to the ground. A shadow. Before long he’d heard word of a bar and grill these guys favored in the grungiest part of old Hollywood, and started hanging out there instead. Some time in the second week, two or three in the afternoon, he looked up to see Shannon settling in at one end of the bar. The barkeep greeted him by name and had a beer and shot in front of him damned near before he sat down.

Shannon had a first name no one used. It got listed on credits, nether end of the scroll; that was about it. Up from somewhere in the South, hill country, everyone said. The Scots-Irish ancestry of so many of those hill folk showed in Shannon’s features, complexion and voice. But what he most looked like was your typical redneck from Alabama.

He was the best stunt driver in the business.

“Keep ’em coming,” Shannon told the barkeep.

“You need to tell me that?”

He’d sucked three mugs dry and thrown back as many shots of well bourbon by the time Driver worked up courage enough to approach him. Stopped with the fourth shot glass on the way to his mouth as Driver stood there.

“Help you with something, kid?”

A kid not much older (he was thinking) than those streaming home from school now in buses, cars and limos.

“Thought maybe I could buy you a drink or two.”

“You did, did you?” He went ahead and tossed the shot back, set the glass gently on the bar. “Soles of your shoes are mostly gone. Clothes don’t look much better, and I’d wager that backpack holds damn near everything you own. Been some time since you and water touched base. Plus you probably haven’t eaten in a day or two. Am I on track here?”

“Yes sir.”

“But you want to buy me a drink.”

“Yes sir.”

“You’ll do just fine here in L.A.,” Shannon said, gulping a third of his beer. Signaled the barkeep, who was there instantly.

“Give this young man whatever he wants to drink, Eddie. And have the kitchen send out a burger, double fries, coleslaw.”

“Got it.” Scribbling on an order pad, Danny tore off the top sheet and clipped it with a wooden clothes pin to a hoop he then spun towards the kitchen. A hand back there reached for it. Driver said a beer would be fine.

“What do you want from me, boy?”

“My name’s-”

“Hard as it may be for you to believe this, I don’t give a flying fuck what your name is.”

“I’m from-”

“And I care even less about that.”

“Tough audience.”

“Audiences are. That’s their nature.”

Danny was there with food not long after, never a long turnaround, places like this. He set the platter down before Shannon, who inclined his head towards Driver.

“For the kid. I, on the other hand, could use another couple soldiers.”

The plate slid his way and Driver tucked in, thanking them both. The bun was soggy with grease from the burger, fries crisp on the outside and meaty beneath, coleslaw creamy and sweet. Shannon nursed his beer this time. While the shot stood patiently by, waiting.

“How long have you been out here, boy?”

“Better part of a month, I guess. Hard to keep track.”

“This the first square meal you’ve had in that time?”

“I had some money, to start with. It didn’t last long.”

“Never does. In this city more than most.” He allowed himself a measured sip of bourbon. “Tomorrow, the next day, you’re going to be every bit as hungry as you were ten minutes ago. What are you gonna do then? Roll tourists on Sunset for the few dollars they have on them and traveler’s checks you won’t be able to cash? Hit convenience stores, maybe? We’ve got career professionals for that.”

“I’m good with cars.”

“Well then, there you go. Good mechanic can get a job anywhere, anytime.”

Not that he couldn’t do that, Driver told him. He was damned near as good under the hood as he was behind the wheel. But what he did best, what he did better than just about anyone else was, he drove.