James Sallis - Drive

“That, I could do.”

“Good. I’m Irina. Come over whenever you’re ready. I’ll leave the door ajar.”

Minutes later, he stepped into her apartment, a mirror image, really, of his own. Soft music playing in three-quarter time, something with accordion fills and frequent appearances of the word corazon. Driver remembered once hearing a jazz musician claim that waltz time was the closest thing to the rhythm of the human heart. Sitting on a couch identical to his though considerably cleaner and more worn, Irina watched a soap opera on one of the Spanish-language TV channels. Novellas, they called them. They were huge.

“Beer on the table here, you want it.”

“Thanks.”

Settling onto the couch beside her, he smelled her perfume, smelled the morning’s soap and shampoo and the smell of her body beneath, subtler and solider at the same time.

“New in town?” she asked.

“Been here a few months. Staying with a friend till now.”

“Where are you from?”

“Tucson.”

Expecting the usual remarks about cowboys, he was surprised when she said, “I’ve got a couple of uncles and their families living out there. South Tucson, I think they call it? Haven’t seen them in years.”

“That’s a world apart, South Tucson.”

“Like L.A. isn’t?”

It was for him.

How much more for her?

Or for this child that came staggering sleepily out of the bedroom.

“Yours?” he said.

“These tend to come with the apartment. Place is overrun with roaches and children. Probably want to check your closets, look under kitchen counters.”

She stood, scooped the child up on one arm.

“This is Benicio.”

“I’m four,” the boy said.

“And very stubborn about going to bed.”

“How old are you?” Benicio asked.

“Good question. Okay if I call my mom, check in with her about this?”

“Meanwhile,” Irina said, “we’ll get you a cookie and a glass of milk out in the kitchen.”

Minutes later, they returned.

“Well?” Benicio said.

“Twenty, I’m afraid,” Driver told him. He wasn’t, but that’s what he was telling the world.

“Old.” Just as he’d suspected.

“Sorry. Maybe we can still be friends, though?”

“Maybe.”

“Your mother’s alive?” Irina asked once she’d tucked the boy back in.

Easier to say no than to explain it all.

She told him she was sorry, and moments later asked what he did for a living.

“You first.”

“Here in the promised land? A three-star career. Mondays through Fridays I waitress at a Salvadoran restaurant on Broadway for minimum wage plus tips-tips from people little better off than myself. Three nights a week I do maid service for homes and apartments in Brentwood. Weekends I sweep and vacuum office buildings. Your turn.”

“I’m in the movies.”

“Sure you are.”

“I’m a driver.”

“Like for limos, right?”

“A stunt driver.”

“You mean all those car chases and stuff?”

“That’s me.”

“Wow. You must get paid good for that.”

“Not really. But it’s steady work.”

Driver told her how Shannon had taken him under wing, taught him what he needed to know, got him his first jobs.

“You’re lucky to have someone like that in your life. I never did.”

“What about Benicio’s father?”

“We were married for about ten minutes. His name is Standard Guzman. First time I met him I asked, ‘Well, is there a deluxe Guzman somewhere around?’ and he just looked at me, didn’t get it at all.”

“What’s he do?”

“Lately he’s been into charity work, helping provide jobs for state workers.”

Driver was lost. Seeing his expression, she added: “He’s inside.”

“Prison, you mean?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“How long?”

“Be out next month.”

On TV, beneath the looming, half-exposed breasts of his blonde assistant, a stubby dark guy in a silver lame frock coat performed parlor magic. Balls between upturned cups appeared and vanished, cards leapt from the deck, doves flapped up from chafing pans.

“He’s a thief-a professional, he keeps telling me. Started off burglarizing homes when he was fourteen, fifteen, moved on from there. They got him taking down a savings and loan. Couple of local detectives happened to walk into the middle of it. They’d come to deposit their paychecks.”

Standard did indeed get out the following month. And despite all Irina’s protests that this would not happen, no way in godalmighty hell, he came home to roost. (What can I say? she said. He loves the boy. Where else is he gonna go?) She and Driver were hanging together a lot by then, which didn’t bother Standard at all. Most nights, long after Irina and Benicio had gone to bed, Driver and Standard would sit out in the front room watching TV. Lot of the good, old stuff you only caught then, late at night.

So once, along about one on a Tuesday night, Wednesday morning really, they’re sitting there watching a cop movie, Glass Ceiling, and a commercial comes on.

“Rina tells me you drive. For the movies?”

“Right.”

“Have to be pretty good.”

“I get by.”

“Not like a nine-to-five gig, huh?”

“One of the advantages.”

“You have anything on for tomorrow? Today now, I guess it is?”

“Nothing scheduled.”

Having found its way past a thicket of commercials for furniture dealers, bedding stores, cut-rate insurance, twenty-piece cooking sets and videocassettes of great moments in American history, the movie started up again.

“I’m thinking I can speak frankly with you,” Standard said.

Driver nodded.

“Rina trusts you, I figure I can too… You want another beer?”

“Usually.”

He went out to the kitchen and brought two back. Snapped the tab off one and handed it over.

“You know what I do, right?”

“More or less.”

Snapped the tab and took a swallow of his.

“Okay. So here’s the thing. I’ve got a job today, something that’s been on the burner a long time. But my driver’s been…well, detained.”

“Like this guy,” Driver said, nodding towards the TV, where a suspect was being interrogated. The front legs of the chair on which he sat had been cut down to make it as uncomfortable as possible.

“Good chance of it. What I’m wondering is, any chance you’d consider taking his place?”

“Driving?”

“Right. We go in early morning. It’s-”

Driver held up a hand.

“I don’t need to know, don’t want to know. I’ll drive for you. That’s all I’ll do.”

“Fair enough.”

Three or four more minutes of movie action, and commercials shouldered back in. Miracle stove-top grill. Commemorative plates. Greatest hits.

“I ever tell you how much Rina and Benicio depend on you?”

“I ever tell you what an asshole you are?”

“Nah,” Standard said. “But that’s okay, just about everybody else has.”

They both laughed.

That first run, Driver netted close to three thousand.

“Anything up?” he asked Jimmie, his agent, the next day.

“Couple of calls about to go out.”

“Cattle calls, you’re saying.”

“Okay.”

“And for this I pay you fifteen percent?”

“Welcome to the promised land.”

“Locusts and all.”

But by day’s end he had two jobs lined up. Word was getting around, Jimmie told him. Not just that he could drive, the town was full of people who could drive, but word that he’d be there when they needed him, never watched the clock, never made waves, always delivered. They know you’re a pro, not some hardass or punk out to make a name for himself, Jimmie said, you’re who they’re gonna ask for.