The Job Pirate Page 14

  The 45-minute brick of uninterrupted horn finally started to show signs of weakening. It began with a warbling echo of toots right before a series of deep sighs, then deafening silence for a few seconds, then full-on horn again. But it was dissipating. Gargling ripples of horn-like sounds then replaced the toots and sighs and, a minute later, it petered out completely. It grew so quiet so fast that the silence seemed louder than the horn ever was.

  I waited until about noon the following day before checking on the Celica. As I had witnessed from above, they had beaten the shit out of it pretty good. But the neighbors were at least civil enough not to break any windows or spray-paint cocksucker on it; just some fresh kick marks in the door, a semiremoved windshield wiper, and a couple of rocks and a beer can on the hood. I pushed the debris to the ground and opened it up for a look.

  “So it was you!” A male voice accused me from behind.

  I leaned out from under the hood expecting to see the mob from last night with pitchforks and torches, but instead a husky middle-aged man in a black suit and mirrored sunglasses stood staring at me. My first thought was that he was FBI, and my eyes immediately flashed down to his belt to look for a handgun or a badge. But I assumed that a lot with new people, though. “What was me?”

  “Your car,” he answered sternly. “Your car horn, to be more precise. Hell of a way to meet a new neighbor.”

  “But I’ve lived here over a year,” I replied.

  “No, me,” he answered. “I just moved in. I’ve seen you in the hall. I moved in right next door to you.”

  “Well, welcome home. Sorry about the horn last night. I … wasn’t here when it went off.”

  “Yeah, I assumed that. I’m Tony, two-oh-two.”

  “Brandon. Two-oh-three.”

  We shook hands and both lit Camels. I was still a little wary of my “new neighbor,” but it’s hard not to admire a man in a black suit. Tony leaned back against a black Lincoln Town Car parked in front of my Celica—total government car; tinted windows and everything. I wondered if this was all an elaborate plan—the horn, the Celica purchase, the neighborly small talk—to enlist me for some covert operation. Or to make me disappear. Perhaps there was some shady CIA station chief in the backseat of his Lincoln watching me right now, studying my facial tics to see if I was nervous, see if I was hiding something, see if I was ready. I had to play this one real cool—just act like we’re civil neighbors, nothing to suspect, nothing to conceal. Just be cool, bro.

  “So, you off to work?” I asked casually.

  “No, not till later,” he replied gruffly, cigarette dangling from his lip as he turned around and opened the trunk. “I need to wash my car first.”

  He pulled out a bucket, a bottle of dishwashing soap, and a towel and, after filling the bucket with water, proceeded to wash the entire Lincoln Town Car—rims, whitewalls, and bumpers included—without getting a single drop of water or soap bubble onto his suit. The whole bathing process couldn’t have taken longer than 70 seconds. I unlocked my door and sat down behind the wheel, keeping an eye on Tony as I slid the key in and turned the ignition over. I wasn’t sure how, but the Celica started right up. But when I glanced back up, Tony was standing right beside me with his elbow resting on my opened door. He nodded his head to every rev I gave the engine.

  “You take good care of your car,” he said. “That’s a good trait.”

  “Thanks. You too. Impressive wash job.”

  We glanced at each other a few times and nodded to the variation of each new rev but, for the most part, there was just an odd silence between us. He had definitely exceeded the nonconversation time limit for creepiness. But he stood there between me and the car door, preventing me from closing it, and staring at me with those mirrored sunglasses. It was as if he was waiting for me to say something, to confess to some crime I had committed, to disclose some secret New World Order theory that I had devised. The cops on Law & Order approached suspects this way when they knew the perp was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; they wanted them to sweat a bit first. That’s what this Tony was trying on me, but I saw through his little plan. I had been training for this moment since I was 14 years old. I was going to call his bluff. If he wanted to arrest me, or even assassinate me, then I wanted this son of a bitch to know that I had seen it coming. His undercover skills were juvenile at best; real grade-school job. Apparently my reputation at CIA or FBI headquarters didn’t precede me. It would take more than a simple business suit to fool me. Get ready, fucker, cover blown!

  “So, are you … Secret Service? Or Homeland Security?” I asked, my right hand gripping the stick shift readying for a fast getaway.

  “Neither,” he replied with a scowl. “Limo driver.”

  A limo driver? A limo driver. That made sense. Made more sense than the rogue government agent theory. And it would explain the Lincoln Town Car … and the tinted windows … and the quick carwash … and the mirrored sunglasses, too. A friggin’ limo driver—I did not see that coming.

  “What do you do?” Tony asked.

  “Kind of seeing what’s out there. I’m in need of a new career direction.”

  “Want to be a limo driver?” he asked.

  “Isn’t it difficult?”

  “Not really.”

  “Sure, OK.”

  And that’s more or less how I became a chauffeur. That was the new direction my career compass took. Tony drove me up to his boss’s house in the Hollywood Hills that evening, and the interview process consisted of Marv, the boss, blurting out various landmark locations around Los Angeles and me explaining how I’d drive there. After he was satisfied with my completely fictitious shortcut to the Los Angeles airport, Marv handed me a boxy cellular phone and a set of car keys.

  “Remember, that Lincoln is for work use only; no personal use. I keep track of every mile on that motherfucker, so I’ll know. And save all your gas receipts or I won’t reimburse you.”

  “Completely understood.”

  “And wash that fucking Lincoln every day. Tony’ll show you some tricks. And no smoking in it.”

  “Okay.”

  “And … do you have a black suit you can wear? Green’s not really going to work.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Good. Do it today,” he replied. “You’re on-call from here forward. You’re like a paramedic. That Lincoln is your ambulance. So park it close to your apartment, and be ready at a moment’s notice.”

  “Will do, Marv.”

  I shook his hand and rushed out to his driveway where two new Lincoln Town Cars sat glistening side by side in the setting sun. I felt like I had just won a free car on The Price Is Right, and I giddily pushed the “unlock” button on the key fob to find out which one would be coming home with me. It would be the Town Car closest to me—license plate MARV12—and I tenderly reclined into the black leather seat and eased the door shut. Reality outside ceased to exist once that tinted window separated our worlds. When I started the gentle purr of the motor, it was as if I had sat down inside a luxurious spacecraft. The entire instrument panel was digital and quite colorful and illustrated every mile-per-gallon and rotation-per-minute in crisp, electric numerals; the gas gauge actually displayed onscreen exactly how many miles I would be able to drive before I had to fill up again; the heater and air conditioner were not the typical on/off and defrost buttons but digital thermostats equipped to set different temperatures for different seats. This car was my KITT and I was its Michael Knight. Everything had a button or an illuminated red gauge or a fitted leather sheath. It was only 1998 outside this tinted window, but to me it looked like the twenty-first century had already paid a visit to Lincoln Motors. I adjusted the side mirrors before running my hand over the polished black leather dashboard and then the black leather passenger seat. She was like a shiny, sophisticated shadow car, with a seat more comfortable and comforting than any sofa I had ever sat in. This car was all class.

  I drove to the Salvation Army and pieced togeth
er a black suit for $14, then took a shortcut to my side of Hollywood so I could drive by a few of my friends’ apartments, call them on the cell phone, and have them look out their windows at their classy friend in a classy Lincoln driving by. When I got home, I parked the Lincoln right behind my Celica then stood in the middle of the street and compared them both like a father standing over a firstborn and a bastard. I checked to make sure The Club was still securely on the Celica’s steering wheel—albeit much looser this time—before shaking my head disapprovingly at it and walking up to my apartment for the night.

  Marv called me a couple of days later and gave me my instructions for picking up Ed Warding from the airport. After getting into my mostly black suit and hustling out the door, I realized that my fabricated route to the airport would never have worked in the line of duty. It provided a decent, traffic-free tour of the coastline but did very little else in getting me to my intended destination. Luckily, Mr. Warding’s flight was delayed, so I arrived right on time to retrieve him. I used a white piece of paper from my clipboard to write MR. WARDING in big bold letters, and I waited between the arrival gate and baggage claim with my sign at my chest. A well-dressed man in his late 50s walked over and handed me his two suitcases. What an asshole, I thought to myself. No “Hello” or “Good to meet you,” just two armfuls of his clothes.

  I had already forgotten his name by the time I ran back to the Lincoln and brought it around to the curb to pick him up. I searched my clipboard and pockets after lifting his suitcases into the trunk, but found no clue as to whom I was driving as well as to where I was supposed to be driving him. Then I remembered that the piece of paper that I had used to write his name on in big bold letters was the same piece of paper that contained all of that relevant information. Then I remembered crumpling that information-laden piece of paper into a ball and hastily tossing it under the car parked next to mine in the parking garage. And I remember feeling kind of bad about littering but not bad enough to bend down and pick it back up. I suppose justice was served on that one.

  I closed the trunk and deliberated what to do before beginning this voyage of mystery. I couldn’t ask the client what his name was and where he wanted to go; I would look as unprofessional as they come. And I couldn’t call Marvin or he’d probably yell at me and take away my new Lincoln. KITT would know how to handle this—I was half-tempted to speak into my wristwatch communicator to remotely access KITT’s hard drive and have him activate his brain-wave-perception device to read the mind of the anonymous client in the backseat, but I was a grown man and I was in public, so I decided against it.

  No, I’d have to sort this one out on my own. This is adult time. Alright, let’s start with the client’s name first: Warren … Warren Harding … Warren Harren … Ward … Harrington Ward … Harrington Ward might be it. Or Warren Harris. Warren Harris might be it. Damn, I had drifted too far from shore—too many possibilities had tainted the whole pot. Alright, let’s just nod a lot. Or, even better, I could just go with “Sir.” Sir was perfect! I was sure he would appreciate being called “Sir.” Now I just had to remember where I was driving him to … a hotel … the studios … some fancy home? Where was Sir going to …?

  At that point, the backseat window rolled down and the client stretched his head out until he found me leaning against the back of the car and staring up. His eyes were red and tired, and he loosened his necktie with a quick, angry tug. “Hey, buddy, come on! We gonna do this thing? Jesus Christ …”

  “Yes, yes … just … checking this out,” I quickly replied. What an asshole. I’d be damned if I called this guy Sir now. Calling someone Sir was a sign of respect, and this chump hadn’t earned my respect by rushing my thought process. Sure, I’ll drive you around in my new Lincoln, but I won’t be calling you anything remotely near Sir. As a matter of fact, if “buddy” is good enough to call me, it’s good enough to call you too. Issue resolved, buddy.

  The Lincoln started up with a soft, elegant shudder, and we eased into the herd of cars exiting the airport toward Beverly Hills. The odds were in my favor that he was headed somewhere in that city. Now I just had to finesse an exact address out of him.

  “There’s a USA Today on the seat back there,” I offered with a glance of my sunglasses in the rearview mirror. Catch more flies with honey, I surmised.

  He ruffled the already-opened Business Section and snapped, “Yeah.”

  What a dick. I needed to try a new angle. “Is there anywhere new on the agenda? Or just …” I let it trail off at the end hoping he would fill in the blank.

  “Just take me to whatever address my office gave you, alright!” He replied with a tone and flair that more than implied that he wasn’t going to say another word without it coming out as a shout.

  “Sure thing … buddy.” I had paused too long between “thing” and “buddy,” and I heard the newspaper descend loudly to his lap. I chose to ignore it and didn’t look in the rearview mirror, but at least now I had established that I was the type of chauffeur that called his fares “buddy” instead of mister or sir. I could probably call him buddy again and again now, and instead of being rude I was just being weirdly courteous, like a bereaved grandparent living in the spare bedroom.

  I was going to make another attempt at getting the address again but the boxy black cellular phone rang from the passenger seat beside me. I flipped it open and answered it.

  “Yes, this is Brandon.”

  “It’s Marv. How’d it go? You got him?”

  “Oh yes, fine, Marv. Everything’s fine.”

  “You got him there with you? He’s there?”

  “Yes, the client and I are heading to the destination as we speak.”

  “Good, good,” Marv replied after a lengthy pause. “So everything’s fine then, and you’re taking him to his … destination then?”

  “Affirmative. And … just to verify, what address do you have there, Marv?” I asked with just the perfect blend of concern and apprehension in my voice. “Just to verify.” Oh yeah, problem solved. Chalk one up for the new chauffeur.

  “The … the … to verify … yeah, that’s smart, let’s see here,” Marv said, and I heard papers shuffling across his desk. “Who do you have again? What’s his name?”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Backfire. I couldn’t tell Marv that I had the man I now refer to as “buddy” in my car. I somehow had to fool Marv into thinking that I knew who this guy in my backseat was while continuing to fool the guy in the backseat that I knew where I was taking him. There was only one way to fix getting caught in a lie, and that was to lie just a little more to get out of it. I pretended to flip through papers on my clipboard while mumbling isolated facts and sounds of hesitation into the phone, hoping Marv would chime in with the answers.

  “Let’s see here … American … Airlines … 11:30 … in the … morning—traffic coming up here, Marv, don’t want to take my eyes off the road here—Okay … looking back at … clipboard … American … Airlines …”

  “Ed Warding, right?” Marv exclaimed.

  “Yes! Yes, that would be the one!” I replied a little too ecstatically. “Mr. Warding is who is here with me.”

  “And he’s going to … to … he’s going to NBC,” Marv said after some more papers were shuffled around on his end. “He’s doing some news interview. Is that what you have? You have NBC, right?”

  “Yes, NBC would be the same destination as I have written here. And this is the NBC on … on … on … traffic coming up here, Marv, can’t look at my notes … keeping eyes on the road … the one on … on …”

  “On 3rd street, in Santa Monica.” Marv sounded concerned now, “That’s what you have, right? Am I wrong here? Did he tell you something different? Is he telling you some place different? They have to pay for that! You tell him! You tell him!”

  “No, no, we’re all on the same page here, Marv. Everything’s fine. I’ll have Mr. Warren there in about 10 minutes.”

  “Warding,” I heard from the backsea
t. “It’s Warding.”

  I cupped the phone and gave Mr. Warding a glance of my sunglasses in the rearview, “Yes, Mr. Warding, that’s affirmative. We’re on our way.”

  “And it’s definitely not buddy,” he added before going back to his newspaper.

  “What?! What is he saying?!” Marv screamed into the phone. “He doesn’t want to pay? Is that what he’s saying?”

  “No, nothing like that. Oh, here comes the tunnel—” I said just before hanging up.

  From that moment on, the remainder of my first gig as a chauffeur was a breeze. I dropped Mr. Warding off at the studio, read the USA Today while he did the interview, then took him to his hotel in Beverly Hills. Even scored a $5 tip at the end of it. And I made it home in time to watch Jeopardy, the virginity of my first fare finally taken.

  My next assignment would prove to be a little more involved than my previous one. It began not with the question of whether I was ready to handle driving a long limousine, and not even whether I was ready to drive that long limousine to another state—but my third assignment began with the odd question of: “Do you listen to the rap music?”

  “No, not really,” I replied to Marv.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “I ask because the next pickup is a rap band. The Wing-Wang Boys or something. Hold on, I got the name here …” Papers shuffled across his desk again. “The Woo-Ting Clan, that’s their name.”

  “Okay, I’ve heard of them.”

  “Are they any good?”

  “They’re popular. I don’t know if they’re any good, though.”

  “Well, you’ll be taking them to Las Vegas for some fashion award show for that music TV,” he said. “I guess they’re pretty big shit. Staying at Caesar’s Palace afterward. It’s a two-day job. Drive up there today, do the award show tonight, you all have rooms at Caesar’s, then you drive them back tomorrow afternoon. This is a big job, kid. The pay is tasty. You good?”