The Driver

by Hart Hanson

  “Christ,” I said.

  Cut to: a close-up of young Avila, his face twisted in pain.

  Avila paused the footage again.

  “I guess you know what happened next.”

  “You died and went to heaven?”

  “No, brah! Don’t you know nothing about me? I told you Google.”

  “He don’t know the first bit of nothin’ about you, Biz,” Nina said.

  Avila restarted the footage.

  “Next day, now,” Nina said.

  Cut to: young Avila stands on the precipice of that humongous vertical ramp, apparently recovered from his fall the day before, all eyes on him, his face unreadable.

  The song beneath the images changes. Faster, buzz-saw aggressive.

  Cut to: a closer shot. Avila’s face is like stone.

  Cut to: the camera punches in even closer. Now we can see that Avila’s sweating. The sweat could be from pain, but, hey, it’s Brazil—it could be heat and humidity; the whole crowd is sweating too.

  Cut to: the band in the Venice club; young Avila is rapping now but I can’t understand the words because I’m white, for Chrissakes, a soldier straight outta the rural Central Coast of California.

  Cut to: Brazil. A bead of sweat rolls down young Avila’s nose. When it gets to the tip, the kid expands his cheeks and blows and the drop of sweat blasts out into the void and a microsecond later Avila follows it.

  Cut to: Avila races down one side of the ramp and up the other side and he does a twirl (more than 360 degrees, possibly 405?) and a kick and waves his board over his head, then lands on it at exactly the same moment that the board crashes onto the surface of the ramp, and he does it again and again, and apparently whatever he’s doing is miraculous because . . .

  Cut to: the crowd goes apeshit. Ten years later, a continent away, it’s like the kid can fly, like gravity is just some arbitrary rule to be broken because the usual rules do not apply to Bismarck Avila.

  The image freezes.

  I look at Avila the grown man. Drunk, proud, looking at me as though he’s proved something.

  “Biz won,” Nina said. “World championships! He beat that red-haired tomato kid, all the Australian brothers, everybody.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “That’s all you got to say? Congratulations?”

  “I admire the pink hair. Very forward fashion choice.”

  Avila sucked air through his teeth in irritation.

  “With a broken back,” Nina said. “Get it?”

  I tried to process that.

  “What do you mean broken?”

  “Broken, brah. My legs were tingling the whole time like I was getting shocked.”

  “Now you get it?” Nina said.

  “He gets it,” Avila said.

  “Wanna commit a threesome?” Nina asked. It took a moment to realize what she was asking. “Biz told me how vicious you can be. I find that hot.”

  “Babe,” Avila said. “You know I’m not into the two guys version. Not my thing.”

  Nina stood up and opened her robe, swaying a little, giving us a long look at what we were passing up—Suit yourselves—and left.

  “You probably wonder why I put up with that shit.”

  “I just saw why you put up with her. What I wonder is what you’re trying to tell me, showing me home movies.”

  “You say give Keet everything he wants and walk away.”

  “It’s great advice, but . . .” I pointed at the room, then at my ears, telling Avila the task force could be listening. He didn’t give a rat’s ass. He pointed at the frozen image of his younger self on the TV, midair, face tight and calm in concentration as he broke gravity’s rule.

  “Fifteen years old, broken back. I skated when everyone told me no—and I won. The world championship.” Avila indicated his whole house, the whole world. “That’s why I got all this that I got. I never walk away from any challenge, brah. Not ever.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  When Nina had called him a pussy bitch, Avila responded by making her scream in ecstasy in front of thirty cops. Feeding the legend. When I impugned his manhood by advising him to buy his safety, he showed me proof that he was more of a man at fifteen, with bright pink hair and a broken back, than I could ever hope to be.

  I guess that answered my question about what happened to his soul back in the day as he transformed himself from Bismarck Avila to B!$m@R©k!

  “What would you have done?” Avila asked, tapping his knuckle on his younger self. “Gone home, I guess.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “That’s right.”

  What I wanted to do then was say, Suit yourself, like Nina, leave Avila to kill himself one way or the other. But even though half of Avila’s problems were of his own making, the ones that would actually destroy him existed because I’d killed Willeniec.

  “My dad wouldn’t have let me skate with a broken back.”

  “Nobody tells me what to do. Not then. Not ever.”

  “Somebody should have stopped you,” I said.

  “Brah, you think they didn’t try? Trust me.”

  “I don’t mean a manager or someone who invested in you. I mean someone who actually gave a shit about you as a human being.”

  “They loved me, brah.”

  “You were their meal ticket, brah.”

  Avila made a noise through his teeth like what I’d said wasn’t worth the effort of forming words.

  “Would you do that now?” I said, crossing to the TV and knocking on the frozen flying kid on the screen.

  “Don’t do that to my screen.”

  “Would you try that today with a broken back? No, because you’re smarter. You grew up. This kid was brave, yeah, but mostly he was a moron. Kids are morons.”

  Avila showed me his middle finger. He didn’t believe I could ever understand. But of course I understood. I’d been to war when I was not much older than Avila had been when he broke his back.

  “You really want to beat Keet?”

  “What you think?”

  “Give him back what belongs to him.”

  Avila started huffing at me, but I took the remote and started the footage again. I turned up the volume until the air thrummed with surf-punk music and the applause of thousands. I leaned in close to Avila’s ear.

  “Give him the barrels. Put the shell companies in his name.”

  “Give him millions of dollars in real estate?”

  “Cooperate with the task force, turn the tables on Keet, let him get charged with money laundering, say you found out what he was doing during prep for your due diligence.”

  Avila stared at me for a long moment.

  “Return the barrels how?” he said.

  “Call him up and tell him where they are.”

  “Look at us. Police are watching everything,” he said. “Cody says my phones are tapped. I can’t go nowhere or see anybody the police don’t know about.”

  That was all true. Avila wouldn’t be able to move without the task force knowing what he was doing.

  “Tell me where the barrels are. I’ll tell Keet.”

  Avila laughed at me, figuring this is where I’d been heading this whole time. He showed me his middle finger again and, forgetting where we were, spat on his own carpet.

  “You gonna tell me I can trust you? Limo driver? I’m gonna trust millions of dollars, the only leverage I got, to a fuckin’ driver? Go on, get the fuck out of my house.”

  He took the remote and turned off the TV. The silence rang louder than the music.

  “Keet told you how it’s gonna go. He’ll murder everyone around you. Nina. Everybody. He already tried to kill me and my dad. He won’t stop. You think I’d risk my people for money?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You totally
thinking about your people. It’s all about your people. You like a saint.”

  Delilah was right: that thought was foreign to Avila; he wasn’t a soldier. I’d never be able to convince him of the responsibility I bore for the well-being of my people. As far as Avila was concerned, Keet cared just as much about his people as I did about mine. And Keet had hung one of his own in jail.

  If Hippocrates were here he’d tell you that people can only be persuaded by things and feelings they experience for themselves.

  I knew how to use that, how to persuade Avila he could trust me with those barrels.

  But I really didn’t want to do it.

  Make the decision slowly; act upon it quickly.

  I wasted a full minute hoping that one of my ghost voices would advise me, but the funny thing is, they’ve never once answered when I’ve asked a question.

  I turned up the TV again and leaned toward Avila, who cupped his ear to listen.

  “Think about everything that’s happened; think how I might be in this as far as you. Think about how we could possibly be partners in this with equal interests. Consider it a fact. Then work backward to explain to yourself how it could be possible.”

  Avila was smart, but more important, he was cunning. He thought hard. He took his time.

  And he realized what I was trying to tell him.

  “Fuck,” he said.

  “Don’t say it out loud,” I said.

  “You did that?”

  “That’s out loud.”

  Avila thought again, then turned off the TV.

  “You had chances to make that fall on me and walk away clean,” Avila said. “Why didn’t you?”

  “You stepped between me and that shotgun,” I said. “That’s why.”

  “Shit. You naive, brah. If I hadn’t, Keet would’ve staked me out in the desert, drive nails into my head until I told him everything. I’ve seen him do it.”

  “Keet is a homicidal maniac,” I said. “The police know that he killed your cousin. He killed your bodyguard. He killed Willeniec. And he tried to kill me and my dad.”

  “Keet killed Willeniec,” Avila said, but he wasn’t agreeing; he was telling me he understood the deal we were making.

  Keet killed Willeniec . . .

  I nodded. Deal.

  I hoped the task force was listening, that Delilah could hear this.

  “Let me think on this,” Avila said. “You mind making me another sandwich before you go? This time don’t be so afraid of the mustard.”

  SANCTUARIES

  A week passes without violent incident—which sounds great but feels like somebody in the shadows pointing a crossbow at your chest. For whatever reason—instinct, paranoia, or some other internal logic that escapes me—I don’t feel like it’s Keet aiming that crossbow at my chest; I feel like it’s the task force.

  The good guys, I remind myself.

  What does that make me?

  Connie protested twice to the appropriate authorities, with no discernible effect, that Tinkertoy was being denied her civil rights to freedom, once for each time Tinkertoy’s competency hearings were postponed without warning. Lucky and I consoled each other by speculating that Tinkertoy was safer in the loony bin than out in the wide world with the crossbows.

  Delilah, peace be upon her forever, swam against the prevailing currents to open an investigation into X-Ray’s jailhouse death.

  Oasis Limousine Services had its own problems. We were struggling. Our mechanic was incarcerated in a psych ward, our dispatcher was morose because he’d lost half his body in the preceding two years, and the president of the company was wallowing in self-pity due to guilt and heartbreak.

  “Connie will Come Around,” Lucky told me as the two of us struggled to replace the brakes on the haunted Caddie (brakes that absolutely should not need replacing).

  “I have an ethical question for you.”

  “How soon is it permissible for you to Engage in Sexual Relations with another woman?”

  “Not a generic woman. A specific woman.”

  “The answer is immediately.”

  “The specific woman is Delilah.”

  “The answer is never.”

  “What’s wrong with Delilah?”

  “Nothing,” Lucky whispered in my ear in case we were bugged, “excepting the Fact that she is not only Delilah; she is also Detective Groopman, a police officer who is endeavoring to catch you for murder.”

  “She’s not endeavoring to catch me,” I said, wasting my breath. “She’s endeavoring to catch somebody.”

  “She’s endeavoring to catch the murderer!” Lucky stabbed his finger into my chest several times to drive home the fact that the murderer was me, his breath moist in my ear.

  I dragged Lucky out into the alley just to keep myself from busting off his finger. I explained that Delilah and I had undeniable chemistry. I told him about her throat when she swallows a cold beverage and the way she presses her lips together when she’s flummoxed, her foul, foul language, and how many times she and I had both felt real heat but let it dissipate because of Connie.

  “Correct behavior.” Lucky sniffed.

  I told him Delilah’s theory about history people and surface-of-the-earth people and how we were both on the surface of the earth while Connie was not.

  “I reject all systems for the Categorization of People,” Lucky said.

  “You mean like citizenship, religion, sex, nationality—?”

  “You did not let me address my but.”

  “Fine, go.”

  “In this case, Delilah is Absolutely Correct. It is true that if you want Connie back, you must live a Larger Life.”

  “What?”

  “You must reenter Politics.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Don’t misunderstand me. Connie is not shallow. It is not appearances she cares about. It is how you appear in her eyes because of the way she sees herself.”

  “You realize that’s all about appearance, right?”

  “Connie sees herself Striding Across History,” Lucky said. “Who will stride by her side? A driver?”

  “I tried politics,” I said. “I didn’t get anything done. This is better.”

  “This?” Lucky asked, laughing, gesturing at our surroundings, the fact that we were whispering in an alley behind a garage. “This is better?”

  “Yes.”

  “This I know about women,” Lucky said in an unbearable, superior tone because he considers women to be his undisputed area of expertise. “Connie will never forgive you if you Engage in a Romantic Relationship with her best friend.”

  I explained that Delilah should sleep with me, and keep it secret from Connie, because I’d given her a sworn eyewitness statement identifying Bogdan Milic, aka X-Ray, as the murderer of Avila’s bodyguard, and because I provided her with invaluable information linking Keet to the murder of Avila’s cousin Rocky, and because I’d given her at least circumstantial evidence that Willeniec had been working for Keet when he died.

  We repeated a version of that conversation every day for a week.

  On the eighth day, Nina called to inform me that Avila had the money he’d promised me if I could spare the time to come by the mansion.

  I’d never expected to actually collect the ten grand Avila had promised me for driving him out to Keet’s ranch.

  “Put it in the mail,” I said, but she’d already hung up.

  I drove out to Calabasas to find the front gate fully functional but blackened with char marks. Lou and another green polo shirt were there. Lou wore a Kevlar vest and his sidearm was visible on his hip.

  “Hi,” I said. “What happened to the gate?”

  “Vandals,” Lou said, checking his clipboard.

  “Vandals packing Molotov cocktails?”

  “Cor
rect.”

  “That explains the body armor and ostentatious display of firepower.”

  “You’re cleared to go straight on up to the house, sir. Mr. Avila says to walk right in.”

  I saw three other green shirts on the way up to the house. A fourth met me at the door and escorted me up to Avila’s office on the second floor and left us alone.

  “Whassup, Mickey?” Avila said.

  “Whassup, Biz?”

  Avila winced in a way that indicated that he was choosing to be a good sport. Avila pushed an envelope across his gigantic glass-and-pewter desk. It felt like he was performing, so I took the hint and assumed that everything we did and said was for the benefit of an unseen audience.

  “What’s this?” I said.

  “Severance check and bonus,” Avila said. “Thanks for everything.”

  “Too bad about your gate,” I said.

  Avila started clicking on his laptop to indicate that we were done.

  “That’s a TV trope,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Dismissing someone you’re done with by going back to work as though they don’t exist. People don’t actually do that except on TV.”

  “Thanks for the etiquette lesson,” Avila said. “I’m gonna miss you, brah.” He grinned at me without blinking until I left his office.

  Back at Oasis, Ripple opened the check (the size of which made Lucky whistle because Avila had, indeed, made good on his ten-thousand-dollar bonus offer). But the check wasn’t the main event.

  “Wait,” Ripple said, unfolding a second piece of paper. “What’s this?”

  It was a drawing, apparently done by a child, of what looked like the mangled skeleton of a fish. Above that, to the left, was a cartoon figure of an airborne skateboarder with pink hair, apparently jumping onto an X surrounded by a circle of a dozen cats. A red half sun bled off the left side of the page.

  Lucky looked at the drawing and furrowed his brow. “An electric schematic, a little girl, a cross, the sun, and a circle of civets.”