by Mark Dawson
“On one condition: no drugs.”
“Sure thing. No drugs.”
“You’re not carrying anything?”
“No, man. Nothing, I swear.”
“No cocaine. No pills. No weed.”
“I swear it, on my daughter’s life, I haven’t got a thing. I’m already on probation. I got to pee in a cup twice a week, man. If I get caught with anything in my system, they take her away from me just like that. People say a lot of things about me, John, but one thing they don’t say is that I’m stupid. It’s not worth the risk.”
He watched her answer very carefully. She was emphatic and convincing and he was as satisfied as he could be that she was telling the truth.
“This is against my better judgment,” he said, “but, alright.”
“Thanks, John. You don’t know how much I appreciate that.”
He was about to answer when her cellphone buzzed. She fumbled for it in her bag and put it to her ear. Her tone became deferential and compliant. He didn’t catch any names but it was obviously about where they were headed next. The conversation was short. She put the phone back into her bag.
“You know Belvedere?”
“Don’t get up there very often.”
“Full of rich folks.”
“I know that. That’s where we’re headed?”
“Please.”
“You got an address?”
She gave it to him and he entered it into the sat nav slotted into a holder that was suction-cupped to the windshield. The little unit calculated and displayed the best route.
“The 101 up to the bridge,” he said, reading off the screen. “It’s going to take forty minutes. That alright?”
“Perfect.”
“You going to tell me what’s out there?”
“Like I say, rich folks throwing a mad party. That’s where it’s at.”
2
MADISON WAS TALKATIVE as they drove north through Sunset, Richmond and Presidio, hanging a left at Crissy Field and joining the 101 as it became the Golden Gate Bridge. She explained how the business worked as they drove north. She met her driver at a prearranged spot every night. She said he was called Aaron and that he was twitchy but, generally, a stand-up kind of guy. He had let her down badly tonight. They were supposed to have met at eight at Nob Hill but he hadn’t showed and, when she finally got through to him on his cell he said that he was unwell and that he wouldn’t be able to come out. There was a number for a taxi firm on the back of the bench she had been sitting on. She called it. It was one of the firms that sent jobs Milton’s way. The dispatcher had called him with her details and he had taken the job.
She wasn’t shy about her work. She explained how she got jobs through an agency with the rest coming from online ads she posted on Craigslist. The agency gigs were the easiest: they made the booking and all she had to do was just show up, do whatever it was that needed to be done, collect the cash and then go. The money was split three ways: the driver got twenty percent and the rest was split equally between the agency and the girl. Milton asked how much she made and she was a little evasive, saying that she did okay but skimping on the detail. There was a moment’s silence as he thought of the flippant way that she had given him the hundred. He concluded that she was probably earning rather a lot and then he chastised himself for his credulity. The story about the struggle to find the rent suddenly seemed a little less likely. He wondered whether there even was a little girl. Probably not. He chuckled a little as he realised that he had been well and truly suckered.
The Bridge was lit up rusty gold as they passed across it, the tops of the tall struts lost in the darkness and the sterling-grey fog.
He heard the sound of a zipper being unfastened. He looked into the mirror and saw her taking a black dress from the garment bag.
“I need to get changed,” she said. “No peeking, John, alright?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t be a pervert.”
He concentrated on the gentle curve as the bridge stretched out across the Bay but he couldn’t resist a quick glance up at the mirror. She had removed her jumper and now she was struggling to slip out of her jeans. She looked up into the mirror and Milton immediately cast his eyes back down onto the road ahead; she said nothing but when he flicked his eyes back up again there was a playful smile on her lips.
They crossed over into Sausalito and then Marin City.
“Done,” she said. “You can look now.”
He did. Milton knew very little about women’s clothes but the simple black cocktail dress she was wearing had obviously been purchased in an expensive boutique. It was sleeveless, with a plain design and a deep collar that exposed her décolletage.
“You look very pretty,” he said, a little uncomfortably.
“Thank you, John.”
It was coming up to ten when Milton took the ramp off the interstate at Strawberry and negotiated the traffic circle around the tall brick spire that marked the turning onto Tiburon Boulevard. It was a long, narrow stretch of road that cut north to south right along the coast. White picket fences marked the boundaries of vast paddocks where million-dollar horses grazed. The lights from big houses that commanded impressive estates glowed from the crowns of the darkened headland to the left. They reached Belvedere proper and turned up into the hills. The fog was dense here and as they drove on the vegetation closed in on both sides, the beams of the headlights playing off the trunks and briefly lighting the deep darkness within. Milton could only see fifty feet ahead of them. The flora grew a little wilder and less tended. To the left and right were thickets of bayberry and heather, a thick jumble of branches that tumbled right up to the margins of the road. There was poison ivy, as tall as two men and thick as the branches of a tree. There was shining sumac and Virginia creeper and salt hay and bramble. Light reflected sharp and quick in the eyes of deer and rabbits. The road was separate from the houses that sat at the end of their driveways and, that night, the darkness and the fog enveloping the car like a bubble, Milton knew that they were alone.
“You know where we’re going?” he asked.
“Turn onto West Shore Road. There’s a private road at the end.”
He looked into the mirror. Madison had switched on the courtesy light and was applying fresh lipstick with the aid of a small mirror. She certainly was pretty, with nice skin and delicate bones and eyes that glittered when she smiled, which was often. She was young: Milton would have guessed that she was in her early twenties. She was small, too, couldn’t have been more than five-three and a hundred pounds soaking wet. She looked vulnerable.
The whole thing didn’t sit right with him.
“So,” he said. “You’ve been here before?”
“A few times.”
“What’s it like?”
“Alright.”
“What kind of people?”
“I told you––rich ones.”
“Anyone else you know going to be there?”
“Couple of the guys,” she said. Was she a little wistful when she said it?
“Who are they?”
She looked into the mirror, into his eyes. “No-one you’d know,” she said, and then he knew that she was lying.
He thought she looked a little anxious. They drove on in silence for another half a mile. He had been in the area a couple of times before. It was a beautiful location, remote and untroubled by too many visitors, full of wildlife and invigorating air. He had hiked all the way down from Paradise Beach to Tiburon Uplands and then turned and walked back again. Five miles, all told, a fresh autumnal afternoon spent tracking fresh prints into the long grass and then following them back again in the opposite direction. He hadn’t seen another soul.
He looked in the mirror again.
“You mind me asking––how long have you been doing this?”
“A year,” she said, suddenly a little defensive. “Why?”
“No reason. Just making conversation.”
Her tem
per flickered up. “As long as you don’t try and tell me I should find something else to do, okay? If you’re gonna start up with that then I’d rather you just kept quiet and drove.”
“What you do is up to you. I’m not in any place to tell you anything.”
“Fucking A.”
“I’m just thinking practically.”
“Like?”
“Like how are you getting back?”
“I’ll call another cab.”
“Back to the city?”
“Sure.”
“That’s if you can find someone who’ll come out this late at night. The fog as bad as this, and supposed to get worse? I know I wouldn’t.”
“Lucky I’m not calling you then.”
He spoke carefully. He didn’t want to come over like some concerned father figure. He guessed that would put her on the defensive right away. “You got no-one to look out for you while you’re here?”
She hesitated, looking out into the gloom. “My guy usually waits and then drives me back again. Keeps an eye on things, too, makes sure I’m alright.”
“I can’t do that for you.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“I’ve got a day job. I need to get back to sleep.”
“I told you––I wasn’t asking. Jesus, man! This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I’ll be alright. The men are okay. Respectable types. Bankers and shit. A frat party, maybe I’m a little concerned to be out on my own. But here? With guys like that? Nothing to worry about. I’ll be fine.”
The GPS said the turn was up ahead. Milton dabbed the brakes and slowed to twenty, searching for the turnoff in the mist. He found it; it was unlit, narrow and lonely, and the sign on the turnoff read PINE ESTATE. He indicated even though there was no-one on the road ahead or behind him and then slowed a little more.
He looked at the clock in the dash: the glowing digits said that it was half-ten.
The road ran parallel to West Shore Road for half a mile or so and then Milton saw lights glowing through the trees. It turned sharply to the left and then was interrupted by a eight-foot brick wall and, in the midst of that, a majestic wrought iron gate that looked like it belonged on a southern plantation. A white gatehouse was immediately ahead. Beyond the gate, on the right hand side of the road, a blue wooden sign had been driven into the verge. The sign said PINE ESTATE ASSOCIATION in golden letters that sloped right to left. There was a model lighthouse atop the gate. Milton considered it: a private community, prime real estate, close enough to the city and Silicon Valley not too far away. It all smelt of money.
Lots and lots of money.
“Through there,” she said.
“How many houses in here?”
“Don’t know for sure. I’ve only ever been to this one. Twenty? Thirty?”
“How do we get in?”
“They texted me the code.” The glow of her cell phone lit up her face as she searched for the information she needed. “2-0-1-1.”
He nudged the car forwards and lowered his window. The low rumble of the tyres on the rough road surface blended with the muffled chirping of the cicadas outside. He reached out to the keypad and punched in the code. The gate opened and they passed along a long driveway enclosed on both sides by mature oaks. Large and perfectly tended gardens reached down to the road. There were tree allées, expansive lawns, follies, knot gardens, boxwood parterres.
They reached the first house. It was a large modern building set out mostly on one level with a two storey addition at one end. It spread out across a wide parcel of land. There were two separate wings, each with floor to ceiling windows that cast oblongs of golden light that blended away into the grey shroud that had fallen all around. A series of antique lamps cast abbreviated, fuzzy triangles of illumination out across the immaculate front lawn. There was a motor court verged by espalier fruit trees. Milton reversed parked in a space; there was a Ferrari on one side and the new Tesla convertible on the other. Two hundred thousand dollars of peerless design and engineering. His Explorer was old and battered and inadequate in comparison.
Milton switched off the engine. “You weren’t kidding,” he said.
“About what?”
“There’s money here.”
“Told you.” She unclipped her safety belt, put her hand on the handle but then paused for a moment, as if unwilling to open the door.
“Are you alright?”
“Sure. It’s just––”
“You’re nervous? I could take you back if you want.”
She shook her head. “I’m not nervous.”
“Then what?”
“I’m here to meet someone except I haven’t seen him for a while and he doesn’t know I’m coming. The last time I saw him it––well, let’s say it didn’t go so well, didn’t end well for either of us. There’s probably a very good chance he tells me to get the fuck out as soon as he sees me.”
“I’m going back into the city. It’s not a problem.”
“No. I don’t have any choice. I want to see him.”
“It’d be no trouble. No charge.”
“I’m fine. Really. It’s completely cool. I’m just being stupid.”
She opened the door and got out, reaching back inside for her coat and bag.
She shut the door.
She paused.
She turned back to him. “Thanks for driving me,” she said into the open window. She smiled shyly and suddenly looked very young indeed. The chic dress and stratospheric heels looked out of place, like a schoolgirl playing dress-up. She turned towards the house. The door opened and Milton noticed a male face watching them through the gloom.
Milton wondered, again, how old she was. Nineteen? Twenty?
Too young for this.
Her footsteps crunched through the gravel.
Dammit, Milton thought.
“Madison,” he called through the window. “Hang on.”
She paused and turned back to him. “What?”
“I’ll wait.”
She took a step closer to the car. “You don’t have to do that.”
“No, I do. You shouldn’t be out here on your own.”
She liked to keep her face impassive, he could see that, but she couldn’t stop the sudden flicker of relief that broke over it. “Are you sure you’re okay with that? I could be a couple hours––maybe longer if it goes well.”
“I’ve got some music and a book. If you need me, I’ll be right here.”
“I’ll pay extra.”
“We’ll sort that out later. You can leave your bag if you want.”
She came back to the car and took a smaller clutch bag from the rucksack. She put the condoms inside and took a final swig from the bottle of vodka. “Thanks. It’s kind of you.”
“Just––well, you know, just be careful, alright?”
“I’m always careful.”
3
MILTON GOT OUT of the car and stretched his legs. It was quiet with just the occasional calls of seals and pelicans, the low whoosh of a jet high above and, rolling softly over everything, the quiet susurration of the sea. A foghorn boomed out from across the water and, seconds later, its twin returned the call. Lights hidden in the vegetation cast an electric blue glow over the timber-frame of the building, the lights behind the huge expanses of glass blazing out into the darkness. Milton knew that the house was high enough on the cliffs to offer a spectacular view across the Bay to Alcatraz, the Bridge and the city but all he could see tonight was the shifting grey curtain. There was a certain beauty in the feeling of solitude. Milton enjoyed it for ten minutes and then, the temperature chilled and dropping further, he returned to the Explorer, switched on the heater, took out his phone and plugged it into the dash. He scrolled through his music until he found the folder that he was looking for. He had been listening to a lot of old guitar music and he picked Dog Man Star, the album by Suede that he had been listening to before he picked Madison up. There had been a lot of Brit-pop on the barrack’s ste
reo while he had slogged through Selection for the SAS and it brought back memories of happier times. Times when his memories didn’t burden him like they did now. He liked the swirling layers of shoegazing and dance-pop fusions from the Madchester era and the sharp, clean three-minute singles that had evolved out of it. Suede and Sleeper and Blur. He turned the volume down a little and closed his eyes as the wistful introduction of ‘Stay Together’ started. His memories triggered: the Brecon Beacons, the Fan dance, hours and hours of hauling a sixty pound pack up and down the mountains, the lads he had gone through the process with, most of whom had been binned, the pints of stout that followed each exercise in inviting pubs with roaring log fires and horse brasses on the walls.
The credentials fixed to the back of the driver’s seat said JOHN SMITH. That was also the name on his driving licence and passport and it was the name he had given when he had rented his nine-hundred-dollar-a-month single room occupancy apartment with no kitchen and shared bathroom in the Mission District. No-one in San Francisco knew him as John Milton or had any idea that he was not the anonymous, quiet man that he appeared to be. He worked freelance, accepting his jobs from the agencies who had his details. He drove the night shift, starting at eight and driving until three or four. Then, he would go home and sleep for seven hours before working his second job from twelve until six, delivering boxes of ice to restaurants in the city for Mr. Freeze, the pseudonym of a cantankerous Ukrainian immigrant Milton had met after answering the Positions Vacant ad on an internet bulletin board. Between the two jobs, Milton could usually make a hundred bucks a day. It wasn’t much in an expensive city like San Francisco but it was enough to pay his rent and his bills and his food and that was all he needed, really. He didn’t drink. He didn’t have any expensive habits. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to go out. He might catch a movie now and again, but most of his free time was spent sleeping or reading. It had suited him very well for the six months he had been in town.
It was the longest he had been in one place since he had been on the run and he was starting to feel comfortable. If he continued to be careful there was no reason why he couldn’t stay here for even longer. Maybe put down some roots? He’d always assumed that that would be impossible, and had discouraged himself from thinking about it, but now?