The Driver Read online

  Even in the noisy depot, the noise was loud and shocking. There was a moment of silence before some of the others started to clap, others whooping sardonically. Milton stood with the glistening fragments spread around him, helpless. He felt the colour rising in his cheeks.

  Vassily came out of the office.

  “What the fuck, John?”

  “Sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  “I tripped. Dropped it.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You already said that. It’s not going to put it back together again, is it?”

  “I was distracted.”

  “I don’t pay you to be distracted.”

  “No, you don’t. I’m sorry, Vassily. It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s coming out of your wages. Three hundred bucks.”

  “Come on, Vassily. It doesn’t cost you that.”

  “No, but that’s money I’m going to have to pay back. Three hundred. If you don’t like it, you know where to find the door.”

  Milton felt the old, familiar flare of anger. Five years ago, he would not have been able to hold it all in. His fists clenched and unclenched but he remembered what he had learnt in the rooms––that there were some things that you just couldn’t control, and that there was no point in worrying about them––and, with that in mind, the flames flickered and died. It was better that way. Better for Vassily. Better for him.

  “Fine,” he said. “That’s fine. You’re right.”

  “Clean it up,” Vassily snapped, stabbing an angry finger at the mess on the floor, “and then get that ice delivered. You’re going to be late.”

  5

  MILTON DROVE the Explorer back across town and arrived ten minutes early for his appointment at six with Trip Macklemore. Mulligan’s was at 330 Townsend Street. There was a small park opposite the entrance and he found a bench that offered an uninterrupted view. He put the girl’s rucksack on the ground next to his feet, picked up a discarded copy of the Chronicle and watched the comings and goings. The fog had lifted a little during the afternoon but it looked as if it was going to thicken again for the evening. He didn’t know what Trip looked like but he guessed the anxious-looking young man who arrived three minutes before they were due to meet was as good a candidate as any. Milton waited for another five minutes, watching the street. There was no sign that Trip had been followed and none that any surveillance had been set up. The people looking for him were good, but that had been Milton’s job for ten years, too, and he was confident that they would not be able to hide from him. He had taught most of them, after all. Satisfied, he got up, dropped the newspaper into the trash can next to the seat, collected the rucksack, crossed the road and went inside.

  The man he had seen coming inside was waiting at a table. Milton scanned the bar; it was a reflex action, drilled into him by long experience and reinforced by several occasions where advance planning had saved his life. He noted the exits and the other customers. It was early and the place was quiet. Milton liked that. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

  He allowed himself to relax a little and approached. “Mr. Macklemore?”

  “Mr. Smith?”

  “That’s right. But you can call me John.”

  “Can I get you a beer?”

  “That’s alright. I don’t drink.”

  “Something else?”

  “That’s alright––I’m fine.”

  “You don’t mind if I do?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  The boy went to the bar and Milton checked him out. He guessed he was in his early-twenties. He had a fresh complexion that made him look even younger and a leonine aspect, with a high clear brow and plenty of soft black curls eddying over his ears and along his collar. He had a compact, powerful build. A good looking boy with a healthy colour to his skin. Milton guessed he worked outside, a trade that involved plenty of physical work. He was nervous, fingering the edge of his wallet as he tried to get the bartender’s attention.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said when he came back with his beer.

  “No problem.”

  “You mind me asking––that accent?”

  “I’m English.”

  “That’s what I thought. What are you doing in San Francisco?”

  Milton had no wish to get into a discussion about that. “Working,” he said, closing it off.

  Trip put his thumb and forefinger around the neck of the bottle and drank.

  “So,” Milton said, “shall we talk about Madison?

  “Yes.”

  “She hasn’t come back?”

  “No. And I’m starting to get worried about it. Like––seriously worried. I was going to give it until ten and then call the police.”

  “She’s never done this before?”

  “Been out of touch as long as this?” The boy shook his head. “No. Never.”

  “When did you see her last?”

  “Last night. We went to see an early movie. It finished at eightish, she said she was going out to work and so I kissed her goodnight and went home.”

  “She seemed alright to you?”

  “Same as ever. Normal.”

  “And you’ve tried to call her?”

  “Course I have, man. Dozens of times. I got voicemail first of all but now I don’t even get that. The phone’s been shut off. That’s when I really started to worry. She’s never done that before. She gave me your number last night––”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “She’s careful when she’s working. She didn’t know you.”

  Milton was as sure as he could be that Trip was telling the truth.

  The boy drank off half of his beer and placed the bottle on the table. “Where did you take her?”

  “Up to Belvedere. Do you know it?”

  “Not really.”

  “There’s a gated community up there. She said she’d been up there before.”

  “She’s never mentioned it.”

  “There’s a couple of dozen houses. Big places. Plenty of money. There was a party there. A big house just inside the gate. She didn’t tell you about it?”

  He shook his head. “She never told me anything. Can’t say it’s something I really want to know about, really, so I never ask. I don’t like her doing it but she’s making money, thousand bucks a night, sometimes––what am I gonna do about that? She makes more in a night than I make in two weeks.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I work for the electric company––fix power lines, maintenance, that kind of thing.”

  “What does she do with the money?”

  “She saves it.”

  “She have a kid?”

  “No,” he said.

  Milton nodded to himself: suckered.

  “She’s saving as much as she can so she can write. That’s her dream. I suppose I could ask her to stop but I don’t think she’d pay much attention. She’s strong-willed, Mr. Smith. You probably saw that.”

  “I did.”

  “And, anyway, it’s only going to be a temporary thing––just until she’s got the money she needs.” He took another swig from the bottle. Milton noticed his hands were shaking. “What happened?”

  “I dropped her off and then I waited for her to finish.”

  “And?”

  “And then I heard a scream.”

  “Her?”

  “Yes. I went inside to get her.” He paused, wondering how much he should tell the boy. He didn’t want to frighten him more than he was already frightened but he figured he needed to know everything. “She was in a state,” he continued. “She looked terrified. She was out of it, too. Wouldn’t speak to me. I don’t even know if she saw me.”

  “Out of it? What does that mean?”

  “She ever do drugs?”

  “No way,” Trip said. “Never.”

  “That’s what she told me, too.” Milton frowned. “I went in to see her and, look, if I had to
say I’d say one way or another then I’d say she was definitely on something. She said everyone was trying to kill her. Very paranoid. Her eyes wouldn’t focus and she wasn’t making any sense. I’m not a expert, Trip, I’m not a doctor, but if you asked me to testify to it I’d say she was definitely on something.”

  “Maybe her drink was spiked?”

  “Maybe,” Milton said. But maybe not. He thought it was more likely that she was doing drugs. A job like that? Milton had helped a girl in the Balkans once during the troubles over there and she had worked up a ferocious heroin habit. The way she had explained it, she’d needed something to deaden herself to the things she had to do to stay alive and that had been as good as anything else. And Madison had kept the details of her hooking away from Trip, so wasn’t it likely that she’d keep this from him, too? Didn’t it stand to reason? No sense in pushing that now, though.

  “What happened after that?”

  “She ran. I went after her but she was too quick for me and, to be honest, I’m not sure what I would’ve done if I’d caught her anyway. I got in the car and drove up and down but there wasn’t any sign of her. I called her cell but didn’t get anywhere. In the end, I waited as long as I could and then I came back. I was hoping she might have found her way home.”

  Trip blanched with worry. “Fuck.”

  “Don’t panic,” he said, calmly. “It’s only been a day. There might be a reason for it.”

  “I don’t think so. Something’s wrong.”

  Milton said nothing. He pushed Madison’s rucksack along the floor with his foot. “Here,” he said. “She left this in the car. You better take it.”

  He picked up the bag, put it on his lap, opened it and idly picked out the things inside: her book, the bottle of vodka, her purse. “What do I do now?”

  “That’s up to you. If it was me, I wouldn’t wait to call the police. I’d do it now––”

  “––but you said.”

  “I know, and the chances are that there’s a perfectly good explanation for what’s happened. She’ll come home and you’ll just have to explain to them that it was a false alarm. They won’t mind––happens all the time. But if something is wrong, if she is in trouble, the sooner you get the police onto it the better it’s likely to be.”

  “How do I do that? Just call them?”

  “Better to go in.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding vigorously. “I’ll go in.”

  “You want some backup?”

  “What––you’ll come too?”

  “If you like.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said, although his relief was palpable.

  It was the right thing to do. The way he saw it, they would want to speak to him and it would save time if he was there at the same time. It would show willing, too; Milton was a little anxious that there might be questions about him driving a prostitute to a job and he thought it would be better to front it up right from the start. He would deny that he knew what was going on––which was true, at least up to a point––and hope for the best. And, he thought, the boy was becoming increasingly anxious. He thought he might appreciate a little moral support.

  “Come on,” he said. “You drive here?”

  “I don’t have a car. I got the bus.”

  “I’ll give you a ride.”

  6

  THEY WERE met in the reception area by a uniformed cop who introduced himself as Officer Francis. He was an older man with the look of a long-standing veteran. His hair was shot through with streaks of grey, his face was creased with lines and he sat down with a sigh of contentment that said that he was glad to be off his feet. He wasn’t the most vigorous officer that Milton had ever seen but he wasn’t surprised by that: with something like this, why waste the time of a more effective man? No, they would send out one of the older guys, a time-server close to his pension, someone who would listen politely and give them the impression that they had been given the attention that they thought their problem deserved and then he would send them on their way.

  “You’re Mr. Macklemore?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re the boyfriend.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you, sir?”

  “John Smith.”

  “How are you involved in this?”

  “I’m a taxi driver. I dropped Madison off last night.”

  “You know Mr. Macklemore?”

  “We just met.”

  “So you’re here why?”

  “I’d like to help. I was one of the last people to see Madison.”

  “I see.” He nodded. “Alright, then, Mr. Macklemore. Why don’t you tell me what’s happened and then we can work out what to do next.”

  Trip told the story again and Detective Francis listened quietly, occasionally noting down a detail in a notebook that he took from his breast pocket. When Trip was finished Francis asked Milton a few questions: how had Madison seemed to him? Did he have any idea why she had run off the way she did? Milton answered them all honestly.

  “You know she was hooking?”

  “I didn’t,” Milton said.

  “Really?”

  “No. I didn’t. Not until we got there. It was just another job for me. I know the law, detective.”

  “And you’ve come here without being asked,” he said, pursing his lips.

  “Of course. I’d like to be helpful.”

  “Fair enough. I’m happy with that. What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever it was, she was frightened.”

  “Who’s party was it?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know that.”

  “A lot of rich folks up there,” Francis mused. “I can remember when you could buy a place with a nice view of the Bay for a hundred grand. You wouldn’t get an outhouse up there for that these days. Plenty of the tech guys have moved in. Driven up the prices like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Francis closed the notebook and slipped it back into his breast pocket.

  “Well?” Trip said.

  “I gotta tell you, Mr. Macklemore, this isn’t what we’d call a classic missing persons case. Not yet, anyway. She’s only been gone a day.”

  “But it’s totally out of character. She’s never done anything like this before.”

  “That maybe, sir, but that don’t necessarily mean she’s missing. She’s young. From what you’ve said it sounds like she’s a little flighty, too. She’s got no history of mental illness. No psychiatric prescriptions and you say she wasn’t on drugs. Just because you can’t find her, that don’t necessarily mean that she’s missing, you know what I mean?”

  “No,” Trip said. “I don’t agree.”

  “Not much I can do about that, sir,” Francis said, spreading his hands.

  Milton shook his head. “I agree with Mr. Macklemore, detective. I’m not sure I’m as relaxed about it as you are.”

  The policeman looked up at Milton with a look of mild annoyance. “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t see the state she was in last night.”

  “That maybe––I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

  “Smith.”

  “That maybe, Mr. Smith, but she wouldn’t be the first working girl I’ve seen freak out then check out for a bit.”

  “Not good enough,” Trip complained angrily. “It’s because she’s a hooker you’re not going to assign someone to this, right? That’s the reason?”

  “No. That’s not what I said.”

  “But it’s what you meant.”

  He stood and held out his hands, palm first. “Take it easy, son. If she’s still not back tomorrow, you give us another call and we’ll see where we are then. For now, I’d go back home, make sure your phone’s switched on and try and relax. I’ve seen plenty of cases like this. Plenty. Seriously. I’m telling you, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they come back, a little embarrassed about the whole thing, and everything gets explained.”

  “And
the other time?”

  “Not going to happen here, Mr. Macklemore. Really––go home. She’ll turn up. You’ll see.”

  THEY MADE THEIR way outside and onto the street.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “Take it easy,” Milton said.

  “You think he was listening to a word we said?”

  “Probably not. But I’m guessing that’s standard operating procedure. And he’s right about one thing: it’s been less than a day.”

  “You agree with him?”

  “I didn’t say that. And no, I don’t. Not with everything.”

  Milton had expected a reluctance to get involved and part of him could accept the logic in what the officer had said: it was still early, after all. But, the more he thought about what had happened last night, the more he had a bad feeling about it.

  The way she had looked.

  The way she had run.

  The car speeding away.

  The bikers. What were they doing at a high-end party like that?

  Milton had made a living out of relying on his hunches. Experience told him that it was unwise to ignore them. And they were telling him that this didn’t look good.

  Trip took out a packet of Luckies. He put one into his mouth and lit it. Milton noticed that his fingers were trembling again. “That was a total waste of time. Total waste. We could have been out looking for her.”

  He offered the packet to Milton. “It wasn’t,” he said, taking a cigarette and accepting Trip’s light. “At the very least, he’ll file a report that says that you came in tonight and said she was missing. Now, when you call them back tomorrow, they’ll have something to work with. And the clock will have started. I wouldn’t be surprised if they treat it more seriously then.”

  “So what do I do now? How long do we have to wait before they’ll do something? Two days? Three days? What’s the right time before they accept that something is wrong?”

  “If she’s not back in the morning I’d call again. I’d make a real nuisance of myself. You know what they say about the squeaky hinge?”

  “No.”

  “It gets the oil. You keep calling. Do that until ten or eleven. If it doesn’t work, and if she’s still not back by then, go back to the precinct and demand to see a detective. Don’t leave until you’ve seen one. Authority’s the same the world over: you give them enough of a headache, eventually they’ll listen to you even if it’s just to shut you up.”