Nobody's Angel (11 page)

"Three days," he said after a while. "You believe that?"

"Whatever you say," I said.

"I used to be out for weeks," he said. "I don't know how I did it."

"We're almost there," I said.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," the guy said softly.

"Sixteen forty," I said, when we pulled up at the hotel. The twenty was to look for his car. The trip to the hotel was a separate matter.

He went searching through his pockets again and finally found the roll. He looked from the bills to me, to the meter, back to the bills.

"Sixteen forty," I said again.

He still looked puzzled. "What happened to the car?"

"You decided to call Hertz in the morning," I said. "It's sixteen forty."

He pulled another twenty off the roll and held it out. I grabbed it. "Sixteen forty. Out of twenty," I said. But I didn't move to make change.

He looked at the bills again and dug through and found a five. I grabbed it before he could change his mind.

"Thanks," I said. I got out and opened his door. "Welcome to Rosemont."

It took him a while to get out, and all the while he was struggling I was watching the floor where a couple of bills were getting trampled under his feet.

"Three fuckin' days," he said as he staggered towards the lobby.

I waited until he was through the revolving door then I reached into the cab and picked up the bills. Two singles. Well, it was hard to complain. I'd gotten forty-seven bucks for a twenty dollar trip.

I know there are people who would say I was a thief and they could probably make a case. But I didn't hit him over the head. And I didn't let him get behind the wheel of a car. And he didn't end up face down in an alley with all his money gone and a case of AIDS to boot.

I was a cab driver. I did my job. I got him home.

A chauffeur shall thoroughly search the interior of the vehicle for lost articles immediately at the termination of each trip.

City of Chicago, Department of Consumer Services, Public Vehicle Operations Division

I was on Lake Shore Drive and there was Lenny, out in the left lane, driving with no hands. Something moved and I spotted a black guy hiding in the darkness of his back seat.

"Lenny!" I tried to warn him. But he didn't seem to hear. He kept smiling and waving his arms around.

A balloon appeared in the back window and now I saw that it wasn't a guy at all. It was Relita. She was holding the balloon with one hand and playing a game of peek-a-boo with the other. She lowered her hand and flashed me a sparkling smile. I looked back at Lenny. He had a gun in his hand. He waved, pointed the gun at his own head and pulled the trigger.

The next afternoon, as I cruised through the busiest intersection in shabby Uptown, two black kids began to wave. They were about sixteen and everything about them was wrong. They were both skinny, dressed in dark, ill-fitting ghetto rags, and obviously dirt poor.

Lenny's murder had been all over the newspapers and TV and everybody was talking about all the cabdrivers getting robbed. And these two punks were so excited with their plan that they couldn't keep still. The guy on the far side of the street was jumping up and down so much that he kept scaring the neighborhood pigeons into brief, low-altitude flights.

When I waved them off, they didn't try to argue or show me their money. One turned to Broadway, the other to Sheridan Road and they started up again, waving away. It didn't make any difference which way the cabs were going. Hell, they weren't planning to pay.

But they were having a hard time finding a taker. Drivers were dropping their NOT FOR HIRE signs, turning their toplights off and locking their doors. It was hard to imagine that anyone would ever stop. But I knew, if the kids could just tough it out, sooner or later someone would.

As likely as not, it would be a foreign driver. Somebody who came from a country where no one would ever kill just for money.

Lenny wouldn't have stopped for them in a million years, I knew, but he'd stopped for someone.

The kids weren't the only ones having trouble getting a cab. Just south of Irving Park, a husky black guy in jeans and a nylon windbreaker was hurrying south alongside the parked cars. He stuck out his arm but barely slowed down. One look was all I needed. This was a man who worked for a living. And he was going where he was going whether I took him there or not.

"I'm just going down to Belmont," he said. "Man, I didn't think anybody was ever gonna stop."

It was a familiar story. Every time a driver got killed certain people found it nearly impossible to get a cab.

"Two-twenty," I said when we got there.

He handed me a five. "That's yours," he said.

On Clark Street, a well-dressed black woman waved, then approached the cab. "Are you for hire?" she asked.

"Come on," I said, and reached back and opened the door.

"What is wrong with you cabdrivers?"

"Huh?"

"Six cabs just passed me by."

"Lady," I started.

"Do I look like a criminal?"

"Lady," I tried again.

"Now you answer my question. Do I look like a criminal?"

"Lady, if you looked like a criminal I wouldn't have picked you up. Now would you mind telling me where you're going?"

"I'm going to the I.C. Station," she said. "I live in the suburbs. I am not a criminal. I have never been a criminal. I do not associate with criminals. I have a good job. I pay my taxes. I go to church. But you cabdrivers, all you can see is the color of my skin."

"Lady, why you giving me a hard time?" I asked. "I'm the guy who stopped."

"Six cabs," she went on and on. "And I have each and every number and tomorrow morning I am reporting each and every cab to the Department of Consumer Services. What I don't understand, what I cannot fathom at all, is that two of the drivers were black themselves. Now would you please tell me why a driver would pass up someone of his own race?"

"Lady, black drivers get killed just as often as white drivers."

"But they can't seriously think I would harm them?"

"No," I agreed. "They probably figured you were going to some crummy neighborhood where they didn't want to be."

"And why did you stop?"

"I stop for just about everybody," I told her the truth.

"Well, thank you so very much," she said, and that put an end to that conversation.

Four-sixty on the meter. I got five.

The door never closed. A businesswoman slid into the back seat. "North and Sedgwick," she said.

I continued west on Randolph, through the Loop, then turned north on Franklin. "Hey, didn't I have you last night?" the woman asked.

I glanced back but she didn't look familiar. "I don't think so," I said.

"Sure, I did," she said, and she leaned over the front seat to look at my chauffeur's license, which was in a plastic holder for all the whole world to see. "I remember your name. Edwin Miles. I remember thinking that was a really appropriate name for a cabdriver."

"Eddie," I said.

"You were telling us how Hudson Street was going to get better, remember? That's where I'm really going, Hudson south of North Avenue."

I turned around. "You're the girl without the bed."

"That's me." She smiled but she didn't look anything like the night before. She was wearing thick-rimmed glasses. Her blond hair was pulled tight and tied in back. She looked like a librarian in a very serious library.

"You're all dressed up," I said.

"A girl's got to make a living," she said.

"Yeah, but "

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Come on." She smiled. "What were you going to say?"

The smile was hard to resist. "It's just that you're hiding all the good stuff."

"You really think so?"

"No doubt about it."

"How about now?" she asked a moment later. I turned around and her hair was undone and the glasses gone. Just like a bad movie, she was a knockout again.

"Now why would you want to hide that?"

"One of my rules," she said. "Never let the people at work know who you really are."

"Where's your friend?"

"Oh, him," she said. "He's probably sleeping, the bum. He keeps me up all night and then I've got to go to work and pretend to be awake. And he just lies around and sleeps the day away."

"Sounds nice," I said.

She leaned over the front seat. "You really think my neighborhood will get better?"

"Absolutely," I said.

We made a little jog at Division Street, keeping Cabrini to the west, and headed up Sedgwick, past Oscar Mayer's original plant, a huge red-brick place that had recently closed for good.

"This must be a neat job," she said.

"It has its moments."

"Me, I see the same boring people, day after day."

"Lots of boring people get in this cab," I let her know.

"Do you ever get lucky?"

"Huh?" I glanced over, and she had this teasing little smile on her face.

"You know, with women," she said.

"Not in the cab." I shook my head.

"That's funny," she said, and she dropped back in the seat. "I would think that women would you know, I mean, you're pretty attractive "

I glanced in the mirror and caught that same smile. "Thanks." I fell into the trap.

" for a cabdriver," she added the punch line.

"Hey, thanks a lot, lady."

"Just kidding," she said. "Now tell me the truth, when was the last time a woman came on to you?"

"You thinking of inviting me in?"

"Can't," she said. "The bum's there."

"Just like to tease a guy to death?"

"You look like you can take it."

"I guess so," I said as I pulled up in front of her house. "Well, maybe I'll run into you some other time."

"Sure, just keep driving around," she said. "I'm always looking for a cab." She dropped some money over the front seat and flashed another smile.

Next door an older black couple was sitting on the porch of a tiny, ramshackle house. If they owned the place, they'd make a nice profit when they sold.

The girl walked up the steps and opened the door, then waved. I flashed my toplight and pulled away.

Public Chauffeurs shall be courteous to passengers, prospective passengers and other drivers at all times. Chauffeurs shall not assault, threaten, abuse, insult, provoke, interfere with, use profane language or offensive gestures around, impede or obstruct any person in connection with the operation of their vehicles.