The Driver (33 page)

“You have to go to the police now, Madison,” Milton said. “It’s pretty much wrapped up but you have to tell them.”

“I know I do. Trip’s going to take me this afternoon.”

They finished their drinks quietly. Milton had packed his few possessions into a large bag. The apartment looked bare and lonely and, for a moment, the atmosphere was heavy and depressing.

“I’m gonna go and wait outside,” Madison said eventually. They all rose and she came across the room, slid her arms around his neck and pulled him down a little so that she could kiss him on the cheek. “Probably wasn’t what you were expecting when you picked me up, right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Thank you, John.”

She disengaged from him and made her way across the room. Milton watched as she opened the door and passed into the hallway, out of sight.

He looked over at Trip. He was staring vaguely at the open doorway.

“You alright?”

He sighed. “I guess,” he said quietly. “Things aren’t what they always seem to be, are they, Mr. Smith?”

“No,” Milton said. “Not always.”

Trip gestured at his bulging travel bag. “You going away?”

“I’m leaving town.”

“For real?”

Milton shrugged. “I like to keep moving around.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know yet. Wherever seems most interesting. East, I think.”

“Like a tourist?”

“Something like that.”

“What about your jobs?”

“They’re just jobs. I can get another.”

“Isn’t that a bit weird?”

“Isn’t what?”

“Just moving on.”

“Maybe it is, but it suits me.”

“I mean––I thought you were settled?”

“I’ve been here too long. I’ve got itchy feet. It’s time to go.”

He walked across to the bag and heaved it over his shoulder. Trip followed the unsaid cue and led the way to the door. Milton took a final look around––thinking of the evenings he had spent reading on the sofa, smoking cigarettes out of the open window in the swelter of summer, staring out into the swirling pools of fog, and, above all, the single night he had spent with Eva––and then he pulled the door closed, shutting off that brief interlude in his life. It was time. He had taken too many chances already and, if he had avoided detection, it had been the most outrageous luck. There was no sense in tempting fate. Quit when you’re ahead.

He locked the door.

They walked down the stairs together.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked the boy as they crossed into the harsh artificial brightness of the lobby. “With Madison, I mean?”

“I don’t know. We’re right back to the start, I guess––that’s the best we can hope for. And I’m not stupid, Mr. Smith. Maybe we’re through. I can kinda get Robinson, how it might be flattering to have someone like that chasing after you. Efron, too, all that money and influence. But there’s the other guy, the driver, I thought he was kinda dumb if I’m honest. I don’t get that so much. All of it––I don’t know what I mean to her anymore. So, yeah––I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

“You do.”

“What would you do? If you were me?”

Milton laughed at that. “You’re asking me for relationship advice? Look at me, Trip. I’ve got pretty much everything I own in a bag. Do I look like I’m the kind of man with anything useful to say?”

They stopped on the street. The fog had settled down again, cold and damp. Milton took out the keys to the Explorer. “Here,” he said, tossing them across the sidewalk at the boy. He caught them deftly but then looked up in confusion. “It’s not much to look at but it runs okay, most of the time.”

“What?”

“Go on.”

“You’re giving it to me?”

“I don’t have any need for it.”

He paused self-consciously. “I don’t have any money.”

“That’s alright. I don’t want anything for it.”

“Are you sure?” he said awkwardly.

“It’s fine.”

“God, I mean, thanks. Do you want––I mean––can I drop you anyplace?”

“No,” he said. “I’ll get the bus.”

“Thanks, man. Not just for this––for everything. For helping me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Milton said. “I’m glad I could help.”

The corners of the books in his bag were digging into his shoulder; he heaved it around a little until it was comfortable and then stuck out his hand. Trip shook it firmly and Milton thought he could see a new resolution in the boy’s face.

“Look after yourself,” Milton told him.

“I will.”

“You’ll do just fine.”

He gave his hand one final squeeze, turned his back on him and walked away. As the boy watched, he merged into the fog like a haggard ghost, melting into the long bleak street with its shopfronts and trolley wires and palm trees shrouded in fog and whiteness. He didn’t look back. The foghorn boomed as a single shaft of wintry sunlight pierced the mist for a moment. Milton had disappeared.

EPILOGUE

47

THE TWO NEWCOMERS came into the bar with trouble on their minds. They were both big men, with broad shoulders and thick arms. The bar was full of riggers from the oil fields and these two fitted right in. Milton had ordered a plate of BBQ chicken wings and fries and a coke and was watching the Cowboys’ game on the large flatscreen TV that was hanging from the wall. The food was average but the game was close and Milton had been enjoying it. The bar was busy. There were a dozen men drinking and watching the game. Three young girls were drinking next to the pool table. He watched the two men as they made their way across the room. They ordered beers with whiskey chasers, knocked back the whiskeys and set about the beers. They were already drunk and it looked like they were fixing to work on that a little more.

Milton had been in Victoria, Texas for twelve hours. He had dropped the Dodge back at the Hertz office and was just wondering what to do next. He still had four thousand dollars in his go bag, enough for him to just drift idly along the coast with no need to get a job just yet. He thought that maybe he’d get a Greyhound ticket and head east from Texas into Louisiana and then across to Florida, and then, maybe, he would turn north up towards New York and find a job. That was his rough plan but he was taking it as it came. No sense in setting anything in stone. He had taken a room in a cheap hotel across the street from the bar and, rather than spend another night alone with just his paperbacks for company, he had decided to get out, get something to eat and watch the game.

Milton took a bite out of one of the chicken wings.

“Good?” said the man sitting on the stool to his right. Milton looked at him: mid-twenties, slender, acne scars scattered across his nose and cheeks.

“Very good.”

“All in the sauce. Hot, right?”

“I’ll say.”

“That’s old Bill’s original recipe. Used to call it Suicide ‘til folks thought he ought to tone it down a bit. Calls it Supercharger now.”

“So I see,” Milton said, pointing to the menu on the blackboard above his head. “It packs a punch.”

“Say––where you from?”

“Here and there.”

“Nah, man––that accent, what is it? English, right?”

“That’s right,” Milton said. He had no real interest in talking and, eventually, after he made a series of noncommittal responses to the man’s comments on the Cowboys’ chances this year, he got the message and quietened down.

The two newcomers were loud. Milton examined them a little more carefully. One of them must have been six-five and eighteen stone, built like one of the offensive linemen on the TV. He had a fat, pendulous face, a severe crew cut and small nuggety eyes deeply set within flabby sockets; he had the cruel look of a school bully, a small boy transported into the body of a fully grown man. His friend was smaller but still heavy-set and thick with muscle. His head was shaved bald and he had dead, expressionless eyes. The other men in the bar ignored them. It was a rough place, the kind of place where the threat of a brawl was never far from the surface, but the way the others kept their distance from these two suggested that they were known and, probably, that they had reputations.

The bald man saw Milton looking and stared at him.

Milton turned back to the screen.

“Alright!” the man at the bar exclaimed as the fullback plunged over the goal-line for a Cowboys’ touchdown.

The two men sauntered over to the table where the girls were sitting. They started to talk to them; it was obvious that they were not welcome. The big man sat down, preventing one of the girls from leaving. Milton sipped on his Coke and watched as the girl pressed herself against the wall, trying to put distance between him and her. He reached across and slipped an arm around her shoulders, she tried to shrug it away but he was persistent. The bald man went around to the other side of the table and grabbed the arm of the nearest girl. He hauled her up, encircled her waist with his arm and pulled her up against his body. She cursed him loudly and struggled but he was much too strong.

Milton folded his napkin, carefully wiped his mouth with it and then stood.

He walked to the table.

“Leave them alone,” he said.

“Say what?”

“They’re not interested.”

“Says who?”

“I do. There’s no need for trouble, is there?”

“I don’t know––you tell me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe I
do
think so.”

Milton watched as he sank the rest of his beer. He knew what would come next and so he altered his balance a little, spreading his weight evenly between his feet so that he could move quickly in either direction.

The bald man got up. “You ought to mind your own business.”

“Last chance, friend,” Milton said.

“I ain’t your friend.”

The bald man cracked the glass against the edge of the table and rushed him, jabbing the sharp edges towards his face. Milton took a half-pace to the left and let the man hurry past, missing him completely with his drunken swipe. He reached out with his right hand and snagged the man’s right wrist, pivoting on his right foot and using his momentum to swing him around and down, crashing his head into the bar. He bounced backwards and ended up, unmoving and face down, on the floor. The big man reached out for a pool cue from the table. He swung it, but Milton stepped inside the arc of the swing, took the abbreviated impact against his shoulder and then jabbed his fingers into the man’s larynx. He dropped the cue; Milton took a double handful of the man’s shirt, yanked him down a little, butted him in the nose and then dumped him back on his behind.

The bald man was out cold and the big man had blood all over his face from his broken nose.

“You had enough?” Milton said.

“Alright, mister! Get your hands up!”

Milton turned.

“Come on,” he groaned. “Seriously?”

The man he had been talking to earlier had pulled a revolver and was aiming it at him.

“Put your hands up now!”

“What––you’re police?”

“That’s right. Get them up!”

“Alright. Take it easy.”

“On your head.”

“You want me to put them up or on my head?” He sighed. “Fine––here.” He turned away and put his arms behind his back. “Go on. Here we go. Cuff me. Just relax. I’m not going to resist.”

The young cop approached him warily, moved his hands behind his back and fixed handcuffs around his wrists.

“What’s your name?”

“John Smith.”

“Alright then, buddy. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”

“Come on.”

The fat man wiped the blood from his face and started to laugh.

“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

“Of course.”

“With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

“Not particularly.”

“John Smith––you’re under arrest.”

An extract from the second full-length John Milton novel

SAINT DEATH

ADOLFO GONZÁLEZ lowered his AK and the others did the same. They were stood in a semi-circle, all around the three stalled trucks. There was no noise beyond the soporific buzz of the earth baking and cracking under the heat of the sun. Dust and heat shimmered everywhere. He looked out at their handiwork. The vehicles were smoking, bullet holes studded all the way across the sheetmetal. They were all shot up to high heaven. The windscreens had been stoved in by the .416 calibre rounds that the snipers had fired. Some of the holes that ran across the cars were spaced and regular from the AKs, others were scattered with uneven clumps from number four buckshot. The Italians had come to the meet in their big, expensive four wheel drive Range Rovers. Tinted windows, leather interiors and xenon headlamps. Trying to make a big impression. Showing off. Hadn’t done them much good. One of them had tried to drive away but he hadn’t got far. The tyres of the car were flat, still wheezing air. The glass was all shot out. Steam poured from the perforated bonnets.

Adolfo looked up at the hills. He knew Samalayuca like the back of his hand. His family had been using this spot for years. Perfect for dumping bodies. Perfect for ambushes. He’d put three of his best snipers up on the lava ridge. Half a mile away. They had prepared covered trenches and hid in them overnight. He could see them coming down the ridge now. The sun shone against the dark metal of their long-barrelled Barretts and reflected in glaring flickers from the glass in the sights.

He approached the nearest Range Rover, his automatic cradled at his waist with the safety off. Things happened. Miracles. It paid to be careful. He opened the door. One of the Italians, slumped dead over the wheel, swung over to the side. Adolfo hauled his body out and dumped it in the dust. Bad luck,
pendejo
. There were two more bodies in the back.

Adolfo walked around the end of the truck. There was another body behind it, face up, mouth open. Vivid red blood soaked into the dirt. A cloud of hungry flies hovered over it.