The Driver

1

The grey September mist had rolled in off the Bay two days earlier and it hadn’t lifted yet. It softened the edges of objects within easy sight but, out beyond ten or fifteen feet, it fell across everything like a damp, cold veil. June was often the time when it was at its worst — they called it June Gloom for a reason — but the fog was always there, seeping down over the city at any time, without warning, and often staying for hours. The twin foghorns — one at either end of the Golden Gate Bridge — sounded out their long, mournful, muffled ululations. John Milton had been in town for six months and he still found it haunting.

It was nine in the evening, the streetlamps glowing with fuzzy coronas in the damp mist. Milton was in the Mission District, a once-blighted area that was being given new life by the artists and students who swarmed in now that crime had been halted and rents were still low. It was self-consciously hip now, the harlequinade of youth much in evidence: long-haired young men in vintage suits and fur-trimmed Afghans and girls in short dresses. The streets looked run-down and shabby. The girl Milton had come to pick up was sitting on a bench on the corner. He saw her through the fog, difficult to distinguish until he was a little closer. He indicated right, filtered out of the late evening traffic and pulled up against the kerb.

He rolled the passenger-side window down. The damp air drifted into the car.

“Madison?” he called, using the name that he had been given.

The girl, who was young and pretty, took a piece of gum out of her mouth and stuck it to the back of the bench upon which she was sitting. She reached down for a rucksack, slung it over her shoulder, picked up a garment bag and crossed the pavement to the Explorer. Milton unlocked the door for her and she got in.

“Hi,” she said in a lazy drawl.

“Hi.”

“Thanks for being so quick. You’re a lifesaver.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“You know the McDonalds in Balboa Park?”

He thought for a moment. Six months driving around San Francisco had given him a decent grasp of local geography. “I know it.”

“That’s where we’re headed.”

“Okay then.”

Milton changed into first and pulled back out into the sparse traffic. The rush hour had dissipated. He settled back into his seat and nudged the car up to a steady forty-five. He looked in the mirror at his passenger: Madison had opened her rucksack and taken out a book. It looked thick and substantial; a text-book, he thought. The dispatcher had told him to look for a blonde when she had relayed the booking although her skin was a very dark brown, almost black. Her hair was light and straightened and Milton wondered whether it might be a wig. She was curvaceous and small and dressed in jeans and a chunky sweater. Definitely very pretty. She read her book in silence. Milton flicked his eyes away again and concentrated on the road.

They passed through Mission Bay, Potrero Hill and into Balboa Park. The McDonalds, a large drive-thru, was in the grid of streets south of Ocean Avenue. There were advertisements for three-for-two on steak burritos and cups of premium roast coffee for a dollar.

“Here you go,” he said.

“Thanks. Is it okay to wait?”

“What for?”

“A call. We’re just stopping here.”

“Fine — but I’ll have to keep the clock ru

“That’s okay. I got to wait until the call comes and then we’ll be going someplace else. Is that okay with you?”

“As long as you can pay, we can stay here all night.”

“I can pay,” she said with a broad smile. “How much do I owe you?”

Milton looked down at the meter. “Twenty so far.”

“Twenty’s no problem.” She took a purse out of her bag, opened it and took out a note. She reached forward and handed it to him. It was a hundred.

He started to feel a little uncomfortable.

“That should cover it for a couple of hours, right?”

Milton folded it and wedged it beneath the meter. “I’ll leave it here,” he said. “I’ll give you change.”

“Whatever.” She nodded at the restaurant, bright light spilling out of the window onto the line of cars parked tight up against it. “I’d kill for a Big Mac,” she said. “You want anything?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“You sure?”

“I ate earlier.”

“Alright.”

She got out. He clenched and unclenched his fists. He rolled the window down.

“Actually,” he said, “could you get me a coffee? Here.”

He reached in his pocket for a dollar bill.

She waved him off. “Forget it. My treat.”

Milton watched as she crossed the car park and went into the restaurant. There was a queue and, as she slotted into it to await her turn, Milton undid his seat belt and turned around so that he could reach into the back. She had left her bag on the seat. He checked that she was facing away and quickly unzipped it, going through the contents: there was a clutch bag, two books, a mobile phone, a bottle of vodka, a box of Trojans and a change of clothes. He zipped the bag and put it back. He leant back against the headrest and scrubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand.

He had been very, very stupid.

The girl returned with a bagged up Happy Meal, a tall soda and a large coffee. She passed the Styrofoam cup through the open window, slid into the back seat, took the bottle of Stolichnaya from her bag, flipped the plastic lid from the soda and poured in a large measure.

“Want a drop in your coffee?”

“No thanks,” he said. “I don’t drink.”

“Not at all?”

“Never.”

“Wow. What is that, like a lifestyle choice?”

He wasn’t about to get into that with her. “Something like that,” he said vaguely.

“Suit yourself.”

She put the straw to her mouth and drew down a long draught.

“Madison,” Milton said. “I need you to be honest with me.”

She looked up at him warily. “Yeah?”

“There’s no delicate way to put this.”

She stiffened, anticipating what was coming next. “Spit it out.”

“Are you a prostitute?”

“You’re a real charmer,” she said.

“Please, Madison — no attitude. Just answer the question.”

“I prefer ‘escort.’”

“Are you an escort?”

“Yes. You got a problem with it?”

“Of course I do. If we get pulled over I could get charged with promoting prostitution. That’s a felony.”

“If that happens, which it won’t, then you just tell them that I’m your friend. How they go

“You make it sound like it’s happened to you before.”

“Hardly ever, and, whenever it has, it’s never been a big deal.”

“No,” Milton said. “I’m sorry. It’s a big deal for me.”

“Seriously?”

“I don’t need a criminal record. You’re going to have to get out. You can call another cab from here.”

“Please, John,” she said. He wondered for a moment how she knew his name and then he remembered that his picture and details were displayed on the laminated card that he had fixed to the back of his seat. “I can’t afford this right now.”

“And I can’t take the risk.”

“Please,” she said again. He looked up into the mirror. She was staring straight at him. “Come on, man. If you leave me here I’ll never get a ride before they call me. I’ll miss the party and these guys, man, this agency I work for, they’ve got a zero tolerance policy when the girls no-show. They’ll fire me for sure and I can’t afford that right now.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not my problem.”

“Look, man, I’m begging you. I’ve got a little kid. Eliza. She’s just two years old — you’ve got no idea how cute she is. If I get fired tonight then there’s no way I’m going to be able to pay the rent. Social services will try to take her away from me again and that just can’t happen.”

Milton stared out at the queued traffic on Ocean Avenue, the glow of a hundred brake lights blooming on and off in the soupy fog as they waited for the junction to go to green. He drummed his fingers on the wheel as he turned the prospect over in his mind, aware that the girl was looking at him in the mirror with big, soulful, hopeful eyes.