The Driver

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?

Maybe it would be possible, after all.

He gazed out of the window. He could see the glow from other houses further down the road. The nearest was another big building with lights blurring through the murk. As he watched, a sleek black town car turned into the driveway and parked three cars over from him. The doors opened and two men stepped out. It was too dark and foggy to make out anything other than their silhouettes, but he watched as they made their way to the door and went into the house.

The dull thump and drone of bass was suddenly audible from the house. The party was getting started. Milton turned up the stereo a little to muffle it. He changed to The Smiths. Morrissey’s melancholia seemed appropriate in the cloying fog. Time passed. He had listened to the whole of ‘Meat is Murder’ and was halfway through ‘The Queen is Dead’ when he heard a scream through the crack in the window.

His eyes flashed open.

He turned down the stereo.

Had he imagined it?

The bass throbbed.

Somewhere, footsteps crunched through the gravel.

A snatch of angry conversation.

He heard it again: clearer this time, a scream of pure terror.

Milton got out of the car and crossed the forecourt to the front door. He concentrated a little more carefully on his surroundings. The exterior was taken up by those walls of glass, the full-length windows shining with the light from inside. Some of the windows were open and noise was spilling out: the steady bass over the sound of drunken voices, conversation, laughter.

The scream came again.

A man was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

“You hear that?” Milton said.

“Didn’t hear nothing.”

“There was a scream.”

“I didn’t hear anything, buddy. Who are you?”

“A driver.”

“So back to your car, please.”

The scream sounded for a fourth time.

It was hard to be sure but Milton thought it was Madison.

“Let me in.”

“You ain’t going in, buddy. Back to the car now.”

Milton sized him up quickly. He was big and he regarded Milton with a look that combined distaste and surliness. “Who are you?”

“I’m the man who tells you to go and fuck off. Like already, okay?” The man pulled back his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster. He had a big handgun.

Milton punched hard into the man’s gut, aiming all his power for a point several inches behind him. The man’s eyes bulged as the pain fired up into his brain and he folded down, his arms dropping to protect his groin. Milton looped an arm around his neck and yanked him off the porch, dragging him backwards so that his toes scraped tracks through the gravel, and then drove his knee into the man’s face. He heard the bones crack. He turned him over, pi

Milton flipped the S&W so that he was holding it barrel first and brought the butt down across the crown of the man’s head. He spasmed, and then was still.

The scream again.

Milton shoved the gun into the waistband of his jeans and pushed the door all the way open. A central corridor ran the length of the building with doors and windows set all along it. Skylights were overhead. The walls were painted white and the floor was Italian marble. The corridor ended at a set of French doors. Vases of orchids were spaced at regular intervals across the marble.

He hurried through into the bright space beyond. It was a living room. He took it all in: oak parquetry floor inlaid with ebony and a gilded fireplace that belonged in a palazzo as the focal point of the wall; rich mahogany bookshelves and fine fabric lining one wall; the rest set with windows that would have provided awesome views on a clear day. The ceiling was oak and downlighters in the beams lit the room. The furnishings were equally opulent with three circular sofas that would each have been big enough to accommodate ten or eleven people. The big windows were ajar and gleaming white against the darkness outside. A night breeze blew through the room, sucking the long curtains in and out of the windows, blowing them up toward the ceiling and then rippling them out over a rust-coloured rug.

Milton took in everything, remembering as much as he could.

Details:

The DJ in a baseball cap mixing from two laptops set up next to the bar.

The lapdancing pole with two girls writhing around it, both of them dressed as nuns.

The girl dancing on the well-stocked bar wearing a mask of President Obama.

The music was loud and the atmosphere was frantic. Many of the guests were drunk and no attempt had been made to hide the large silver salvers of cocaine that had been placed around the room. Milton watched a man leading a half-naked woman up the wide wooden staircase to the first floor. Another man stuffed a banknote into the garter belt of the girl who was dancing for him.

The scream.

Milton tracked it.

He made his way farther inside. The windows at the rear of the room looked out onto wide outdoor porches and manicured grounds. He could just see through the fog to the large illuminated pool, the spa, the fire flickering in an outdoor fireplace. He passed into a library. Silk fabric walls blended with painted wainscoting. There was a private powder room and a large wood-burning fireplace. A handful of guests were there, all male.

Madison was cowering against the wall. Slowly rocking backwards and forwards.

There was a man next to her. He put his hand on her shoulder and spoke to her but she pulled away. She looked vulnerable and frightened.

Milton quickly crossed the room.

“Are you alright?”

She looked right through him.

“Madison — are you alright?”

She couldn’t focus on him.

“It’s John Smith.”

Her eyes were glassy.

“I drove you here, remember? I said I’d wait for you.”

The man who had been speaking to her faded back and walked quickly away. Milton watched him, caught between his concern for her and the desire to question him.