The Driver

“Do you remember me there?” Milton asked.

She shrugged. “Sort of.”

“Why didn’t you let me help you?”

“Because I was out of my head and terrified. I didn’t believe Crawford, not then, not for a instant, and I knew I was in trouble. Whatever it was he’d given me was seriously messing me up. I didn’t even know where I was. I just felt like I was underwater and I kept trying to swim up, I was really trying, but it felt like I was going to fall asleep. I remember an argument, men shouting at each other, and then I knew I had to get out of there, right that instant, before it got worse and I couldn’t move, and so I took off.” She paused, frowning as she tried to remember what had happened next. “I know I went to a house over the road. There are bits after that that are a complete blank. The pill, whatever it was, it totally wiped me out. I woke up in the woods behind the houses. Five, six in the morning. Freezing cold. There was no way I was going back there so I just kept going through the trees until I hit a road, and then I followed that until I got onto the 131. I hitched a ride back to San Francisco.”

“After that?”

“I’ve got a girlfriend in L.A. and so I got on the first Greyhound the next morning, this is like at seven, and went straight there. I didn’t want to stick around. I didn’t think it was safe. The first week down there I just kept my head down. Stayed in the apartment most of the time.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

“I heard about what had happened to them… those other girls.”

“No-one knew that they were co

“Yeah,” she said. “But it freaked me out. It just felt a little close to home. And then when they said who they were, like last week? I was about ready to get out of the state.”

“Did you know them?”

“Megan — I met her once. This one time, at the start, before I was seeing Jack properly, there were two of us. Me and her. She was a sweet girl. Pretty. She was kind of on the outs then but I liked her. I remember her face, and then, when they put pictures up on the news and said she was one of the girls they’d found, and then I thought what had nearly happened to me, I realised what was going on. I mean, it was obvious, right? Robinson likes to have his fun and then, when it’s all said and done and over, if they think the girl is go

“You could’ve called the police,” Trip said.

“Seriously? He is — was — the governor of California. How you think that’s going to sound, I call and say I’ve been with him and they ask how and I say it was because I was a hooker and then I say I think he wants to kill me? Come on, Trip. Get real, baby. They’d just laugh.”

“You could’ve called me,” he said, sadly.

“Yeah,” she said, looking away for a moment. “I know.”

“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 go

“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