The Driver

His day work was physically demanding and hefting the weighty boxes from the depot into the back of the truck had been good for his physique. His old muscle tone was back and he felt better than he had for months. The tan he had acquired while he was in South America had faded in the grey autumnal gloom and the tattoo of angel’s wings on his back and neck stood out more clearly now that his skin was paler. He dried himself and dressed in jeans and a work shirt, locked the door and left the building.

TOP NOTCH BURGER was a one room restaurant at the corner of Hyde and O’Farrell. Milton had found it during his exploration of the city after he had taken his room at the El Capitan. It was a small place, squeezed between a hair salon and a shoe shop, with frosted windows identified only by the single word BURGER. Inside, the furniture was mismatched and often broken, the misspelt menu was chalked up on a blackboard and hygiene looked as if it was an afterthought. The chef was a large African-American called Julius and, as Milton had discovered, he was a bona fide genius when it came to burgers. He came in every day for his lunch, sometimes taking the paper bag with his burger and fries and eating it in his car on the way to Mr. Freeze and, on other occasions, if he had the time, he would eat it in the restaurant. There was rarely anyone else in the place at the same time and Milton liked that; he listened to the gospel music that Julius played through the cheap Sony stereo on a shelf above his griddle, sometimes read his book, sometimes just watched the way the man expertly prepared the food.

“Afternoon, John,” Julius said as he shut the door behind him.

“How’s it going?”

“Going good,” he said. “What can I get for you? The usual?”

“Please.”

Milton almost always had the same thing: bacon and cheddar on an aged beef pattie in a sourdough bun, bone marrow, cucumber pickles, caramelized onions, horseradish aioli, a bag of double-cooked fries and a bottle of ginger beer.

He was getting ready to leave when his phone rang.

He stopped, staring as the phone vibrated on the table.

No-one ever called him at this time of day.

“Hello?”

“My name’s Trip Macklemore.”

“Do I know you?”

“Who are you?”

Milton paused, his natural caution imposing itself. “My name’s John,” he said carefully. “John Smith. What can I do for you?”

“You’re a taxi driver?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you drive Madison Clarke last night?”

“I drove a Madison. She didn’t tell me her second name. How do you know that?”

“She texted me your number. Her usual driver wasn’t there, right?”

“So she said. How do you know her?”

“I’m her boyfriend.”

Milton swapped the phone to his other ear. “She hasn’t come home?”

“No. That’s why I’m calling.”

“And that’s unusual for her?”

“Very. Did anything happen last night?”

Milton paused uncomfortably. “How much do you know—”

“About what she does?” he interrupted impatiently. “I know everything so you don’t need to worry about hurting my feelings. Look — I’ve been worried sick about her. Could we meet?”

Milton drummed his fingers against the table.

“Mr. Smith?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Can we meet? Please. I’d like to talk to you.”

“Of course.”

“This afternoon?”

“I’m working.”

“After that? When you’re through?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know Mulligan’s? Green and Webster.”

“I can find it.”

“What time?”

Milton said he would see him at six. He ended the call, gave Julius ten bucks and stepped into the foggy street outside.

* * *

The Business had its depot in Bayview. It was located in an area of warehouses, a series of concrete boxes with electricity and telephone wires strung overhead and cars and trucks parked haphazardly outside. Milton parked the Explorer in the first space he could find and walked the short distance to Wallace Avenue. Mr. Freeze’s building was on a corner, a two-storey box with two lines of windows and a double-height roller door through which the trucks rolled to be loaded with the ice they would deliver all around the Bay area. Milton went in through the side door, went to the locker room and changed into the blue overalls with the corporate logo — a block of motion-blurred ice — embroidered on the left lapel. He changed his Timberlands for a pair of steel-capped work boots and went to collect his truck from the line that was arranged in front of the warehouse.

He swung out into the road and then backed into the loading bay. He saw Vassily, the boss, as he went around to the big industrial freezer. His docket was fixed to the door: bags of ice to deliver to half a dozen restaurants in Fisherman’s Wharf and an ice sculpture to a hotel in Presidio. He yanked down the big handle and muscled the heavy freezer door open. The cold hit him at once, just like always, a numbing throb that would sink into the bones and remain there all day if you stayed inside too long. Milton picked up the first big bag of ice and carried it to the truck. It, too, was refrigerated and he slung it into the back to be arranged for transport when he had loaded them all. There were another twenty bags and by the time he had finished carrying them into the truck his biceps, the inside of his forearms and his chest were cold from where he had hugged the ice. He stacked the bags in three neat rows and went back into the freezer. He just had the ice sculpture left to move. It was of a dolphin, curled as if it was leaping through the air. It was five feet high and set on a heavy plinth. Vassily paid a guy fifty bucks for each sculpture and sold them for three hundred. It was, as he said, “a big ticket item.”

Milton couldn’t keep his mind off what had happened last night. He kept replaying it all: the house, the party, the girl’s blind panic, the town car that only just arrived before it had pulled away, the motorcycles, the Cadillac. Was there anything else he could have done? He was embarrassed that he had let her get away from him so easily when it was so obvious that she needed help. She wasn’t his responsibility. He knew that she was an adult, but he also knew he would blame himself if anything had happened to her.

He pressed his fingers beneath the plinth and, bending his knees and straining his arms and thighs, he hefted the sculpture into the air, balancing it against his shoulder. It was heavy, surely two hundred pounds, and it was all he could manage to get it off the floor. He turned around and started forwards, his fingers straining and the muscles in his arms and shoulders burning from the effort.

He thought about the call from her boyfriend and the meeting that they had scheduled. He would tell him exactly what had happened. Maybe he would know something. Maybe Milton could help him find her.

He made his way to the door of the freezer. The unit had a raised lip and Milton was distracted; he forgot that it was there and stubbed the toe of his right foot against it. The sudden surprise unbalanced him and he caught his left boot on the lip too as he stumbled over it. The sculpture tipped away from his body and even as Milton tried to follow after it, trying to bring his right arm up to corral it, he knew there was nothing he could do. The sculpture tipped forwards faster and faster and then he dropped it completely. It fell to the concrete floor of the depot, shattering into a million tiny pieces.

Even in the noisy depot, the noise was loud and shocking. There was a moment of silence before some of the others started to clap, others whooping sardonically. Milton stood with the glistening fragments spread around him, helpless. He felt the colour rising in his cheeks.

Vassily came out of the office.

“What the fuck, John?”

“Sorry.”

“What happened?”