Read Online Drive by James Sallis - Free Book Online Page B

million dollars.”
    “Please hold, sir.”
    Within moments a heavy, chesty voice came on the line.
    “Nino here. Who the fuck’s there. Dino says you have something of mine?”
    Nino and Dino? “So I have reason to believe.”
    “Yeah, well, lots of people have stuff of mine. I got a lot of stuff. What was your name again?”
    “I’d just as soon keep it. I’ve had it a long time.”
    “Why the hell not? I don’t need no more names either.” He turned away. “I’m on the fuckin’ phone here, you can’t see that?” Then back: “So what’s the deal?”
    “Recently I had some business with a man from out your way driving a Crown Vic.”
    “It’s a popular car.”
    “It is. What I wanted to let you know is that he won’t be doing any more business. Nor will Strong and Blanche. Or two gentlemen who checked out for the last time, though it wasn’t their room, at a Motel 6 north of Phoenix.”
    “Phoenix is a hard town.”
    Driver could hear the man breathing there at the end of the line.
    “What are you, some kind of fuckin’ army?”
    “I drive. That’s what I do. All I do.”
    “Yeah. Well, I’ve gotta tell you, it’s sounding to me like sometimes you give a little extra value for the money, if you know what I mean.”
    “We’re professionals. People make deals, they need to stick to them. That’s the way it works, if it’s going to work at all.”
    “My old man used to say the same thing.”
    “I haven’t counted, but Blanche told me there’s something over two hundred grand in the bag.”
    “There damn well better be. And you’re telling me this because?”
    “Because it’s your money and your bag. Say the word, both can be at your door within the hour.”
    Driver heard something fizzy and sinuous, Sinatra maybe, playing in the background.
    “You’re not very good at this, are you?”
    “At what I do, I’m the best. This isn’t what I do.”
    “I can go with that. So what do you get out of it?”
    “Just that: out of it. Once the money’s in your hands, we’re even. You forget Cook and his Crown Vic, forget the goons at that Motel 6, forget we’ve ever had this conversation. No one steps up to me a week from now, or a month from now, with your regards.”
    Silence beat its way down the line. Music started up again at the far end.
    “What if I refuse?” Nino said.
    “Why would you? You have nothing to lose and a quarter of a million to gain.”
    “Good point.”
    “We have a deal, then?”
    “We have a deal. Within the hour…?”
    “Right. Just remember what your old man said.”

Chapter Twenty
    Doc threw sponges, swabs, syringes and gloves into a plastic bucket produced to fit against floorboards and serve as a wastebasket for cars. Hey, he lived in a garage, right? Lived on an island, he’d use coconut shells. No problem.
    “That’s it,” he said. “Stitches are out, the wound looks good.”
    Bad news was that his patient wasn’t going to have a whole lot of feeling in that arm from now on.
    Good news was, he had full mobility.
    Driver handed over a wad of bills secured with a rubber band.
    “Here’s what I figure I owe you. That’s not enough—”
    “I’m sure it is.”
    “Not the first time you stapled my ass back together, after all.”
    “1950 Ford, wasn’t it?”
    “Like the one Mitchum drove in Thunder Road, yeah.”
    That was really a ’51—you could tell by the V-8 emblems, Ford Custom on front fenders, dashboard and steering wheel—but chrome windsplits had been removed and a ’50 grille added. Close enough.
    “You crashed into the supports of the freeway approach that had just gone up.”
    “Forgot it was there. It hadn’t been, the last few times I made that run.”
    “Perfectly understandable.”
    “Something wonky about the car, too.”
    “Might cause a man to take caution who he steals a car from.”
    “Borrows a car from. I was going to take it back…. Seriously, Doc: You had my back then and you have it now. Appreciate