Drive Me Crazy (3 page)

“He loved her. And she played him. All for the money.”

I nodded.

Wolf went catatonic, like his inner voice was talking to him, telling him things, or maybe the alcohol was catching up to him. Either way, Wolf blinked out of his stupor, ran his hand over his goatee, and nodded like he understood something. His barstool screeched the floor when he stood up. Wolf took a final sip of his beer, whistled, and put his suit coat back on.

He asked, “You staying?”

A wave of tiredness rolled over me. That was my cue. I told him to hold up while I finished my beer. My sinful night was about to end, my peaceful tomorrow already planned.

He asked, “Heading to Strokers to watch Panther strip and dance the pole dance?”

Panther. A woman who had a Southern accent and schoolgirl smile like my ex-wife’s.

I paused, smiled. “Nah. I’ve given Panther enough of my paycheck. Gonna call it a night. Maybe make a few phone calls on the way home. Stir up a midnight snack of my own.”

Baklava Glue moved her hair from her exotic face, glanced my way again. A fresh dime in a room filled with old nickels, a few the size of a quarter, none that could be runner-up to Miss Barstow. A woman like that could walk into a church on Easter Sunday and ten minutes later somebody would have been shot, stabbed, or drowned in sacrifice as a show of affections.

I touched Wolf’s shoulder, told him, “I’m gonna try my luck with Miss Baklava Glue.”

Wolf held up and watched her for a second.

In the end he said, “She’s a cure for what Viagra is trying to fix.”

I winked at my employer, my friend, teased him, “Unless you want to holla at her.”

“High-maintenance women like that are why I’m in the condition I’m in today. Alimony and child support on an ex-wife who decided she didn’t want to be married anymore, then moved to Las Vegas just to make my visitation hell, and a now a new wife who won’t stop shopping.”

I asked, “That bad?”

“The wife went out for coffee at Starbucks and came back in a brand-new red Hummer.”

“I saw it in the parking lot at work. Ugly-ass SUV looks like an armored car.”

“And costs just as much. She’s killing me. Last thing I need is to meet another pretty woman who would take advantage of my cheating heart and gum up the works.”

I threw my hands up. “Told you to keep away from the high-end women.”

“Not my fault. They come after me.”

“Because you’re rich.”

Wolf set me straight, said, “Because I’m hung like a horse and they all want to ride.”

Pedro laughed. He was pouring somebody a shot of scotch, listening to Wolf ramble.

Wolf flipped Pedro off and went on, “Can’t help it if they love me, Driver. Just can’t help it. Maybe next time I’ll stick to my own kind and meet a nice Irish girl.”

Pedro told him, “You’re not Irish.”

“I’ll dye my hair red and eat Lucky Charms.”

We laughed, and when the laughter died, Wolf called it a night, headed across the room. His gait should’ve been confident and moneyed, like he owned the world, but he moved like a crab, like he was cringing all the time. If you stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and put a trench coat on his back, he’d look like James Dean strolling down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

As soon as Wolf left, Pedro gave me a knowing look, shook his head, his smile gone.

He told me, “She just called up here looking for you. She’s bold. Like she don’t care.”

Pedro didn’t say my trouble’s name. We knew my sins and indiscretions.

He asked, “How does she know when you’re here? I tell her you’re not here and she tells me I’m lying. It’s like she knows when you walk in the door. I’d be careful.”

“Fifty thousand volts.”

“Know what I’m saying? She’s loco like a mofo.”

I shrugged and pushed my chest out, waved it off like it was nothing I couldn’t handle.

Pedro looked in the direction Wolf had just gone, then shook his head and walked away.

I took off my jacket and watched Miss Baklava Glue do her thing. She had grabbed a stick, found a hustler who wanted to test her skills, and played a few games. Twenty a game was the going rate. I was tempted to do the same. But I didn’t. Just sat back and watched her. This wasn’t a room filled with pros or people who had deep pockets, not like Sin City—Las Vegas. Mostly amateurs with an attitude, the kind of men and women who’d lose fifty bucks and consider it a major financial setback.

She was sexy. Different from anything I had touched before. Couldn’t move my eyes away. She was aware of me. Seemed like she was watching me as much as I was watching her.

Miss Baklava Glue had a great body and a decent game. Decent bank shot. But couldn’t get the cue to obey her, leaving her next shot in trouble. She made a shot, looked my way, maybe showing off. Each time I nodded her way. She got her respect by beating a few people, had a decent run for a while, but just like Gray Davis there was a sudden reversal of fortune. When it was all said and done, the hustlers had out-hustled her and she’d lost her Chicago roll. I guessed that at least two C-notes had slipped away from her.

She came toward the bar, shaking her head, looking a little angry. She didn’t like losing.

We made eye contact again. Brief eye contact.

I followed her, watched those legs move in that long black leather skirt, the split showing uncharted flesh up to her thigh. Her high heels made her feet look delicate and ethereal. I loved the way heels begat shapely legs on a woman, how they elongated feminine legs. Nothing like watching a woman’s sashay. It was like a fingerprint, each woman had her own way of moving. Loved to witness the calf muscles contract to slim and firm the back part of the lower leg.

She ran her hand over her hair, leaned against the counter.

I got her eye, asked, “Whassup?”

“Nothing.”

“Buy you a drink?”

“I can buy my own.”

I unclenched my jaw, stood firm and refused to give in that quick, squared my stance, took a breath, slow and deep. “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”

“Okay, you need to come stronger than that.”

“Was just saying. You’re silk and lace in a blue-jean world.”

She licked her lips. “I can handle myself.”

“Heard you’ve been through here before. Earlier this week.”

“People do talk.”

“You don’t look like the type of woman who’d be hanging out on Figueroa.”

She nodded. “Guess I have a fascination with danger.”

“What’s your name?”

“Arizona.”

“Like the state?”

She gave me two thumbs up. “Somebody is good at geography.”

I told her that people called me Driver.

Outclassed, I raised my palms and got ready to move on with my life. Women were like Newton’s third law in reverse. When faced with a powerful force from without, like a man coming on too fast and strong, they gave the same amount of opposing force, got turned off.

She asked, “Giving up so soon?”

She posted up on a wooden barstool. I moved down a barstool, sat next to her.

I told her, “Just getting started.”

She winked. “I’ll let you buy me a drink.”

Her voice sounded older than she looked, either from hard times or a street life, but she didn’t look like she was from either world. Clear fingernails, simple diamond earrings, expensive watch. She had a mild accent, the kind that let me know she spoke another language.

Pedro came over, put down two napkins. “What can I do for Beauty and the Beast?”

I looked at her. “I think he just called you ugly.”

First she laughed. Then Pedro laughed. I joined in the next chorus.

She ordered a Seven and Seven. I’d only had one beer. I asked for my friend, Jack Daniel‘s, on the rocks. Then she changed her order, said she’d have what I was having.

Pedro dropped our drinks, then he left so I could try my luck with this dime.

I asked, “Where’d you learn to shoot?”

She ran her palm over her hair again, did that over and over like it was some sort of a nervous tic. I smelled the sweetness of her perfume and the freshness of her shampoo.

She answered, “Wherever I could. Used to hang out at this pool hall in Sherman Oaks a couple of years ago. Before that I got my game on out in Riverside and San Berna-zero.”

San Berna-zero was a nickname for San Bernardino. That was east, about an hour in no traffic. Add three hours to that drive if it’s on a Friday. Add another two weeks if it’s raining.

I asked, “You grow up out in the Inland Empire?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“You a stripper?”

“AmIastripper?” She laughed hard. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“You’re pretty and have the body for it. How you take that is up to you.”

She shook her head and sat straight back, legs crossed at the knees, did that like the gate to her paradise was impassable.

Arizona asked, “What’s a guy in an Italian suit and nice shoes doing in FUBU World?”

“Come stronger than that.”

She laughed. Her nose was small, her lips full, eyebrows arched.

I said, “We all go where we feel comfortable.”

“Guess Bible study was filled to the brim.”

“I’m agnostic.”

“Between Bible pushers and the atheists live the agnostics. So you’re on the fence.”

I nodded. “An independent. You?”

“Buddhist, non-practicing.”

Her expression remained unreadable. She had small eyes, straight teeth, and a heart-shaped face. Her breasts looked like they hadn’t been offended by time and gravity, not yet. When you were getting old, all young women start to look good. Youth was an aphrodisiac. Old women reminded you that you were old. Nobody wanted a mirror, especially in L.A.

She asked, “How old are you?”

I paused, trying to decide if I was going to lie, but didn’t. “Forty. You?”

“Twenty-three.”

She gave me a sideways smile, one that told me she didn’t give a fuck about the chronological difference either. My answer was a smile that mirrored hers.

She said, “You could’ve at least said I looked like an aerobics instructor.”

I shook my head. “Telling a woman she looks like an aerobics instructor is played out.”

“Your whole conversation is played out.”

“No, it’s retro, baby. Straight throwback.”

Her laugh ended with a nice smile, the kind that created crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes. “Throwback. Okay, I can roll with the old school.”

My sleeves were rolled up and my cuff links were off, exposing my arms up to my elbows. She motioned at my tats, asked, “What you do time for?”

I closed down for a moment. Those memories had a way of stopping me, making me think. I told her the same thing I told everybody else, that I did time for not telling. For keeping my motherfucking mouth shut. Didn’t tell the truth then, didn’t see any reason I should now.

Her smile broadened. Women loved bad boys. We were the men they dated and never married. The men they ran back to when they found the real world too pedestrian.

I asked, “You did some time at the free motel?”

She grinned and winked, set free a one-sided smile. She wasn’t telling either.

Men loved bad girls too. For the same reasons.

We sat and sipped. She didn’t cringe or frown when she sipped her Jack. She picked up the newspaper that Pedro had discarded on the counter, read over an article.

She asked, “What do you do?”

“Male exotic dancer.”

She laughed again. “Man, what is up with you and this obsession with strippers?”

I told her, “I’m a driver.”

“So, do you drive getaway cars, the space shuttle, go-carts, what?”

“You got jokes. I drive for Wolf Classic Limousine.”

She nodded. “I bet you hear things, bet you see things.”

“What kinda things?”

“Things people don’t want the world to know about.”

I stared at my drink, admired that warm liquid that soothed me. Started drinking after my divorce. The hue of my drink was the same as my ex-wife’s complexion, golden-amber.

She pressed on, asked, “What have you seen?”

The way she was pressing me about my job should’ve sent up a red flag. But a man sat next to woman like her and wanted to do all he could to get her not to leave.

I shrugged. “White-collar customers get in asking me if I knew where they could score crack. Or West Hollywood bathhouses. Last month people in town for a religious convention wanted to hit the strip clubs, then came right out and asked if I knew any hookers.”

Without looking impressed or disgusted, she sipped, said, “So you hook ‘em up.”

“Depends. I do what I can to stimulate financial growth in our depressed economy.”

“So, if the pay is right you’ll do a lil’ somethin‘-somethin’ on the low-low.”

Sounded like she’d moved from flirting to interviewing me. I didn’t like that.

I said, “Somebody sounds a little drunk.”

She shook her head, wiped her long hair back and made a face. “Not even.”

“Damn. I’m wasting my money.”

“Look at this.” She’d turned the page on the newspaper. “Rent scam bilks fifteen families, nets nearly fifty thousand over one weekend.”

Pedro was passing by. He didn’t disturb us, just moved on.

I said, “Fifty thousand in a weekend? Amazing.”

She smiled, gave me direct eye contact, then went back to the article.

Arizona said, “Maybe we could do some business together.”

“What kind of business?”

“You hear people, Driver. Their conversations, things they don’t want anybody to know about. That information you’re sitting on, the right person gets it, it’s worth a mint.”