Nine Fingers (19 page)
Authors: Thom August
In the Fat Man’s Cab
Monday, January 20
Akiko had disappeared sometime in the night, but her scent fluttered up from my bed as I flipped the quilt roughly into place.
I slipped into the shower, got dressed, and wedged into my car. It was twenty-two degrees on the way to the cabstand to pick
up the big black beast. The sun was a dim rumor in the sky, hidden behind a smear of altostratus clouds. I clicked open #691 and slid in.
It was time to get back to work. Driving one-handed didn’t figure to be a problem—I do it all the time. I tossed my stuff
in the front, started the engine, let the cab warm up enough to cut the frost on the windshield, and headed downtown. It was
Monday, the Accountant’s day, so as I drove north I kept the NOT FOR HIRE sign lit up, and I got slightly lit up myself—just
a couple of hits. As I stopped at a light on Michigan Avenue across from the Hilton, a citizen standing in front of the hotel
tried to flag me down, to make me make a U-turn and pick him up. I pointed to the sign on the roof, and he gave me the finger.
I cruised up Michigan, turned right at the Hancock and then left and left again, and as I rounded the corner, the Accountant
was standing there, reading the paper, which he had neatly folded in half vertically and then into thirds horizontally, like
people used to do on the subways when I was a kid in New York, so they wouldn’t take up too much of the communal space. Now
they just sprawl out all over the place, and are less likely to read a newspaper than to deposit some bodily fluids on one.
But not the Accountant, he’s old school. Just seeing this little gesture restored my faith, such as it is, in humanity, such
as
it
is.
I pulled up to the curb and popped the locks. He took a few seconds to finish whatever he was reading, then folded the paper,
tucked it into his coat pocket, smiled and got in the cab.
“Why, Vincent, it’s so good to see you this morning, prompt as usual,” he said.
There was something else in his tone—a little weak in the upper overtones; something in his body language; a crease of worry
on his forehead; a hunch of doubt in his shoulders—but I didn’t say a word, except, “Where to, your Lordship?”
He settled himself in, unbuttoned his coat, placed his briefcase in his lap, took off his gloves and wrapped his hands around
them, squeezing them a little too forcefully. Finally he looked up at me. His eyes bugged out, and he leaned forward.
“What in God’s name happened to your hand?” he asked.
“Uh, a little mishap,” I said.
“Sticking your fingers where they don’t belong, eh?” he leered.
“Something like that,” I said.
He paused, gave me a serious look. “Can you drive?”
“No, actually, I pushed the car up here from South Twentieth and State. Luckily, I can do that one-handed.”
He guffawed his fake laugh, but still looked serious. “Are you sure?”
“Quite,” I said. “You are in the competent hands—
hand
—of a trained professional.”
He looked at me for a beat, he nodded, then his face looked away and turned darker.
“Well, today it’s going to be a long day indeed. Serious errands, portentous tasks—”
“ ‘And miles to go before I sleep,’ ” I quoted.
With that, he looked at me, blankly. Not a Frost fan, evidently. “Well, not so many miles today, not so many…Sometimes
it’s not the distance that counts but what you do at journey’s end…”
I must have shown something on my face that looked to him like concern, because he piped right up: “But never fear, lad, you
will be well-compensated, as is the custom of our little weekly tête-à-tête.”
“Whatever is on the meter, sir,” I said. “Be assured that you will be driven in comfort and class, or at least as well as
this classic carriage and my one good hand will allow.”
Now we were falling into the old comfy repartee, and it eased him noticeably. He gave me his chin-thrust-out FDR look, called
out “Onward, then!” and I punched in and off we went.
I got all the way to a stoplight before I politely asked where the fuck we were going.
The first stop was down on the South Side, down in the Nineties somewhere, off Cottage Grove, where we were the only white
folks in sight—not that there’s anything wrong with that, except that there is—and we got there in less than twenty-five minutes.
It was a storefront, a mix of Checks Cashed, Lottery, Grocery, Bakery, Beer and Wine, Premium Cigars, and Convenience. He
was in and out in less than a minute. Then, unusually, we went still farther south, only about ten more blocks or so. This
was an apartment building, semi-middle-class, and again, he was in and out in a flash. Then we headed up north, to the suburbs
where the richer people hide from people who use check-cashing stores, first to an office building, then a fenced-in house.
Again, in-and-outs, both of them, quick work. Then we started south again.
On the way, he cajoled me into playing some license-plate poker. We went back and forth for a while with me getting hot on
a six-spot with QCR—“Quite Chilling Really, Quilt-Clad Reprobate, Quaint Condom Replacement, Quirky Cub Reporter, Queer Clock
Robber and Quince Cooking Recipes,” and him getting stumped on KJV, with only two references, and me picking it up on a challenge
and adding “Killed Juvenile Victims” and “Kilt Just Vanished.”
He wasn’t taking much joy in it, whether I beat him or let him win. So I made some excuse to stop—I was at the tail end of
“BBU” and I dropped a lit cigarette on the floor and said I had to locate it before we Both Burned Up. He got the joke, but
didn’t laugh, just gave me a tight little grin, so I changed the topic and we settled up on the money that had passed so far;
I was up about twenty bucks.
As soon as I let him off the hook, he turned to look out the window and got a pensive look on his face, not sad, really, not
angry or morose or troubled, really, just, like I said, pensive.
Or maybe he was trying to pass some gas; sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.
We went out to the West Side, past Greek Town, another quick in-and-out, then downtown, a little longer stop. When he came
out he was checking his watch.
He hopped back in, shivering from the cold, and reached into his coat pocket, took out a flask and took a long pull on it.
I made like I didn’t notice, and in a few seconds I got a whiff of Scotch. He screwed the cap back on, wiped his mouth with
his sleeve, showing a crack of what lay underneath his thin veneer of class, but then he saw me seeing him.
“Care for a little spot, a wee taste, a morning eye-opener?” he asked.
“Little early for me,” I said, “and I’m kind of ‘on duty’ here. The cops don’t like drunken cabdrivers.”
“Cops?” he said, looking around.
“Just speaking hypothetically,” I said. “But you go ahead; after all, you’re not driving.”
He nodded, looked at the flask, took another swallow and tucked it away. He reached into an outside pocket and fished out
a roll of mints, popped one and commenced to suck away, looking out the window.
It took him close to a minute to realize that we were parked at the curb, not going anywhere. I let him take his time—I get
paid whether we’re moving or not—and I had a sense I didn’t want to spook him.
He finally roused himself and called out an address out on the West Side again, south of Midway Airport, on Cicero. The way
he said it was very precise, every syllable standing on its own, all alone. I drove up to the light at the corner, stopped
for the red, and flipped the directional on; the Expressway was only two blocks away.
He immediately looked up and said, “Back streets, if you please, Vincent, back streets.” He glanced at his watch again. “This
next appointment is a scheduled one, and we have plenty of time.”
I nodded, flipped the turn signal off, and headed straight through the intersection. It was mid-morning, traffic was light,
and within about twenty minutes we were getting close to the address. As we did he leaned closer, put his hands up on the
back of the front seat, and said in an almost conspiratorial whisper, “I’m afraid I’ll be having some company at this appointment,
a gentleman I have met only once, and who, frankly, I had no desire to meet again. But the vicissitudes of this business…This gentleman is someone who is extremely, uh, reticent, very private in his dealings, and it might be better for you
and also for me if you parked around the corner and let me walk over from there.”
As he said this his eyes were darting all over the place, even though we were still more than a mile away. Before I knew it,
his hypervigilant state started to infect me. I noticed myself slowing imperceptibly, eyeballing every parked car, checking
every pedestrian. I didn’t want him to see me doing this, so I took a breath and locked my head facing straight ahead. But
my eyes were doing the lateral tango.
And I blew it totally. I totally lost track of the blocks and instead of pulling over one block before the address I drove
right by it—shit! I tried to act nonchalant about it and pulled around the corner after our stop, and even though my eyes
were focused front, I saw somebody, a door or two down from the storefront we were aiming for, leaning up against the building.
Middle-aged, middle-sized, nondescript, dressed in gray, an average face with a big Fu Manchu—and maybe it wasn’t even him,
hell, I had no fucking idea, just that there was a man standing near a building where we were supposed to meet someone.
I was panicking inside but tried to cover it by playing dumb on the outside. I cranked the wheel to the right, pulled over
in a no-parking zone, and popped the locks. I put a stupid grin on my face, half-turned and asked, “Will this be close enough,
sir?”
The Accountant didn’t make one of his wise-ass remarks, didn’t even nod. His face had turned red, his jaw was set, and he
flat-out glared at me for a second before pulling his eyes away. Shit. Then he grabbed his briefcase, opened the door, slid
out, and slammed it shut.
I hunkered down in the cab and waited, going through the old coulda-woulda-shoulda. My armpits were sweating and my hands
were cold. This was a nice weekly gig, good money, good times, and I didn’t want to blow it. But more than that, whatever
he did on our little forays, the Accountant was a good guy, a fop and a jerk, but still a good guy. He had never stiffed me,
never said a nasty word, never treated me like the help. I had a sense that I might have gotten him in some kind of trouble,
and that was twisting me around inside.
I tried to sit still.
I checked my watch: five minutes had passed, much longer than his stops usually took. There was nothing I could do but wait;
if I moved and he came out looking for me and I wasn’t there, it’d be worse. If I got out of the car and walked around to
stretch, it’d look like I was spying on him. Shit.
I looked at my watch again: ten minutes gone. My mind started to race with the possibilities. Calm down, Vince, I told myself,
the guy’s probably just there for show. We’re not talking Al Capone here, not talking big-time drug dealers; there’s no briefcase
in the world big enough to hold that kind of money. Besides, I didn’t even know if any money was involved at all. I had no
evidence, no proof, not a single scrap of facts to go on. This whole scenario about mob activity or collections or whatever
was all in my head. Let it go, I told myself. All the weed is making you paranoid.
My injured hand started to ache, deep under the cast where I couldn’t rub the pain away.
And all of a sudden there he was, stepping in through the back door, his briefcase under his arm. He slid in very slowly,
very carefully, like a much older man. His right hand was cupping his balls. He reached across with the left to close the
door, still keeping the jewels under cover, reached into his right breast pocket with his left, took out the flask. His face
looked ashen. He held the flask between his knees and unscrewed the cap, brought the flask to his mouth and took a long drink.
Not a sip; I’m talking a couple of swallows—you could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He kept drinking until it
was maybe halfway empty, then brought it down into his lap again, the cap still off. He was breathing hard.
I wanted to say something, but what the fuck could I say without betraying some knowledge or suspicion of what he was up to,
of what our little journeys were all about? I didn’t want him to think I knew anything, I didn’t want him to think I had seen
the guy—I hadn’t, well, not much, anyway. What the fuck was I supposed to say?
We just sat there, with the motor running and my brain racing.
Finally, I glanced in the rearview mirror, raised my eyebrows a notch, and said, “Everything OK, sir? Anything I can do?”
He kept looking out the window. Finally, he slowly turned until he was facing front, stretched his neck, and in a low voice
said, “Mission accomplished. Let’s head home, shall we?”
So we did.
Neither one of us said a word on the way back. I wanted to apologize for getting him in trouble, but that would have acknowledged
he had gotten in trouble. I mean, what are you going to say? “Are your balls all right? Did he punch them or kick them or
squeeze them?” I kept thinking of things to say, then editing them and saying nothing, feeling the silences like weights.
Every now and then he’d raise the flask up to his mouth and take a little sip, staring out the window. The color slowly came
back into his face. As we hit downtown he took the last pull on the Scotch—the aroma was unmistakable by that point—found
the cap, screwed it back on, tucked it away in his pocket. He took his hand away from his balls, stretched his legs, stretched
his back. His face had regained some color; his posture had loosened.
He remembered the briefcase, which had slid off his lap and onto the seat next to him. He pulled it back onto his lap, patted
it reassuringly. He took off his hat, set it on his lap, and reached into his pocket for a comb. He raked it over his head
two, three, four strokes, slipped it back into his pocket, and carefully set his hat back on his head, just so. And just like
that the mask of his persona slipped back into place. He glanced at me in the rearview once, then twice.
