The Driver (18 page)

“Like what?” Trip said, suddenly with a little aggression.

“That sometimes the calls are just about sex, sometimes they’re about keeping someone company—a john paying someone to hear him out. Said she liked those calls best.”

He cleared his throat and looked down at the table.

“Keep going,” Milton said, knowing what was coming next and hating himself for pressing, hating what it was going to do to Trip.

“Then––I guess it just sort of happened. We had the cash to get a hotel but I guess we didn’t wanted to wait. We had sex in the car.”

“And?”

“She said she liked it. I didn’t really believe it but then, the next time I was driving her, like a couple of days after that, it happened again.”

Trip stood abruptly. Without saying a word, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the café.

“I’m sorry, man,” Aaron said helplessly. “I didn’t want to say––”

Milton stared at him. “Keep going.”

He frowned, his eyes on the table again. “I had a girlfriend then but I ended it. I couldn’t stop thinking about Madison. I knew it wasn’t right, my girl was cut up and I knew Madison had a guy, but I couldn’t help it, neither of us could help it. I was getting pretty deep into working for the agency then and my girl had always been jealous about that, the girls I was driving, but Madison didn’t have any of that. No jealousy, just totally cool about it all. She got me, totally, understood where I was coming from. Sometimes I drove her and sometimes I didn’t, but it didn’t matter. We were both cool with how it was. When I drove her, we slept together between calls. Sometimes she’d pretend to be on call during the day but she’d meet me, we’d check into a hotel and stay there all day. We’d get room service, watch movies on the pay-per-view, I’d usually have a couple of grams on me and we’d work our way through that.”

“What was she like?”

“How do you mean?”

“Ever think she was depressed?”

“She had her moments, like all the girls, but no––I don’t think so. If you mean do I think she’s run away or done something worse, then, no, I’d say there was no chance. That’d be completely out of character. You want my opinion, I’d say that something bad has happened. No way she stays out of touch this long. She says nothing to me, nothing to your friend––no, no way, I ain’t buying that.”

“You know you have to tell the police, don’t you?”

“About us?”

“Yes, and about the agency.”

His eyes flickered with fear. “No way, man. Talk to the cops? You mad? Salvatore, he’s connected, you know what I mean?
Connected
. It’s not like I know everything about how it works, but, my best guess, the things I heard from the girls and the other drivers, he’s fronting it for the Lucianos. You know them, man? The fucking Lucianos? It’s fucking mafia, right?––the Mafia! Ain’t no way I’m getting myself in a position where they might think I was ratting them out to the cops. No way. You know what happens to guys they reckon are rats, right?”

“Your name doesn’t have to come out.”

“Fuck that shit, man! What you been smoking? That kind of stuff don’t ever stay under wraps. They got cops on the payroll, everyone knows it. My name would be on the street in minutes and then they’ll be coming over to talk to me about it and that ain’t something that I want to think about. Next thing, I’d be floating in the Bay with my throat cut. Fish food, man.”

“Alright,” Milton said, smiling in the hope that he might relax a little. “It’s okay. I understand.”

Aaron looked at him suspiciously. “You’re just a driver, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So why you asking all the questions, then?”

He spoke with careful, exaggerated patience. “Because I’m one of the last people to have seen Madison before she disappeared. That means I’m a suspect and I’d rather that I wasn’t. Trip is a suspect now, too, and it’ll probably get worse for him when the police find out that you were sleeping with his woman. Jealousy, right? That’s a good motive. The more information you can give us, maybe that makes it easier for us to find out what happened to her and then maybe the police realise me and him had nothing to do with it. Understand?”

“You wait for her that night?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you help her, then? If it was me out there, I guarantee nothing would’ve happened.”

Milton looked at him dead straight, staring right into his eyes; the boy immediately looked down into the dregs of his coffee. “She didn’t give me a chance,” Milton said sternly. “Something happened to her at that party and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. By the time I got to her she was already in a mess.”

“So where is she?”

“She ran. That’s all I know.”

He gestured towards the door. “That dude––you tell him I’m sorry, will you? I didn’t want to say anything and, you know, muscling in on another guy’s girl, that ain’t the way I do things, that ain’t my style at all, you know what I’m saying?”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Milton said.

“Alright,” he said. “I’m done.”

“The agency. How can I get in touch with them?”

“What are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to visit them.”

“And?”

“And get as much information as I can.”

“No way, man. I can’t. That shit’s gonna come back to me, right? They’ll figure out I’ve been talking. I don’t know. I don’t know at all.”

He got up quickly, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. He made to leave but Milton reached out a hand, grabbed the boy around the bicep and squeezed.

“Shit, dude!” he exclaimed. “That hurts.”

Milton relaxed his grip a little but he didn’t let go. “Have a think about it,” he said, his voice quiet and even. “Think about Madison. If you care about her at all you give me a call and tell me how I can get in touch with the agency. Don’t make me come and find you. Do we understand each other?”

“Shit, man, yeah––alright.”

Milton took a pen from his pocket, pulled a napkin from the chrome dispenser and wrote his number on the back. “This is me,” he said, putting it in the boy’s hand. “Take the rest of the day to think about it and call me. Okay?”

The boy gulped down his fear and nodded.

Milton released his grip.

23

MILTON DROVE THEM as near to Headlands Lookout as he could get. Trip was nervous, fidgeting next to him, almost as if he expected them to find something. The police had blocked the road a hundred yards from the parking lot, a broad cordon cutting from the rocky outcrop on the right all the way down to the edge of the cliff on the left. Half a dozen outside broadcast trucks had been allowed down to the lot and they were crammed in together, satellite dishes angled in the same direction and their various antennae bristling. Milton slowed and pulled off the narrow road, cramming the Explorer up against the rock so that there was just enough space for cars to pass it to the left. The skies were a slate gray vault overhead and rain was lashing against the windscreen, pummelling it on the back of a strong wind coming right off the Pacific. Visibility was decent despite the brutal weather, and, as Milton disembarked, he gazed out to the south, all the way to the city on the other side of the Bay.

They made their way through the cordon and down to the parking lot. There were several dozen people there already, arranged in an untidy scrum before a man who was standing on a raised slope where the phalanx of cameras could all get a decent view of him. Milton recognised him. It was Commissioner William Reagan, the head of the local police. He was an old man, close to retirement, his careworn face chiselled by years of stress and disappointment. The wind tousled his short shock of white hair. He pulled his long cloak around him, the icy rain driven across the bleak scene. An officer was holding an umbrella for him but it wasn’t giving him much shelter; he wiped moisture from his face with the back of his hand.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said into the upheld microphones, “before I get into my remarks let me identify those who are here with me. I got Chief of Detectives Stewart Webster, everyone knows the Chief, and I got Inspector Richard Cotton.” He cleared his throat and pulled out a sheet of paper. “As you know, we’ve found two bodies along this stretch of the headland. I wish we hadn’t, but that’s the sad fact of it. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two bodies ended up in this area. It appears that they were taken down from the road into the foliage and hidden there so that they wouldn’t be seen. We’re assuming they were dumped here by the same person or persons.”

A brusque man from cable news shouted loudest as he paused for breath. “You identified them yet?”

“No,” Reagan said. “Not yet.”

“So you’re saying you’ve got a serial killer dumping victims along this stretch of land?”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that two ended up in this area, but I don’t want anyone to think we have a Jack the Ripper running around with blood dripping from a knife.” He blinked. “Which might be the impression that some people would get … ” He trailed off. “This is an anomaly,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“You expect to find anyone else?”

“That’s impossible to say. But we’re looking.”

“There’s snow forecast for the weekend. Does that add pressure?”

“It doesn’t help. We want to make sure we don’t miss anything.”

“So are you or are you not looking at it being the same guy?”

“Well, you know, I’m not gonna say that but, certainly, we’re looking at that.”

THE PRESS ROADSHOW decamped and moved to Belvedere. A slow crawl of traffic worked slowly along the narrow road, Milton and Trip caught in the middle of it. Their purpose in driving out of the city had been to go and speak to Brady but Milton had not anticipated all this extra company. It made him nervous. The vehicles turned left and headed north, taking the right and doubling back to the south. Milton gripped the wheel tightly and ran the morning’s developments through his mind. It wasn’t surprising that they had reached the conclusion that Madison’s disappearance must have been connected. Why not? Two working girls turning up murdered just a few miles away, another working girl goes missing: it was hardly a stretch to think that she was dead, too, and dead at the hands of the same killer.

As they reached Pine Shores it was obvious that the prospect of a community of potential suspects was just too tempting to ignore. The gates stood open––it looked as if they had been forced––and the cavalcade had spilled inside. Reporters and their cameramen had set up outside the two key properties: the house where the party had taken place and Dr. Brady’s cottage. Police cruisers were parked nearby but the cops inside seemed content to let them get on with things. Milton parked the Explorer and joined Trip at the front of the car. They watched as two reporters for national news channels delivered their assessments of the case so far––the discovery of the two bodies, the fact that a third girl had gone missing here––and suggested that the police were linking the investigations.

Milton looked at the cameras.

“We shouldn’t be here,” he said, more to himself than to the boy.

“What are they doing outside his place?” Trip said, his eyes blazing angrily as he started up the street towards Brady’s cottage.

“Trip––stop.”

“They think he did it, right? That must be it.”

Milton followed after him and took him by the shoulder. “We need to get back in the car. They’ll be all over us if they see us and figure out who we are.”

Trip shook his hand away. “I don’t care about that. I want to speak to him.”

He set off again. Milton paused. He knew he should leave him, get back into the car and drive back to the city. He had been stupid to come up here. He should have guessed that it would be swarming with press. It stood to reason. He didn’t know if they would be able to identify him but, if they did, if he was filmed and if the footage was broadcast?––that would be very dangerous indeed.

Milton’s phone vibrated in his pocket.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Smith?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Aaron Pogue––from this morning.”

Milton put his hand over the microphone. “Trip!”

He paused and turned. “What?”

“It’s Aaron.”

The boy came back towards him.

“You there?” said Pogue.

“Yes, I’m here. Hello, Aaron.”

“I’ve been thinking, about what you said.”

“And?”

“And I’ll tell you what you need. The agency, all that.”

“That’s good, Aaron. Go on.”

“I don’t have a number for the agency––the number they use when they call, it’s always blocked, so there’s nothing I can do to help you there. But Salvatore, the guy who runs it, I know he owns the pizza house in Fisherman’s Wharf. That’s just a cover––the agency is his main deal, that’s his money gig, he runs it from the office out back. That’s it.”

“Thank you.”

“You’ll keep my name out of it?”

“I’ll try.”

“I hope you find her.”

Milton ended the call.

“What did he say?”

“He told me where to find the agency.”

The thought of confronting Brady seemed to have left his mind. “Where?”

“Come on,” he said. “It’s in the city. Want to come?”

24

MILTON PARKED THE CAR on the junction of Jefferson and Taylor. He had explained his plan to Trip during the drive back into the city and persuaded him that it was better that he go in alone. He had objected at first but Milton had insisted and, eventually, the boy had backed down. Milton didn’t know what he was going to find but, if the agency was backed by the Mafia, what he had in mind was likely to be dangerous. He had no intention of exposing Trip to that.

“I won’t be long,” he said as he opened the door. “Wait here?”

“Alright,” Trip said.

Milton stepped out and walked beneath the huge ship’s wheel that marked the start of Fisherman’s Wharf. He passed restaurants with their names marked on guano-stained awnings: Guardino’s, The Crab Station, Sabella & LaTorre’s Original Fisherman’s Wharf Restaurant. Tourists gathered at windows, staring at the menus, debating the merits of one over another. A ship’s bell clanged in the brisk wind that was coming off the Ocean, the tang of salt was everywhere, the clouds pressed down overhead. It was a festival of tacky nonsense, as inauthentic as it was possible to be. Milton continued down the road. The Classic Italian Pizza and Pasta Co. was between Alioto’s and The Fisherman’s Grotto. He climbed the stairs to the first floor and nodded to the maitre d’ as he passed him as if he were just rejoining friends at a table. It was a decent place: a salad and pasta station, tended to by a man in a chef’s tunic and a toque, was positioned beneath a large Italian tricolour; string bags full of garlic and sun-dried tomatoes hung from a rack in the area where food was prepared; a series of tables was arranged on either side of an aisle that led to the bar; the tables were covered with crisp white tablecloths, folded napkins and gleaming cutlery and glassware. Two sides of the restaurant were windowed, the view giving out onto the marina beyond on one side and the Wharf on the other. It was busy. The smell of fresh pizza blew out of the big wood kiln that was the main feature of the room.