Driven: The Sequel to Drive

Driven: The Sequel to Drive by James Sallis Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Driven: The Sequel to Drive by James Sallis Read Free Book Online
Authors: James Sallis
Tags: Fiction, General, Crime
to us at every turn.
“The most interesting thing about us as a species may be all the ways we figure out so we don’t have to think about those things.”
This from a the man who spent most of his life writing crap movies. Well, mostly crap anyway.
Emergency vehicles pulled in below, so yes, a collision.
Driver stood. The boulder he’d been sitting on was all but covered with paint-sprayed tags, scribblings, and knife etchings—Manny would have insisted upon calling them modern petroglyphs. In the dark Driver could only make out that they were there, not distinguish them. Tags, he figured, tags and hearts and dates and jumbled-up names. And if he could read them, they’d make about as much sense as everything else.
— • —
     
He drove back in along Southern and Buckeye, then spilled over to Van Buren and, surprised to see lights on at the garage, turned in. The door was unlocked. As he stepped through, a head leaned out from behind the hood of a bottle-green BMW.
“Everything all right?” he said.
“Would I be under here if it was?”
“I mean…” He looked around. The only lights were two floods over her space. Strange to have the place so silent. “It’s late.”
“And quiet.”
His face must have carried the question.
“You tilted your head, the way people do when they’re listening—just for a second there. Nice, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Love it. Being alone in the night, nothing much else in the world except what I’m working on.” She came out from behind the BMW. “I have a key. Lupa’s daughter and I, we went to school together. Anyway, this monster’s almost done.”
“Yours?”
“No way I could afford it. Or want it. But I can get it running smooth again, and the guy who owns it can’t do that. You notice the sidewalks just up the way?”
“Not really.”
“WPA, from 1928. More cracks than cement, so the city finally decides to repair them. One look and you can tell the old good stuff from the new crappy stuff.”
“I’ve got some poorly repaired cracks myself.”
“Not the right vintage.”
“A little earlier, true. Interesting thing to notice about the neighborhood.”
“Everything’s interesting. You just have to look closely.”
“And most people don’t.”
She shrugged. “Their loss.”
He was careful not to move closer. And while she seemed wholly at ease, body language told him she was every bit as watchful and aware. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
“You never had it.”
Caught without a response, he shook his head.
“You have legal motives in mind, say—oh, I don’t know, applying for a marriage license, checking my credit—put down Stephanie. Real life, I’m Billie. Long story, not very interesting.”
“I thought everything was.”
She turned to put down the feeler gauge she was holding and turned back. “You have possibilities, Eight.”
When he held his hands out and apart in mock supplication, she pointed to the stall where he usually worked. Right. Number eight.
They turned to the door in unison.
“You folks okay?” Floating in the gray behind concentric circles of blinding light, the cop stepped in. He pivoted the flashlight around the garage, up and down, then back to them before shutting it off. As their eyes readjusted, his partner came into sight at the door.
“Saw the lights on, commercial establishment. Kinda late, isn’t it?”
“And quiet,” Driver said.
The lead cop let that go. His eyes did a once-over, checking Driver’s hands, clothing, shoes, stance.
“We’re good, Officer,” Billie said. “I often work late.”
“Yes, ma’am, we’ve seen your lights on before. What about your friend here?”
“He works here too.”
“Sure he does.” The cop flipped his light back on, ran it along the BMW, shut it off. “You have papers on that car?”
“It’s a repair job, Officer, almost done. That’s what we do here. I can give you the name and number of the owner if you’d like.”
“Might need that. Right

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