Drive

Chapter Thirty-one

He took Nino down at six a.m. on a Monday. Weather report said it would climb to a balmy 82-degree high, gentle clouds from the east, forty percent chance of light rain later in the week. In slippers and a thin seersucker bathrobe Isaiah Paolozzi came out the front door of his Brentwood home, his mission twofold. Pick up this morning’s L.A. Times from the drive. Fire up the sprinklers. Never mind that each burst from those sprinklers was water stolen from others. No other way you turned a desert into sculptured green lawns.

Never mind that Nino’s entire life was stolen from others.

As Nino bent to pick up the paper, Driver stepped out of the recess beside the front door. He was there when Nino turned.

Eye to eye, neither blinked.

“I know you?”

“We spoke once,” Driver said.

“Yeah? What’d we talk about?”

“Things that matter. Like how once a man makes a deal he keeps to it.”

“Sorry. Don’t remember you.”

“What a surprise.”

Perfect round hole between his eyes, Nino staggered back against the partially opened front door, pushing it the rest of the way open. His legs remained on the porch. Varicose veins like thick blue snakes stood out on them. A slipper fell off. His toenails were thick as planks.

From somewhere back inside the house, a radio issued morning traffic reports.

Driver set the box with its large pepperoni, double cheese, no anchovies, on Nino’s chest.

The pizza smelled good.

Nino didn’t.