The Driver

47

The two newcomers came into the bar with trouble on their minds. They were both big men, with broad shoulders and thick arms. The bar was full of riggers from the oil fields and these two fitted right in. Milton had ordered a plate of BBQ chicken wings and fries and a coke and was watching the Cowboys’ game on the large flatscreen TV that was hanging from the wall. The food was average but the game was close and Milton had been enjoying it. The bar was busy. There were a dozen men drinking and watching the game. Three young girls were drinking next to the pool table. He watched the two men as they made their way across the room. They ordered beers with whiskey chasers, knocked back the whiskeys and set about the beers. They were already drunk and it looked like they were fixing to work on that a little more.

Milton had been in Victoria, Texas for twelve hours. He had dropped the Dodge back at the Hertz office and was just wondering what to do next. He still had four thousand dollars in his go bag, enough for him to just drift idly along the coast with no need to get a job just yet. He thought that maybe he’d get a Greyhound ticket and head east from Texas into Louisiana and then across to Florida, and then, maybe, he would turn north up towards New York and find a job. That was his rough plan but he was taking it as it came. No sense in setting anything in stone. He had taken a room in a cheap hotel across the street from the bar and, rather than spend another night alone with just his paperbacks for company, he had decided to get out, get something to eat and watch the game.

Milton took a bite out of one of the chicken wings.

“Good?” said the man sitting on the stool to his right. Milton looked at him: mid-twenties, slender, acne scars scattered across his nose and cheeks.

“Very good.”

“All in the sauce. Hot, right?”

“I’ll say.”

“That’s old Bill’s original recipe. Used to call it Suicide ‘til folks thought he ought to tone it down a bit. Calls it Supercharger now.”

“So I see,” Milton said, pointing to the menu on the blackboard above his head. “It packs a punch.”

“Say — where you from?”

“Here and there.”

“Nah, man — that accent, what is it? English, right?”

“That’s right,” Milton said. He had no real interest in talking and, eventually, after he made a series of noncommittal responses to the man’s comments on the Cowboys’ chances this year, he got the message and quietened down.

The two newcomers were loud. Milton examined them a little more carefully. One of them must have been six-five and eighteen stone, built like one of the offensive linemen on the TV. He had a fat, pendulous face, a severe crew cut and small nuggety eyes deeply set within flabby sockets; he had the cruel look of a school bully, a small boy transported into the body of a fully grown man. His friend was smaller but still heavy-set and thick with muscle. His head was shaved bald and he had dead, expressionless eyes. The other men in the bar ignored them. It was a rough place, the kind of place where the threat of a brawl was never far from the surface, but the way the others kept their distance from these two suggested that they were known and, probably, that they had reputations.

The bald man saw Milton looking and stared at him.

Milton turned back to the screen.

“Alright!” the man at the bar exclaimed as the fullback plunged over the goal-line for a Cowboys’ touchdown.

The two men sauntered over to the table where the girls were sitting. They started to talk to them; it was obvious that they were not welcome. The big man sat down, preventing one of the girls from leaving. Milton sipped on his Coke and watched as the girl pressed herself against the wall, trying to put distance between him and her. He reached across and slipped an arm around her shoulders, she tried to shrug it away but he was persistent. The bald man went around to the other side of the table and grabbed the arm of the nearest girl. He hauled her up, encircled her waist with his arm and pulled her up against his body. She cursed him loudly and struggled but he was much too strong.

Milton folded his napkin, carefully wiped his mouth with it and then stood.

He walked to the table.

“Leave them alone,” he said.

“Say what?”

“They’re not interested.”

“Says who?”

“I do. There’s no need for trouble, is there?”

“I don’t know — you tell me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Maybe I do think so.”

Milton watched as he sank the rest of his beer. He knew what would come next and so he altered his balance a little, spreading his weight evenly between his feet so that he could move quickly in either direction.

The bald man got up. “You ought to mind your own business.”

“Last chance, friend,” Milton said.

“I ain’t your friend.”

The bald man cracked the glass against the edge of the table and rushed him, jabbing the sharp edges towards his face. Milton took a half-pace to the left and let the man hurry past, missing him completely with his drunken swipe. He reached out with his right hand and snagged the man’s right wrist, pivoting on his right foot and using his momentum to swing him around and down, crashing his head into the bar. He bounced backwards and ended up, unmoving and face down, on the floor. The big man reached out for a pool cue from the table. He swung it, but Milton stepped inside the arc of the swing, took the abbreviated impact against his shoulder and then jabbed his fingers into the man’s larynx. He dropped the cue; Milton took a double handful of the man’s shirt, yanked him down a little, butted him in the nose and then dumped him back on his behind.

The bald man was out cold and the big man had blood all over his face from his broken nose.

“You had enough?” Milton said.

“Alright, mister! Get your hands up!”

Milton turned.

“Come on,” he groaned. “Seriously?”

The man he had been talking to earlier had pulled a revolver and was aiming it at him.

“Put your hands up now!”

“What — you’re police?”

“That’s right. Get them up!”

“Alright. Take it easy.”

“On your head.”

“You want me to put them up or on my head?” He sighed. “Fine — here.” He turned away and put his arms behind his back. “Go on. Here we go. Cuff me. Just relax. I’m not going to resist.”

The young cop approached him warily, moved his hands behind his back and fixed handcuffs around his wrists.

“What’s your name?”

“John Smith.”

“Alright then, buddy. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney.”

“Come on.”

The fat man wiped the blood from his face and started to laugh.

“If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

“Of course.”

“With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

“Not particularly.”

“John Smith — you’re under arrest.”