“Honey, I…” Jon was suddenly close. I looked up and our eyes met. My world narrowed to a tight focus on his face. He reached out, gently sliding his hand behind my head. The kiss started out gentle and ended with my toes curled in knots. This man knew how to kiss. He leaned back, his attention seemed to narrow to my mouth. I blinked, wide eyed.
“Honey, I...” he repeated, running his finger down my cheek and his thumb over my lips. Now I was awake. His eyes were dark and unreadable. Of course, the hallway was also dark and unreadable. I hadn’t seen Jon tongue-tied before. It was an odd sensation and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“Be careful.” He held my face with both hands, kissed me softly on the forehead. “Jesus!” he mumbled and was off down the stairs. What kind of goodnight was that? What did he do when he wanted to stay? If that was just a “thanks for supper, dear,” what was his seduction arsenal? I staggered a little and went back inside to Belle.
Belle eyed me with the disdain of experience. “Man, that is one hot behind. Too bad he’s a cop. And get rid of the shit-eating grin.”
“Wait a minute. What’s wrong with being a cop?” I hadn’t realized how big my smile was. I tried to frown.
“Honey, what’s not wrong with being a cop?”
“He’s a good guy.” I didn’t have much invested in Jon, but I could see potential and I didn’t want my temporary roomie dissing him. “He could say the same kind of stuff about you and your profession.”
“Anyway, I’m thinking about changing it. Self-employment sucks. Horace considered me an independent contractor so he didn’t give bennies, and who can afford health insurance these days?”
She wanted out of the Jon discussion, clearly. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jon the cop myself, but my reasons were different from hers. The pull was getting stronger. My libido had kicked up a notch, and my curiosity about what could happen was rising faster than a teenage boy’s hard-on. Jon and I would have some major control issues. Like who would be in charge of my life. When he had arrested me, in another lifetime, it was clear he had standards of behavior I might not share.
“Tell me more about this taxi-driving job possibility,” Belle said, finishing the dishes.
“Come down in the morning and meet Willie and Mona. If you’re still serious, Willie will give you a driving test. See if you’re any good.” I knew Willie’s driving tests. You needed near-worshipful reverence for the car. No on and off the gas, no sudden braking, no tailgating, no speeding. Well, no getting caught. Willie broke the speed limit. Actually, he destroyed it, especially on longer runs. But he never got caught. He had tried to pass his sixth sense about cops and radar on to me but, mostly, I memorized where the speed traps were and I slowed down when I came to those places. I hadn’t been nailed yet.
After Belle figured out the change in pay scale from her previous employment, I didn’t think she would be interested in taxi driving no matter what the bennies were.
Chapter Five
I opened my eyes to daylight and coffee. Coffee? Oh yeah, Belle. I staggered into the kitchen/ living/dining/guest bedroom, resenting the intrusion into my space. Then I saw the kitchen table. Apparently my mother and Belle shared the belief that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Grabbing a toasted sesame bagel smeared with garden-crunchy cream cheese, I tried to remember the last time I used my toaster. I was surprised it worked. How about that? I had a working toaster. How domestic. The fresh-ground coffee was a mystery since I was sure I didn’t have a coffee grinder. Even the coffee pot was a surprise.
“Jeez, what do I owe you for all this food? And where did you find a coffee pot?”
“Consider it rent. The pot was in a bag behind a box labeled kitchen junk.” Belle had, apparently, explored my tiny kitchen. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that until I tasted the coffee she poured into one of the free ceramic mugs from the Cool Rides closet of promotional junk. Advertising companies sent samples of stuff we could use to get people to use Cool Rides. What we needed was more drivers for the customers we already had.
“I need to go to the office with you today, Mom. Take-your-girl-to-work day. Remember that idea? Wonder what my clients would have thought of me taking a kid to work. Anyway, I need to impress your boss with my skills and abilities.” She didn’t specify which skills and abilities.
“You’ll have to impress Mona first. Then you’ll need to get Willie to let you near a car. He’s very protective. Then you go to City Hall and apply for a taxi ID and license,” I mumbled around my last bite of bagel. “Yeah, I’ll take you in. They need people right now, and I actually think you might make a pretty good driver.”
She would fit the Cool Rides driver profile— because we didn’t have a driver profile. People tried it and we waited to see if they stuck around. If they didn’t get freaked out by the insanity of the population they served, they might stay. We went through a lot of drivers.
She raised an eyebrow. “Why, thanks. I think.”
When we were tanked on coffee and bagels, we headed, on foot, to the office. I was in my usual driving uniform of black jeans, T-shirt and sneakers. Belle was in her own professional outfit of spandex black pants, gold-sequined glitter top and 4-inch spiked fire-engine red heels.
Northampton is a city of believers. We buy into all the major religions and most of the minor ones. Even non-believing is a belief system in Northampton. People here pay attention to their convictions. As we passed one of the many churches in town, the sound of singing drifted out the open windows. Belle stopped. She stared at the church. It was one of those New England Postcard Moments: white spire reaching into a clear blue sky, the sound of music coming out of the arched windows. And Belle, in her special spandex and really special shoes, heading up the sidewalk toward the church. That would change it to a Northampton moment.
“It’s nice to listen,” I called after her, “but we should probably get to the office.”
“We gotta go in. I know that song.” Belle stared at the open door.
“Well, I guess…” I followed her up the steps. It was choir practice so the pews were empty, but I knew they were okay with an audience. I’d stopped in to listen before. I squeezed by Belle and paused at the back, ready for a quick escape. When the music stopped, so did my belief in the Almighty.
I slid into the last row of seats. Belle ignored me, walked to the front row and sat down. The choir began a song and stumbled on the first few bars. Belle, in her glittered glory, might have distracted them.
At the first pause in the singing, Belle suddenly rose. “No, no, no. That part needs a solo. It needs some love. The guy is asking God to save his soul, so you better put yours into it. Like this.”
And she began to sing. Her voice pulled the heart right out of the song. The minister’s mouth dropped open and his eyes bugged out. The choir stared until Belle raised her arms and said, “Now you come in and give me some support here.”
She brought her arms down with a flourish and they followed her. At the end of the stanza, she lowered her voice into a hum and ended with “amen.”
“Well, won’t you join us?” The minister was ready to adopt Belle no matter what her fashion statement or personal beliefs.
“Oh, I gotta run right now. Job interview. But I could come back if you have another rehearsal later.”
The reverend grabbed a schedule off the table and thrust it at her.
“I didn’t know you were religious,” I said as Belle clattered down the sidewalk.
“Oh, I ain’t religious. I just like good music. Gospel is good music. My momma took me to church. I sang in the choir until I was 16 and found other outlets.”
I wanted to ask more about Belle’s other outlets, but we had arrived at Cool Rides.
Mona was standing out front, overflowing her tank top and tapping her toe. Our visit to church had made us 15 minutes late. My shift started at 9:00 every morning, Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday and Sunday. Maybe having a new driver possibil
ity in tow would make up for the 15 minutes.
“You got a Holyoke pickup as soon as you can get there.” Mona never wasted time with small talk like Good morning when a fare was involved.
“Good morning to you, too. This is Belle. She’s interested in driving for us.” I gave Belle a little goose to push her into Mona’s sphere of focus.
“Unnh!” Belle gave me a dirty look. “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.” She used her most sophisticated accent.
Mona looked her over carefully. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Uh-oh. Mona kept pretty careful tabs on the competition. She might have seen Belle in the other company’s cars. It wasn’t my business to bring up an applicant’s previous profession. Mona’s attitude about sex for hire might be different from mine. She would not tolerate it coming back on the company. Or spilling over into the backseat.
“You ever done any professional driving?” Mona’s eyes moved over Belle’s eye-popping outfit. I thought about Mr. FUCK You. We needed drivers and we needed them fast. It was more about attitude than fashion anyway.
“I have been in a car in a professional capacity.”
“Well, someone has to pick up this guy in Holyoke. Gimme your driver’s license and I’ll run it up to City Hall. You gonna save me some time and let me know if you got any problems that might show up on the police records, right?”
“Ma’am, I ain’t ever been in that kind of trouble.” Belle had reverted to her street talk as she handed over her license. Mona gave her an odd look. “And I know Holyoke like the back of my beautiful butt,” she said to me. “I can get you anywhere in that uuugly city.”
“You can’t drive the cab until you have the taxi license.” Mona glanced at the Massachusetts driver’s license. “Jacobsen? Where’s that come from?”
“South African. My mother was a cleaning lady from Jo’burg. My father was an American diplomat. Boy, did they have nothing in common. Produced me, and there ain’t nothing common there.”
“You can navigate while I drive,” I said. “I’ll split the tip with you if you get me where we need to be.” I didn’t know interior Holyoke because Willie never let me drive there. He thought it was too dangerous for a woman. I thought it was too dangerous for anyone. I used the GPS when I needed to, but it couldn’t read socioeconomic deprivation from outer space.
“Where’s Willie?” I looked at Mona.
“He went to the train station. After your last pickup there, he decided not to let you draw any more fire.”
“Nice of him to care.”
“Not you. The car. He found the bullet hole.”
“Oh, yeah.” I hadn’t mentioned the shot that connected with the car. “He hasn’t fixed it, has he?” I remembered Jon had asked me not to touch it. There was still a bullet hole in the passenger seat, but the bullet itself had been taken as evidence. No need to remind anyone about that.
Mona sighed. “No, he figured, why bother? You’d just add something new if he went to the trouble. Andrew is on his way to the airport. You’re all I got. So, get going.” She handed me the slip with pickup address, drop-off and cell-phone number. No name.
We headed to the car. I slid behind the wheel. Belle ducked into the passenger seat. I showed her how to enter the pickup address into the GPS and off we went.
“The GPS is going to tell me the fastest route, but it won’t know shortcuts. And it won’t tell me where the high-crime areas are. If you know a better way, tell me.”
Shortcuts were important. The more fares you crammed into a working day, the faster you got new, sexier undies. My underwear drawer needed even more help than my shoe closet. I didn’t really have a shoe closet.
We were approaching the first Holyoke exit when Belle said, “Go to the next exit. I know a way to get there faster. This is the exit wussy people use. We gonna do the drug runner’s route.”
“What?” Too late. I was past the exit my GPS had told me to take.
“Please execute a legal U-turn as soon as possible.” The soft feminine computer voice pleaded with me. She obviously knew this shortcut was going to cause me some grief. Maybe they did program in social conditions.
“Recalculating route,” the voice whispered. It had given up on the U-turn concept.
“Yeah, yeah, see? You got a built-in wuss in this here car. I went this way a couple of times with Horace. Came back this way, too. You just gotta drive right through. Don’t stop for nuthin’. Anyone step out in front of the car, just go around. Or through if you gotta. But don’t stop.”
“What about stop signs? Or stoplights?”
“Honey, don’t nobody care in this neighborhood. You just slow down enough not to get broadsided by some other fool running the light from the other direction.”
“Shit,” I said. “Why don’t you just shoot me?”
“’Cause I left my gun in Horace’s place and I’m not going back there just yet. ’Sides, I wouldn’t shoot you. I’d shoot whoever is shooting at you ’cause they might hit me by mistake.”
“It wouldn’t be a mistake. Next time the GPS wins. It knows better.”
Belle grunted and looked sulky. “I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’ more. You can find your own way to whatzit street.”
“Oh no, no, no. You got us into this place. You better get me out of here.” I slammed the brakes with both feet as a guy the size of a football field stepped in front of the cab. His pants were drooping and dirty, his shirt was long-sleeved despite the hot summer weather, and he was waving a greasy rag at my windshield. I managed to stop a good six inches from his shinbone.
As he started to run the rag over the front window, Belle jumped out and screamed, “Get out of our way, muthafucka. I’m on a mission here and I don’t need no slowing down.” She was almost as tall as the window washer and a hell of lot more vocal. She shoved her middle finger over the hood and into his face. He slunk back to the curb.
“Huh.” She lowered herself back into the car and fastened the seat belt. “Drive on,” she said, adopting her alternate linguistic personality.
I had to smile. We didn’t have any more dents or bullet holes in the car…yet.
“Thanks, I guess.” I looked at Belle who looked pleased with herself. Maybe this was a good time to satisfy some of my curiosity.
“What did Horace do when he came down to Holyoke with you?”
She stared at me for 10 seconds, which is a long time when you’re on the receiving end of a stare.
She hmphed again then turned her head and most of the rest of her body toward the window.
Okay, that seemed to be a dead end. There was plenty more I was curious about with Belle. Like the language thing.
“Why do you talk like royalty sometimes and gutter talk other times?”
Belle turned back toward me. This was safe territory for discussion.
“It’s like any language,” she told me. “Once you know the basics, different dialects are easy. You instinctively know when to use what.” She paused. “Like right now, I’m talking to you in American English.”
She was right. I hadn’t even noticed the transition.
“But that guy back there? He needed something more direct, though it would have been interesting if I’d used the more complex cadence of the Queen’s English.” She grinned.
I felt like I might have just broken through a communications barrier, so I said, “I don’t mean to pry, Belle, but come on. I’m going to be pretty close to you for a while. I’d like to know if the shooters are looking for anyone who knew Horace or what he did when he was in Holyoke. Or if they’re targeting you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know what that creep did. I just did my job, which, as you know, would be done with some privacy. Horace didn’t hang around while I was working. I never did threesomes and nothing kinky.”
“Did he get a ride back with you?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes not.”
“You think he had a side business that someone didn’t like?”
“How the hell would I know? What I know right now is you should be driving and I’m gonna navigate.” She pronounced it naveegate. “And you should be hangin’ a left here. Now.” She waved abruptly at the upcoming corner.
I screeched around the turn and almost clipped a black Lincoln Town Car parked by the curb. The driver was leaning against the front fender, smoking a cigarette. He jumped out of my way, dropping the butt as he scrambled. He was making a properly pissed-off gesture with his hand when he saw Belle. His expression changed from anger to surprise. I saw all this in milliseconds, but the expression was hard to miss.
“I guess these cars don’t handle the corners all that well, huh?” Belle looked back over her shoulder and hunched down in the seat.
“Someone you know?” I asked.
The driver got into his car fast and screeched out to follow us.
“Please take a right at the next intersection.” The computer voice took me off guard. I did as requested, and the computer said, “You have arrived.” I jammed on the brakes.
We were in front of the Holyoke police station and I pulled into visitor’s parking. The Lincoln Town Car barreled by us and the passenger-side window rolled down. A large man leaned out. His face was dark, his hair slicked back. Even at thirty miles an hour, the wind didn’t put one hair on his head out of place.
He stared at Belle. She pretended not to notice, but she turned away and tried to get smaller. Not easy. The town car disappeared around a corner.
“This is where we’re picking up?” Belle looked at the massive brick building. If it was supposed to intimidate, it succeeded.
“Mona didn’t say anything about cops.” Maybe because Mona didn’t know Belle had an allergy to them.
“This is the address on the fare slip. Why don’t you go in and tell the desk sergeant the Cool Rides taxi is here? I’ll stay and guard the car.” I turned the key and took it out of the ignition. Picking up at a police station isn’t unusual for taxi drivers. People making use of the short-stay option in the holding cells have often had their cars towed, confiscated or wrecked. I once spent an hour driving a guy around from the police station to the bank to the registry to the parking clerk and finally to the tow lot. He’d been driving drunk on an expired registration with four overdue parking tickets, and he stuck his fist in the face of the cop who stopped him. Including my fare, the previous evening had cost him $500 in cash. Lots of stops at the ATM. He didn’t tip, but I made a good hourly wage.
Small Town Taxi (Honey Walker Adventures Book 1) Page 6
