Small Town Taxi (Honey Walker Adventures Book 1)

by Harriet Rogers

  “I have toothpaste in both guest rooms,” Jon said. “Let’s go back to the garage and run it by Belle. You can follow me home with a taxi and leave for the airport from my house. And I have a really nice shower,” Jon said. He kissed my forehead and steered me out the door. I leaned on him to avoid shaking. Shaking would not be good.

  Maybe Belle would be fine as long as she didn’t have to go back to Hampshire Heights. Gunshots were part of everyday living in Hamp Heights, and the cops wouldn’t get called until it was too late to catch the shooter if they got called at all.

  When we got to Cool Rides, Willie, Belle and Mona were sitting around the table. Belle was humming. From the tune and from Willie’s expression, I guessed she was relating her impromptu performance in the chapel. Mona was smiling. Well, maybe.

  Belle nudged Willie. “Come on, sing it.” She stood up and waved her hands in the air, and they harmonized the chorus. Holy cow, I thought, she might convince them to join her for choir practice. Jon applauded. I had other stuff on my mind. Like Jon’s house and the bedrooms in Jon’s house. There was a new body in the morgue. I didn’t want mine or Belle’s or anyone’s to join it. I was a small-town taxi driver. All I wanted to do was move people from where they were to where they needed to be. Guns and bodies were not on my agenda.

  Jon explained what had happened to my apartment and what we, or at least Jon, had decided to do about it. Belle grinned. Apparently her cop phobia wasn’t real deep.

  “A real kitchen? When can we go shopping? Let’s see now, I’m going to need…” She started a list of groceries. “What kind of cookware did you say you had? Oh, sorry about your apartment. I know a good cleaning service if you need it.” She walked off talking to herself about ingredients and recipes.

  “There’s a shower in the Cool Rides garage. It’s not pretty, but I’ll use it,” I grumbled. “Maybe I can pick up a few short hauls before the airport and make some money to buy those ‘eat me’ thongs I saw downtown,” I said, looking at Jon. He had his cop face on, but I saw a flicker at the words thong and eat me. I had an interior sigh moment. “I’ll head over to your house after my airport.”

  Jon, blissfully unaware that I knew where he lived, gave me directions, and he and Belle left.

  When I walked out of the shower/locker room/changing room, Mona handed me a pickup slip.

  “O’Grady’s bar, going to Holyoke. You’re up. You have plenty of time before the airport.”

  I headed out, figuring work would take my mind off the reality of my vandalized apartment and the distraction of my growing interest in Jon. Normally I avoid O’Grady’s, the local bar most likely to appear in the police report. But most of their incidents take place around closing when the hard-core patrons are tossed out. Since it was early afternoon, I could look the fare over first. If it was a candidate for the barf bag, I’d keep driving and call Mona. She could hand it off to a different cab company. When a fare looks fall-down drunk, we call the competition and pretend we’re the pickup. Most of the other companies never say never to a fare.

  As I drifted by the entrance to O’Grady’s, I noticed a man, mid-thirties, suit and tie, nice haircut. Maybe stopping for a drink after work. I pulled over and he got in.

  “Where to?” I asked, punching the GPS on.

  “Just get on Route 5. I’ll direct you.”

  Route 5 had been the main road before the interstate was built. Now it’s a quiet back road dotted with dead and dying businesses. A lot of life around Northampton, and many small towns, is defined by “before the interstate went in.” O’Grady’s is about 30 feet from Route 5. I had settled into driving when my passenger said, “Take the next right.”

  It was a narrow side road. I swung in and there was a house hiding behind the trees on a circular drive.

  “Pull in here,” he said and leaned back to dig out his wallet. A big guy dressed in a black suit and looking like an undertaker came out of the house and started around the front of the car. That didn’t look right to me. Most people who are greeting someone open the passenger door. If they mean to pay for the fare, they lean in the front passenger window. I’d lowered that window in anticipation when the man came out of the house. My passenger had his door open and one foot out. I watched the big guy pass in front of my car. He slid his hand into his jacket. He was around the car and had one hand on my door. By my door, I mean the one he would drag me out of if he intended to shoot me with the gun he now held in his other hand.

  I yanked my foot off the brake and smashed it down on the accelerator. The car lurched forward. My passenger hadn’t quite cleared the door. His left leg was still in the cab and his right hand was resting on the window. The bozo at my door held on to the handle. He was big enough to stop most people with one hand. A car is not a person. And he was not going to stop 2,000 pounds of steel with 135 pounds of freaked-out woman behind the wheel.

  The driveway ran out to the road between two huge pine trees. In another life, I might have thought “Christmas trees.” Right now, I was thinking the fastest way out was between those honkin’ big, real solid-looking trees. I knew there was room for the car, but the attached bodies hadn’t noticed the trees. They were focused on holding onto the car and their guns and staying upright and getting me out of the car. I was focused on making sure they didn’t do any of that. They hit the trees going ten miles an hour. That’s really slow if you’re driving in traffic, but when an unprotected body moving at that speed hits a stationary object, it’s plenty fast. The passenger-side door slammed against the tree, closing tightly on the body wedged between it and the car. The guy holding onto the driver’s-side door threw out his arm to ward off the collision and ended up looking like Wile E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon. I reached the end of the driveway. The backseat passenger was pinned by the door, half out of the car.

  “Gaaahhh!” I heard a moan from the backseat. “I think my arm is broken…and my leg.”

  “Out,” I screeched. The guy hurled himself out and lay flat on the ground. I laid rubber. The back door slammed closed with the momentum of my departure.

  What the hell did they want? Cabbies never carry much cash. Maybe they didn’t know that. I thought about my apartment, thought about calling Jon, then I actually did call him. He wasn’t in, said the desk sergeant, and could someone else help me? I decided that no one could help right now and headed back to the safety of the Cool Rides garage before I made any more decisions. I hadn’t collected any fare money in advance so my till was going to be short for the day. This didn’t bode well for me becoming the best taxi driver in history or the owner of a profitable company. A small business in a small town doesn’t usually plan on passengers with guns. I had experienced more guns in the last week than I had in my whole driving career.

  I swung out onto the highway. About five minutes down the road my hands started to shake. Shaky hands are not good when applied to a steering wheel. I pulled over and leaned my head back. Shit! I threw the door open and vomited.

  Now I had to go back to my apartment and brush my teeth and…no, not to the apartment. I had my toothbrush with me but no toothpaste. I needed strong toothpaste. I let my stomach settle, gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles and headed back home to Cool Rides.

  I stopped at the drugstore on the strip. My stomach was woozy, but my head had cleared. I swallowed a few times and went in. Grabbing toothpaste and a bottle of water, I zipped through the checkout without opening my mouth. No need to knock out the salesperson with vomit breath. I drank most of the water and headed back to the garage.

  There would be no way to avoid explaining what had happened when Willie saw the car door. I could make up some lie about a hit-and-run, but I knew if Willie didn’t figure it out, Jon would. I could lie with the best of them, but Jon had probably had some experience with the best liars in the world. Not having fare money to hand over to Mona would make an explanation mandatory. Fares that fail to pay are a fact of every taxi driver’s life. The addition of viole
nce is less frequent but not unusual. If we reported every episode to the police, we’d spend half our waking hours in the cop-house interview room. I’d had enough of that depressing place for a long time. Willie would fix the dent in-house, and the insurance company would never hear about it. But this incident was serious enough to make me think Jon might have to know about it. It involved firearms.

  When I pulled in, Willie and Mona were out front washing one of the cars. No one keeps cars as clean as the Cool Rides crew. And now there was mine. Two bullet holes, three dents, and a big smear of dark red-brown stuff down the passenger window. I should be happy there weren’t some fingers stuck in the door. Actually, I hadn’t checked.

  I needed normal fares. I was still shaky from the mugging and didn’t want to burst into tears or throw up again.

  The damage was clearly in view. Mona and Willie stopped scrubbing and stared at the door.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “And the door still works, but I could use some of that cleaner.” I grabbed the towels and the spray bottle and started working on the brown streak. Jon would have had a fit, but I wasn’t going to press charges against those bozos. I never wanted to see them again. So evidence wasn’t in my vocabulary at the moment. Drive to the airport were the words I wanted to hear.

  “What the hell happened?” Willie knelt in front of the dent in the door. He stroked his hands over the damage like he was feeling a wound in a loved one.

  “I’m okay,” I repeated.

  “We can see that,” said Mona. “Don’t avoid the question.”

  “I had a run-in with some thugs. But they look worse than me. They even look worse than the car.” And maybe I’ll never pick up at O’Grady’s again, I thought.

  “Nothing could look worse than the car.” Willie said.

  “Well, yes, these guys do. One of them probably has a broken arm and maybe a leg, too. The other one may have a broken nose…or face…or body. He kind of looked flat, sort of attached to the tree.”

  “What tree?” Willie finally stood up and noticed me.

  “Unh, the ones they ran into, but the car didn’t… very much. I mean, just the door. Because it was open. Because he had his arm and leg out the door. Because he was trying to get out…of the door.” I stammered to a stop.

  “Who?” Willie looked at me like I had an alien sticking out of my head.

  “The fare. Can we go inside and discuss this?” My legs felt rubbery and I wanted to sit down. And, after my legs didn’t feel like Jell-O, I wanted to be allowed to drive to the airport.

  We sat and I explained the disaster in Holyoke. I had no court-worthy evidence this was more than a mugging. I didn’t recognize my assailants. We keep $50 in change in the box, and it was reasonable for them to think a driver could have more. Muggings were unusual but still a fact of life in this business. And they hadn’t managed to get any of the money I did have. So, realistically, all I could say happened was the display of a firearm.

  Willie sat back. “Jon stopped by and told me about the apartment. There’s just too much dangerous stuff going on right now. I want you to limit your driving to airport runs with fares we know and car service with our regulars.”

  I almost hugged him. Local car service was a good deal. We rented the car and driver out for $50 an hour. The customers were mostly older and had given up driving. We would run errands and take them to appointments. Sometimes we took their pets to the vet’s office. It was a guaranteed $25 an hour plus tips for the driver. Combined with airport runs, it would be a respectable income. And I wouldn’t have to worry about large stupid men with guns.

  “Do the seven o’clock run to the airport. That’s Professor Brant. He’s been out in California, so he’ll be tired when he gets in. Let him sleep,” Willie said.

  “And Iggi Paluska wants his cat taken to the vet tomorrow. You can do that,” added Mona.

  “Take the pocket limo to the airport,” Willie said. We have one cab with extra-dark tinted windows and plush leather seats. It’s a Scion and we all know it’s not a limousine. Willie says it’s a matter of attitude. And the pocket limo has style.

  “Aawright!” I pumped a fist and headed to the bathroom with the toothpaste.

  “Good idea,” said Mona. “Your breath could put another dent in that car.”

  For the next hour, I calmed and distracted myself by cleaning and detailing cars. Passengers leave gloves, hats and glasses, and the mysterious single shoe that means someone left with one bare foot. I found a state-police evidence envelope once, still full. I had found boxes of condoms, baggies of illegal substances and, once, a two-month-old baby whose mother “just needed a break from the screaming. I knew where to find him when I was ready to pick him up.” We told her we charged $50 an hour for use of the cab. She arrived in five minutes and indignantly retrieved her squalling youngster.

  As I was finishing vacuuming the last car, Mona came out with a fare slip. “He’s going home.” She grinned and handed me the yellow Post-it. The name on it was Steinberger. We all knew Mr. Steinberger. He needed a ride either to or from the liquor store. Another windows-down, air-conditioner-on kind of guy, depending on how much he’d consumed before he got picked up.

  He looked functional today, but when he leaned over to pick up his bag, he got stuck. I sighed, hopped out and grabbed the first bag.

  “It’s really heavy,” he said.

  “Unh, what’s in this?” I grunted. There was a cardboard box inside the bag and a plastic bag inside the box.

  “Wine.”

  “I don’t know much about wine.” I had never seen it packaged in a cardboard box before.

  “I call it booze in a box. It’s awful.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Good for cooking, I guess.”

  “Oh, no, we’re having dinner guests. I’m serving it to them. I’d never drink this stuff myself.”

  “They like the cheap stuff?”

  “No, but I’ll get them blotto on cheap scotch before dinner.”

  “You don’t like these people, do you?”

  “Not especially, no.”

  We finished loading up the five bags of assorted bottles and headed up the hill half a block to his residence.

  I helped him unload and waited until he’d made it inside. He’d been known to take a header over a sidewalk crack.

  I returned to Cool Rides and finished detailing the mini-limo.

  At 6:15, I left for the airport. When I got back, Mona was leaving for the night.

  “Take the bang and dent for Iggi Paluska’s cat to the vet at 10 tomorrow morning. Then I’ll see if we got anything else you can’t screw up.”

  “The bang and dent” was the new name for the car I usually drove. I didn’t argue none of the dents were my fault. I just wanted to get over to Jon’s house and find a bed.

  I knew Jon’s house, although Jon didn’t know I knew it. Right after he’d busted me and took me to Willie to get a job, I had done a little bit of semi-stalking. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to burn the house down with him in it or knock on the door and ask if he was busy for the evening. Either result would have been his fault because he’d busted me.

  The house was a beautiful old Victorian two family side-by-side that needed some fixing up, which Jon was doing on the weekend warrior plan. Apparently he rented out the other side.

  I had no doubt Willie or Mona had already told Jon about the incident in Holyoke. He’s a cop and he’s a guy. I prepared for the control-issue discussion. At the moment, I didn’t feel like answering questions or justifying my job or fighting over who was in charge. I just wanted sleep.

  The door jerked open before I had a chance to knock. Jon stood there in jeans, open work shirt, and bare feet. My brain said wow, but my libido was like the piece of extra luggage the airline had lost, and I couldn’t be bothered to find. My adrenaline had spiked so many times today I was running on zero. Still, my first thought was to reach out and stroke that lovely chest.

  Instead, I stepped back
defensively. He stepped forward and pulled me into his arms. No questions, no wandering hands. I struggled not to feel needy. I don’t like people who are emotional black holes. It isn’t always easy for me not to be one of them.

  “When did you talk to Willie?” I mumbled into his chest.

  “I told him about the apartment. He was upset.” He paused.

  “At least it wasn’t the car,” I said.

  “And he told me about what happened in Holyoke. To the car. I assume you were in it at the time. We need to talk about you picking up strange men. Didn’t your mother tell you not to do that?”

  “It’s my job. Besides, all men are strange.”

  “I know.”

  He wrapped me in big strong arms again. I leaned again. He wasn’t taking this lightly, but he wasn’t pressuring me. He knew I was going to stick with my job and Cool Rides. He was mixing giving me space and protection at the same time and doing a damn fine job of it. I sort of snuck my hands around his waist and held on for a few more seconds.

  My brain began to drift toward off. I was in the arms of one really hot guy and I was so tired I was passing out. He herded me inside and sat me on a sofa that made mine look like a dollhouse miniature.

  “Belle made food. Sit, I’ll get some.” He went into the kitchen.

  We were stuffing ourselves with macaroni salad laced with sweet peppers, sweeter onions, bacon and hard-boiled eggs when Belle made her entrance. She was dressed in lavender jeans and a white sparkle top that dipped as low as it could without her boobs overflowing. Her shoes were ankle-breaking tall, and rhinestone earrings whacked her shoulders. She took denim to a whole new level. Boy, did I want to look like that when I grew up.

  “Honey, I’m glad you like the food, but if I had a man looking at me like that, it ain’t food what I’d be eating.” She whirled by in a cloud of perfume. My eyes moved over to Jon. She was right. There was an odd expression on his face. I wasn’t sure it was what Belle thought it was, though. More likely he wanted information about the Wile E. Coyote flat guy in Holyoke. The one with the big gun.