Nobody's Angel (10 page)

"That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"I knew that before you got in," I went on with the show.

"How can you be so sure?" he whispered, and he leaned over the back of my seat.

I stretched my right arm out and dropped it on top of the guy's arms.  He pulled them out from underneath and dropped back in the seat.

"I've been doing this for twenty-five years and nobody's robbed me yet." I was lying on both counts. "They've tried but they haven't pulled it off."

"Twenty-five years." He whistled. "You must be like Super Cab."

"That's me all right," I said, and he finally shut up.

A minute later there was some movement back there. I glanced in the mirror and the guy was completely turned around, looking out the rear window. There was nobody behind us and one lonely car two blocks in front. We were in the middle of Humboldt Park.

The last time I'd had a passenger look out the window like that, he'd turned back around with a knife in his hand.

I was doing about 45, 15 over the limit. But where were the cops when you wanted them? I goosed the engine a bit and positioned the mace in my left hand, but it wasn't going to do much good if the guy had a knife or a gun. The trick was to keep rolling and not slow down. If we turned left at Division Street, I'd be heading out of the park.

The guy turned back around and then he just sat there. I couldn't figure out what he was waiting for.

Division was just two blocks ahead. This was the heart of the Puerto Rican neighborhood. It wasn't the safest part of town. But there was a 24-hour gas station at the corner of California. There would be cars and people. It would be the perfect place to throw him out of the cab.

A block before we got there I looked in the mirror and the guy seemed relaxed as hell. He was sitting back there watching me, with just the hint of a smile on his face. It was like he was waiting for me to throw him out. As if he could read my mind.

The light turned green in front of me, and just like that, I figured out the game. "How many free rides you get with all this bullshit?" I asked as I turned right. I looked in the rearview mirror and he broke into an easy grin.

"Oh, you know, sometimes it works," he said.

"You must get bored awful easy."

"Stop right here," he said.

I angled towards the curb, a half mile short of where he'd told me to go. "Three-twenty," I said, and I turned with my right arm up on the back of the seat, the mace ready in my left hand.

He handed me four singles.

"Keep the change, guy," he smiled, and then sat there with the door open, one foot on the pavement. "One guy shit his pants, man," he said. "I could smell it. You believe that, man? He shit his pants."

I didn't say anything. He got out and closed the door.

"Yo," he called.

I turned and he stuck out his hand like it was a gun, pulled the trigger and broke into laughter. I held up a middle finger, made a U-turn, and drove away.

I headed east towards the lakefront. It was the one part of town where--day or night, rain or shine, good times or bad--someone always wanted a cab.

I was on Diversey in Lincoln Park, when a young couple, clean-cut and white, stepped out of a 24-hour drugstore. The guy was wearing extra-large shorts and a flowered shirt. He was trying to pretend that he wasn't cold. The girl had been smart enough to wear a jacket. She lifted the hem of her skirt several inches and stuck out her thumb.

The guy held the door open and the girl climbed in. "Hey," she said in a low, raspy voice. She had blond hair and a nice smile.

"Hudson and North," the guy said. "Go through the park."

"Be cheaper to go the streets," I said.

"Yeah, but I got my baby with me," he said in a low voice. "The park's more romantic."

"Oh, baby," she whispered, and she fell into his arms.

I headed east, then followed the curving lanes south through Lincoln Park. We passed the zoo. None of the animals made a sound, but I heard the guy say, "A bed is a very personal thing."

I looked in the mirror. The girl smiled back. "That's why I love him," she said. "He says the dumbest things."

"This girl doesn't have a bed," the guy let me know. "You believe that? She spent every last dime to buy a house in the worst neighborhood in town and now she doesn't have enough left for a bed. We have to sleep on a couch."

"Why don't you tell him why we go to my place?" the girl challenged him.

"Oh, I think he can figure that out," the guy said.

"I get the picture," I agreed.

"We go to my place because his apartment is such a mess we can't go there," the girl explained. "I mean, he's got dishes that haven't been washed in months. The place smells like the inside of a laundry hamper. There's dirty clothes everywhere, and," she paused dramatically, "he's got roaches." She whispered the last word.

"Now why'd you tell him that?" The guy sounded honestly hurt.

"Oh, he doesn't care," the girl said.

"As long as you're not my neighbor," I said. "You guys getting out at the corner?" I asked as we got close.

"That's great," the girl said.

"Fuck that," the guy said. "Turn left at Sedgwick and come in off Blackhawk. I ain't walking around out here."

"It's not that bad," the girl said.

"It's all fucking black," the guy disagreed.

"Not for long," I said as we turned. The south side of North Avenue was still mostly black, a buffer zone between Cabrini-Green and the white world. North of North Avenue the neighborhood was mainly white and wealthy.

"See, that's what I've been telling you," the girl said. I made two rights and we drove up a block of small houses and two-flats. "They won't be here forever. Besides, most of them are very nice."

"Right here," the guy said.

"You're just a big bigot," the girl let him know.

"Four-seventy," I said as we stopped in front of a small brick house. The guy handed me six.

I worked the late bars until they closed and before long even the bartenders were home.

I was on State Parkway, just past the Cardinal's mansion, when a big, healthy-looking guy with a head full of thick, black hair and a puzzled look on his face, staggered out from between parked cars.

He stumbled over to the driver's door, drunk as a skunk, and smelling about as bad. "Christ, this is so stupid," he said. "I'm looking for my car."

"Where'd you leave it?" I asked.

"Somewhere 'round here," he mumbled.

"You got any money left?" I asked.

He searched his pants first, then his sports coat. After a while he found some bills in an inside pocket. He said something I didn't understand and waved the money around.

"Well, why don't you give me some of that and we'll drive around and see if we can find it," I suggested.

He peeled off a twenty and held it out tentatively. I snatched it out of his hand and then reached back and opened the door. It took him a while to get in, and then a while longer to close the door, but finally he was all settled and I started driving.

State Parkway was a street of swanky highrises and old stately grey stones. It was the kind of neighborhood where a parking space would probably rent for as much as my apartment.

"What kind of car we looking for?" I asked.

"Red," he said.

"Well, that narrows it down some," I decided. "You gonna know this thing when you see it?"

He didn't answer.

I glanced in the mirror. He was sitting crooked. His feet were still over by the left door but his head was all the way on the right side, flopped against the back of the seat. His eyes were open but they wouldn't be for long. "You can't sleep in here," I said.

"Huh?"

"Come on, sit up straight." I reached back and tried to straighten him up.

"What're you doing?" He shook me off and straightened up a little on his own.

"I'm trying to find your car but you won't tell me what it looks like."

"Red," he said again.

"You're a big help, pal." I lowered all the windows, hoping the cold night air would keep him awake, then drove slowly down the street.

We passed plenty of red cars, and the old Playboy mansion and the Ambassador Hotel, but the guy never said a word. At Division, I turned right and drove past the bars, all closed for the night.

"You wan' a nightcap?" the guy mumbled.

"They're closed, pal," I said. "They're all closed."

I made the right on Dearborn and cruised slowly up to the end of the street which put us just west of where we'd started. "Where do you live?" I asked.

"Cleveland," he said sadly, and I knew he didn't mean the avenue.

"Too bad," I said, and then something occurred to me. "Wait a minute," I said, "is this a rental car?"

"Hertz," he said.

"Oh, fuck them," I said. "Call 'em in the morning and tell 'em somebody stole it. Where you staying?"

"Hyatt," he said.

"Which one?"

He hiccupped. "O'Hare."

"That's perfect," I said, and I switched the meter off and back on and started out North Avenue. There was hardly any traffic. Most of the drunks had made it home and the day people were still snug in their beds.

Just before the river, a tall, black hooker, in white short-shorts and a shiny white vest, was leaning against the brick wall of a shuttered factory. As we approached she opened the vest wide, exposing two enormous breasts.

I tooted the horn.

"Sweet, Jesus," the guy moaned. "Get a load of those tits."

"She's got a set alright," I said as we headed over the river, past the old Procter & Gamble plant, now closed and FOR SALE.

"Wait a minute," the guy said. "Stop!"

"Huh?"

"Go back."

"You out of your mind?"

"I want some nigger pussy," he said with a bizarre southern accent.

I didn't slow down. I made the light at Elston, barely slowed for the light before the expressway, made a right on red and hit the ramp leading towards O'Hare.

"Where the fuck you going?" he shouted.

"I'm taking you to your hotel," I said.

"Asshole," he said. But then he relaxed. We were doing 65. What was he going to do, jump?

"Christ, did you see those tits?" he asked after a while. "I mean were those tits or what?"

"She had a set," I had to agree. "She definitely had a set."

Nobody said a word for a while. We cruised along, out there in cabdriver heaven, no traffic, no stop lights, not a word from the back seat. The meter was pumping like a heartbeat, twenty cents every few seconds. Little flashes of red adding up to a buck twenty a mile. Better than seventy-five dollars an hour at this speed. If I could just find a way to stay on the highway and keep the damn thing turning all night long.