Driven: The Sequel to Drive by James Sallis

much of what we do in our lives, what we think, is chosen, and how much is just what comes at us? My dad was always fooling with cars, parking his on the street because some junker was getting fixed up in the garage. Same with my mother’s cousins that came to live with us. Didn’t have any money, and sent most of what they had back home, so they’d build these cars from spare parts and pieces. I’d watch them, and they’d hand me a wrench to pretend I was helping, and before long I was. Discovered I had a weird talent for it, like I could see how things were supposed to work, how they’d fit together, how much strength was needed here, how much relief there. At one point we had twelve people living in the house. Kids, cousins, hard to tell which were which. Mechanic’s pay put me through undergrad, and I’ll be out of ASU free and clear, no loans, nothing.”
“And then?”
“Hard to say. See what turns up, I guess.”
“What comes at you.”
“Right.”
“And if nothing does?”
“You never know. But it’s not like I’ll just be sitting around waiting, is it?”
He drank the rest of his coffee. There were grounds in the bottom of the cup. “You want another piece of pie? You could try the strawberry this time.”
“I think this’ll do me until about next March.” She pushed the remains, crust, a smear of yellow, three tiny strands of coconut, toward him. “Have at it, big boy.”
“Your father still a cop?”
“Some days more than others. But he hasn’t worn the badge for almost ten years. He’s in an assisted care facility full of nice retired shoe salesmen, dentists, and insurance brokers who keep trying to get him to play cards or checkers or some damn thing.” She looked to the window outside which three Harleys (no mistaking the sound of them) cruised by in a rough V. “I kick in what his pension doesn’t cover.”
“And your mother?”
“Died three weeks after he hung the job up. And they had all these plans….” She leaned back against the half wall, legs stretched out on the booth’s seat, cradling her coffee cup in both hands. “Don’t we all.”
A cook leaned forward to peer through the service slot from the kitchen, then came out and stood looking around, like a bus driver counting heads. He wore a green surgical scrub cap and was stick-thin except for a huge swell of belly.
“What about you?” Billie said.
“Plans? Not really.” None he could talk about.
“That ride you’re working on, that’s just a lark? You can’t be racing, or the guys would know you.”
“I did race, down around Tucson, but that was long ago.”
“You’re not old enough to have a long ago, Eight.”
“It’s not always just years.”
She met his eyes (beat-and-a-half, the director would say) and nodded.
— • —
     
They picked him up the next morning out by Globe. Two cars this time, and they’d waited for an isolated stretch of road. Chevy Caprice and a high-end Toyota. The message he sent back at the food court in the mall had been received.
He was working the Ford hard, letting it out, bringing it back in, slow, fast, slow again, learning its bounce and feed, but this was a little more testing than he anticipated.
The guy in front was good. Driver slowed enough to let him pass and he did, but then he let it ride, kept his distance. Knowing this wouldn’t be an easy take down, and in no hurry.
The one in the rear car was there for good reason. A tightness to his steering. And he didn’t hug his speed, he’d inch it up, fall back, whenever Driver picked up or dropped a few mphs.
Take him out first.
Driver slowed, started to speed, then slowed again and slammed the brakes. Watched the car behind try to stop and realize it couldn’t. Watched it cut to the left and, knowing that’s what he’d do, swung toward it. The car cut hard again to avoid collision and, losing its center, careened off the road, came within a hair’s breadth of turning over, came back down on four wheels rocking.