Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [65]
—Thank you. Thank you very much. He’s OK.
They cram into the elevator, making cracks in French about drunk Americans. Fucking French classes. I wish I’d taken Spanish in high school. I start walking Russ toward the door.
—Take it easy, Russ. Just take it easy. It’s, it’s gonna be OK. You’re gonna take the fall, but you’re gonna get out of it alive. And. It’s gonna, you know, be fine.
He’s still shaking a bit, not because of his balance, but because of how hard he’s crying.
I would rather have rented a car, but I don’t want to go someplace where I’m gonna have to stand around and let people look at me for twenty minutes, and I don’t trust Russ to go in alone. It takes me a while to talk Russ into the backup plan, but eventually he gives in. Even woozy as he is, it takes him less than a minute to break into a locked car and hot-wire it. We sit there with the engine idling. I put a hand on his shoulder.
—OK, let’s go.
He kind of shrugs my hand from his shoulder.
—No.
—Why?
—Mmmm. Apart from, like, not wanting to drive myself to my own fucking execution, I’m not sure I should, like, be behind the wheel, feeling like this. I can barely, like, walk a fucking straight line thanks to you going all, like, Babe Ruth on my head.
—You have to drive, Russ.
—Mmmm. Why? Why the fuck do I have to drive?
—Because I don’t.
He looks at me.
—Are you. Mmmm. Are you, like, kidding, man? You’re from Cali, man. All you guys know how to drive.
—I know how to, I just don’t. So let’s get the fuck out of here before the owner of this fucking thing shows the fuck up.
—Let him! Let him. Mmmm. Let him show up and call the fucking cops. That would be, like, great, man. Save my fucking life.
I make a fist and lunge at him. He flinches back and I pull the punch before it makes contact. He keeps himself pressed against the driver’s-side door and I take deep breaths.
—Why me, Russ? Huh? Why the fuck did you pick me to give your goddamn cat?
He looks out the window at Ninth Avenue.
—I figured, you know, that you’d, like, take good care of him. I mean, Bud’s a great cat. I didn’t want to leave him with just anyone.
—Yeah.
We sit for another half minute.
—Just drive the car, Russ. Take it real easy and if you start to black out or feel funny, just say something.
—OK.
He takes the wheel and puts the Celica in first.
—Like, where to, man?
—Just get us out of here. I’ll tell you where to go once we’re moving.
He pulls away from the curb nice and slow and eases us into the downtown traffic. I turn on the radio and try to find the game.
We circle the block and take Broadway back downtown to Canal Street, then take East Broadway to Montgomery. We scoot across the FDR into the Pier 8 driveway right at the bottom of Manhattan. I point the way and Russ drives us slowly down the access road past the NO UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES BEYOND THIS POINT sign. I jog out here a few times a week and I’ve never seen a single cop, just the occasional parks department truck. We cruise along nice and easy until we reach the Houston Street footbridge where it crosses over the FDR to the baseball diamonds of the East River Park.
We park on the access road next to a baseball diamond. Nearby, I can hear the traffic whizzing past on the FDR, but it’s not nearly loud enough to cover the sound of my cursing. Dodgers 3, Giants 1. New York and Atlanta are still scoreless and the starters are closing in on a new record for combined strikeouts in a single game. Russ has lost interest in the games. He stares out at the East River beyond the playing fields and smokes Camel Lights, one after another. The dash clock in the Celica is broken, but it’s 9:47 P.M. by Russ’s watch. Roman should be here just about anytime.
Roman