“Hey, St. George,” someone called out. “You got a minute now?”
A skinny man trotted toward Roddenberry, waving his hand. St. George settled back down to the ground and swung his jacket over his shoulder. It took a moment to recognize the young man at night. He’d never noticed how few lights there were around the central building and garden. “Cesar, right?”
“Right.” They shook hands. “Look, I really need to…ummmm, confess something.”
“You still haven’t killed anyone, right?”
“No, dude, this is serious.”
“Okay,” he said, “what’s up?”
Cesar glanced around. “Can we walk or something?”
“Why?”
“Just feel kinda nervous standing right here, y’ know? In front of her building? Especially at night.”
St. George felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. “A walk around the garden work?”
“Yeah,” he said, “that’d be cool.”
He led them across the north edge of the garden. A few years earlier, when the Mount had been a film studio, the garden had been a gigantic pool that could be filled with water for movie shoots. The north edge was a huge mural called the Blue Sky. They walked along the narrow path between the base of the mural and the garden.
Cesar took a breath and steeled himself. “Probably should’ve told you or Cerberus or one of you guys months ago, but…” The former Seventeen looked left to right and back, never meeting the hero’s eyes. “I’m the Driver.”
St. George cocked his head and waited. “The what?”
“The Driver.” He gripped an invisible steering wheel in the air before him, and the hero realized the young man’s fingerless handgear was a pair of cheap driving gloves.
“The driver of what?”
Cesar sighed. “D’you remember there were a bunch of carjackings and smash and grabs a couple years back? About a year before the exes showed up?”
St. George nodded. “Down in the Wilshire District? Yeah, I always meant to look into those.”
“That was me.”
The hero raised his eyebrows and smiled. “As I remember, the cops caught the guy,” he said. “A big, fat white guy. Blew out the tires of his Mustang with a spike strip. He tried to run and the police laughed themselves silly.”
“Yeah, right,” nodded Cesar. They turned the corner of the garden and started heading south. “Wayne. He was my partner.”
“Partner?”
“Look, what if I just show you, ‘kay?”
St. George shrugged. “Okay.”
Cesar jogged ahead a few yards. The garden had a thick wall protecting it on the east side, and there was a small parking lot where they kept the scavenger trucks. Mean Green . Road Warrior . The twins were Big Red and Big Blue . Off to the side, against the back corner of the Zukor hospital, stood a few stacks of spare tires. Luke’s people had pulled them off other trucks on the lot, plus some they’d found in the other studios.
The young man took a few more quick steps to put himself in front of Mean Green ’s grill. He waited for St. George to catch up and gestured the hero to the side. “No one in the cab, right?”
“Nope.”
“No keys, right?”
St. George pulled the door open and glanced under the steering column. “Nope. Should be in Luke’s office.”
“‘Kay, then. Watch this.”
The young man pulled off his glove and held up his bare hand. The palm was covered with a flurry of half-faded scars. He pressed his fingers against Mean Green ’s grill and the metal sparked. The flashes grew into long arcs that wrapped around his hand and twisted up his arm with electric crackles.
Cesar vanished in a flash of light and Mean Green ’s engine roared to life. A wisp of smoke spun in the air for a moment, and then it was sucked into the grill by the truck’s fan. Mean Green ’s headlights came on. The engine revved three times in a row.
St. George dropped his jacket. His eyes flitted between the empty space and the growling truck. “You’re kidding me.”
The horn let out two quick blasts. The headlights flashed back and forth like winking eyes. The engine growled again and the truck’s front wheels shifted left to right. The hero took a few steps back and Mean Green rolled a few feet forward. He walked to the left and the truck turned after him.
“Okay,” he said, “I believe you.”
There was another crackle of electricity, a flash, and the engine cut out. The headlights faded and Cesar stood between the hero and Mean Green , his hand pressed against the grill. The young man swayed for a moment, shook his head, and grinned. “What you think of that?”
“So,” said St. George. “The Driver.”
“Damn straight.”
“You possess cars?”
“Not just cars,” said Cesar proudly. “Big rigs, jeeps, SUVs, anything that’s self-powered, y’know? I did a generator once on a bounce house. And a golf cart. Motorcycles are tough because I can’t balance that good in ‘em.”
“What about a walkie-talkie or a radio or something?”
He shook his head. “Too small. I get…I dunno, cramped. I can’t fit inside.”
St. George studied the young man. He didn’t have a scrap of green on him, but most of the former Seventeens went out of their way not to wear the old gang color. The ornate 17 on his left shoulder was the only sign he’d been one of the bad guys less than a year ago. “How long have you been able to do this?”
He shrugged. “About four years.”
“You’ve been part of the Mount for eight months now. Why didn’t you say something before?”
“Dude, we were on opposite sides.” Cesar shook his head. “Even when I moved in here after Peasey was dead, who knows what Stealth would’ve done if she found out there was another Seventeen who had powers. Besides,” he jerked his head at the truck, “that was the first time I’ve done it since the night they grabbed Wayne.”
“Your partner.”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re the one with the powers, why’d you need him?”
The young man shrugged. “I needed somebody who could grab the cash. I’m in a car, it’s just a lot easier to stay there. Takes a lot out of me, switching back and forth.”
“Okay,” said St. George, “so if he was willing to sit behind the wheel for a smash and grab, why’d he need you?”
Cesar grinned. “Dude, d’you ever read Lowrider or Car and Driver ? Fucking loved Car and Driver .”
“Once or twice. In waiting rooms.”
“Saw this phrase once—the car outperforms the driver. When you get those sweet, high-end cars with tons of torque that can turn on a dime. Rich jerks crash ‘em all the time because the car is so much better than them. Moves faster’n they think it can, reacts quicker’n they think it will. Tweak the wheel this much and you’re doing barrel rolls down the freeway, y’know?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Well not when I’m inside,” said Cesar. “When I’m inside, the car’s my body. Know every inch of it, what it can do, how well it can do it. If the car can do it, I can do it, and better than anyone sitting at the wheel ever could. I’m the greatest getaway guy stunt driver in the world. I’m like ten times the fucking Transporter times Knight Rider.”
“So how’d they catch your buddy?”
He held up his hand again and showed the scars. “Like you said, man. Spike strip, right across Olympic.” He pulled the glove from his waistband and tugged it back on. “Cops arrested Wayne, took the Mustang to impound. I got out, my hands and feet were all messed up something bad. Limped home and mama took me to the emergency room. Man, that sucked. Six hours in the waiting room at Hollywood Presbyterian.”
St. George picked up his jacket and batted some dust off it. He looked at the truck again, then back to the young man. “How’d you get this? Were you born with it?”