The road dumped us down into what looked like a miniature metropolis, with hundreds of buildings pushed up against each other, none taller than a few stories. The lights were plentiful but dim. The air smelled of rural America, with hints of hay and manure and machined steel. It was smaller than Denver and poorer than Breckenridge or Vail, and it all seemed out of place.
“Grand Junction?” I asked.
Damon nodded. “Most of the loads come out of here. Place ain’t worth a damn. But we never gotta stay.”
Another twenty minutes and we were outside a warehouse at an edge of town. It had a factory feel; dark, dirty and grease-stained. Every town had them. Damon parked the jeep and we got out. He left the keys in it.
“Aren’t you going to lock your car?” I asked.
“It isn’t mine.”
He motioned for me to follow him and walked through an alley so dark I almost reached for his shoulders to guide me. On the other side was a yellow street light, and beneath it two cars. Sedans, nondescript. One black, one blue. Damon handed me a key.
“That one’s yours,” he said, pointing to the blue one. “Like I said, GPS already has the destination plugged in.”
“Which is where, exactly?”
He shrugged. “A place in the hills. Back the direction we came.”
I nodded and looked at the car. It seemed almost new, its clear coat glimmering in the dim streetlight. There was nothing in the front or back seats. I peeked around at the trunk, but it was closed.
“You should have what you need,” Damon said. “You good?”
I nodded. As good as I would be.
“Cool,” he said. And in one smooth motion, he got in the other car, started the engine, and backed out.
I was left standing there in that vacant industrial lot, alone with a single car and streetlight. A dog barked somewhere far away. The temperature was cooler now, but still somewhere near seventy. I wondered briefly what I was doing.
I’m just a driver.
Just a driver.
There was nothing wrong or illegal about driving a car from one place to another. I repeated this a few times. Alone, in a vacant lot in a strange town on the western slope of the Rockies, with no car except for the one I was to use for the job, I repeated it in my head. Just a driver. I mouthed the words until I believed them. I had no other options.
I got in the car and adjusted the seat, then started the engine. The GPS system, mounted on the dash, began speaking directions. I located the speedometer and made a mental note of the speed limit.
21
The morning after my first run was calm. The sun crept in my open window at 7:30 and woke me from sleep. I rolled over and threw the blanket off. The cool mountain air filled my apartment and touched my skin, clean, and crisp. This was the renewal of morning, when the sun and the air moved in and washed away the darkness of night. Once again, today erased yesterday, and this would always be. The thought was comforting.
I walked to the front door and opened it, revealing the outer screen door. On my phone was a text message, from an unknown number, sent at 3:55 a.m.
Envelope: between screen and main door.
Sure enough, taped to the bottom wooden slat of the inside of the screen door, was a sealed envelope with my name on it. I peeked my head out to see if any of my neighbors were outside this morning, and as usual they were not. I had only seen a handful in the time I’d been there, and we exchanged nothing more than a polite nod. I pulled the envelope off the door and took it inside, where I opened it to find five one hundred-dollar bills.
Sitting on my bed, I looked down at the money in my hand. The entire run the previous night had taken six hours. It was a decent hourly wage.
Holding the money that morning, I again felt the power that came along with it, even in such a nominal amount. The truth was, there was little difference between my days as an analyst at Wilson Keen and the drive I’d done last evening; each was a lucrative realm I’d entered for purely financial reasons, with the penchant to pay more than one man should realistically earn for such tasks. Each allowed me a shortcut, a way to skip the hard part. It was only five hundred now, but it would quickly double and triple, and as weeks passed it would multiply enough that I would lose count.
I thought back to last night and remembered my anxiety about the job. Eyes darting between the speedometer and road. The way my hands sweat on the steering wheel. It seemed silly now, in the light of a new day, that I’d put myself so far on edge about a simple drive. So what if I didn’t know every last thing about the operation? Employees rarely did.
The drive back had been straightforward. As Damon had said, mostly retracing the path back to the Otter Ridge valley. Ten miles west there was a turn off that took me up into the hills, and I followed a winding road for thirty minutes. The GPS led me down a driveway to a small residential property with a cabin and a pole shed, where I got out of the car, leaving the keys in, like I was told. A nondescript young blonde man greeted me and drove me back to my apartment in silence. I arrived on my front porch, partially confused and amazed how easy it had been.
Now, I held the money and felt its power. It was less money, but it was easier than it had ever been on Wall Street. Far easier. There was no next run scheduled yet, it would come. Even if it wasn’t for a few days—hell, a week—I’d be fine.
That evening, Suzanne and I went to dinner. Sushi, her idea. We sat at a small two-top in the corner, ordered four rolls and sake, and she asked me questions.
“How was your first evening on the job?”
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“Please,” she said. “We’re a family here.”
“Huh.”
“It’s not a bad thing. You shouldn’t see it as a bad thing. It’s a community. Family.”
“Just different from what I’m used to.”
“Isn’t everything?”
I took a drink of sake out of the tiny ceramic cup. It was warm and sweet. “The first day was good. First night, I guess. It was good.”
“Wonderful,” she said with a smile.
“I just wonder how much…I guess I thought there would be more to it. It was so easy.”
She shrugged. “That’s what a lot of the guys say at first. I’m not sure what they expect.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. It was just driving.”
“Did you feel unchallenged?”
“No. I wouldn’t say it was that. I don’t know. I got paid already. In cash.”
She nodded. “That’s how Vince works. He’s very mindful to take care of his employees. He appreciates what you all do.”
I smiled and wondered silently about the next run. She held my hand on top of the table and told me about her life—her latest painting, an abstract blue whale, wasn’t coming together how she’d hoped. She sang at McNeil’s last night, and two Loretta Lynn renditions were crowd pleasers. I did love the way she sang.
We drank sake and ate, and she told me about painting and singing, and we did not discuss the runs anymore. Then she told me about Friday.
“It happens every year,” she said, “to celebrate the end of summer.”
“Summer’s ending?”
She nodded. “Officially, yes. In the mountains, summer lasts only from June to July.”
“That seems unbalanced.”
“The mountains are unbalanced. You will learn this.”
“When does it get cold?”
She shrugged. “Could snow in August. Could wait until December. It’s not wise to try to predict. But what matters, right now, Julian, is Friday.”
“What did you call it?”
“The Ball.”