Burnout

Chapter 1

1

A FEW WEEKS EARLIER . . .

Now this is what I'm talking about. Sat in a red Camaro convertible. A cool breeze in my hair. A windscreen full of palm trees and a spotless blue sky. The car sparkling clean and "Cherry Cherry", a Neil Diamond classic on the radio. I squeeze the wheel between my hands, smell the leather and relax into the luxury seats.

Welcome to L.A.

"Charlie! You're supposed to clean the damn car, not fill it with your fat fuckin ass."

I snap out of a smile. "Yes, boss," I say, grabbing my cloth and bottle of cleaning spray off my lap. I push the driver door open and climb out of the Camaro. I hurry under the ceiling fan and past the freestanding poster featuring California palm trees and a bright yellow headline about a million dollar prize draw.

Grant is stumpy, podgy and sweats his way through a pink, short-sleeved shirt. He checks his gold watch strapped tight to a hairy wrist. "You done in here?" he says.

"Yep, just finished."

"Good, then I've got a lot full of cars need a wash and a wax."

"Right on it," I say,

I walk across the showroom. The place smells nice at first. You know, that new car smell? But after a couple of weeks, it starts to get right up your nose.

A bit like Grant.

He runs the place. Pays a pittance, but it's cash in hand so I'm not complaining. I open the door and step out into the forecourt. Rakesh was a rocket scientist back in India. Or was he a computer genius? Either way, he's already hosing down the first in a row of twenty cars on the lot. I grab a bucket and sponge and go to work on the next one along.

"What did you used to do again?" I ask Rakesh, a slip of a guy swamped in baggy white overalls.

"A Digital CPU Design Engineer.”

"Say again?"

"Computers and s**t," he says.

"Ah yeah, I knew that," I say, slapping the sponge on the windscreen of the car—or windshield as Grant keeps reminding me. I've gotta remember the terms, he says. "You're not in ‘la-de-dah’ London now," he said to me, not realising that’s the swankier part of England and I'm from the northern part.

As I soap up the car, Rakesh turns off the hose. "What did you used to do?" he asks me with a big smile. Always a smile. Even in the heat, the smog, with only a few bucks in his pocket and four lanes of traffic rumbling by.

Not what either of us were sold on those TV ads Schwarzenegger used to put out.

I try and think of a good occupation. Nothing springs to mind except . . . "Rubbish, I mean, garbage, trash, whatever it's called over here."

"Collection or processing?" Rakesh asks.

"Sometimes I'd pick it up. Other times I'd drop it off," I say, thinking about the last guy I tipped over a fourteen-story ledge. His name was Burke and he'd knocked over a bar he really shouldn't.

"This job any better?" Rakesh asks, helping me sponge down the second car.

"It's cleaner," I say, thinking about the mess Burke made on the pavement.