Burnout

Chapter 3

3

The nightclub is closing. The last of the clientele leaving for the hills. I take off my stab vest and close my locker.

Ty catches up with me. He shakes his head. "You're a maniac. You know who that was?"

I shrug.

"That was Carlos Campuzano."

I shrug some more.

Ty removes his vest and slides it inside his locker. "From Tijuana. They call him Rata Loca . . . Crazy Rat. He's a f*****g hood, man. Runs his own operation out of the Paicoma.

"Then what's he doing here?" I say.

"Trying to move up in the world, I dunno . . . I tried to tell you."

"Don't worry about it," I say, slapping Ty on the back on my way out.

"You're a dead man now, Charlie. You know that?"

"So everyone keeps saying."

"You would have lost your job, too," Ty says. "The boss wanted you fired tonight."

"A human sacrifice?" I say.

"He doesn't want that kind of heat on him," Ty says.

"Then why am I still standing here?" I ask.

"Joshua Speed, that's why."

"At least someone appreciates me," I say, pushing my way out of the door. "See you tomorrow, Ty."

"If you're still breathing," Ty yells after me.

The house lights are on as I come out of the club. I check my watch. Three-thirty. The last bus is in ten minutes. I trudge down the road and wait at the stop.

I look up and down the street both ways. Multiple lanes empty of traffic. Signals turning red to green with no one around to care.

I see a car roll out of an underground car park a block up the road to my right. It's a red Ferrari. The V12 roars out onto the street. It speeds up and then slows down fast.

I tense up, bracing myself for a drive-by.

The Crazy Rat, coming to get me.

The Ferrari stops tight to the kerb. The engine hums, the exhaust crackles. The driver's window whirs down. I bend over and see a flash of white teeth. It's Joshua Speed.

"Hey man," he says.

"Alright?" I say.

"What you waiting for?" he says.

"The bus. What does it look like?"

"Bus? Come on man, get in. I'll give you a ride."

"No thanks," I say, looking at the cocaine in his eyes.

"What, I'm too good for you?" he says, laughing at his own joke.

"Something like that," I say.

"Come on, man. Don't be a douche. I owe you one."

I stay where I am and look up the road for my bus.

"The bus'll take you an age. I'll have you home in five."

The offer is tempting. I feel like I'm about ready to drop, my body aching all over. "Alright," I say.

I round the back of the Ferrari and climb inside. Sweet Jesus what a car.

Speed asks me where I live. I explain the route.

"Yeah, I know where that is," Speed says, revving the engine.

The Ferrari takes off like a rocket. I hold on for dear life.

"You ever been in a car like this?" Speed asks.

"Yeah, I used to own one," I say.

"A Ferrari?"

"No, a red one," I say, pulling my belt on as Speed lives up to his name. "Volvo estate," I say.

Speed laughs. We blast through a green turning red, my head snapping back against the seat. I look across at the kid. I reckon there's more Charlie in him than there is in me.

"Where are your minders?" I ask.

"Those assholes? I fired them."

"Don't blame you," I say.

"Hey, um, what do I call you?" Speed asks, pulling past a yellow Prius cab.

"Call me Charlie."

"I wanted to say thanks, Charlie. For saving my ass back there."

"Just doing my job."

"No you weren't," Speed says.

I watch the speed dial on the dash. Thinking I shoulda followed my first instinct and taken the bus.

Speed brakes hard and turns sharp into a right-hand turn.

He glances across at me and laughs. "Don't worry. I do some of my own stunt driving."

"Not drunk and drugged up, you don't."

"Don't I?" Speed says, grinning his head off and hanging a left.

"So how did you get mixed up with a character like Carlos?"

"I don't know, man. He just started following me around. Making threats. Asking for money. Tonight's the first time it got real."

Speed heads downtown, where the traffic thickens up, even at this hour of the morning. He slows for a red in the nick of time, the tyres smoking. A train of young girls totter across the road in the headlights of the Ferrari. Speed revs the V12 engine. One of the girls flashes her bra.

"You'd better get yourself some better minders from now on," I say.

"Tell me about it, man," Speed says. "Those guys suck . . . Hey, what about you?" Speed smokes the wheels again and leaves the rest of the traffic for dead.

"Let me worry about me," I say, almost pulling the grip off the door as Speed drives us to our doom.

"No, I mean how about you working for me?" Speed says. "My personal bodyguard."

The offer takes me by surprise. "I, um . . . I don't think it's such a good idea."

"Then you must really like working in that club," Speed says. "Earning a measly few bucks for pulling on that stab vest every night."

"It's not so bad," I say.

"How about two-hundred?" Speed says.

"Two hundred dollars a day?"

Wow, that's good money. Now I've gotta think about it.

Speed laughs at me. "No you d**k, two hundred grand," Speed says. "Six-month rolling contract."

Two-hundred bloody grand? Is he serious?

The last thing I want is any attention. And the kid draws it like a super magnet. But two-hundred big ones . . . That's Cassie's college fund paid for. Maybe even a pile of bricks somewhere out in the suburbs.

"That's a very generous offer," I say.

"Cheaper than paying off that prick, Carlos," Speed says.

The more I think about the two-hundred grand, the more sense the arrangement seems to make. And Speed could bloody well use my help.

As I chew it over, the Ferrari screeches to a stop outside the complex I'm renting in. A world away from the Hollywood hills.

Speed eyes the rundown condos. "You telling me you don't need the money?"

I sigh, tired and defeated. Can't keep working these eighteen-hour days.

"Okay, pal," I say. "But I want three-hundred. And half upfront."

"Deal," Speed says with a spaced-out smile.

"Now get out of here before you get car-jacked," I say, getting out of the Ferrari.

I shut the door behind me.

"See you tomorrow," Speed yells through his window.

"What time?" I say.

He's gone without an answer. The V12 roaring and taillights shrinking as the low-slung car takes a hard right around a corner.