The Driver Read online

  SUMMER 2000

  “Rendezvous in New York?” said my best friend, Paul Weismann. “Are you insane?” I hadn’t expected this response. “You’re absolutely out of your mind.” He shook his head. “And in New York? Are you nuts?”

  Paul was a former semiprofessional race-car driver who, in high school, had taught me to drive stick on his 1987 Ford Mustang GT. He never forgave me for running over a squirrel the first time I shifted into second gear. I trusted his judgment more than anyone else alive, and not just when it came to cars.

  My father once said that one was lucky to have one real friend in life, and although I’m blessed to have several, Paul had been the sturdiest and wisest accomplice when it came to my most ambitious (i.e., dangerous) ideas. He rightly occupied a near-paternal place among our mutual longtime friends, and for reasons lost even to us, those closest to him called him the ceremonial patronymic “The Weis.”

  “So you won’t help me?” I pleaded. “We could make film history.”

  “I might be able to do it,” The Weis said as he shook his head, “but I think you’d need a lot more driving experience, and a specially prepped car.”

  “So you’ll do it with me?”

  “No way. Too dangerous. Besides, you don’t need a copilot. That French guy didn’t have one. The whole thing is worse than dangerous. It’s pointless.”

  I paused—slightly hurt.

  “It’s not pointless.”

  “Well”—The Weis smirked—“your dad was almost certainly referring to Paris—”

  “—which is a little impractical at this point.”

  “But why are you doing this?”

  There was no point trying to explain the why. The Weis was a rational person who did a cost/benefit analysis on everything. Whenever I knew I’d lose a debate with him, it was time to invent a seemingly good new reason that might get him to go along, which, even after twenty years of friendship, seldom worked.

  “First of all,” I said, “it’s good practice for Paris, and secondly…the whole point of redoing Rendezvous in Paris is to get The Driver’s attention so he’ll contact me. But buying the appropriate car, shipping it to Paris, shooting it, publicizing it…it seems like an expensive long shot. Doing this in New York will be a lot cheaper, and if I post the video on the Internet, it’ll get to him eventually.”

  The Weis shook his head. “I’m afraid I think you just made that all up, but I’ll give you credit—it’ll be a lot cheaper. But a bad idea at a lower price is still a bad idea. Let’s think about this. Your dad said the only way to find The Driver is by having a ‘Rendezvous,’ which you think means a Rendezvous in Paris, which means a Paris run is some kind of road test for entry into this ridiculous club he’s running.”

  “But Rendezvous in New York will be a lot more dramatic.”

  “If The Driver is watching street racing videos on the Internet.”

  “Wouldn’t he?”

  “Somehow, a secretive guy who’s been organizing illegal cross-country races for the last twenty years doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s sifting through crappy street-racing Websites hoping to find you.”

  “But it’ll make good practice.”

  “For something you may have to do anyway, if you’re going to be stubborn about this bullshit.”

  “But I want to do this in New York. It’s my city.”

  “Now you’re getting into other issues.” The Weis shook his head. “Promise me one thing. You’ve got your brother and mother to look after. Just write up a will before you try.”

  “Done, but will you help?”

  “Who loves this guy?” The Weis smiled.

  “That guy.”

  “Let’s be practical…you really think you can lap Manhattan in twenty minutes or less?”

  “Actually, The Weis, I was thinking of a Ford Crown Victoria, painted like a taxi, or a police car.”

  “Those might work if you ditched the paint job idea, but there’s really only one choice.”

  “What’s left?”

  “A Subaru WRX.”

  Rendezvous remained shrouded in mythology greater than the Gumball 3000, Cannonball Run, and all the illegal underground races ever, combined.

  The facts were these: In 1976, the highly respected French director Claude Lelouch mounted a 16mm color camera to the front bumper of a Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9. Departing the west side of Paris just after dawn, Lelouch drove across the city in less than nine minutes, finishing in front of the Sacré-Coeur cathedral in Montmartre, where the stunning Gunilla Friden (his then girlfriend, who had been Miss Sweden, 1968) ran up the cathedral steps to embrace the black-turtle-necked driver.

  Lelouch allegedly screened the film in Paris in 1978, was arrested, the film permanently banned in France and Lelouch forbidden ever to speak of it. This seemed to explain why the film was almost impossible to obtain for nearly twenty-five years, restricted to $50 VHS copies traded over the Internet and shown among car fanatics.

  Rendezvous in New York wouldn’t be easy. The Paris Rendezvous route was just over seven miles. Manhattan Island was 13.4 miles long, a circumferential route twice that, and the island wasn’t ringed by a single road, which would force me to run multiple red lights on city streets. The most obvious problems were that even the world’s best driver probably couldn’t cover a 26-mile course in under twenty minutes, I wasn’t nearly that good, and even the world’s biggest car fan would have to be strapped down to sit through anything that long.

  I had to shorten the route, skipping Manhattan’s northernmost quarter around Inwood and Washington Heights. Given the reputation of those neighborhoods’ police precincts, this would have obvious additional benefits.

  The start line was obvious—the World Trade Center. The WTC was the most dramatic location in lower Manhattan, and it was only two blocks from Manhattan’s southern tip and the beginning of the FDR Drive.

  The final time target was twenty minutes or less.

  On the final run there’d be no stopping for anything, except a jaywalker.

  Maybe.

  “A Subaru,” said The Weis.

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “It’s on every reviewer’s top-ten list.”

  “I know, I know—”

  “There’s really no other car,” The Weis explained. “Think about it. If you were on a track, a Porsche or Ferrari would be the obvious choice, but New York streets suck. The closest thing would be dirt roads, like on Paris-Dakar or the Baja 1000. You need a car with big fat tires, lots of suspension travel, four-wheel drive, and tons of acceleration.”

  “If I ditch the four-wheel drive,” I said, “it sounds like a cab would work, like a Ford Crown Vic.”

  “That’s why cabbies use them, but they still won’t have the handling you want.”

  I owned an Audi S4, a fantastic four-wheel-drive turbocharged sedan that fit 90 percent of the bill. The primary problem was that it sat low to the ground.

  “You can’t use the Audi,” said The Weis, reading my mind. “That was the last car you and your dad ever sat in together. Show some respect.”

  Lelouch had a single spotter at the north end of the Louvre tunnel—I’d need a lot more help than that, and a lot more redundancy.

  With a stack of nondisclosure agreements and a crate of two-way radios, I intended to ask at least a dozen trusted friends/accomplices to stand guard at the traffic lights and block westbound traffic. This would be yet another problem, as there was absolutely no upside for my blockers other than bragging rights, something that would put me in jail for multiple crimes long before the statute of limitations ran out.

  And there was yet another problem, which was that my girlfriend at the time refused to cooperate in the final touch which might elevate my effort into distant orbit around Lelouch’s achievement.

  She refused to meet me at the finish line.

  My heart fractured hourly over this refusal. Her reasons made perfect sense, but I’d hoped that beyond her ac
cusations of irresponsibility she might grasp the leap I was attempting to make between this admittedly absurd plan and the kernel of purpose my father had bestowed upon me. I’d long believed that for every thousand acts of pointlessness, there was one that justified the vain hopes of those who’d failed, that I, in this instance, would not become a statistic, and that she might surprise me.

  Famous last words.

  Other than The Weis, there was really only one other friend I trusted in this endeavor. Jon Goodrich, who shall hereafter be referred to as Nine, had been the coolest nonsnob at my high school’s rival school.

  Nine was one of the only private school kids I knew who dropped out of college, but, to his credit, he did it out of loyalty, choosing to go into the family business, which, like mine, involved cars. In the summer of 1990, Nine was rumored to have set the fastest-ever time from Manhattan’s Upper East Side to Riverdale in the Bronx, the suburb where our schools lay. This seemed a good opening upon which to build a friendship, and it was around that time Nine became close friends with The Weis. Given the latter’s lack of patience for bullshit, social climbers, liars, and trust-fund kids, I knew Nine was one of us.

  This was the other thing that bound us. Pater Goodrich had passed away not long before my own, and my father had immediately given Nine a job at Europe By Car. When my father passed away, I quickly learned not only who my real friends were, but how grateful and loyal Nine was, and would prove to be.

  One more thing.

  Nine’s first answer was always yes.

  “This is one of the worst ideas you’ve ever had,” said Nine. “What does The Weis think?”

  “He’s already agreed to help.”

  “Don’t lie to this guy.” Nine shook his head.

  “Seriously.”

  “That’s bullshit.” He leaned back on my sofa. “So what’s the plan?”

  My plan was to have Nine organize the traffic-intersection blocking teams, one at the Harlem entrance of the West Side Highway, and one each at every westbound traffic intersection on the West Side Highway between Fifty-ninth Street and the World Trade Center. Radio interference prevented use of the RadioShack walkie-talkies I’d already tested, so we’d default to a sequential cell-phone tree that would alert the blockers to don their reflective-orange traffic officer vests, step out into each intersection, and hold up a bright red police baton. Each would prevent westbound traffic from turning south onto the West Side Highway, hopefully just long enough for me to run every red light between Fifty-ninth Street and the finish line. I hoped that would be fifteen seconds or less per blocker, or whatever it took to avoid my having an accident, and them getting arrested for police impersonation.

  “Dude,” said Nine, “I knew this was a bad idea, but that’s the worst fucking plan ever.”

  “You have a better plan?”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “No.”

  Nine scratched his stubble. “And The Weis signed off on this?”

  “Yup.”

  “Do I have to call him to see if you’re lying?”

  “C’mon,” I said.

  “Then I’m in.”

  “Who loves this guy?”

  “This guy!”

  “Nine, you know I’m putting you in charge of recruiting the traffic blockers.”

  “I figured. Who do you trust?”

  “You.”

  “Does anyone owe you money?”

  “Not that I know of.” I squinted. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because they would be the first people to ask.”

  “Hadn’t thought of that.” I nodded. “Any other suggestions?”

  “No ex-girlfriends.”

  I loved Nine.

  “We’re almost ready,” I told Nine.

  It had taken a year to complete dozens of reconnaissance runs. I knew every pothole, every bump, every radar trap, and the general location of every NYPD patrol car on Manhattan’s perimeter. I’d waited for winter’s end so as to remap the route, knowing that however well the Department of Transportation refilled the potholes, new ones would emerge through spring and summer. I knew that Monday morning between 3:30 and 4:00 would be safest, since most nightclubs and bars closed early Sundays and there would be fewer drunk drivers, let alone innocent bystanders, than any other night of the week. I knew that late summer was best, as temperatures were dropping (reducing pedestrian traffic) and rain would be infrequent. I knew the garage guy near my Wall Street office would stash the car undercover for at least a week, long enough for any potential police investigation to die down so I could move the car to The Weis’s Long Island country house for a few months.

  Each morning I awoke with my sheets churned and twisted, the elasticized corners of the mattress cover pulled loose. My pillow was often so damp that the first time I noticed it I ran to the bathroom to find a thermometer. It read 98.6 degrees.

  My greatest fear had begun to manifest itself.

  I could never live with the thought that anyone else had been harmed by my actions.

  Despite the confidence I projected to my accomplices, I knew I’d rather fail than risk another’s life.

  “When’s the first practice?” said Nine.

  “I’ll tell you once I’ve talked to The Weis.”

  That night in bed, I watched the headlights of passing cars break upon the window blinds, splitting into dozens of parallel beams cast upon the ceiling. They moved from one end of my bedroom, slowly at first, then faster and faster as the car approached, to the other before disappearing as instantly as if the car had fallen off a cliff.

  CHAPTER 3

  God Is Speed

  The first practice run was scheduled for the following Sunday. I wouldn’t use the traffic-intersection blockers this time—I’d save them for the final run, just in case one of them leaked to the authorities.

  I’d taken girls I wanted to impress on my reconnaissance runs, but for moral reasons I’d have to practice alone—it was far too dangerous. I’d never driven alone in any competitive or semiprofessional manner, and I was unexpectedly terrified at not having a rational voice in the seat beside me.

  Although it would provide damning evidence in the event of an accident, I Velcro-mounted a camcorder to the dashtop. In the event of my death I wanted to at least prove there’d been a reason, however impenetrable.

  I’d already driven the S4 down to a quarter tank of fuel so as to mitigate the chance of fire, and I removed all loose items from the car’s interior—an accident would turn pens, lighters, and loose change into shrapnel.

  I napped in my clothes from 8 P.M. Sunday until jolted awake by my alarm at 1:30 the next morning. I scanned the notes I’d made during my reconnaissance drives, but left them behind so as to deprive the police of critical evidence.

  The practice lap time target was 30 minutes.

  My first and last pencil-written remarks were identical.

  Breathe

  My second (and second-to-last) remarks were also identical.

  Do no harm

  I laughed out loud at my citation of the Hippocratic Oath.

  If I broke it, I’d be the one needing a doctor.

  It was a short drive down Broadway, west across Canal Street, then south on the West Side Highway. I might have stopped myself at any moment if only a companion had suggested it, but the fear caused by the empty passenger seat was replaced by the rush I felt in knowing I was going to do it.

  I tried to clear my thoughts as I approached the red light at the WTC start line—the southbound intersection just a few hundred feet north of the entrance to the tunnel looping counterclockwise underneath the Staten Island Ferry Terminal toward the FDR Drive.

  I lowered the driver’s side window. It was a clear, humid night.

  I exhaled upon the suction cups of my Valentine 1 radar/laser detector, attaching it just below and to the left of the rearview mirror. The V1 had saved me many times. It would have been inconceivable to attempt this without it.


  I placed the camcorder on the dash at the last possible moment. Its presence would immediately tip off any police officer who might pull up right before the start of the worst car-related crime ever committed in New York City.

  I pressed record.

  My finger slid off the button with the first hint of sweat. The red recording light below the lens began flashing, reflecting off the windshield glass to warn any car ahead of my arrival. I’d forgotten to put a piece of tape over the light, but it was too late.

  I craned my head, scanning for police. All clear. The dash clock read 2:26.

  The traffic light turned green.

  I gently let out the clutch, depressed the gas, and headed into the tunnel.

  The tunnel lights turned night to day, the Audi’s interior flashing yellow and black as I passed under the sodium vapor bulbs. The exhaust roared off the white-tiled walls and ceiling, then the twin turbos spooled up, whining like an aircraft engine at takeoff.

  I hope no one’s on the emergency pedestrian walkway

  67

  I crossed the double white line, veering left from the outside lane toward the inside. Fourth crime of the run.

  The black square night of the tunnel exit was in sight. I floored it and burst from the tunnel, the ancient rusting-brown old Staten Island Ferry Terminal to my right, Wall Street’s high towers looming to my left, the night’s hot air buffeting my shaved head—

  81

  I recalled my reconnaissance notes—the right-side concrete lane divider ended just before the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ventilation building and Heliport Pier, allowing traffic to merge from the right.