The Driver Read online

  A nearby woman called out for help, but I couldn’t see, let alone find, her.

  I stood in a half crouch, as if this would protect me from whatever else might fall from above. My office lobby had to be no more than fifty feet away. I walked slowly in what seemed the right direction, both hands thrust out like a blind man who’s lost his cane, and stumbled on a curb as my limited air gave out.

  I wasn’t going to make it. I crawled over the curb, reached out, and felt steps.

  “So you don’t believe in anything?” I asked my father a month before he died.

  His voice was scarred from the twin tracheostomies he’d endured, making him, despite his weakness, even more imposing.

  “Only once…did anything ever happen to make me believe in something…else. I was in the U.S. Army hospital near Saumur, in France. There’s a tank museum there now. I can’t remember the year. You should go see it.”

  We’d been there together. More than once. He’d long feared losing his memory, and his stories were increasingly underscored with items he didn’t want to forget, and wanted me to know he remembered. “I was sitting outside in the woods, laughing at how pathetic my injury was when so many others there had lost arms, legs. Then my heart seized. I thought it was subconscious guilt at my good fortune. I thought I was paralyzed. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t call for help. When I came to I knew something bad had happened.” His eyes welled up. “A few days later they gave me a letter. My brother Jack…my poor brother Jack…was dead. Shot down. Jack was dead.”

  He paused. “I don’t know. How could I have known? Maybe there’s something. There has to be something…to explain how…”

  A door opened against my shoulder. Two sets of hands grabbed me, raised me up, and pulled me inside. It was Jerry and Stavros, the Greek father and son who’d opened a deli in our lobby just a few weeks earlier. Several people screamed when they saw me, and as I was helped past the mirror behind the counter I understood why. I was white from head to toe, as if spray-painted, and from a single point on my right temple a line of blood splayed out across my neck and shoulder.

  “What do you want me to do with the business?” I asked my father a week before he died, just a few days before his revelation about The Driver.

  “You want to write, you want to paint. You think you want to do something else. But never forget, Europe By Car must survive. It’s the one thing that has made everything possible. Since the war. Since I came here with Tata. Everything you have comes from that. From the business.”

  Someone doused my head with water, revealing only a superficial cut, and then my right hand, VP, and surrogate brother Alfred Celentano, and the rest of the Europe By Car staff emerged from a side door leading to the emergency stairs. I saw the momentary fear on his face replaced by relief, and then I realized not only how lucky I’d been, but also how irresponsible.

  That was the first time I truly understood my father’s inner conflict, and the choice he’d made. I had inherited not only his desire to find The Driver, but also his responsibilities. Just as he had backed out of the Cannonball for his family, I’d have to give up my quest for as long as it took to look after the business.

  How could I ever have risked my life on a quest to find The Driver without considering what might happen to my mother, my brother, Alfred and the staff that had been family to me my whole life?

  My father had left me the company’s reins, and yet there was no line of succession, no life insurance, no single person to step into my place. Alfred, however trustworthy and capable, couldn’t run it alone, and although in the year and a half since his death I’d assumed his quest to find The Driver, I had not yet safeguarded the legacy left me.

  I’d find The Driver, but first I’d save the business.

  And nothing would stop me.

  Then I’d find The Driver.

  And nothing would stop me.

  SEPTEMBER 17, 2001

  I drove to Alfred’s house in Westchester for the Discussion. Despite being the proudest of successful immigrant capitalists, my father had retained a near-Japanese sense of socialist loyalty and honor to those who’d helped him. In the forty-six years my father ran the company, only a handful of people had ever been fired (and then only for theft), and there had never been a mass layoff.

  Alfred’s poker face was nowhere near as good as The Weis’s. “So what are you going to do?” he asked.

  I already knew. I had not only a moral imperative to do the right thing, but also a selfish one—I needed not only Alfred’s respect and trust, but the staff ’s as well.

  “We’re going to do exactly what my dad would do. No layoffs. I have no idea what’s going to happen, so we’re going to hedge our bets for a month or two. Everyone keeps their jobs and takes a 20 percent pay cut and one day off a week. We’ll cut my salary to zero. You take a cut which we’ll figure out when we get back to the office next week. We sit tight for a month and see what happens. If we go under, I give you my word that we’ll start over and I’ll take you with me.”

  The blood rushed back into Alfred’s cheeks. “I think that’s what your father would have wanted.”

  “I’m just glad he didn’t live to see this.”

  “Me, too.”

  Thirteen months later, Alfred and I were proven right.

  It was time to rewrite my will. I didn’t tell them what I intended to do.

  There was only one way to find The Driver.

  I had to find the events where he might recruit drivers of sufficient experience and preparation for an utterly illegal, secret, nonstop race cross-country. Twenty-two years after the end of Cannonball, the pool of interested, qualified entrants had to be minuscule. These few, eager for more than weekend track days, would gravitate toward the next closest thing.

  There was only one logical place to look, an event named after a fictitious race depicted only in film, its true origins having long swirled and disappeared into the fog of Cannonball mythology.

  The Gumball 3000.

  Officially, the Gumball was a rally without time, speed, or distance-related trophies, but if it was merely a rally, then why was hard information so scarce? Why did virtually every fan and aspiring entrant refer to it as a race? Why was it so hard to identify past winners of the cryptically named Gumball Spirit Trophy? Why didn’t Gumball stop entrants from claiming “victory” on their personal websites? Why did fans worship oddly named legends such as Lonman and Kimble? Why—even among car aficionados—was Gumball discussed in hushed, reverential tones as if it were the Cannonball incarnate?

  It was obvious. Gumball was either a surreptitious race disguised as a rally, or tacitly allowing entrants to race under its legal umbrella.

  The next Gumball would leave New York for L.A.—a virtual tribute to the real Cannonball—in late April 2002, a mere six months away. I needed a year to research and prepare. Rumors suggested Gumball would return stateside in 2003.

  I’d be ready.

  NOVEMBER 2002

  “Gumball. That’s where I’m gonna find him. I know it.”

  “So,” said The Weis, “we’re back to this Driver business.”

  We sat in the library of his family’s country house in Long Island. We had to discuss this out of earshot of his parents—my surrogate family since my parents divorced when I was nineteen. The Weis was the only Weismann who would entertain my most reckless ideas without reaching for the TV remote, often waiting weeks for the opportunity to deliver a memorized backlog of insults to his best friend.

  “I thought you gave this up.”

  I frowned with false indignation. “That’s how you talk to me?”

  “Idiot. What makes you think he’ll be there?”

  “This Gumball thing is as underground as you can get. It’s expensive, it’s impossible to get in…if he’s not there, then I’m sure he’s watching. Maybe someone there will know him.”

  “And how do you intend to find him, or them?”

  “If he’s there he’l
l find me. If not, there’s only one way to get his attention.”

  “Be serious.”

  “I have to win the Gumball.” The Weis shook his head. “Okay, maybe not win,” I said, “but I can come close…maybe.”

  “And this is a real race?”

  “Not officially, but a lot of people treat it like one.”

  “Where was the last one?”

  “New York to L.A.”

  “And the one before that?”

  “London to Russia and back, via Sweden.”

  “And this one?”

  “San Fran to Miami.”

  “But what are the rules?”

  “The entry form says it’s not a race, but I think that’s so it doesn’t get shut down by the police.”

  “Has there ever been an accident? Anyone killed?”

  “I searched online for ‘Gumball death.’ Didn’t find anything.”

  “Why’s the route always different?”

  “Maybe no one will have them back.”

  “Aliray, there have to be rules.”

  “Maybe it’s like the real Cannonball back in the day. The only rule is—”

  “—there are no rules.” We both paused.

  “So”—I leaned forward—“will you come with me?”

  “This sounds pretty dangerous.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  “No…but you’ll think about it?”

  “Dude…no.”

  I couldn’t believe my closest friend—the only person I knew with actual racing experience, the person who’d taught me to drive, the one person I’d let drive my car although he terrified me every time he took the wheel—would let me risk my life without him there to mitigate my paying the final price.

  “Aliray,” said The Weis, using the nickname given to me by his mother and now used by all my closest friends, “this sounds really, really dangerous.”

  I smiled faintly. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got eight lives left.”

  The Weis frowned quizzically. I tapped my chest in reference to the two lung tests I’d taken since 9/11. He nodded.

  “Actually, The Weis, it might be seven.”

  “Seven?”

  “The Manhattan lap leaves me seven, which means one dumb mistake for each of the five days of the rally, and two left over…just in case.”

  “I love you, Aliray, but you can’t guilt me into this—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find someone else.”

  “—but I’ll help you prep the car…whatever it takes.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The World’s Best Bad Idea of All Time

  DECEMBER 2002

  We are all subject to nature’s forces, as are our creations. Thin air affects a mountain climber’s lungs, depriving him of oxygen and slowing his reactions—just as Colorado’s high altitude necessitates cars’ fuel systems to run different mixtures. Marathoners train and run differently in extreme heat and cold—just as the air temperature through an engine’s intake changes its performance. Beachgoers wear sandals, hikers boots, and were they to trade, passersby would laugh and point. Summer tires skid in snow, and winter tires are unsafe on hot days. People require food and water, cars fuel, water, lubricant, and brake fluid.

  All things must adapt to their conditions in order to thrive, function, and survive, and strict adherence to regimen is the difference between modesty and excellence. Only athletes trained from youth through physical maturity will be ready to perform best—and win—during their prime years. Only a car properly broken in, maintained, and driven will reach its optimal performance and remain reliable over the long term.

  My father’s 1987 Porsche 911, which in late 2000 I’d bought back virtually undriven from the film producer to whom he’d sold it in 1988, was such a car. Even with 92,000 miles it had inexplicably improved every year with nothing more than annual oil changes and inspections. I knew I’d give the 911 to my as-yet-unborn son.

  My Audi S4, alas, was not such a car. Despite all we had shared, it was plagued with recurring turbo-hose ruptures. I needed to replace it.

  But, before acquiring the right car for Gumball, before I could approach potential copilots who already owned more suitable cars, I needed an edge, a strategy, a lock on entry.

  “You are absolutely out of your mind,” said my attorney, Seth Friedland. I knew he’d say that. “It’s a felony,” he continued, “and I don’t need to—”

  “Seth, I don’t have a suitable car or copilot. I’m running out of time to fill out this Gumball application. I need to tell them something outrageous if I’m gonna get into this thing.”

  Seth was straight out of a Law & Order casting call. Fiftyish, short, handsome, and impeccably dressed in a pin-striped suit with suspenders, he spoke with the confidence and authority of the attorney every TV criminal wished he could afford. Seth and I had met right after the 9/11 attacks nearly destroyed the office building we shared. I was fighting our landlord over compensation for the professional cleaning necessary to make the EBC office habitable, and Seth was the only other tenant willing to join the fight. Seth reminded me of my own father, and this was the first test of his willingness to aid in my quest.

  “Maybe,” said Seth, bringing his hands together as if in prayer, “you should do some research. You’re a creative guy. Surely you can come up with a better idea.”

  It was too late for that.

  The Gumball Rally, Cannonball Run 1 and 2, Cannonball!, and Death Race 2000.

  Most of the characters in the films had allegedly been based on real people, so I made a list of all The Drivers and cars from all the films and the few articles I could find about the real races from the 1970s, then divided them into two distinct schools of thought.

  The brute force camp drove Ferraris, Lamborghinis, or Porsches in the belief that maximum power and speed would make up for time lost to frequent refueling and traffic stops.

  The stealth camp brought vehicles and disguises meant to confuse and (hopefully) pacify the authorities—the most ambitious being The Gumball Rally’s fake police car, and Cannonball Run’s fake ambulance (Burt Reynolds’s Transcon Medevac) and fake priests (Sammy Davis Jr. and a drunk-onset Dean Martin in a Ferrari 308).

  Although Yates himself had Cannonballed in the actual Transcon Medevac, with his wife as the fake patient, there was no evidence anyone else had ever used such disguises in real life.

  I knew exactly which camp I fell into.

  “I’ve done the research,” I said, “and I’m completely serious.”

  “As your attorney—”

  “Seth, have you seen The Gumball Rally?”

  “No, but I don’t need to, to know that impersonating the police is a really, really, really bad idea. What about if—” Then, in a moment of joint Thomas Edison–level revelatory insight that would forever bind us, change me, and greatly increase Seth’s billable hours in an area of law in which there is virtually no precedent, he said, “—you drove…a foreign police car?”

  “Now that,” I exclaimed, “is worth $385 an hour!”

  “I was joking,” said Seth.

  “But it might work!” I shot back, slapping my shaved head with both hands.

  “It’s a long shot.”

  “It’s certainly better than driving cross-country in an NYPD cruiser.”

  “I suppose”—Seth rubbed his chin—“it might buy you time, if you and the car looked sufficiently different from local law enforcement.”

  There was a limited selection of foreign police uniforms available on eBay, none of which were suitable. They were mostly wool, came in limited sizes (I had no idea who my copilot would be), and looked too much like American police uniforms. The most aesthetic uniforms—the French Cycle Gendarmes and English Riot Police—had the word police spelled P-O-L-I-C-E across both sleeves.

  I might as well race myself to jail.

  I looked at the 2003 Gumball route: San Francisco to Las Vegas, Tucson, San Antonio, New Orleans, and Miami.
Much as I felt bad even thinking it, most of the police departments along this route would likely employ officers lacking in, shall we say, a cultured sense of humor. Such gentlemen would have no sympathy for a bald New Yorker in a black turtleneck speeding in a foreign car, but something told me they were just going to love (if not, at worst, be utterly confused by) a serious-looking man in a strange uniform and foreign police car.

  It made no sense.

  It made perfect sense.

  There was really only one country whose police force would garner the appropriate respect. The country that invented the highway, the only country in the world without speed limits, a country whose cars were respected (and bought) even by their most fearsome enemies.

  I’d create a fake German Police Car. I’d become one of the Polizei.

  At worst I might offend my Jewish cousins in Los Angeles, but there was little chance they’d find out—they didn’t follow car racing, let alone Gumball. There was the slight chance I might run across the South’s lone Jewish police officer in what would be the most hilariously tragic traffic stop of all time. I decided to bring a pocket Torah just in case. I guessed this would hardly be the strangest item I’d end up bringing.

  There was one other thing about the Polizei—something that added an extra dose of irony which would come to protect me over many traffic stops.

  Germany has no highway patrol, at least not a dedicated force as we do in the United States, but I’d seen pictures online of a Polizei Porsche 911, and I recalled seeing pictures of various Mercedes and VWs—

  I’d call myself Team Polizei. It was in bad taste. Illegal. Insane. Perfect.

  I sprinted home and filled out the online Gumball application.

  “This is Julie Brangstrup,” came the voice over the crackling overseas connection.

  A young, female, English voice. I was momentarily optimistic that some friend had given my number to his good friend, or cousin, or neighbor visiting New York, and my weekend plans were about to improve dramatically.