Chapter 5
It started out as a day pretty much like any other – but by the time I got home that night, I had an entirely new perspective on life.
I'd finished a late breakfast, and was headed in the general direction of one of the busier hotels in town when Dispatch called and let me know that the Central Hotel had asked for me – by name.
Now, I've been driving a hack long enough that I get calls like that: word has gotten around to all the better hotels that I'm somebody that can be relied on. I've never upset a fare, I'm invariably polite and helpful, cooperative as all get-out, and all that kind of stuff. As a consequence, I've gotten more than my share of good fares, some truly outstanding tips, and had a lot of 'interesting' experiences. But absolutely nothing in my career driving a cab prepared me for what happend that day.
When I got to the Central, the doorman is watching for me, and as soon as I pull up he comes out and tells me "Find a spot to park, Jim, and come on in. The manager wants to talk to you for a minute before your fare comes down."
Okay, different, but not too much so; I get my rig parked, and once I'm inside, one of the desk clerks I know, Susie, gets on the phone to let the manager know I'm there. She listens for a few seconds, then points back to where his office is, letting me know he wants to talk to me there. Again, different, but not outrageous. When I get to his office, I knock on the door and hear him say "Come on in, Jim."
I do, and once I'm inside, he stands up and shakes my hand, telling me "I'm glad you got here as soon as you did. I've got a little bit of a problem, and I can sure use your help with it."
Now, usually, this guy is polite enough to me, but I can't remember him ever talking all friendly to me like he is now, so immediately I start to wonder what the hell is going on, and what I'm getting into. As if he's reading my mind, he tells me "I suppose you're wondering what's going on; I know the desk calls you often enough, but I know you've never been back here in this office before. So let me lay it out for you: one of our guests – that is, one of our more, uh, affluent guests – is in town for the next couple of days. Tomorrow, she has an appointment at the Stovald Clinic, but today she's just been staying up in her room, which is fine with us, of course. The problem is that she's decided that she wants to go out and do some shopping. Usually, when she comes to town like this, she lets us know ahead of time so that we can make the appropriate arrangements – but this time she didn't, and we've been caught short. You see, she was in a car accident that left her with some spinal cord damage; while we'd normally have a special vehicle and driver reserved for her to go out with, we didn't this time. None of the other places in town has a vehicle available, and she has simply refused to let one of our staff drive her in one of ours. She's a bit on the feisty and stubborn side, so the best we could manage was for her to agree to be driven in a cab. She's a very special guest, even aside from her medical problems, so we want to make sure that she's properly taken care of – which is why we called you."
He paused then, and had one of the staff bring us in some coffee before he continued "Those of our guests that we've called you for before have been quite uniform in their praise of you, so I don't have any doubt that you would do your best with this guest, as well. The reason I called you in here, really, is to try and give you a little, ah… forewarning about this particular guest. As I already said, she's somewhat feisty and stubborn; someone that didn't know her as we do might even say that she was… difficult."
I'm thinking that if this guy is willing to be buddy-buddy with me, and talk about a guest like he is, it's likely that this woman can be more than just 'difficult' – more like a royal pain in the ass, I'm figuring. He just confirms my suspicions when he tells me "In light of how this guest may behave, I want you to know that in addition to whatever fare is on the meter when you return her here, you will get that same amount as a tip from us. That will be yours, whether she chooses to tip you as well, I might add."
He paused to look at me, and I took the opportunity to ask him "Okay, that's all well and good. But you said this woman is handicapped, right? So what is it that I'm supposed to be doing, other than just driving her around?"
"I was rather hoping that you would be agreeable to, ah, accompanying her during her shopping. Carrying any purchases she might make, that sort of thing."
Something doesn't sound quite right; I finally figure out what it is, and ask him straight out "Are you saying that you're wanting me to push her around? Like in a wheelchair? Doesn't she have one of those electric jobs?"
He gets this pained look on his face before he admits "Well, yes, that was what I was hoping you'd do. She does have a battery-powered wheelchair, but it's large and heavy enough that there really isn't any way to get it into a regular vehicle. She isn't happy about it, but she understands that because of the unplanned nature of this outing, she's going to have to use a more conventional wheelchair. Of course, with her condition, there would have to be someone to handle transporting her in it."
I'm finally starting to get the whole picture now. Not only is this woman likely to be a pain to deal with under normal conditions, but now she's having to go out without her go-buggy – and probably pissed about it. And I'm the poor bastard that's been picked to take care of her. Lovely.
I think about what this guy has told me, along with the pros and cons of just telling him to get stuffed; I finally decide that it would be better all around if I went ahead and did as he wanted. But I decide that I've still got a little leverage, and that I'm going to get the best deal I can out this.
He's been watching me as I think all this through, so he's already paying attention when I tell him "Okay, I'll do it. But if I'm going to have to stay with this woman the whole time, I think it would a lot more reasonable if I got paid for it. Instead of paying the meter and giving me a tip for the same amount for the driving, I think it would be fair if I dropped the flag when I left, and it stayed down until I got back – seeing as how you've already 'forewarned' me that she's likely to be a handful. And any tip I get from her is mine, of course." If I leave the flag down the whole time, it's likely going to add up to a pretty hefty chunk of change, what with waiting time charges and all; I know it, and I know HE knows it. But he also knows that he's asking me to do something that's way beyond just driving a hack, even for a special guest. Either one of us can 'just say no' to the deal – but there's definite downside if we do. For me, there's the chance he'll get a hair up his ass and I don't get as much – or maybe even NO – business from him and the Central. For him, he's risking the chance that I get bent out of shape and spread the word about this little deal, and why I turned it down; if that happens, his (and the hotels) reputation maybe goes down the crapper: a lot of the cabbies in town know and respect me – if I say I felt like was going to get hosed on a deal, he might discover he has a cab shortage for a while, which is not a good thing for him.
I can see him thinking it over, and he finally agrees. I kinda figured he would; sure, I was bending him over a barrel – but it was only a little bit, and I was willing to grease him up first.
With the details of the deal settled, he tells me who the client is: Evangeline Towers, 29 years old. Hearing the name, I finally remembered reading about the accident in the papers some years before: as a college Senior, she'd been on her way to her before-school job in a donut joint one early morning when a drunk driver that a bar had let stay late ran into her little economy car. Her folks hadn't been rich, but they'd had enough money and foresight to get the best reputable lawyer they could – and proceeded to sue the guy that hit her (an executive with some big company), the bar staff, the bar owners (a national chain), and the car manufacturer. The drunk driver had been in a company car, and his history of DUIs was known to his bosses, so the company he worked for paid rather than try to fight it; the driver himself had finally been put in prison for a few years. The bar staff tried to fight, but it was pretty much a losing battle: that they'd let the guy stay late and admitted they knew he was drunk didn't help them any. After that, the national chain paid off to try and minimize the bad publicity. The company that made the girls car, though, were the ones that really got hit in the wallet: after their design had gotten good crash safety ratings, they'd made some changes that had decreased the impact worthiness of the vehicle. It came out in a trial that several of their engineers had warned them about the decrease in vehicle strength that the changes would cause, but some financial beancounters had insisted anyway, gambling that any insurance payoffs would be cheaper.