I’m just a driver.

Just a driver.

There was nothing wrong or illegal about driving a car from one place to another. I repeated this a few times. Alone, in a vacant lot in a strange town on the western slope of the Rockies, with no car except for the one I was to use for the job, I repeated it in my head. Just a driver. I mouthed the words until I believed them. I had no other options.

I got in the car and adjusted the seat, then started the engine. The GPS system, mounted on the dash, began speaking directions. I located the speedometer and made a mental note of the speed limit.

21

The morning after my first run was calm. The sun crept in my open window at 7:30 and woke me from sleep. I rolled over and threw the blanket off. The cool mountain air filled my apartment and touched my skin, clean, and crisp. This was the renewal of morning, when the sun and the air moved in and washed away the darkness of night. Once again, today erased yesterday, and this would always be. The thought was comforting.

I walked to the front door and opened it, revealing the outer screen door. On my phone was a text message, from an unknown number, sent at 3:55 a.m.

Envelope: between screen and main door.

Sure enough, taped to the bottom wooden slat of the inside of the screen door, was a sealed envelope with my name on it. I peeked my head out to see if any of my neighbors were outside this morning, and as usual they were not. I had only seen a handful in the time I’d been there, and we exchanged nothing more than a polite nod. I pulled the envelope off the door and took it inside, where I opened it to find five one hundred-dollar bills.

Sitting on my bed, I looked down at the money in my hand. The entire run the previous night had taken six hours. It was a decent hourly wage.

Holding the money that morning, I again felt the power that came along with it, even in such a nominal amount. The truth was, there was little difference between my days as an analyst at Wilson Keen and the drive I’d done last evening; each was a lucrative realm I’d entered for purely financial reasons, with the penchant to pay more than one man should realistically earn for such tasks. Each allowed me a shortcut, a way to skip the hard part. It was only five hundred now, but it would quickly double and triple, and as weeks passed it would multiply enough that I would lose count.

I thought back to last night and remembered my anxiety about the job. Eyes darting between the speedometer and road. The way my hands sweat on the steering wheel. It seemed silly now, in the light of a new day, that I’d put myself so far on edge about a simple drive. So what if I didn’t know every last thing about the operation? Employees rarely did.

The drive back had been straightforward. As Damon had said, mostly retracing the path back to the Otter Ridge valley. Ten miles west there was a turn off that took me up into the hills, and I followed a winding road for thirty minutes. The GPS led me down a driveway to a small residential property with a cabin and a pole shed, where I got out of the car, leaving the keys in, like I was told. A nondescript young blonde man greeted me and drove me back to my apartment in silence. I arrived on my front porch, partially confused and amazed how easy it had been.

Now, I held the money and felt its power. It was less money, but it was easier than it had ever been on Wall Street. Far easier. There was no next run scheduled yet, it would come. Even if it wasn’t for a few days—hell, a week—I’d be fine.

That evening, Suzanne and I went to dinner. Sushi, her idea. We sat at a small two-top in the corner, ordered four rolls and sake, and she asked me questions.

“How was your first evening on the job?”

“How’d you know?” I asked.

“Please,” she said. “We’re a family here.”

“Huh.”

“It’s not a bad thing. You shouldn’t see it as a bad thing. It’s a community. Family.”

“Just different from what I’m used to.”

“Isn’t everything?”

I took a drink of sake out of the tiny ceramic cup. It was warm and sweet. “The first day was good. First night, I guess. It was good.”

“Wonderful,” she said with a smile.

“I just wonder how much…I guess I thought there would be more to it. It was so easy.”

She shrugged. “That’s what a lot of the guys say at first. I’m not sure what they expect.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. It was just driving.”

“Did you feel unchallenged?”

“No. I wouldn’t say it was that. I don’t know. I got paid already. In cash.”

She nodded. “That’s how Vince works. He’s very mindful to take care of his employees. He appreciates what you all do.”

I smiled and wondered silently about the next run. She held my hand on top of the table and told me about her life—her latest painting, an abstract blue whale, wasn’t coming together how she’d hoped. She sang at McNeil’s last night, and two Loretta Lynn renditions were crowd pleasers. I did love the way she sang.

We drank sake and ate, and she told me about painting and singing, and we did not discuss the runs anymore. Then she told me about Friday.

“It happens every year,” she said, “to celebrate the end of summer.”

“Summer’s ending?”

She nodded. “Officially, yes. In the mountains, summer lasts only from June to July.”

“That seems unbalanced.”

“The mountains are unbalanced. You will learn this.”

“When does it get cold?”

She shrugged. “Could snow in August. Could wait until December. It’s not wise to try to predict. But what matters, right now, Julian, is Friday.”

“What did you call it?”

“The Ball.”

“The Ball.”

“Yes, the Ball. It’s the second biggest event of the year, bigger than all the soirees. It’s imperative we attend.”

I hesitated. “I don’t know my schedule yet. I might have a run Friday.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. Vince will not do runs during the Ball. He wants everyone there.”

I shrugged. “What do I need to do?”

“Nothing extreme. Do you have a suit?”

I laughed out loud. For almost a decade, I wore a suit everyday. My closet was filled with tailored coats and pants; high-dollar wool and imported silk. Two racks of hundred-dollar ties. Cuff links, watches, and vests. I’d left almost all of it behind, but the thought of this woman asking me, now, in all sincerity, if I owned a suit, for some reason struck me as funny. I’d owned more suits than most of these people had seen in stores.

On that hot summer morning I’d started my drive, I took one suit with me. My favorite navy blue ensemble, always hung at the end of the closet, with matching shirt and tie. I stuffed it hastily in that oversized duffel bag with the other essential items, something frowned upon in any formal circle for a garment of its quality, but I didn’t care. Now it was hung in my tiny apartment closet, still wrinkled and dirty, but one trip to the cleaner would bring it back to life.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“Nothing. Yes, I have a suit.”

“Most excellent. Then we are set. You need nothing more than to attend, as my companion. We will attend, and we will be fabulous.”

22

She was right, as she always was. There was no run on Friday, or Thursday, for that matter, but I was assured the work would ramp up next week. Everything was relayed through Damon, who had become my main contact and de facto mentor for the job. On Friday, he said, we were to focus on the Ball.