A Night's Tale - A Short Ride

1927

"So `e says, `Yes, I'm drunk madame, and yer ugly...but tomorrow, I'll be sober!'" Ben hurled down his mug, spraying the wooden countertop with watered-down beer and joining in the chorus of laughter that rang around him. Noticing a less than jolly party in the crowd, Ben slammed his companion on the back with one hard hand. "Come on, then!" he cajoled. "Not laughin'?"

"Not funny," Daniel replied dryly, throwing back his own beer, and then cocking his head to preempt his amendment. "Actually, wait. It was funny the first time. And the second. But now..." He let his voice drift off as the men around them burst into raucous laughter again.

Ben scowled. "Fine, Master Jones. Fine indeed. Maybe we'll just kick you out on the streets an' see how funny a cop thinks you are, beer in hand."

The surrounding men and women shifted uneasily, subconsciously stowing their alcoholic beverages in a more concealed fashion. Any threat of exposure was not taken lightly, no matter how lighthearted or how drunk the threat may be. During prohibition, in a speak-easy, beer in hand, no man was completely comfortable.

Daniel simply smiled and ruffled his hand through Ben's hair. "Called even, then."

Relaxing slightly, the rest of the crowd broke off into separate groups, drifting away from the pair. Ben let off a little steam and slumped, beaten, back onto his chair. Draining his mug and stashing it under the table in case of a quick sweep-through by police, the man turned to his companion.

"What's up for tonight?"

"Wanna catch a show?" Daniel suggested, lazy eyes following the slow rotation of the ceiling fan. It was hot in the speakeasy, but no windows or doors could be kept open for fear of the police. Chicago was a dirty city, with dirty cops and dirtier gangsters. But recently law officials had been cracking down heavily on the dry movement.

"Talkie or silent?" Ben asked.

Daniel groaned. "I don't care. I don't care! Let's just get the hell outta this heat, somehow."

"You can get the hell out, but I'm afraid Ben here is gonna to have to stay," came a voice that was soon matched by a grinning face, intruding Daniel's view of the sluggish fan blades.

"Lee," Dan greeted succinctly, no energy for more.

"What do you mean, stay?" Ben asked irritably.

Lee dropped easily into an open chair and loosened the top two buttons on his white shirt. He shucked his hat and slammed a small stack of newspapers on the table, leaning on it and whispering to Ben. "I just got run details that we need to go over."

Ben nodded into his beer, not losing eye contact with the threadbare posters that hid barfight stains on the wall. A teamster for the newspaper he sold copies on the streets for, Lee was a delivery man of a different kind at night. The job kept him in the favor of a few key men in town, and also assured him of enough money that his private life could be kept out of gossip's hungry mouth.

There are no secrets in a city like Chicago.

"How's the headlines moving?" Lee asked idly.

"They're not," groused Ben, motioning to the bartender for Lee's usual, two fingers of scotch on ice. "It's hotter'n blazes out there. Ladies fainting on the sidewalk."

"Not," Daniel countered immediately. After so many years selling newspapers, the man had begun telling his own tales of woe and triumph.

"On my mother's grave," Ben promised, counting his remaining copies.

"Your mother's alive," Lee grinned.

Daniel grinned and pulled out my wallet, counting out bills. "Guess I'd better move, then. Wouldn't wanna keep the upperclass waiting."

"God forbid," Lee agreed and tossed Dan his cap. He slammed it over his sweat-slicked hair and pulled up his suspenders with a snap.

"Good?" he asked, arms spread and turning.

"Hideous. Get outta here," Ben grumbled.

"Eh...forget you," Daniel waved him off, turning away from them. He pulled at the cigarette he had tucked behind his ear earlier that morning and lit it with a strike-anywhere match. It was never too hot to smoke.

* * *

Marching from the alley that the back door spat me into, Daniel rounded a corner and found a very attractive, very nervous, very sweaty young man pacing around his taxi. Ignoring him completely, Dan climbed into the driver's seat. The young man pulled on the door handles again, and Daniel contemplated driving off before he remembered that rent was due next Tuesday. Leaning over and pulling the tab up to unlock the door, he hastily rolled down his window, and flicked on the meter.

"Turn that contraption off, I've no idea where I'm going," the man snapped, dropping his attaché and umbrella to the floor of the cab. It was good that he spoke before he looked at the driver, as he did just then, or he would have lost his nerve altogether. Darren didn't believe in love at first sight, but lust was a definite factor.

"I gotta pretty good idea," Daniel mouthed around his cigarette, glancing over his shoulder before pulling into traffic. Good looks, horrible personality, he noted silently.

"You've been drinking," the man replied haughtily after a sniff. "I should report you."

"To my boss and who else?" Daniel replied. "I work for myself. This here's a freelance cabbie. You want out, you get out." He made no move to slow the car, but turned a corner.

The passenger groused to himself, but decided to move on in his complaints. "You don't know where you're going. I want to go to Lexington."

"Then you're the one who's lost, friend," Daniel replied, squinting against the afternoon sun. "That's where I'm taking you."

"How...how did you know?" The man shoved his hat farther back on his head and locked his knees around his briefcase.

"It's a gift," monotoned Daniel. There was a scientist's convention on Lexington and Third, and he'd been taking people there all day. He dragged on the cigarette and blew smoke out the window.

"I say, would you mind not smoking?"

Now where have I heard that before, Daniel wondered to himself idly. "Yes."

"It's quite bad for you, you know. That's what I'm going to prove anyway. That's why I'm here." The scientist patted his briefcase lovingly. "I'm going to win the Nobel Peace Prize for proving those things are a filthy habit."

"Yeah, but they keep my girlish figure," Daniel replied, making another turn.

"You're a foul man," the scientist proclaimed, rolling down his own window and leaning slightly out of it as if to emphasize his distaste for cigarette smoke. "Do you realize how funny it will be for me, showing up late and covered in smoke and ashes?"

"Yup," was the driver's only reply as he idled at a stop sign. He earned a sign of disgust from his passenger, and grinned around the paper cylinder he rolled on his tongue. With the other man finally lapsed into a dejected silence, Daniel had a chance to watch him more carefully. Not a bad looking man, though fairly young for a scientist and obviously from the east coast. Had some kind of a high class New England accent to accompany his pristine manners. Daniel had no doubt that his tip would be minimal.

The man wore a tweed suit despite the heat, and a white cotton shirt that he was bound to be dying in as well. Polished brown loafers completed the image, and the only clash in the all-brown (all-bland, Daniel noted wryly) outfit was in the man's hair, which was a shock of wild black, capping off shining blue eyes to match.

They got to Lexington and Second before Daniel spoke again. "Oh, shit," he growled through clenched teeth as he spit the butt of his cigarette out the window. He slammed on the brakes, simultaneously bracing himself and throwing an arm across the passenger to prevent his flying through the windshield. The taxi stopped an inch short of the car in front of it.

The passenger looked seriously ruffled by this as Daniel withdrew his arm. "Y'all right?" Daniel asked, glancing away from the traffic jam for a moment to check on his scientist.

"I hope," was the short reply as the other man checked his neck for signs of muscle strain and whiplash. "Was that really necessary?"

"Unfortunately," the driver huffed, leaning out his window to get a better view of the jam. He raised his voice so his commuter could hear. "Looks like some kinda accident. Huh." He pulled himself back inside the window and honked long on the horn.

"That's not going to help, I assure you," the passenger scolded.

"Yah, but it really does make you feel better," Daniel quipped, grinning at the man. "We're gonna be stuck here for a while. You wanna walk?"

It was quite clear that the man very much wanted to walk. But a flicker of disappointment crossed his face just as he was reaching for the door. "I'm not familiar with the route."

"Guess you'll have to grace me with your company for a few minutes, then," Daniel consoled. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Doctor Darren Hayes," the man said, extending his hand in greeting. "I'm a Professor, not a medical doctor, before you ask."

"Professor?" Daniel quirked an eyebrow and reached across to shake the proffered hand. "Of what?"

"Environmental science. Have you heard of it?"

"Can't say that I have," Daniel admitted as he edged the car forward an inch.

"Most people haven't," Darren said, growing more lively as he explained his profession. "I'm trying to show people the hazards of their health to the environment. By my projections, the air will be entirely unbreathable by the year 1983, unless we do something to clean up most of the major cities."

"Yeah, so Chicago's dirty," the driver confessed. "But come on. 1983? That's not our problem."

The man scowled, furrowing deeper into the passenger seat. "How did a man like you come by a car like this, anyhow? I'm certain you couldn't afford it."

Daniel's eyes creased into a smile. "You wound me, Doc. If you really want to know, I won it. Why...this car bad for the environment, too?" He said the word "environment" as if it wasn't a real word, something the doctor had simply made up to amuse himself.

"There are infinite problems with automobiles," Darren replied grouchily. "And I will not be mocked by a man of such inadequate learning."

"And yet here you sit, at the mercy of my knowledge," Daniel said with a quiet smirk. The moment of eloquence made Darren turn his gaze from the other cars to flicker on the driver. Their eyes met and Daniel's cocky grin grew, disquieting the professor. Not used to confrontation, he looked down. Daniel felt oddly satisfied.

"You are precisely the problem with the world today," Darren said sullenly. "Not willing to take responsibility for the next generation."

"Hey, Daniel Jones takes care `a one man. Himself." Daniel stabbed a thumb into his chest vehemently and winced as a car bulleted around a turn to join the traffic jam. It just barely missed taking off his rear wheelcover.

"Lovely," concluded Darren sarcastically. "You truly are a visionary."

"Yeah, I like ta think so," Daniel replied with a wink.

Darren squinted through the dirty glass of the windshield at the endless heat-shimmering cars. "I say, is that a police officer?

Daniel streamed another litany of curses, trying to catch what his passenger saw. In a moment, a blue-suited officer made his way from car to car. A second appeared on Daniel's side of the car, and he reached the taxi first.

"You fellas need to turn around," the officer grousled through his thick jaw.

"There's a bit of a jam," Daniel pointed behind him. "Cars. In the way. Understand?"

The officer squinted at him, sizing him up, and Darren hid his eyes under a miserable hand. He very much did not want to be arrested, especially with the convention coming up.

"Don't get smart with me, son," the officer replied. "They'll be moved. Then you've got to turn around. There's been a bit of an accident up on Third. Best stay away from this side of town all night, in fact. Tell your fares, can you?" He asked the driver.

Daniel nodded, frowning. He didn't get too many requests for the upperside anyway, not with his usual downtown stationing. "What about the..." he turned to Darren for help. "What, the convention, right?" Darren nodded and the driver turned back to the officer.

"What about the convention?"

"Canceled," the man said gruffly, and straightened before Daniel could ask anymore questions. "Now move along." He thumped the car's roof twice and then progressed to the next automobile.

"What? That's preposterous. They cannot cancel the convention," Darren assured himself with a shake of his hand. "It's never been done before."

"If there's been an accident..." Daniel offered lamely, glancing over his shoulder to wait for the cars behind him to move.

"This is preposterous!" Darren repeated, slightly louder.

"Thems the breaks, Doc," Daniel groused. He was equally unhappy with this development. His passenger was probably going to demand a refund for inability to deliver. And Daniel needed the fare. Badly. "Can I take you somewhere else? A hotel maybe? You could make a call from there. Find out about your meeting."

The Professor deliberated for a moment and then nodded sullenly. "Please. I'm at the Salisbury."

"That's not too far from here," Daniel said, sliding the car into reverse and maneuvering carefully between two immobile taxi drivers. He waved and smiled broadly as they swore and spit at him, pretending not to hear. "Hey fellas!" he called amiably. "Your wives were great last night! Yeah, fuck you too!" His smile dropped off once the car was out of the way.

Pulling into regular traffic, Daniel rolled up his window and requested the same of his passenger. "I don't much like the smell of wet Chicago in my cab, if you don't mind," he added just as the first spatters of rain tossed themselves to the ground in a watery death. They rode in silence, the traffic becoming harsher now that the rain was falling in earnest and windshield wipers were trying in vain to flick water from car to car.

As they neared the hotel, Darren tried vainly to strike up the conversation again. "So, how does one form a taxi service?"

"How does one become a teacher?" Daniel griped as he squinted for the telltale lights that marked the Salisbury. In this rain, it was hard to tell one hotel from another. "You buy the car - or win it, in my case - stick a meter inside and try to be as nice as you can to the guys who are dressed sharp. When you make enough money, put yourself in an ad in the papes. Helps if you've got friends there."

"Lovely," Darren said for approximately the thirty-thousandth time that afternoon. Daniel suppressed the urge to ask just what was so lovely about it, when he finally spotted the destination.

"There!" he exclaimed with a cry of satisfaction and a point. He breathed a sigh of relief. Cab fare. Rent paid. Money for cigarettes, left over, if he was lucky. And he did, for the most part, consider himself lucky.

Preparing his money and umbrella, Darren juggled with his objects and tipped heavily as the cab pulled to a stop. "Thank you for the trouble, sir," Darren said.

Daniel tried to stifle a laugh. "No trouble at all, Doc. Look me up anytime. Usually at Callaghan's bar, where you caught me earlier today. And good luck with that, ah..." he waved one hand around in the air. "Convention. Good luck with that."

"My sincerest thanks," Darren said distractedly as he pushed open the door. The driver squinted as if coming to a quick decision and grabbed the man's arm. Darren turned, confused.

"Look..." Daniel started, searching the other man's face. "I know you're new here. Chicago's a tough town. Just...um..." he let go of the arm and placed it on the back of his neck. "Shucks, Doc. Just be careful, okay? You seem like a pretty smart guy...but be careful."

Darren watched him to make sure he was done with a worried look, but Daniel had already turned away and placed both hands on the steering wheel. With a nod to himself and a turned collar to the rain, Darren dashed into the coming night and the rotating doors of the Salisbury Chicago. Daniel pulled swiftly back into traffic, hoping to catch the matinee rush from the theaters letting out, since he was uptown anyway.

It wasn't until he was ten blocks south of the hotel that he realized Darren had left his briefcase resting on the floor of his cab. With a shrug, he shoved it under the passenger seat at a red light and fished in his pockets for a fresh cigarette.



tbc...