Taxicab Trickery

Four days later, and I wake with a stifled yawn. These last few days, I’ve been receiving a small trickle of things in the mail: a necklace with a downward facing silver triangle, a letter dated six years past, signed by one H. M. Rothschild, as well as a bunch of other papers and knick-knacks that collectively form the Claude Ashworth starter pack. Critically, however, Mr. Samuel has not sent me any formal legal documentation—even he couldn’t forge something that would stand up to the best paid lawyers’ and investigators’ scrutiny. A passport, driver’s license, birth certificate… these are things I’ll have to get myself.

I complete my morning ritual, making sure to spend the extra few minutes doing the dynamic stretches Jessica taught me—it would be a pity to make her risk it all and have it be in vain because I got a bit lazy.

Now showered and limber, I make my way over the fridge. It’s stacked full with meat, vegetables, drinks and well, food. It’s a welcome sight, and I grab some deli meat, lettuce, egg, and tomatoes to make myself a nice breakfast sandwich.

As I sit on the edge of my bed, breakfast on a plate balanced between my knees, my attention is absorb by the phone sitting next to me. It’s opened up to the extensive Notes that Mr. Samuel left for me, and I spend the next few minutes ruminating on the food and the thousands of details concerning Claude Ashworth that I’m making myself memorize.

Where was I on this day, five years ago? On a research trip in Aruba, finding ready-mades ‘from the debris of colonisation,’ as my exhibition in a hip Seattle gallery ten months later put it.

I scroll down to the next text entry, documenting the flight back to New York that I had taken. Apparently, I’d had a riveting conversation with a certain Mrs. Consuelo Vanderbilt the Second way up in first class, where’d we’d had a good old chat about… hm… what was it again?

I look down at my phone to check. Ah yes, we’d had a good old chat about Don DeLillo’s body of work and the post-modern condition. How could I have forgotten, silly me.

I sigh and tuck the phone back into my pocket, and dump my cleared plate into my sink, and then reach into my closet and pull out a tie. A couple deft pulls of the silk, and I’m sporting a classy Eldredge knot. I’ve got something important to do today.

Outside my apartment, I stand on the street corner, holding up my left arm high in the air. Like a true New Yorker, this action serves to summon a taxicab straight out of the seventh circle of hell: the yellow car swerves angrily around a corner and jams to a halt in front of me.

“Where to, boss?” the driver, a Middle Eastern man who wears his hair slicked high, looks back over his seat at me, his fingers drumming across the wheel.

“Make for Flushing, quick as you can,” I reply, looking over my own shoulder. Vidocq’s got out onto the street just seconds after me, and now he stands across the street. “Get me away from that man!”

“Can do, boss,” the driver says, and he floors the gas.

The Inspector raises his hand, and just like that, another taxi comes barreling around the corner. Vidocq hops into the car, and I swear I can hear him yelling ‘Follow zat car!’ from down the street.

His taxi speeds after mine, but my driver is slick behind the wheel. He rapidly cuts back and forth across a lane, putting a car between us and Vidocq, and then he runs a yellow light that’s on the brink of going red.

Stuck behind the car we just passed, Vidocq’s left gnashing his teeth in a taxicab while we speed on ahead, weaving through the morning traffic.

“So, what’s the hurry, boss?” the driver asks, glancing up at the rear-view mirror.

“It’s not a hurry so much as I’m trying to get this fucker off my ass,” I say. “Listen, you interested in making a grand today?”

“What, just by driving you fast to Flushing? That’s too good to be true, boss!”

“A bit,” I admit. “If you want the money, you’re going to have to drive to Flushing fast, but I’m not going to be in the car by the time we get to our destination. You’re going to drop me off a couple blocks away from the prostitute’s corner—you know which one I mean—and then you’re going to head to the corner. Exactly six hours after that, you’re going to pick me up from the block which you drop me off by and bring me back home.”

The driver glances at me again in the rearview mirror, cruising quickly with one hand on the wheel.

“Well hey now, that sounds a good talk to me, but how do I know you’re still going to be there to pay me after all those hours?” the driver asks.

“Because I’m going to leave my phone with you as collateral while I’m gone,” I say. Just then, he cuts over a curb to overtake yet another car. A startled old lady leaps off to the side, cursing at us with two raised middle-fingers. “Whoa, we want to go fast, but we don’t want to get arrested!”

“What’s that, boss?” the driver says with a feral smirk on his face. He guns the accelerator again.

“Nothing,” I groan, wondering how I got saddled up with somebody more crazy than me. “Oh, and by the way, after you’ve dropped me off? Pass my phone on along to the old lady who runs the first shop on the corner. Explain to her that she needs to keep it safe for the next six hours until you come back to pick it up.”

“Why would I give your phone away?” he asks, glancing back at me through the rearview mirror again. His constant glances worry me, especially with the speeds that he’s going at, but fuck it, he’s going fast, just like I asked him to.

“Because that’s the only way you’re getting paid,” I tell him.

“I got you, boss, not to worry,” he says.

We fall into a silence for the remainder of the trip, a line of concentration furrowed across the driver’s forehead as he takes us through the morning rush at breakneck pace, finding space between cars that I wouldn’t have thought possible. We’re followed by a constant stream of honks and expletives, and I’d be worried about Vidocq following us through sound alone, but he’s not even in eyeshot—his driver seems to be much less adept than mine.

I lean forwards in my seat as we close in on Flushing, and tap him on the shoulder when we hit a spot of traffic, forcing him to break.

“Here’s my phone,” I say. “See you in six hours.”

“Looking forward to the grand, boss,” he says back to me, all smiles as he takes my phone.

I’m out of the car in the next instant and ducking into an alley. Behind me, I hear the revving of engines as my taxi continues on his journey.

It’s time for me to head to court.