Nights in the Fast Lane: A Contemporary Romantic Comedy Read online

  Nights

  in the

  Fast Lane

  A Contemporary Romantic Comedy

  By Grace Risata

  Copyright © May 15, 2016 by L Behm

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by: Kathryn Dee of KatDeezigns

  Facebook.com/KatDeesCC

  [email protected]

  Saturday Night, January 2

  DANE

  I have a very bad feeling about my current situation. It’s my own stupidity for listening to Spider and letting him talk me into this. I should have known better. He was always coming up with dumbass schemes for quick cash and they never worked out. It was a lot more amusing when I was bailing him out of jail and laughing at whatever con he wasn’t able to pull off, instead of me being the one who was about to land in a major pile of shit. Why had I agreed to this again? The money. It always came down to the money.

  I suppose this could partially be my fault. If I hadn’t been pushing my Toyota to the absolute limits of her capabilities, then I wouldn’t have blown the engine. Normally I would never force my pride and joy to do more than she could handle, but I only had a few blocks left to go and I was in the lead. There was no way I was letting those other pricks beat me and take the prize money. I was almost to the finish line. I could see it and smell the cold hard cash that would soon be in my hands. So close. Then the engine blew and I had nothing. No money, no bragging rights, and no car. I had to pay to tow her back home, and now I was going nowhere fast until I could come up with five grand for a new engine. I was actually getting a hell of a deal at that price. If it weren’t for the fact that I knew Spider and he knows people, it could have easily been three times that amount. I could put the engine together with my eyes closed. The problem was getting the damn thing. I can’t shit out an engine. There was no way I was buying some rebuilt piece of junk from a scrap yard. It took a long time to build up my reputation and I wasn’t going to let it go down the toilet that easily. When you race with the big boys, you have to come with a certain type of ride or they won’t let you play. I’m not talking about stock car races here, I’m talking about street racing. Not anything legally sanctioned by Nascar.

  Speaking of big boys, I was getting nervous for the ones I was waiting for. You see….the job that Spider was kind enough to hook me up with….it was being a driver for the mob. Evidently their old driver was fired for being too slow when they got shot at. I’m pretty sure that “fired” is just another word for “went missing under mysterious circumstances.” Anyway, Spider knew a guy who knew a guy – I think Spider knows everyone – and that’s how I got an offer that I couldn’t refuse.

  I guess I could have refused it, but I needed the money. Spider’s buddy told him that some guys were looking for a driver with a lead foot who knew how to get his way out of trouble, should the need arise. They would give me a few jobs, see how I did, and maybe turn it into a permanent gig. I figured I’d work for them for a few weeks, a month tops, and see how much cash I made. The second I had enough banked to get my new engine, I’d come up with an excuse and they could find another idiot to be their chauffeur.

  Unfortunately THIS idiot hadn’t put any thought in that plan at all. Like the mobsters would just tell me, “Oh, that’s fine. We appreciate your services, Dane. Thanks for the help and we’ll give you a shining reference for your next job.” Yeah , I don’t think things through very well. That’s one of my many faults.

  So here I was, sitting in the car with the engine running, waiting for two very intimidating Italians to get their asses outside. Where is “here?” Glad you asked. I’m in the meat-packing district in the back alley of a very dilapidated old warehouse. It’s getting close to midnight and this little meeting was supposed to be over about half an hour ago. I’m getting pretty damn anxious sitting here with my thumb up my ass, not knowing if someone is going to come out and start shooting up my car. It’s not my car, so I don’t care that much. I just don’t want to be hit in the crossfire.

  I can’t handle this anymore. I’m going to get out of the car and take a real quick look inside. Half the windows are broken anyway, so it shouldn’t be too hard to do a quick check. I figure I can hoist myself up on that garbage dumpster over there and see what’s what. I’m pretty athletic and I should be tall enough to get a decent view.

  No problem. A few maneuvers later and I have a perfect position to ….oh, shit. This is fucking brilliant. I have a bird’s eye view of what appears to be a drug deal going bad. I’m looking at a table with two men on either side. My current employers are sitting in front of a briefcase full of cash and two other guys are sitting on the opposite side of the table with bags of a white powdery substance. I’m thinking that’s not baking soda. I’m also thinking that if anyone catches me out here, I’ll be lucky to wind up with a minimum of five years in prison. That’s assuming I’m not killed first.

  The two other guys, the ones that aren’t the mobsters, they look really familiar. Where do I know them from? Think, Dane, think. Your life could depend on this.

  The four guys started shouting at each other and they all stood up from the table. I was able to make out their conversation perfectly. The two guys that I was driving for, Lucca and Paolo, were clearly running the show.

  “You fucking scuzzballs think you can pass this cheap shit off as quality product? My boss wants top of the line blow. This is crap that I wouldn’t even give to a whore off the street. Hell, I wouldn’t even give it to your mother.”

  “What did you just say, you Italian son-of-a-bitch? You want to insult my mother? You think I’m gonna let you live after that? You don’t know who you’re dealing with here, bro.”

  “No, you greasy fucking pig, I know exactly who I’m dealing with. Some low-level, wanna-be tough guys from the newest cartel on the block. If you want our business, you better show us something decent. This is your last chance.”

  Okay. I got it now. These guys were from the new Latino gang that was trying to take over the streets. I heard all about them from Spider. His cousin was badly beaten when they moved into his neighborhood. They called themselves the 872s because it’s Chicago’s area code. They were pretty much the joke of the whole city because it’s the dumbest gang name anyone had ever heard. I mean who names themselves the area code of the city that they’re trying to take over? I’m guessing their leader was not too bright. Which would explain why these morons were trying to sell the mobsters diluted drugs.

  I barely had time to think of a way out of this shit storm when the scene escalated to a whole new level of ugly. The Mexican guys both pulled out their guns and pointed them at Lucca and Paolo.

  “Easy, Carlos. Put your fucking piece away. If you and Javier want to live, you’ll put the gun down. I’m not going to tell you again.” Paolo said the words with a measured calmness, but I knew his blood must be boiling. If he got the chance, he would not let them live. You don’t let someone pull a weapon on you and allow them to walk away. At least not in my neighborh
ood.

  I knew I should get my ass back to the car, because this would be over pretty soon. Someone was going to pop off one time too many and get a hole in his head to show for it. But I couldn’t look away. I had to see how this would play out.

  I didn’t have to wait very long.

  “Fuck you. No one tells me what to do.” The one that I think was “Carlos” lifted his gun and put two bullets in the heads of Lucca and Paolo before they had time to reach for their guns.

  “Quick, go outside and take care of their driver before he figures out what’s happening. He’s going to hear the gunshots and come running.”

  In my haste to get away, I stumbled backwards and fell off the dumpster. I landed in a pile of snow and ran as fast as I could without looking back.

  Luckily I made it to the car and had it in gear before they started shooting at me. I ducked my head down as far as I could and managed to get away with only a few bullets to the back window and the top of the trunk.

  I drove for a while, making sure I wasn’t followed, and tried to clear my head enough to figure a way to get myself out of this. The mobsters will know that I was with Lucca and Paolo. When they don’t find my body and they don’t find the getaway car, I’m going to be a prime suspect. Fuck. If they don’t think I was working with the Mexicans, they’ll at least want to know what I saw and why I ran. Somehow I’m going to get blamed for this clusterfuck. I’m not cut out for this shit. I’ve really done it this time.

  After gaining some clarity, I abandoned the car down a dark alley and took off on foot. It was freezing outside and I took a quick inventory to see what I was working with. I had a warm jacket, jeans, and my steel toed boots. That was a good start. I had my wallet with my license, three hundred bucks, and my cell phone. Could you be traced by your phone? Yeah, I saw that on a crime show once. The cops traced some guy by the GPS on his phone.

  I managed to wipe all the contacts and call history off my phone and I took out the battery for good measure. I threw the phone in a garbage can outside a fast food restaurant and threw the battery down a sewer grate. I could handle this. All I had to do was think. I had to get out of town before anybody found out what happened. Yeah. If they didn’t know where I was, then they couldn’t get me.

  I found a pay phone by the bus station and called Spider. He answered right away.

  “Who is this and how did you get my number?”

  “Dude. It’s me. I don’t have time to tell you the whole story because I’m talking to you from a payphone and it’s not secure, ok? Too many people are around. The job you sent me on…it was no good. It got messed up in a major way. My bosses are gone. Gone, gone. I gotta get out of the city because I’m the only witness and they’re all gonna come for me. I need help. What do I do?”

  “Gone, gone? As in not amongst the living?”

  “Yes, you stupid fuck. What did you think I meant? They were gone to pick up a burger and fries and they’ll be back in a few minutes? They’re not coming back anytime soon. Unless they’re zombies.”

  “Fuck. What happened? What did you do?”

  “I just said I can’t tell you. Look….872 is the area code, ok? 872. Think about it. That’s why they’re gone, gone. It had nothing to do with me. Where can I go?”

  “Dane, you really screwed up this time. What are you gonna do?”

  “Spider, you got me into this mess. I never should have taken that job. I’m gonna take the next bus out of town. That’s what I’m gonna do.

  “Fine. What bus is next? Can you get one to Iowa? My cousin Gina lives there. She can help you.”

  Spider rattled off the phone number and address of his cousin and I told him I’d try and call him when I got there. I wrote her info down on a twenty dollar bill and put it in a separate place so I wouldn’t accidentally spend it.

  The next bus to Iowa left half an hour later. I got a ticket, got a seat in back, and prayed that I would live to see morning. This was a hell of a way to start the New Year.

  Thursday Evening, January 7

  IZZY

  I was having a rotten start to the New Year. It was only seven days in and I was already failing miserably at my new year’s resolution. I have a bad habit of being a “Negative Nancy” who dwells on the negative instead of focusing on the positive. If I wear a new shirt to work and I get three compliments and one person says they don’t like it, then I focus on the one person who didn’t like it. If I want to go see a new movie that comes out and it has four positive reviews and one negative review, then I think maybe I shouldn’t see it. My best friends call me out on my “Negative Nancy” attitude all the time, so I finally decided to do something about it. I told them I would be the opposite of that. Starting this year, I would be a “Polly Positive” or whatever you called it. Monica and Winter laughed at me so hard, that it was a full two minutes before they had enough air to continue the conversation. So I had to be positive just to prove them wrong. I was calling it “Optimism out of spite.”

  This new attitude was turning out to be extremely difficult to maintain. We were about to be on the receiving end of the snow storm to end all snow storms. Or, as I like to refer to it, the snowpocalypse. The weather people on every single channel were calling for over twenty inches of snow to fall between tonight and Saturday afternoon. It was supposed to begin sometime around midnight, but to my inconvenience it had already started. At three in the afternoon. Early enough to make a perfect mess in time for my drive home.

  It was quitting time at Kharmma Cosmetics and the first shift employees were all filtering out of the building. I worked at a cosmetic company that produced a full line of facial care, skin care, and makeup products. It was started fifteen years ago by two sisters who are firm believers in Buddhism. They believe that Karma is the most important factor in all the decisions that people make. They were none too happy to find out that “Karma Cosmetics” was already a copyrighted name in Europe and they had to change their spelling slightly in order to avoid lawsuits. That is how “Kharmma Cosmetics” was born.

  It’s a small company with only about fifty employees. I work in the order processing department with a few other ladies. They’re in charge of the phone orders and I mostly work with internet orders. I’d say I get about eighty emails a day on average. There are a lot more during the holidays, so we employ extra help around Christmas and Mother’s Day. It was January now, so things were winding down after the holiday rush.

  Today I walked out with my co-worker, Sheri. The three other ladies that worked with me in the order processing department were all older than I was. Not one of them was under sixty. They were very friendly and extremely chatty. The ladies were great at taking phone orders and somehow, most of the people who called ended up ordering more than they had intended. I was not good at sales, so I was in charge of the email orders. It was a nice set-up. Everyone got the job they wanted and we got along marvelously. The older ladies took me under their wing and treated me like someone they had to mentor. They liked to give me advice as if I were their pet project. Sometimes it was hard to make conversation when they discussed their grandchildren or their current knitting creations, but all-in-all we got along really well and I didn’t mind going to work every day.

  “So, Izzy, are you sure your car is okay to drive in this nasty weather?” Sheri asked me. “I worry about you getting stuck in a ditch somewhere. You have no man at home to call for help.”

  Sheri meant well, although she liked to point out the fact that I was single any time she was given the opportunity. Sheri was average in height and weight, but she stuck out everywhere she went because she was covered in purple from head to toe. Purple coat, purple gloves, purple hat, purple shoes, and purple nail polish. You get the point. Every single day. At least it made it easy to shop for her. If it was purple, she raved about it for days. It was easy to stay on her good side.

  “My car is fine, Sheri. I got new snow tires last year. You don’t have to worry ab
out me. I’ll be alright. I’m just not too excited to walk all the way to my car in these stupid heels.” The snow wasn’t supposed to start until midnight, so I made the foolish mistake of wearing a knee length skirt and high heels to work. We have to dress in office attire even though we work in the processing department and no customers see us anyway. The thought process behind that was “if you dress like a professional, then you’ll act like a professional.” I was fine with that. What I wasn’t fine with, was my ever growing pile of laundry in the basement due to my broken washing machine. I was in denial and just wearing anything clean that remained in my closet. That is the reason I was forced to wear the skirt today: most of my pants were dirty.

  “Oh my! You’re going to break your neck wearing those high heels on the icy sidewalks, Izzy. I’m so lucky that my husband came to pick me up right outside the front door. He worries about me driving in bad weather so he was sweet enough to plan ahead today.”

  “That’s great, Sheri. I’m glad you don’t have to walk in the three inches of snow that we already have. I’m more worried about getting frozen feet from the slush, than breaking my neck on the ice. I hate the fact that the employee parking lot is so far away from the factory.” There used to be a big parking lot right next to Kharmma Cosmetics. The business took off so much that they had to build an addition onto the existing factory. That took care of the parking lot and now all the employees had to park a few blocks away. A whole “industrial park” had sprung up in the fifteen years since the factory had been built. What was formerly empty farm fields surrounding Kharmma, was now a whole bustling area full of office complexes, factories, and warehouses. The constant construction was annoying. I got more nails in my tires from all the building going on. Oh, wait. That’s a complaint. I’m not complaining anymore. I’m Polly Positive. Let me rephrase that. All the building led to nails in my tires, which led to me buying new tires, which led to me being prepared for the big snowstorm. Ok. That was good. I could handle this whole optimism thing.