A Life Wasted

Hired Get-a-Way Driver

When he saw the pair of hundred dollar bills in my hand the young guy said, "Sure thing," but his girlfriend said, "Not so fast." She said to me, "How do we know you're not wanted, or something." I smiled and pulled out my wallet. I handed her a Michigan driver's license with my picture on it said, "Now you know my name. Call a friend if you want and tell them you're giving me a ride." This seemed to calm her a bit but she never fully trusted me. With the boyfriend pushing for her to agree she reluctantly did. I handed him the cash, which she snatched out of the air. They weren't married yet, but she was making sure he understood the rules.

He had a pickup, so I tossed my laptop bag in the back of the truck, she sat next to him and I sat by the window. He drove around the mall to the road I had just walked across, and having no idea where the airport was I kept my mouth shut. Up ahead there were multiple cop cars and the interstate ramp looked closed. "Must be an accident," he said. He turned around and went back the way we had come, drove about a mile to the next on ramp. From there we had to drive past the on-ramp where my broken Ford sat. As we neared it there was a constant flow of police cars converging on the area. Several passed us, all going to the scene of the accident. As we passed my car we spotted a good dozen police cars and helicopter that had just arrived. The guy said, "Looks like just one car. Not an accident." The girl looked at me suspiciously and I said, "Is this a high crime area?"

We made it past the scene without anyone shooting me so I was feeling pretty good when the young guy said, "A police car just pulled in behind us." Cool as a cucumber I said lightly, "That's what happens when you have such a pretty girlfriend." Also cool on my part was that I didn't look back nor did I try to look in the mirror to see what the cop was doing. The girl watched me close. After a minute the car pulled around us, looked us over, and then repeated the process with the cars in front of us. Looked like he was running plates and trying to spook me into running. Good thing I wasn't driving or it would have worked.

As we reached the airport I pointed to a hotel next to it. "That's actually where I need to go," I said. So they dropped me off there. I tried to give them another hundred-dollar bill but the guy wouldn't hear of it. He said two hundred was too much and tried to give half of it back. While he was getting back in the truck the girl hugged me and said, "Thanks for not killing us." I slipped her the hundred-dollar bill I was holding. Somehow she knew. I smiled and said, "Thanks for not turning me in."

Inside I gave a twenty to the clerk and asked him to call a cab for me. Twenty-dollar tip in hand he called me a cab without comment. When the cab got there I said I needed to go to Tunica, Mississippi. Tunica was a casino town just south of the Tennessee border so I figured it would be a common trip from the airport. This must have been the case as the driver didn't hesitate. As we drove he asked if I had heard what was going on. I said no, but asked what it was. Seems there had been an accident on Interstate 40 involving a car from some big fugitive. The police are worried about a bomb so they had shut down Interstate 40. "Can you imagine that," he said. "Shutting down an interstate through Memphis on a Friday afternoon? I hear they might shut down the entire city looking for this guy. You made it out just in time." This time I didn't trust my smart mouth, knowing the wrong remark might give me away, so I kept my mouth shut. But I knew the cab driver was right. I felt like I just made it out in time.

For the rest of the drive to Tunica the cab driver and I listened to updates from an AM radio station about the closure of Interstate 40 and the massive man hunt for a dangerous fugitive. When they gave a detailed description of the fugitive the cab driver looked at me in his mirror. "Please don't tell me I look like that," I said. "A little," he answered.

When we reached Tunica I instructed the driver to take me to the Marriot Hotel and Casino. I'd never stayed at the Marriot but had seen it. It was a large hotel, meaning it would have more exits.