I was sitting in front of the Brown Palace Hotel eating a Twinkie and sipping a cup of 7-11 joe. There were four cabs in front of me. My Rocky radio was turned off, and I had a paperback in my left hand. You might have thought it was a typical taxi Wednesday, but it was still Tuesday.
I had driven away from the penny lady twenty minutes earlier, stopped at a 7-11 on Colfax, then headed for the hotels in midtown. I wasn’t choosy. The cabstand at the Brown Palace was as good a stand as any, and better than most. The way I had it figured, I was never going to get any therapy, so I might as well pretend in a good way. I decided I would just do things the way I had always done them, which might have the effect of erasing Monday from my mind forever. What did I know about psychotherapy? I was winging it.
I had already wasted half an hour on The Hill but it didn’t really matter because if I had originally driven to the Brown after gassing up I would probably be fourth in line instead of fifth. Sometimes you pull up at a stand and you’re the only cab there, and a customer comes out and you go right to DIA. Sometimes you sit for an hour before you get a fare. Every day is different even though every day is the same: a hotel, a bell, a Twinkie, and a joe. Then on April 15th you send Sam the same ol’ cut and continue to dream The Big Dream. That has to do with selling a novel, but let’s move on.
In my experience, the main drawback to cab driving is getting ensnared in what I call The Positioning Game. You start thinking that if I had done this I would now be first in line instead of fifth. Or if I had done that I would be driving a fare to DIA instead of Safeway. You become as crazed as a sourdough running all over the desert looking for the mother lode. But in cab driving there is no mother lode. Oh sure, once in awhile you get a fare to Vail or Aspen, but so what? You can’t retire on the windfall. Ergo, it’s best not to think about what might have happened if you had done this instead of that. You have to take the long view of things. Which is to say, if you had gotten a degree in computer programming instead of English you might be earning eighty grand a year right now instead of driving a taxi. Now that’s something to think about.
“One twenty-three.”
I picked up the mike. “One twenty-three.”
“Go to channel four.”
I reached to the squawk box and switched from Channel 1 to Channel 4.
“One twenty-three,” I said.
“Murph,” the Channel 4 dispatcher said, “Hogan wants you to call him at his office. Are you near a phone?”
“Check.”
He’s waiting.”
“Check.”
Well, at least it wasn’t an L-2. I didn’t know what the record was, but I suspected I had been given more L-2’s than any driver in the history of Rocky Cab. L-2 means you have to return to the motor, usually to talk to Hogan about something that neither of you wants to talk about. Sometimes a violation of taxi rules, sometimes a murder. You never know, so it’s unpleasant to answer an L-2. As you might surmise from what I just said, they don’t tell you ahead of time what’s up, they just tell you to come in right away. It’s similar to an order in the army given by an officer. Similar, hell—it’s exactly the same.
I hung up my mike and got out of 123 and walked back to the taxi parked behind me. It was a Yellow Cab. I had to tell the driver that I would be off-duty for the next five minutes and that he should drive around my taxi if the line moved forward. It was a courtesy thing.
I hate courtesy. It causes me to talk to people I would rather not talk to for a variety of reasons. This goes back a ways, but I had once been a critical factor in what I can only describe as a “nationwide wager” that caused countless Yellow drivers to lose rather large sums of money. Don’t ask me to explain it. I barely understand it myself, except the part where I had absolutely nothing to do with it. That’s how I end up in the middle of most messes. They grow around me in the way a pearl grows around a pebble.
I didn’t recognize the Yellow driver, thank God. He may have been a newbie. For some reason the turnover rate of drivers at Yellow isn’t as high as at Rocky. I might as well be honest here. When Rocky drivers get really good at taxi driving, they move up to Yellow Cab and work for them. I will have to say that in the pecking order of Denver cab companies, Rocky sits at the bottom of the barrel, or the ladder, or whatever dismal metaphor you prefer. Our vehicles are rather old. More than once I have heard the word “rickety” bandied about the on-call room. On the plus side, Rocky has the lowest lease-rate of any cab company in town. Need I say more? Yes. Another advantage of remaining at Rocky forever is that you become a kind of demigod to the newbies. Sure, a Rocky demigod is the equivalent of a mediocre Yellow driver, but as I’ve often stated, when you drive a taxi for a living you don’t get that many opportunities to feel “special.” And anyway, I think of the Rocky Mountain Taxicab Company as the Minor Leagues where the John Elways and Lawrence Oliviers of tomorrow make their bones. I mixed a few metaphors there, so that’ll give you something to unravel while I call Hogan.
I walked into the Brown Palace and went downstairs to the hallway that leads to the magnificent men’s room. The men’s room at the Brown is made of brown marble. When you use the can at the Brown you feel like the head honcho in the Valley of the Kings. They also have a pay phone down there. I dropped a quarter in and dialed Hogan’s number. I memorized it long, long ago.
“Yeah,” Hogan said into the receiver, as if he was unenthusiastically acknowledging an uninteresting fact in the hopes that the conversation would wither.
“Murph here, boss.”
“Oh Murph, great, thanks for calling back so soon.”
I have never understood why Hogan brightens up when he talks to me. End of observation.
“Detectives Ottman and Quigg got in touch with me ten minutes ago,” he said. “From what I understand, they caught the bank robbery suspect.”
I closed my eyes and sighed right there by the men’s room door. I didn’t give a damn who was watching, which I normally do. I keep a tight leash on my emotions in the vicinity of public restrooms.
“That’s good to hear,” I said.
“But here’s the deal, Murph. They have him in custody at Denver General Hospital and they want to know if you can get over there right away.”
“Sweet Jaysus … did they shoot him?”
“I don’t know. But they want you there as fast as possible. They didn’t give me any details. You know detectives.”
Oh yeah.
I know detectives. I know four.
We rang off. I was barely halfway up the staircase to the main floor when I felt adrenaline leaking into my spine. I was ambivalent about this. In some ways adrenaline can be fun, especially if you’re watching a monster movie. As a matter of social propriety though, I try to avoid adrenaline before noon, so twice in one morning was just plain gauche.
I walked out of the hotel.
And froze.
There were no cabs at the stand, except mine. Four people were waiting at the curb with suitcases, and they were looking right at me. William, a black doorman who has served as a palace guard at the Brown longer than I have been driving a taxi, hurried toward me with an eager expression.
“You got yourself a good trip here, my man,” he said in a muted tone of voice. “Two separate couples going to the airport, and they’re both willing to pay full fair.”
I nearly had a heart attack. He was talking one hundred dollars. This was virtually unheard of. I am not exaggerating when I say this was the stuff of legend.
“I hate to tell you this, William, but I can’t take them.”
“What!”
“I’m off duty. The police want to talk to me. I have to go see them right away.”
He pulled his head back and parted his lips, but didn’t say anything. We stared at each other. It was as if my Univac and his Univac had linked up telepathically and we were trading data at the speed of light, analyzing the situation, evaluating the facts, and projecting the results, rendering our vocal chords useless.
“Lord,” he finally whispered.
Then a Yellow Cab drifted around the corner and casually, obliviously, pulled up behind my taxi.
William shook his head and hurried over to speak to the Yellow driver.
I walked desultorily to my cab and climbed in. I started the engine, then waited until the Yellow driver had pulled his cab around mine to the canopy that overhangs the front door of the Brown. I drove away from the curb.
“Don’t look back,” a voice said. It wasn’t mine. I don’t know who said it. I was too stricken to care.
I made my way over to Broadway and headed south to 8th Avenue. That’s where DGH is located. That’s where the bank robber was in custody—the man who had stolen an undetermined amount of money from the Glendale Bank & Trust and one hundred dollars in DIA money from me.
I turned in at the hospital entry and made my way around the U-shaped drive, looking for a parking space in the big lot that fronts the building. No dice. I drove across the street to the next closest lot and found a slot. I had to pay a dollar. Normally cab drivers hate to use commercial parking lots, but I was in no mood to uphold tradition. I rarely am.
I crossed over and entered the hospital. Like all people, I hate hospitals, so I wasn’t looking forward to the rigmarole of dealing with the clerk at the information desk. So imagine my thrill when I saw Detective Quigg standing by the desk. He was waiting for me. He escorted me to an elevator. I felt “special.”
“The man is in the cardiac unit,” Quigg informed me as we rode upstairs. “He’s unconscious. We need you to I.D. him.”
I nodded. I had a million questions, but knew not to ask any of them. I played it cool. I needed the practice.
We stepped into a waiting room. He led me to the end of a hallway where a uniformed policeman was seated on a folding chair. It was like TV. That made everything seem real.
Quigg stopped and turned to me. “Let me explain what’s going on here,” he said in a muted tone of voice. He sounded just like William. My shoulders drooped. “This man was found unconscious yesterday afternoon lying in a parking lot about a mile away from the Glendale Bank & Trust. He was brought to the hospital by ambulance. Right now I would like you to step into the room, take a good look at him, and let me know whether or not you think it’s the man that was in your cab yesterday, the same man you encountered at the bank.”
I nodded. This obligation made me feel “important” but not very “special.” I’ll take special any day over important. When you do important things, there’s an implication that people are relying on you.
I walked into the hospital room and saw the man on a bed. His upper body was covered by a plastic tent. A nurse was standing by. She pulled the plastic aside. I looked at the patient. He had wires connected to his body. I’m not ashamed to say that it made my skin crawl. This was Full-Blown Reality. Need I say more?
It was definitely the robber—although he bore no actual resemblance to Dustin Hoffman. He appeared to be in his mid-sixties, was white-haired, and had a sort of elongated face. Well, maybe he did look a little like Dustin Hoffman.
I turned and walked back out to the hall. “It’s him,” I said.
“You’re sure now?” Quigg said.
I nodded.
“Do you want to take a second look?” Quigg said. “I want you to be absolutely certain, Mr. Murphy. I know it’s hard to do this. I know it’s difficult to remember someone’s face when you weren’t expecting to have to identify him to the police, especially when his physical condition is different than the first time you saw him. This is very important.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m sure it’s him,” I said. Then I said, “Is he going to die?” On my question list, that was #1 out of one million.
“The doctors say he’s in bad shape,” Quigg said. He shrugged.
I wanted to ask question #2: “Did the bank get their money back?” And question #3: “Did you find the gun?” But I didn’t ask any of them. Reality renders moot all things irrelevant, just as death renders moot all things relevant. Life is a mayfly.
But—“Did the bank get their money back?” I suddenly said, trying to trivialize things back to normal.
Quigg looked me in the eye. “I’m sorry, Mr. Murphy, but I can’t discuss that aspect of the case.”
I nodded. I hated myself for asking that, but I knew why I had done it. I wanted to be in-with-the-in-crowd. That’s one of the seven warning signs of humanity. Cops always make me feel human. It’s not a good feeling.
Quigg thanked me for taking time off from work to come in and make the identification. He said he would be in touch with me again— but that was only because I was a crucial witness in a bank robbery and not a member of the in-crowd.
When I walked out of the hospital I felt neither important nor special. I felt lousy.