The drive took seventeen minutes, which was a lot faster than the same route took in my day. I’d never seen the Santa Monica Freeway moving vehicles so efficiently. Partly, it was because there were noticeably fewer cars.
But knowing what Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle was capable of made every exchange with De Niro fraught with menace. About five minutes in, I switched our virtual driver to the gap-toothed Ernest Borgnine.
The eager-to-please cabbie of Paddy Chayefsky’s The Catered Affair (and later, Escape From New York) sounded just right, as he fielded my questions. We started with the weather and moved on to how the town had changed while I was away.
“There aren’t as many mature trees as I remember. Why do they all look like bonsais?”
“Toy trees. Ya know, genetic engineered? Nobody wants tall trees anymore,” Ernie assured me. “We get too many damn windstorms these days. And your power bill goes up if you have too much shade on a solar roof.”
The cab swung off the I-10 and headed north on La Cienega Boulevard, which was walled off with Jersey barriers from cross traffic, making it a kind of freeway with off-ramps and on-ramps cut into corners at major cross streets. Beyond four-foot K-rails, I was stunned to see a row of large camping tents lining both sides of the street as far north as I could see.
“Jeez Louise,” I exclaimed. “I’ve seen these in Venice, and near Griffith Park. But an entire street? You’ve got some homeless problem!”
“Ehh, it’s not such a bad life. Most of those tents have solar collectors so they can charge their phones and watch video. When I was a kid, homeless people lived in crappy camping tents. And no restroom trailers on every block, either!”
“You were never a kid,” I replied.
“With this face, you got that right!” laughed ersatz Ernie.
“I mean you’re just a hologram.”
Ernie’s smile vanished, and he got quiet.
“Well, I say the passenger’s always right,” he said with an air of offended dignity.
Ariyl elbowed me and muttered, “Don’t do that, he’s supposed to stay in character.”
“He is.”
I decided to play along with the A.I.
“So, driver, you take many fares to Sunset Tower Hotel?” I asked.
“Nah. It’s not a hotel anymore, pal. Some nutso rich guy lives there now.”
“You know his name?”
“Nope. Prob’ly Somebody Someone the Third. That kinda old money,” said Ernie. “The kind that buys landmarks like they was Monopoly pieces.”
“What does one man do with an entire building like that?” I wondered.
“For one thing, he keeps a terrific little car museum in there,” our would-be guide informed us. “Came with the hotel.”
“Cars?” said Ariyl, her ears pricking up. “What kind?”
“You name it. Bonnie and Clyde Death Car. The original Batmobile. Hitler’s Staff Car. A Stanley Steamer, a Nash Rambler, a DeLorean. The General Lee. The Munster Koach!” He cackled at the memory.
Ariyl shrugged—she didn’t know any of them.
“I never pictured him as a car collector,” I murmured to Ariyl, “but if you-know-who chose to live at Sunset Tower in ’48, I can see him buying the place once he got rich enough.”
“Once who got rich enough?” said Ernie, eyeing us with rapt attention.
“None of your busi– Watch the road!” I yelled as another taxi suddenly moved laterally across our path, missing us by inches.
Ernie turned to look at the road, then back to me, laughing loudly. “I’m not really drivin’ us, kid! Like you say, I’m just a hologram!”
Ariyl joined in the meta-hilarity. My ears burned. Ariyl was one thing, but now the software considered me a punchline?
Suddenly, a homeless man—ragged, with glittering eyes—vaulted over the K-rails lining the block and landed right in our path. The cab instantly stopped. The airbag deployed in my face like a sudden slap.
“Whoops! Ya all right back there?” inquired Ernie.
A couple of seconds later, the bag deflated and disappeared into the console. Traffic behind us drifted to a halt without a single fender-bender. Crazy Homeless Guy, who hadn’t a scratch on him from landing on the pavement, got up cackling in derision.
“That was unreal!” gasped Ariyl.
A hulking policeman in riot gear leapt out of a driverless black and white cruiser, grabbed the avenue-diver, cuffed him and dragged him to his cop car, all with remarkable speed.
“I hope you got backup airbags,” I commented.
“Sure. But the odds against that happening again are—what’s the word?—astronomical,” Borgnine’s image assured me.
“Yeah, probably five to one,” I snapped.
Ernie seemed to find that one pretty funny.
The cop car started up first. Then the taxi and the rest of the stopped vehicles all resumed motion at the same moment.
“Ya know, that’s the only drawback to self-driving cars,” philosophized our CGI cabbie, as he pretended to navigate. “Any lousy bum can mess up the flow by stepping into harm’s way. Then we allll gotta stop and we allll gotta wait...while he gets his keister tossed in the jug!”
Then he looked back at us, worried.
“N-now, you know that wasn’t my fault, right? I sure hope you’re still gonna give me a good tip. My wife, she’s throwing our daughter the most expensive wedding in the history of the Bronx!”
“Why would I tip you? You’re a fictional hologram!” I objected.
Ernest guffawed, caught.
“Yeah, it ain’t like I can spend it, is it?”
“Ernie, you crack me up!” crowed Ariyl. Then she noticed the look on my face. “Now what’s wrong?”
“I’m just thinking of all the Uber and Lyft drivers I had in the old days. They could have spent a tip. But Ernie and his A.I. copies have put them all out of business.”
I looked at all the vehicles zooming along with us.
“Plus the bus drivers and truckers and delivery people. And anyone else whose job can be done by a robot. A lot of them are probably living right on this sidewalk.”
We continued zooming past the miles-long tent city of La Cienega.
“Hey, maybe I can help you find this big shot you’re looking for,” volunteered Ernie. “What’s his name?”
“I’m sorry, it’s confidential,” I said.
“Oookay, just tryin’ to be helpful,” he sulked. He pretended to concentrate on the road and whistled tunelessly for a half a minute.
“I can tell you one thing I heard about the guy in Sunset Tower: they say he’s like the Phantom of the Opera. No kiddin’! Half his face all messed up. Burned, like by acid or a fire.”
Ernie comically scrunched up the right side of his face.
“Bingo,” I whispered to Ariyl.
The purple cab halted at the former hotel.
My belts unclicked, the door rose and I got out.
“You want I should wait?” grinned Borgnine’s avatar.
“Nope. Take my friend on a tour of Mulholland Drive. Show her the sights.”
I handed Ariyl one of the burner phones.
“If she doesn’t hear from me in sixty minutes,” I told the cabbie, “you take her back to Santa Monica.”
“Don’t give me orders!” bristled Ariyl.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I assured her. “I’m giving him orders. I’m paying for this ride.”
“David, this is crazy! I’m coming with you!”
“Please don’t. He has a score to settle with you. I love you so much, and all he has to do is threaten you and I’ll cave. I can’t run a bluff with you there.”
“I can handle him and his goons.”
“He can’t afford to harm either of us unless he has us both. Ariyl, you’re my ace in the hole. Do as I ask, I beg of you.” I turned to the cabbie. “One hour, then you take her back.”
“What happens after I get to Santa Monica?” asked the bogus Borgnine.
“You can take the night off. Go to the dance, meet a nice girl,” I said.
“Wrong movie, pal,” said the A.I. cabbie. The taxi carrying Ariyl shot out sideways and merged into the fast-moving traffic on Sunset Boulevard.