86'd: A Novel - By Dan Fante Page 0,11
our business had picked up to the point where David Koffman ran a new ad in the L.A. Times. “DRIVE THE STARS!!! Elite limo cmpny seeks drvrs and day-line dsptchr. Drvrs ern $20 p.h. while wrkg. Gd DMV recrd req’d. Mst be cln cut and kno L.A. streets.”
The line of applicants went from our office door to around the corner on Highland Avenue. Even a couple of the local street hustlers, after quizzing the guys in the queue and finding out the pay rate, buttoned up their shirts, tucked them in, and invaded our waiting room wanting to fill out a job application.
Me and Koffman did the interviewing. It took most of the day but between us we hired four new drivers. All men. David wasn’t looking for real chauffeurs. Dav-Ko didn’t want middle-aged, cigar-smoking, fat-bellied, ex-cab-driver airport hustlers.
We ended up with a staff straight from central casting. All our guys were clean-cut L.A. locals—perfect for a young Hollywood rock ’n’ roll limo company. None had experience and not one arrived wearing a tie. All were twenty-five to thirty years old and needed a haircut.
These are the guys we hired: Marty Humphrey, a former rock band backup singer living on his girlfriend’s couch. Cal Berwick, a skinny vegetarian from Whittier. Robert Roller, a shaved-headed 250-pound former security guard monster who had recently managed a Pizza Hut. And Frank Tropper, who, I later discovered through one of his ex-girlfriends, had once been a Hollywood escort.
My assignment was to take these guys to the Manhattan Tie Shop over on Cahuenga Boulevard and then to the ten-dollar Supercuts barbershop on La Brea. By mid-afternoon the next day Koffman’s gay pal Octavio had outfitted all four of our new employees with vested blue polyester three-piece suits: $179.00 each. Two one-hundred-percent-synthetic drip-dry white long-sleeved dress shirts: $11.00 each. A Greek seaman’s cap: $29.00. One black clip-on necktie: $8.00. And one red pocket hankie: $8.95. The hardest guy to fit was Robert Roller. Sixty-five bucks worth of alterations were required to get his bulging body to fit a suit.
My boss’s plan was to keep the new company running for thirty days, then return to New York City. At that time he would turn the day-to-day running of Dav-Ko Hollywood over to me as resident manager.
When I began training the new drivers I was upgraded to the title of manager/chauffeur supervisor and given a weekly salary to augment my driving income.
Every day for a week the new guys took a turn at the wheel with me calling the shots from the backseat as we toured the L.A. streets, driving the half dozen best routes to the airports from the most popular West Side and Beverly Hills hotels. The freeway system in L.A. had become gridlock. From six in the morning until after ten at night most of them were impassable. Knowing the fastest ways to navigate the city streets was essential.
I continually emphasized to the guys how to anticipate the needs of our customers and I showed them how to behave like their professional New York City counterparts. I taught them little chauffeur tricks too, like how to wash out a shirt and leave it wrinkleless on a hanger after consecutive daily ten-hour gigs, and how to scrub stains off a polyester suit with just soap and a damp sponge. Also, because we lived in rainless Southern California, it was pretty much unnecessary to wash a car more than once per week, so I instructed my guys on how to clean the windows and exterior on a daily basis with just one damp terry-cloth towel straight from the spin cycle of our washing machine.
Koffman gave each of our new guys his own credit card. He also supplied them with a company cell phone, with strict instructions about personal use. But, after thinking about it, I decided to buy my own. I didn’t want David up my ass and I wanted to keep my privacy.
Then one morning my boss had a brainstorm. Because limo parking in L.A. can sometimes be impossible, he came up with a scheme to make the rounds of the local old-age homes, offering free afternoon transportation to their clientele, to and from their doctor appointments. Mid-afternoons were always slow in the limo industry and this act of limited and manipulative charity allowed Dav-Ko to obtain half a dozen handicapped parking plaques from the State of California. With these blue beauties hanging from the rearview mirrors of our cars we’d be able to park almost