86'd: A Novel - By Dan Fante Page 0,3

the back door for David while he passed out business cards and acted the role of the big shot limo owner in front of the gay after-hours clubs below Fourteenth Street. But as the company grew so did my personal clientele. In the end I had no life other than the East Side Saloon on First Avenue and spending twelve hours a day behind the wheel. My writing was out of the question. I’d return home only to sleep and shower, then take the IRT subway uptown back to the office. The money was decent and in those days I was less insane. So eventually I packed it in, leaving on good terms to take a four-hour-a-day bootleg DVD phone sales gig at an office building in Times Square. There were no hard feelings.

Koffman hadn’t changed. He’d never been much for telephone chitchat so he came right to the point and wanted to know my work history since I’d been with Dav-Ko. Had I, over the last few years, had any experience managing people, overseeing a staff? Work other than chauffeuring?

Without hesitation my lips composed the necessary lies. “Sure. Absolutely,” I said. “It’s right on my résumé. I can show you.”

My reply caused him to shift gears. He immediately began “selling” me, reciting the statistics of how successful and hip Dav-Ko had become since I’d left. The company now operated ten new stretch limos and another half dozen town cars out of a three-story Midtown New York garage. They had a full-time mechanic, fifteen drivers, and an in-house training manual. All the chauffeurs wore Greek seaman’s caps and vested blue suits as a uniform. Dav-Ko’s “hip” trademark was a red hankie in the breast pocket of each chauffeur’s suit jacket. Koffman bragged that his current customer base consisted mainly of celebrities and rock stars and New York-L.A. entertainment big shots.

For the last week he’d been renting a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and intended to be in town for as long as it took to make Dav-Ko Hollywood a turnkey operation.

Trust was important to Koffman. I could tell that he liked the idea of having a known quantity—a former dispatcher-driver like myself—working with him again. For David, us having refound each other after so long was a kind of sign. A good omen. He had been a heavy social drinker with his gay buddies when we had worked together. I assumed that was still the case.

I’d gotten lucky and I knew it. The longer we stayed on the phone the closer I was to being offered a job. Before hanging up he and I set up a breakfast meeting for the next morning at the Formosa Café on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood.

I arrived at the restaurant early and headed for the men’s room. Once inside with the door locked, I set the manila envelope containing my fictitious job résumé down under the paper towel rack then finished off one of two half-pint bracers I’d picked up on the way, tossing the empty into the trash.

Then I took a minute to focus in on the face in the mirror. I looked okay. Eyes clear. Good close shave. I’d been sweating through my shirt as usual and my tie had a stain—snot or food or something—but it wasn’t that noticeable. I smoothed my hair down with my fingers and that was that.

To quiz myself on my bogus work history I unclamped the envelope and took a last look at my résumé. If Koffman required a document that showed management in addition to straight chauffeuring, no problem, I was ready. I had one.

It was ten-thirty and after the breakfast rush, so the Formosa wasn’t busy and I was able to find a booth with a window.

The owner of Dav-Ko Hollywood made his appearance as I was finishing my second cup of coffee. I watched as his hired-by-the-hour chauffeured blue stretch Lincoln pulled up in front of the restaurant blocking the Santa Monica Boulevard crosswalk. Before entering, David Koffman, all six foot seven inches and three hundred pounds of him, now with shoulder-length gray hair, stood outside the restaurant’s glass door, a spring fashion statement in his Tom Wolfe, open-collared, white-on-white linen suit. Posing there, half man, half tent, he chatted amiably with his driver long enough to make sure everyone inside the place had a good opportunity to check him out.

He shook my hand, flashed me his million-peso grin, then flopped his long body into the booth. He looked older. The