Page 8 - ARRS #582 - The Mystery of the Lost Wallet

Another Random Road Story #582

“Okay, will do. Thanks.”
Brent was already gone. Dead silence replaced the sea of restaurant noise.
I set down the disconnected phone and pondered my upcoming run.
The Velveteen Amatista was an upscale cigar bar in downtown Trendy
Town. It was the high-class answer to Trendy Town’s collection of sports bars
and college-themed variety of drinking establishments. It was the kind of
place that employed a classically trained piano man, always in a tuxedo, on
evenings when there was no live jazz act. Men freely smoked cigars, giving
the place a debonair vibe. Tasteful homages to cigar snobbery adorned its
dark walls. Their clientele tended to be more mature and executive, and their
atmosphere felt more like Celebrity Town than Trendy Town.
My taxi-drivers’ internal POTENTIAL THREAT ASSESSMENT department
remained silent, based on the pickup location and pending further information
such as actual observation of the new customer.
Washington Hills. That’ll be a good long ride… probably $30.
I looked back at my computer monitor and the colorful Excel spreadsheet
that held the numbers for my takeover plan. The “five well-known
professional options” for taxicab services in the area were anything but
professional. Someday I hoped to put them all out of business and run a large
uniform fleet of taxicabs. I would provide stellar customer service with
amenities unheard of in the local taxicab scene in 2001, like credit card
machines right inside the vehicle. Plus I had a few proprietary hooks planned.
For now I better get my one-man operation going before I lose this guy.
I packed up my house for the evening, grabbed my ‘go bag’ and hopped
into my Crown Victoria. My car was newer, and nicer, than all the other cabs
in Trendy Town. It had been previously owned not by a police force but by a
senior citizen. The interior was plush and sweet smelling. The air
conditioning worked perfectly. It was the polar opposite of the type of taxicab
already serving the area. I left my neighborhood in western Trendy Town and
headed down the suburban boulevard toward downtown, in my beautiful
Crown Victoria with its taxicab top-light and its taxicab meter and its
magnetized door signs that read “Not Another Cab Co.”
The evening was beautiful: mellow and warm, and feeling like August—
summer’s last hearty hurrah before September ushers in the paradigm shift of
a new academic year, cider mills, and, ultimately, THE HOLIDAYS. Those days
would come. But those days weren’t today. This summer evening classic cars
and convertibles mingled with the small shiny yuppie-sedans on the tree-
lined streets of Trendy Town. Hot Rods squealed their tires on the main drag.
I turned from the busy boulevard onto the residential shortcut street that
runs right into the center of downtown. Whizzing traffic gave way to a quiet
neighborhood with strolling dog walkers and recreational bicyclists.