RESUME SPEED(Part Two)

When you're looking for a job you're mostly likely broke. And when you're broke you're probably off your regular routine by a few hours and not keeping up with the appearance thing as well as you would if you had some money.

That's the way I was after the Mr. Furst job. I had gotten into the habit of staying up kind of late at night. Then, to perk myself up, I started hanging out at the gym.

That's where I got to know Jimmy "The Arm." We both used to show up at the gym at the same times and after you've been in the shower together a few times, you feel like you begin to know a guy. So one day I asked him if he knew of any places I might get a job.

"What can you do?" he asked me.

"I don't know, the usual I guess," I said.

"You know how to drive a car?"

"Sure," I said.

"Well, I've got a friend who's got a car transport business who 's looking for some help."

"A what?" I asked.

"It's like this. There's lots of people who need their cars moved from one place to another. Like, let's say a guy drives his car here from Jersey to work and then he winds up going out later and getting drunk and taking a cab home. Then he needs somebody to drive his car home for him so he can do the whole thing again if he wants to."

I was skeptical.

"There's people all over the city like that," he said, spraying his armpits. "It's not just drunks, you know. Sometimes it's businessmen who like to jog and they'll pay somebody to drive their car from where they start to where they finish so they don't have to run around in a circle."

"Nah," I said. And that should have been the end of it.

"See that guy over there," he said pointing his thumb to a guy in blue shorts with curly hair. "He used to make 25 grand a year doing car transport and he only worked a few hours a day."

I didn't believe a word he said. But he gave me the number of this guy named Joe, and two weeks later, after the gas company shut off the hot water when I was in the middle of a shower, I called him.

It seemed easy enough to me. All I did was wait for the dispatcher to call and tell me where the client's car was parked and where he wanted it driven. She called it the "origination point" and the "destination." It was just like driving the van to New Mexico, only shorter and more often. And every Friday I got $50 for each delivery.

Sometimes they sent me the keys in the mail or sometimes they were hidden in a Hide-A-Key box under a bumper. The day when I went to pick up this fire engine red BMW 230 SL I remember thinking that it wasn't a very safe thing to do, leaving the keys like that. Somebody could steal it in a heartbeat.

You see, it's signs like that that are important. And I would have seen it if I hadn't been thinking about this girl Donna that I had dated for a while. She broke it off when I lost a job and stopping shaving. But I got this idea of driving downtown, parking near where she worked and offering her a ride home in a fire engine red 280 SL.

By the time I actually made it downtown it was well after five, and Donna had already taken the bus, and I was about three-quarters of an hour late to the "destination." That's why I was going a little fast down Girard Avenue and that's why the cops pulled me.

"License and registration," said a white one.

I got my license out of my wallet, thinking, "Shit," which is what everyone thinks when they get pulled.

"Get out of the vehicle and put your hands on the roof," said a black one.

"What?" I said.

They looked at each other, said something into their walkie-talkie and started giving me the Miranda thing just like on TV. Except this show was an like a closed-circuit exclusive, just for those lucky people slowing down to gawk on their way home down Gerard Avenue.

* * *
I rode in the back of their squad car, feeling pissed that now I was going to look for a job again, until it dawned on me that I might have really done something bad enough to go to jail where, as you know, they've got guys doing things that even Dr. Ruth doesn't know about.

The more I thought about having to go to jail over a fire engine red 230 SL the sweatier my palms got. I began to shake and tremble and thought for sure I was I was near the end when I realized we were just driving over the trolley tracks on Baltimore Avenue.
That's when I made the deal with God.

"If I get out of this one, God," I said to him, "I promise I'll be good for the rest of my life and always pay attention to the signs." And I really meant it.

Getting arrested is no picnic, believe me. This whole thing about being innocent until proven guilty is a big joke. I think the idea is that in case you get off for some reason, like I did, and don't have to go to jail they want you to be sure you get in as much punishment as possible in the meantime.

They finally let me have my phone call. Actually, it was two calls. The first one was to "The Arm" to get Joe's number since I didn't have it. He told me two things. The first was if I ever get arrested again not to call him, and the second was the number of his lawyer, Leonard DeAngelo.

A few hours later this little guy with glasses shows up and they let me out. All I had to do was to promise to give up the car transport business and never mention Joe to anybody. And that's how I got to know Lenny.

How Lenny got me off I have no idea. And how he knows so much about writing résumés, I don't know either. But since I wasn't in jail, and since I was borrowing his typewriter, I didn't question either one.

"What should I say about the car thing, Lenny?" I asked him one afternoon about a week later while I was in his office.

He pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked off into space for a second. "Say you managed a privately-owned vehicle transportation service. And if they want to know what you are doing now, tell them you're currently self-employed as a consultant, " he said shoving me out the door, "Nobody really knows what that is either."

I'm not exactly what you'd call a typist, so it took most of a night and about twenty-five sheets of Lenny's high quality watermarked 70 pound linen writing text before I had the thing typed out nice and cleanly. By that time I was too wound up to sleep so I didn't crash out till about four. So looking back on it, I'm sure if I had had more than a few hours sleep I would have paid more attention to the signs.

(Read Part Three)