The Driver Read Online Free PDF Page A

it. This seemed to explain why the film was almost impossible to obtain for nearly twenty-five years, restricted to $50 VHS copies traded over the Internet and shown among car fanatics.
    Rendezvous in New York wouldn’t be easy. The Paris Rendezvous route was just over seven miles. Manhattan Island was 13.4 miles long, a circumferential route twice that, and the island wasn’t ringed by a single road, which would force me to run multiple red lights on city streets. The most obvious problems were that even the world’s best driver probably couldn’t cover a 26-mile course in under twenty minutes, I wasn’t nearly that good, and even the world’s biggest car fan would have to be strapped down to sit through anything that long.
    I had to shorten the route, skipping Manhattan’s northernmost quarter around Inwood and Washington Heights. Given the reputation of those neighborhoods’ police precincts, this would have obvious additional benefits.
    The start line was obvious—the World Trade Center. The WTC was the most dramatic location in lower Manhattan, and it was only two blocks from Manhattan’s southern tip and the beginning of the FDR Drive.
    The final time target was twenty minutes or less.
    On the final run there’d be no stopping for anything, except a jaywalker.
    Maybe.
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    â€œA Subaru,” said The Weis.
    â€œI hadn’t thought of that.”
    â€œIt’s on every reviewer’s top-ten list.”
    â€œI know, I know—”
    â€œThere’s really no other car,” The Weis explained. “Think about it. If you were on a track, a Porsche or Ferrari would be the obvious choice, but New York streets suck. The closest thing would be dirt roads, like on Paris-Dakar or the Baja 1000. You need a car with big fat tires, lots of suspension travel, four-wheel drive, and tons of acceleration.”
    â€œIf I ditch the four-wheel drive,” I said, “it sounds like a cab would work, like a Ford Crown Vic.”
    â€œThat’s why cabbies use them, but they still won’t have the handling you want.”
    I owned an Audi S4, a fantastic four-wheel-drive turbocharged sedan that fit 90 percent of the bill. The primary problem was that it sat low to the ground.
    â€œYou can’t use the Audi,” said The Weis, reading my mind. “That was the last car you and your dad ever sat in together. Show some respect.”
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    Lelouch had a single spotter at the north end of the Louvre tunnel—I’d need a lot more help than that, and a lot more redundancy.
    With a stack of nondisclosure agreements and a crate of two-way radios, I intended to ask at least a dozen trusted friends/accomplices to stand guard at the traffic lights and block westbound traffic. This would be yet another problem, as there was absolutely no upside for my blockers other than bragging rights, something that would put me in jail for multiple crimes long before the statute of limitations ran out.
    And there was yet another problem, which was that my girlfriend at the time refused to cooperate in the final touch which might elevate my effort into distant orbit around Lelouch’s achievement.
    She refused to meet me at the finish line.
    My heart fractured hourly over this refusal. Her reasons made perfect sense, but I’d hoped that beyond her accusations of irresponsibility she might grasp the leap I was attempting to make between this admittedly absurd plan and the kernel of purpose my father had bestowed upon me. I’d long believed that for every thousand acts of pointlessness, there was one that justified the vain hopes of those who’d failed, that I, in this instance, would not become a statistic, and that she might surprise me.
    Famous last words.
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    Other than The Weis, there was really only one other friend I trusted in this endeavor. Jon Goodrich, who shall hereafter be referred to as Nine, had been the coolest nonsnob at my high