Say you hire me. OK, now say I pick you up and we get under way and you tell me, "We need to make a stop on the way to pick up a friend." Am I supposed to know how good a friend this guy is to you? Is he your best friend? Maybe you don’t even really like the guy. Maybe you’re kidnapping him. How am I supposed to know?
That’s my point: I can’t.
Don’t ask me to be King Solomon. I’m definitely not getting paid like King Solomon. I mean, he had mines, full of gold. As a limo driver, I’m clearing a few hundred a night, maybe, just to get your ass close to a doorway and pay for all the gas.
Yet somehow people put all their decisions on me. I had an actor client once. Drove him around all night, while he talked to his wife. At one point he put her on speaker so I could hear what she was saying for 10 minutes. Then he hung up and said to me, I swear:
“’You hear her?! Would you stay married to a woman like that? That’s not a human being. That’s the only thing I’m sure of. Everything else … I don’t know anymore. You tell me, I’m serious – should I get a divorce? What do you think?”
Usually, I fend stuff like that off and say, “I just stick to the driving.”
Usually, it stops there. I do not see myself as Mr. Argument Settler.
So, back to the story, right? I’m driving this guy named Elliot Stern and he tells me we have to stop somewhere. It’s in the Encino hills. The house is above the street. The driveway is a steep curve with stone gates. There are two vans parked by the front door at the crown of the drive. I don’t know whose they are, but the driveway is blocked.
So Elliot says, ‘Wait here, I’ll get my pal,’ and I say fine, and he gets out of the car and walks up the drive and I sit there waiting for him to come back down with his homey.
I’m checking my messages when he comes down. I get out and open the door, and Elliot says, ‘This is my buddy Steve.’
Steve gets in. Then Elliot. I close the door. I get in the car. Nothing unusual so far. Maybe Steve is dressed a little nicer than Elliot. But they’re obviously friends. Believe me, not even King Solomon would know we’re in the process of kidnapping him.
“Now what is it that you so desperately need to say to me, Elliot, that I have to allow myself to be dragged out of my house like this?” I can hear Steve ask when we’re all inside.
“Go,” Elliot says to me.
“Don’t be silly. I can’t go anywhere now,” Steve says.
“You’re not really going anywhere, Steve.
