Uber Courtship

“I need to go kill my husband, please.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I ask.

“I need to go to the Hush Brand Hotel, please,” she says.

My unease alleviates and I put the car into drive. We’re leaving a quiet neighborhood for the downtown area. It’s a quite Tuesday on a warm winter’s night, but the restaurant signs and shopping lights give the illusion of a vibrant city life.

“I hope you like Beef Wellington,” I tell the passenger.

“I’m sorry?”

“Beef Wellington. The restaurant at Hush Brand Hotel is renowned for it.”

“Oh,” she says.

“I think I have a coupon in my email I could forward to you,” I say.

“No, that’s okay,” she tells me.

My gut quenches, with immediate regret. She probably thinks I was trying to squeeze a contact email from her.

Stupid comment.

“Um, ma’am, I’m sorry,” I say. “I wasn’t trying to hit on you or anything. Not that I wouldn’t, I mean, you’re certainly gorgeous and all, but I know it’s not exactly good manners to be, uh, wooing ladies in an Uber. I was just trying to share a deal I got. I can’t usually afford the place even with the coupon, so I figured I could give it to you.”

I dare a glance through the review mirror. Her eyes notice and I can tell she’s smiling. Probably amused by my nervous babble, but I don’t really mind.

Better a nervous Nellie, than a sleaze ball. 

“You speak so… proper,” she says.

“Ah, yes! That’s probably from my southern roots, ma’am. My daddy was a distiller in Tennessee. Ma was a CNA at a one of the nursing homes. We went to the home’s gala and the town ball every year.”

“And now you’re all the way out here, apologizing for any perceived insensitivity.”

“A bit silly, isn’t it, ma’am?”

“No, I find it quite… chivalric…” She says. “Yes, chivalric. Now, that sounds silly to say.”

“Not at all, ma’am. Not at all.”

I drove up to the front entrance.

“Actually, could we go through the parking ramp?” she asks.

“Uh…”

“I have cash for the fee.”

“Sure,” I say, putting the vehicle back into the drive and we enter the hotel’s parking ramp. I drive up to the elevator and place the car in park again.

The woman gets on her phone before I can say anything, “Yes, I’m looking for my husband’s room. I think his phone is dead, so I never got the number… Chris Johnson… Thank you.” She waits a second before sighing, “thank you.”

 I turn and am about to tell her to have a lovely evening when I see a handgun in her hand and a single tear dripping mascara down her cheek.

“Whoah… uh… you’re not planning on doing what I think you’re going to do, are you, ma’am?”

“I have a cashier’s check in my purse for ten thousand dollars. You let me go in there and come back out and we drive away for the next hundred miles. Do that and the money’s yours.”

“Hold on there, ma’am. You aint going to get three blocks down before we get pulled over.”

“I know how to do this. I used to be a city detective. My husband is an attorney. A defense lawyer. As long as I can shoot his pasty butt in three seconds, I’ll be back in twenty seconds, you’ll be on Main Street, responders will be hitting up the hotel on minute one, tops. That’s if the hotel attendant has called them in due time. No one will know it’s us.”

“I, uh, I don’t think you really want to be doing this, ma’am.”

“I kept getting these weird notifications from Uber,” she says. “At first, it looked like the standard stuff. Going to bars after work and getting a ride home like a responsible adult. Then he started ordering it for hotels. I guess he must have forgot I was on the account too.”

“Well, ma’am, I can tell you, you’ll be regretting all this. You know that eventually they’ll trace it back to you. I’m just a civilian who’s been a fan of Law and Order, but even I know that the first thing they’ll suspect is the spouse.”

“I left the force to have a baby with him.”

I try to find the words, but can’t.

“Five more years and I could have had a pension. All I got was a miscarriage while he went out partying every weekend or every time he won a big case. I stayed home, trying to stay away from booze while we were trying. Son of a bitch doesn’t even shower afterwards, anymore.”

“Ma’am,” I say. “You don’t have to do this. You’re stronger than this. All you need to do is go get yourself the best divorce lawyer in town and squeeze ever dime out of that bastard. He’ll never see it coming and it will be worse than slugging him with that cannon you have right there.”

“I tried that,” she moans. More tears trickle down. “I went through the entire bar association. He’s already friends with half of the attorneys, and then he went and requested legal consultations with the good ones. Which means, by state law, they cannot represent me as a conflict of interest. Bastards been planning to leave me for weeks and the only lawyer left was some pip-squeak who could only promise I retain the money I earned as a detective. Most of which is tied up in our house. Our agent said the market would only let us sell the house for just enough to pay the mortgage. He absolutely ruined me.”

“So you went and got a cashier’s check to pay for an Uber getaway?”

She made pause as my words were considered, “Sounds rather silly when you put it that way.”

“I mean, it’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard of. Some of the stories I get in here are pretty unbelievable. I picked up one individual who ordered an Uber after stealing hundreds of gift cards at gunpoint. Only trouble was, none of them were preloaded. The cards I mean”

“Hah,” she says. “I remember that case. I was the officer that made the call.”

“Oh, yeah!” I hoot. “I remember. Yeah, a lady cop took my report.”

“That was me,” she says, smiling again. “I was the lady. Right before I became a detective.”

“Hot damn, how about that?” I say.

“How about that…”

 “Ma’am,” I say. “I’d be very grateful if that firearm was placed back in your purse. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your right to bear arms, especially a woman as fine as yourself. There’s no telling what type of predators are out there, but if it’s all the same, I think you want to put it away and it would make me feel a hell of a lot better.”

She nods and puts away the sidearm. All that’s left is the purse next to her hips and her pleasing figure. She wipes away her tears and says, “Well, at least let me give you this check. I won’t have any use for any assets on hand as soon as the lawyers get through the divorce. Without a child to fend for, they say I don’t have much to ask for.”

“Huh,” I grunt. “You ever been to Memphis?”

“No.”

“Well, tell you what, it’s a rather beautiful city. If we started now, and drove all the way to Denver, we could get there in two days and you would have spent nearly four grand to Uber. There’s a Hush Brand Hotel there and at Denver. They’re rooms are at least a grand a night when you order the honeymoon suite. You take your cashier’s check there, we get two rooms at each hotel, order us some Beef Wellingtons, and then I show you around my old stomping grounds. When the tours all done, there will be nothing left to lose in the divorce.”

She grins at me, her eyes a devilish thrill of excitement.

“That sounds like a wonderful proposition. But I have one stipulation.”

“You name it, ma’am.”

“We only order one suite.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say, smiling.

I put the car into drive and we leave.