I recently heard a story from, let’s just say, a “friend in the business” that I had to share. We’ll call him Henry.
We got into a conversation about some of the crazier experiences we’ve had while driving. Obviously you’re familiar with my tales! But he shared one with me that really blew my mind.
He told me he was hired for an all day job once where the only thing he was advised was to “go where you’re told to go”. The client was no one in particular. Henry explained the guy as being a little short, dressed in an all-black suit, and having disheveled hair that didn’t seem to match the rest of him.
The day didn’t immediately seem out of the ordinary. The man told Henry where to go, and Henry went. Sure, it might not be your normal run-of-the-mill stops: gas station, a fast food joint, comic book store, “Mom and Pop”-type grocery store. But hey, I’ve been hired to go to stranger places. Sometimes people just want to travel in style!
Well, as Henry told me, this wasn’t the case. It was the “Mom and Pop” shop that gave it away. This was a little grocery store on the outskirts of town, one you might stop at on the way to go on a camping trip. One of those “everybody knows your name” type of places.
As Henry sat outside waiting for his client, he heard a startling crash followed by yells, and then watched as his client came ripping out of the store, pulling a black mask (“like a sock with eye holes,” he told me) off his disheveled head and racing for the limo door. Henry watched him jump him, heard him scream to “GO, DAMN IT!”, and then watched in shock as an older man came running out screaming and brandishing a baseball bat.
Turns out that Henry had been fulfilling the role of getaway driver all day without even knowing it. He got out of his limo at that point, arms raised and repeatedly telling the man “I’m just a limo driver, I’m just a limo driver” while he walked as fast as he could away from the scene.
Cops arrived shortly after, with Henry’s client still sitting in the backseat and the bat-wielding man hovering over the car in case he made a break for it.
From what Henry overheard between the cops and store owner, Mr. Robber had come in demanding money and flaunting a small knife. Pop wasn’t about to let his little shop get robbed though; he hit the knife from the man’s hand with the bat, sending the guy tripping over racks of food and running out the door.
It was a long night for poor Henry, giving statements and waiting while police officers searched the entirety of this limo for any stolen goods. All I know is that I will be keeping an even sharper eye on all my clients from now on.
