Driver - Chapter 3

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There were some things about his job that Danny had to learn the hard way. Second job he ever drove on everything went wrong that could. Danny would later find that the crew that hired him was not as professional as they had claimed earlier.

 The target was a pawn shop out in Glendale in the Los Angeles County.  The pawn shop was surrounded by buildings on either side. The shop was not striking in any way, a plain and ordinary looking place with the usual collection of stereos, jewelry, watches, and other junk that people tried to sell to get their hands on some quick money. Danny figured there was not much the crew could steal from an ordinary place like this. The money that the shop lent to potential customers was stacked in a safe near the back door. The crew of three barged in the shop and went straight towards the safe. They did not bother with the jewelry, fencing it would have been a concern they thought. Old man Johnson tried guarding the safe; he did not put up much of a fight. A guy waited at the door threatening the man standing behind the counter with a machete. He would later find out his choice of weapon for this holdup was a rather poor one. Two guys went inside to break the safe and grab the money.

 Danny was waiting in his car in a nearby alley. He picked up the most ordinary looking cars for his jobs. This one, a 1974 Ford Galaxie, was a popular car and could blend into traffic if ever it came down to a chase. And if it ever came down to one this car could easily out run any patrol car. Danny had made some serious modifications under the hood in the form of two tanks of nitrous oxide that increased the engine's power output, which ensured no other car could keep up with this one in a long chase.

 Minutes later he heard the shots burst though the air like whip cracks. One. Two. Three. Then a sound of a cannon blowing off and a window shattering in pieces came and forced Danny to get ready for the escape. He opened the passenger doors at the back so that the guys could enter directly and run away from that spot.  Danny looked around to see whether any cops had pulled around them. There was none. He felt the guys enter the car and stepped on the gas pulling away from the alley and onto the road.  When the car reached a few blocks away Danny looked into the rear-view mirror and saw the cops pulling in hard towards the pawn shop, two cars at first then three. One of the cars motioned again and headed straight towards them but it didn't have much chance against the Galaxie or the route that Danny had mapped out—not to mention his driving—and Danny soon lost them.

 When it was over he looked back only to find two guys in the back seat. "The crew had three right", Danny thought to himself. Before he could ask the two guys about their missing partner they shouted, "Guy behind the counter pulled a shotgun on us, you believe it, a fuckin shotgun!" They left behind the guy who was shot at, who was presumably dead or dying at the floor of the pawn shop and made a run towards the car. In their rush they even left the bag of money behind.

Never work with amateurs. Danny reminded himself.

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