Jake Lanner rubbed his eyes. The night had been awful. He'd finally unplugged the damn alarm clock, which kept resetting itself (or so it seemed) to go off every hour. Then he'd missed his shower because he couldn't find his wallet, which had turned up after ten minute's search between the cushions on the little hotel couch.

He hadn't even sat on the damn couch!

It was a nice suite, but he'd be glad when he could leave it and go home. Just one more meeting to clinch the deal, Jake thought. Then he could go home. San Francisco was a great city to visit, but this business trip had been pure hell.

He looked himself over in the mirror. He'd washed his face and ran a comb through his hair. He looked OK, but it was a good thing this was a morning meeting. He checked his watch.

"Just enough time to review the presentation," he said to himself. On his way out of the bathroom he straightened his tie. The laptop was charging on the table. He sat down and hit the power switch.

Nothing.

He tried again.

"Damn!" he shouted. He did his best not to slam his hand on the polished surface. Bending over, he checked the power cable. It was loose, just a bit. He pushed it home and hit the power button. Since the battery was dead, he'd have to plug it in to use it.

Another wrinkle he'd have to handle at the meeting, finding a power hook-up that would let him put the laptop on the table, so the investors could see it. There was big money up for grabs, and he wasn't the only architect with a vision for what to do with the... slums, he admitted to himself, though it wasn't politically correct to think of them that way.

They'd been designed 30 and 40 years ago, the Valencia projects, blocks of buildings that looked nice but which were destined to cause misery for their inhabitants. When he heard of the urban redevelopment project, he jumped at it. It had never seemed right for such a beautiful city to be saddled with such awful housing.

Plugged in, the laptop was working. He flicked through the presentation, just to refresh his memory, just to be safe. He powered down and slid the laptop into the carrying case, then put it by the door. His briefcase was ready.

One last check in the mirror showed a spot of Marriott soap on his tie. "What the..." he said, voice nearly cracking. When would it end? He wet one of the extra washcloths the hotel provided and dabbed it away. It would leave a faint stain on the Jerry Garcia silk, he knew, but the pattern was dense enough that it might not be noticed.

In the hall, he stopped. Where was his laptop? He keyed back into his room. There it was, just around the corner. How could he have missed it? Hadn't he put it by the door?

"Long night," he said to himself. He'd grab some coffee on the way out to the taxi stand. That would hold him until after the presentation.

Outside, it was a chilly morning. "The coldest winter I ever spent," he quipped. The Marriott was a nice hotel, if you liked giant Wurlitzer jukeboxes. He looked meaningfully at the doorman, who whistled up the next in a line of cabs. It was a sleek black and white. The driver wore a coat and tie, and his eyes were hidden by black sunglasses.

Just then the bank across the street flashed the time. It was 9:40.

"Crap!"

Jake nearly dropped his laptop in his haste to check his watch. Jake stopped dead in his tracks. It was much earlier than that... but the sun did look like it had been up awhile. His watch said it was 8:40. Had he screwed up when he set it to this time-zone?

No, he shook his head. That can't be, he thought to himself. "It was right yesterday..."

A guy in a cheap Perry Ellis suit barged out of the hotel, stepped lightly around him, and dove into the waiting cab. One part of Jake's brain rebelled at the label awareness this kind of business posturing foisted onto his brain. Another part marveled that people could be so rude.

"But sir, this is my fare..." said the cab driver. His voice was low and rough, out of keeping with his neat as a pin appearance.

It didn't matter. Jake didn't care. It was not physically possible to get from his downtown hotel to the airport in 20 minutes. He would be late for his presentation. The project would go to another firm, undoubtedly one that was promoting a contemporary version of the nightmare that was the projects.

"Get rolling, cabbie," said the cab- jumper, which earned a grimace from the man behind the wheel. The driver checked his watch, smiled at Jake, then got into the cab and drove slowly away.

Jake didn't know what to do. Should he call and tell the investors he'd been delayed, then catch another cab? Would it matter either way? These presentations were tricky political business. Miss a step in the courtship dance and you turned into a wall-flower.

A horn blared from the street. An old yellow cab cut across three lanes of one-way traffic, causing a motorcycle and a delivery van to squeal to a halt. The cab lurched into the hotel's u-shaped drive and spun rubber past the waiting row of cabs. The driver at the head of the line stuck his head out the window of his cab and yelled "hey!"

"You inna hurry?" said the rogue cab driver. He was wearing sunglasses, but there the resemblance to the previous driver ended. Wild brown hair stuck out from underneath a spanking brand new St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. "You inna hurry? Get inna cab. C'mon! C'mon!"

He stepped forward as if in a daze. The driver opened the back door by reaching back from the front seat. Jake put his briefcase and the laptop on the seat and slid in. For being so old, the cab was very clean and spacious inside.

The driver didn't wait for him to shut the door, but jammed on the accelerator and slid into traffic. Their forward motion slammed the door shut, and Jake was glad he didn't loose a finger in the process. Then Jake noticed they were going the wrong way on Fourth Street. He opened his mouth to protest, but the driver spoke up.

"Nice cab, ain it? Made in Kalamazoo. That's Michigan. Hang on."

He had to grab his laptop to keep it from sliding across the seat and slamming into the far passenger door. A second later he grabbed at the strap hanging from the roof undoubtedly put there for just that reason. There were no seatbelts. Cars and delivery vans careened past them. Horns sounded, bass bellows to tenor blares, undercut by faint, fluent cursing.

"I need to get to..." he began, then gulped. The taxi was making impressive headway upstream against traffic, then it slued left onto Market. Jake tried to get his breath back. This wasn't the way to the 101!

"Airport, airport, am I right! Am I right?" The driver's speech was rushed, as if he had too much to say in too little time.

Jake noticed there was a TV mounted on the dashboard, along with a cellular phone and one of those hand-held computers. The computer had an antenna sticking out of it. Cellular modem? he asked himself.

"Yes, Airport Hilton. As close to, ten as you can make it. But wouldn't it be faster to take the freew - "

"Got eighteen minutes. One. Eight. Minutes. Lessee. That means we gotta..." the cab swerved. He saw the driver take a stylus and write on the broad screen of the hand-held. It beeped. The cell phone rang. Without missing a beat, the driver picked up the phone and kept writing.

His heart leapt into his throat. He'd read that phrase a million times in cheap fiction, but he'd never felt it before. There it was, lodged just below his larynx, choking off the words he wanted to say: Stop! Use at least one hand on the wheel! Help!

The driver was apparently steering with his legs. "Yo," he said into the phone. "No can do," he said in a second. "Got a fare. Yeah, that fare. Hey, you, shoo! Buzz off!" The driver was glaring in the mirror. For a second he felt the driver was yelling at him for listening to the conversation.

But how could he help it?

"Naw, not you. Something else," said the driver. "Damn gremmies. Plus the freeway right here is slow. Lotsa downtown traffic, stuff coming in off the bridge. This is faster. Trust me." The driver fixed him with one tens, and from the twitch of his cheek, Jake assumed he'd been winked at.

Outside, the city was flying by. Horns blared regularly. He noticed more than one red light whiz overhead. So long as the intersection was empty for the time it took to hustle the yellow cab through, the driver seemed happy.

Then with a jolt Jake was thrown against the side window. He was glad the door didn't pop open and leave him tumbling onto Market street. An antique trolley car flashed inches away.

"Thatsa antique, Milan 1928. Nice ainit? Gottem all the way up and down Market. That's the slowest darn one."

"Really?" Jake croaked. If only this guy had been around when he'd been looking to kill a little time in between presentations during the first two days! "Ha," he said weakly when he realized what he'd thought -- kill a little time?

The numbered streets ran out and all of a sudden they were slued sideways. The yellow cab's tires squealed like pigs on bacon day. Cars dove left and right. Jake closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were whizzing down Valencia. Up front, the driver was scribbling with his stylus on his hand-held computer. Obviously, he saw Jake looking, because he said "handwriting recognition, is there anything cooler than that? Is there? Is there? Is there?"

Jake shook his head and gripped the strap tighter. He felt his heart subside a bit into his chest. If he was going to die, at least it would be a good excuse for missing the presentation. Not only was he going to lose the job, but returning to his firm without the bid was going to be rough. Very rough.

"Yo! Not so glum. We got us... 14 minutes. Should have you there no problem."

"Nice hat," he choked out. It wasn't going t happen. Jake didn't know the city, but he could tell they were heading south, more or less the right direction.

"Ya like the hat? Got it at last night's game. Great game. Oh hey, take a look, there's them projects you've been looking to redesign."

Jake looked out the window and saw the very projects he was bidding to tear down and rebuild. They were gaudy, art deco houses with beautiful lawns. But they hadn't had a chance as society evolved. They were built as if it were going 1950 forever. He'd been here before, during the planning phase of the project. Jake saw again the half-wrecked cars jamming the side of the street, the wom buildings, indigent locals staring with interest at the yellow cab doing at least 80, screaming down Valencia.

Then they were past, and Jake considered what the driver had said about his hat. The Giants didn't play the Cards... in fact, he remembered seeing that the Cards had beaten New York... at home. "Last night?" he croaked.

"Yeah. Yeah." The driver finished with the stylus and snagged his beeper a millisecond into the first beep as it went off. "Great game. Great game. Shoulda been there. Great stadium. Bought nine tickets, sat in nine seats, alla way from home plate round the outfield an' back again." He plucked the cell phone out of its cradle and hit speed dial.

"You should try a hands-free model," he said weakly. At least one hand was on the wheel.

"Yo, Chubs, it's Ofay. No, not that Ofay, the one you called. On a run. Airport. Got me a black and white problem. You dig?" The cab dodged stopped traffic, rode up on the sidewalk next to new-looking bars. Trendy. Then the driver turned the wheel hard and they barreled right onto Sixteenth Street.

A block flashed by in hardly a second, then the cab rammed through another intersection and turned onto Guerrero. "Ever eat at Zuni Cafer' asked the driver.

"What? The Zuni Cafe?"

"No. No. No. Zuni Cafe. Just Zuni Cafe." More blocks whizzed by. The nose of the cab began to rise.

"Actually, yes," said Jake. "It was a business dinner just a few da - " the cab was definitely going uphill. With visions of Dirty Harry dancing in his head, Jake took a good look out the window. A road sign declared Hill Street. A yellow diamond stated "Hill." The official shape for traffic hazards, Jake remembered in an odd moment of clarity. Someone had written "No Shit" on the warning sign with one of those fat markers that were great for drawing up big posters and even better for graffiti.

Then they were airborne.

"No Shit,," Jake whispered to himself. Looking left, he looked into the picture window of a Victorian railway-type apartment. The sound of Guerrero against the wheels was gone.

"Restaurant right here called..."

WHUMP! Jake bumped against the ceiling. They ought to be dead, he thought to himself. The apartment was on the second floor.

"...the Flying Saucer. Get it? Get it? Get it?"

Jake looked out the rear window, saw two wheel covers spinning down the road after them. "I get it, I get it," he said, then realized he was imitating the driver by repeating himself.

"Did we lose wheelcovers? Dam I hate that, hate that. "

The hubcaps were out of sight when the driver maneuvered the cab around stopped traffic, dodged a little old lady in a Ford Escort, and practically rode the rail entering the freeway, 280 West.

"Hey my fare," said the driver, tucking the phone under his chin. "Now we go fast."

Now we go fast? He wanted to shut his eyes. This was some kind of awful nightmare. He was sound asleep in his hotel, and this was an anxiety dream. The alarm would wake him, and none of this would have happened...

"HEY! Pay attention! This is the Ride of your Life, man!" there was something in the way the driver said it that put prickles on the back of his neck. The yellow cab had picked up even more speed, and he wasn't surprised to see when he leaned forward to check that the needle was buried somewhere past 80, the highest the dial showed.

"Yeah," the driver said. "Guy's flaking out on me. No, I'm on the fast road now. ETA ten, max. Pick me up soon. Bad guys are here."

Bad guys? He craned his neck around. Right behind them, matching the yellow cab weave for weave through the highway traffic, was a black and white cab. The driver looked familiar... tie, jacket, sunglasses. Slumped in the backseat was Mr. Perry Ellis Executive, the guy who had stolen the cab out from under him.

"That's no bad guy," he said with a nervous laugh. "Just some guy who took my cab right before you showed up."

"And a good thing, good thing, good thing, good thing too," said the driver, his speech even faster and harder to understand. The cell phone went back into the cradle. With one hand the driver cleared his beeper, finger popping once, twice, three times on the little button.

"Hey, check that out!" said the driver, pointing to his miniature TV. "Gilligan screwed up the rescue again. You ever wonder why that red shirt of his never wears out? I mean you gotta wonder about that, man, gotta wonder gotta wonder. It's red red red alla time. Wouldn't stay red too long if ya washed it with a pair of rocks, which is what they got, right? Right?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess," he said. The tiny TV showed a big blue blob slapping a red blob. Inanely, he wondered about Ginger's evening gown outfit. If not Gilligan's red shirt, THAT at least would show some wear after a quick trip to a primitive laundry, wouldn't it?

The cab rocked forward.

"Hoooo boy. just you hang on now."

As if my hand isn't cramped from holding onto this damn strap already, Jake thought to himself.

An unusually sharp lane change jerked him from side to side. Then the cab braked. The black and white cab shot passed them. Horns erupted from all around. The driver jammed on the accelerator, and Jake was thrown back.

"You've got to be kidding. What is this, some kind of bad movie? I just want to make it to the airport. In one piece. On time doesn't matter."

"But on time does matter, my man! Does matter does matter does too matter!" The yellow cab shot forward, pursuing the black and white. "And don't worry about one piece, man. You'll get there. Nobody out to hurt you today. Hey, checkitout. Fourteen to one." The cab lurched side, ways, then back again as they dodged around a Corolla doing 55.

"No?" Jake croaked. He was glad he'd passed on the coffee. It would have been all over the place by now.

"Not one bit. Wouldn't do anybody any good, ringing your bell. Just some folks want you to make your meeting... on time. And some folks who don't. Fourteen to one." The driver adjusted his mirror so he could see Jake directly.

"What do you know about my..." Jake began.

"What do I know? What don't I know?" driver grinned, and dodged another law-abiding citizen toeing the California speed limit. But this time the black and white was ready and slipped over an extra lane. It ended up beside them instead of in front. Jake looked at the driver of the black and white.

The other driver looked at him and smiled. With one hand on the wheel, he raised his sunglasses. Fierce red eyes stared at him through two layers of automotive glass.

It wasn't enough. Jake cringed in his seat. In the back of the black and white, the slick executive looked to be asleep. He wondered what had happened to him.

"What do you mean," he said, wrenching his gaze away from their pursuer.

The driver's beeper went off again. The driver flicked the miniature TVs channel six times in rapid selection: as far as Jake could tell, he did it to shift to another channel showing the fin minutes of Gilligan's Island, but with bett reception. "Gettin' outa the city now," he said, before picking up the cell phone and hitting speed dial.

How did this guy make a living? Jake wondered. The gadgets, the access charges... "Hey, he said. The driver waved him off. The highway had opened up. It was at least five lanes wide and Jake saw, and they were still passing even the fastest traffic like it was standing still. Anyone actually doing the speed limit looked like they were in reverse. There was no way for him to telling but Jake figured the yellow cab had to be doing least 100, maybe more.

"Sometime today?" the driver shouted into the phone. "Chubs, man, this black and white the phone. "Chubs, man, this black and white positively cramping my style! What? What You're where?"

Jake saw a motorcycle zip up beside the yellow cab. The rider was a heavy set woman, lean low over the racing style bike. She was driving with one hand and holding a cell phone in other.

"No way..." Jake said to himself. But it did indeed appear this was Chubs.

"HEY OFAY!" she yelled, and Jake wondered if that was in fact the driver's name. Strange name, he thought. Wasn't it an insult of some kind? The driver flipped his phone shut and slammed it in the cradle. Then he pointed over at the black and white.

Once again Jake's heart tried to climb out of his chest via his throat. Just ahead a truck blocked the lane, and another car was zooming up from the right. The black and white occupied the far left lane. They were trapped.

"Shoot!" said the driver, and braked. The woman on the motorcycle weaved between the car and the truck, taking up barely a quarter lane as she did so. Just a twitch from either driver and she'd be road paste, Jake knew. And she wasn't wearing a helmet.

The driver's phone rang. "Finally willing to spend a few bucks and call someone?" he shouted. "Get this guy outa my lane!!!"

The trucker wanted no part of the high speed hijinks, and it signaled a right lane change. The driver moved up. Ahead, the motorcycle was nothing but a dot. Jake couldn't imagine how fast she was going. 150? 160?

"Three minutes!" said the driver. Jake checked his watch. Three minutes to the hour, he saw. There was no way he'd make the meeting on time. He might survive being a few minutes late, however. High in the air he saw an airliner make a turn as it prepared to land. The signs were an unreadable blur, but that was a sure sign the air, port exit was near.

"So what was that fourteen to one you said a few times?" he said, glad to hear his own voice over the screaming of the wind.

"That? That? That was miles back. Colma. Fourteen dead for every one living person. Alla graveyards inna city moved right there. Colma. Land of the dead."

Dead. At least they were well past Colma, Jake thought. But if the other cab was trying to keep them from the airport, wouldn't it have to do something right about now?

Sure enough, the black and white began shifting to the right. The yellow cab followed suit, desperately trying to break free and move ahead, but to no avail. By pinning the yellow cab against the slower traffic and staying slightly ahead, the black and white limited Jake's driver's options.

So close, thought Jake. He wouldn't have thought it possible. Downtown to the airport was a thirty, forty minute ride. The investors had held the preliminary meetings downtown, but were flying out after the morning meetings. Smart tactic, Jake mused. They'll be out of communication until they get home, and no one can pester them for a decision.

"So how do you know about my meeting?" he asked again. Despite being half-numb from the Hollywood driving, Jake knew there was a lot going on he couldn't see.

The driver looked him in the eye. "I just know. Trust me. You've got to get there, and on time. You've got such high hopes for that redevelopment thing." For once, the driver didn't speak in a rush. "And good plans, too." The driver winked. "Don't despair. The bad guys have slowed us down, but we're not out yet."

As if he hadn't been paying attention to Jake, the driver jerked the wheel around. The black and white was jockeying for position ahead of the yellow cab. If he managed that, they'd have to slow way down in the exit lanes.

Just then the cycle reappeared. Jake missed it at first, a dot on the shoulder, but it grew quickly larger. "Holy..." he said under his breath.

"Tut tut," said the driver.

The motorcyclist was driving the wrong way! just as they exited, the cycle turned and hit the berm. Cycle and rider flew into the air and crunched into the windshield of the black and white, which slued around to a halt. Or was Chubs sort of floating in mid-air? It went by too fast for Jake to tell.

The driver was ready. He gunned it and took advantage of a small gap caused by another driver slowing to gawk at the accident.

"Darn rubberneckers," he said.

Jake pasted his face up against the rear window to see what had happened to the rider. The short woman stood on the hood of the black and white and sketched a formal bow. The accident quickly faded into the background as the driver pushed the yellow cab into the airport.

"Now we have trouble," he muttered, and Jake looked around. Trouble? "What do you mean NOW we have trouble? What was that? Cheesecake?"

"Place I know in Jersey makes a killer cheesecake," said the driver, "Hold on."

Then Jake heard the sirens. He looked back again. A pair of police cars were roaring up to them, but the yellow cab showed no inclination to pull over.

"No." Jake said. "Don't tell me you're going to ..." "How many times I gotta tell ya? YOU HAVE TO MAKE THAT MEETING!" The cabby whipped off his glasses, and Jake realized they were coming up on an overhang. In the mirror, the driver's eyes were wide and manic.

He's crazy, Jake thought to himself. All those years learning to be an architect, all that money borrowed to pay for school... and I'm going to die at the hands of a maniac. He slumped into his seat.

"You missed the hotel", he said helpfully. There was less than a minute to go. Sure, he had a bit of leeway, but it would take at least ten minutes to get from the hotel's parking structure to the fourth floor, where the meeting was, maybe more, even if they were right next to each other. Then again, hoofing it up from the lobby would have taken at least five minutes, and he would have been late anyway. He felt sweat cooling under his arms. It had been a wild ride.

Even in the Hilton's parking garage the driver felt compelled to do at least fifty. It seemed slow by comparison, no matter the dozens of people who had to lunge out of the way to avoid being hit by the yellow cab.

It whipped around one turn and went up a ramp. Then it whipped around another, and Jake swore the car tipped onto two wheels.

"That meeting was on the fourth floor, right?" said the driver. Behind them, the police were following at a safe pace, but Jake could still hear the sirens screaming.

"Uh," said Jake, trying to imagine why it, or anything he would say, really mattered now.

"Hang on," said the driver, and he opened his mouth to sing - some sort of song that Jake couldn't quite hear. The yellow cab raced at a side wall marked with a six foot high blue "4." And increased speed. Jake gripped the handle hard, though it wouldn't matter if they hit that wall. He always wore his seatbelt when he drove because he knew there was no holding back the forces of nature.

Physics was a harsh master, especially when you slammed into a brick wall doing 60.

There was a crunching noise. Jake was thrown forward, but not very hard. The cab's engine died, and for a moment there was silence. The driver whipped his sunglasses back on his face just in time to meet the mid-morning sunlight coming in through the windshield.

Outside, the wind howled.

A split second later a shadow cut through the car like a knife. As if in slow motion, Jake saw the driver whip the sunglasses off his face once again. He lifted his hands from the wheel and smiled as he turned to say something to Jake.

Glass crashed and shattered. Steel tore. Jake's ears rang with the din. The driver stretched out his hand as the yellow cab ground to a halt. "Forty bucks," he said.

It never occurred to Jake not to pay him, despite the fact there was no meter in the cab. As he dug two twenties out of his wallet, a few brave souls stepped up to the yellow cab sitting in a formerly glassed-in atrium of the airport Hilton. It wasn't every day you got to see a car parked daintily on the carpet of the fourth floor of a hotel.

"What was that terrible noise?" said the senior investor, an old man wearing a suit Jake was certain cost about as much as his entire college education. The conference room had been less than a fifty yard walk from where the cab had finally come to a stop.

"Some kind of accident involving the parking garage," Jake said smoothly. After that ride, there was not one person in this room who was capable of raising his heart-rate one beat. "If you will allow me to get started, I have the final presentation my firm has prepared for your consideration..."