The Getaway Man

by Andrew Vachss

  I did everything in order. First, I got a room. J.C. told me how to find the place. It was in a part of town where everybody writes on the walls. A four-story house, all busted up into tiny little rooms, not much bigger than my cell.

  The walls were gray, and the shade over the window was the yellow things get from cigarettes after a long time. The shade was taped in a lot of places. The bed had a big drop in the middle. The sheet was the same color as the walls. There was a wire strung across the room on one side, so you could hang your clothes. A little lightbulb swung down from the ceiling—you had to reach up to turn it on or off.

  I couldn’t see a place in the wall to plug in a radio, if I had a radio. The toilet was down the hall. Some of the people who used it must have been drunk.

  I asked the man downstairs if there was a phone. He said no. I just walked around until I found one, outside a store. I called the number J.C. gave me. It rang three times, then a girl’s voice came on.

  “Hi. We’re out having fun. If you know how we can have some more, leave us a message. Bye!”

  I wasn’t surprised by this. J.C. had told me it would be a machine.

  “This is Eddie,” I said. “I just got—”

  “Are you staying where you’re supposed to be?” a voice cut in. A man’s voice, but not J.C.’s.

  “Yes. I went right to—”

  “Stay there,” the voice said. Then it hung up.

  That was almost four years ago. I’m a getaway man now. Seven jobs, every one correct. We never got caught. Only got really chased once. And that was by a city cop’s car—it didn’t have a chance. All I had to do was to put a couple of corners between us, and we were gone.

  We don’t stay together, except just before a job and for a little while after. The cops always expect us to run far, but we never do. That’s what I mean about a couple of corners. We have other cars—switch cars, they’re called—stashed.

  Whatever car I drive, we drop that one off quick, and jump into one of the switch cars. And even then, we only go a little ways. There’s plenty of places to stash cars in this part of the state, now that the plants have all pretty much closed down. Lots of empty buildings, all the windows broke out.

  Nobody on the job ever goes right back to where he lives, either. J.C. rents places where we all stay for a while. That way, no neighbor sees you leave just before a job, or come back right after one. Those are the kinds of things cops look for.

  Everybody wears gloves, so we can just walk away from the getaway car when we switch. But they can find out stuff from blood, too. One time, J.C. got hit. It wasn’t bad, but he was bleeding a lot. So, that time, we couldn’t just dump the getaway car. I dropped J.C. and the other guys off; they took the switch car, and I went back out.

  I drove the getaway car until I got it way back on a dirt road I knew about. I siphoned a five-gallon can of gas out of the tank, and I poured it all over the backseat, where J.C. had been bleeding. Then I wadded up a rag into an empty soda bottle and poured a few drops of the gas over the top. I lit the rag. As soon as it got going a little bit, I tossed the bottle underhand through the back window. Flames shot right up, and I knew there wouldn’t be a trace of J.C.’s blood left.

  I walked back through the woods to a main road, where I knew there would be phones. I figured it would take a few hours, and it would be dark by then.

  I’d only gone a little distance when I heard a big air-sucking noise. I looked back, but the woods were thick, and I couldn’t see anything.

  All the jobs I did with J.C., I was always the driver. But I wasn’t a getaway man all the time. Sometimes, I would take the bus to a big city up north. When I got there, I would go to wherever J.C. said. I could never take a cab to those places; J.C. says that cabdrivers have to keep records, and we never wanted to be on anybody’s records.

  “The perfect driver would be an invisible man,” J.C. told me. “Driving an invisible car.”

  When I would get to the places I was supposed to, I would ask for a particular person. Most of the time, it was a man, but once it was a woman. They would give me a car to drive.

  That was all I had to do, then. Drive the car. A long distance, it always was. When I got to where the car was supposed to be, I would just drop it off. The people I dropped it off with would make me wait while they checked to see if everything was all right. It was always all right.

  Then they would take me to a bus station, and I would go back to wherever I was living.

  I asked J.C. once, if I got stopped by the police, should I try to get away from them.

  “No, Eddie,” he said. “Remember, you were hired to transport a car from one place to another, that’s all. You’re getting paid by the mile. Lots of guys do that kind of work. If you ever get busted, you make sure they give you a polygraph.”

  “A lie detector?”

  “Right. Because the only question they’re going to care about is whether you knew what was in the trunk. And you’re going to pass, understand?”

  J.C. knows how to plan things out. He told me, on those drives, I should always carry a decent amount of cash, but never a gun.

  All the times I drove those cars, there was always a spare tire—one of those little ones that will take you far enough to buy a new tire—and a jack, on the floor of the backseat. Never once did I ever have to open the trunk.

  None of these people paid me. They paid J.C., and he would give me my share whenever I got back.

  Sometimes, I had to lay over a day or two after I dropped a car off, in case they had another one for me to take out.

  One time, the place where I was staying was near a mall. A huge one, with a lot of real classy stores in it. Usually, whenever I had time on my hands, I would go to the movies. But that day, I remembered something I had been wanting to do, so I walked over to the mall.

  I wanted to get something for Bonnie. She wasn’t my girlfriend, exactly—I had just met her a few weeks before—but I had hopes.

  I’d met Bonnie in Wal-Mart. I went to get a pair of boots, and she worked there. Not over where you get shoes, but where they had jackets and stuff.

  Bonnie had red hair and real white skin. She had freckles, too, like cinnamon dusted over milk.

  “You could use a new coat to go with those new boots,” she said, as I was walking by with the box the boots had come in.

  She had a beautiful smile. It was so wide, it made her eyes kind of scrunch up.

  “This one’s still pretty good,” I told her.

  “Good for what?” she said. “It’s kind of tired. I’ll bet your girlfriend has been after you to get rid of it.”

  “No.”

  “No, she hasn’t. Or, no, you don’t.…”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” I told her.

  “Good!” Bonnie said. She was kind of bold, but she was so nice about it that you’d never think she was slutty.

  I didn’t really know how to ask a girl for a date. Most of the girls I ever knew, I just met them in places I was. Like when they’d come over to Tim and Virgil’s. Or in a bar. But I never liked to talk to girls in bars—it seemed, half the time, that ends up with you getting in a fight.

  The girls who came over to Tim and Virgil’s always talked good about men who took them to nice places. I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but I knew they didn’t mean the movies. I stood there like a damn stump, trying to remember what it was they said they liked. And, then, I remembered. So I asked Bonnie if she would like to have dinner with me.

  I could see in her eyes that it was the right thing to say. She gave me her address, and told me to come around eight. It was a Friday, but she didn’t have to work late, she said, because she started at seven in the morning.

  Eight o’clock seemed pretty late to be eating dinner to me, specially if you got started so early in the day, but I didn’t say anything.

  All that afternoon, I tried to puzzle it out. I didn’t know what Bonnie meant by “around eight,” for starters, but I figu
red I’d come there at eight exactly, so I could handle that one. It was the going out to dinner part that confused me. I had asked her easy enough, but I didn’t have a plan, so I was a little nervous.

  One thing I knew—I couldn’t take her to Denny’s or McDonald’s or anyplace like that. I looked in the paper. There were so many places I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know how to choose.

  So I just started calling them. But when I would ask how much a meal cost—I figured that was a good way to tell if it was a classy place—they treated me like I was stupid, and I got all embarrassed.

  Finally, I just went out looking for myself. I drove past a lot of restaurants until I saw one that looked pretty nice. I parked and walked up to it. And, sure enough, there was a menu right in the window.

  It was real expensive, that place, so I knew it had to be a good one. Enrico’s, the name was.

  I got back to where I was staying, and I took a shower and shaved extra careful. When I went to get dressed, I was all embarrassed again—I could see what Bonnie meant by me needing to get a new coat.

  I had money. Ever since I got out of prison and started working, I always had money. J.C. and the others spent their money on all kinds of things, but I never spent most of mine. When they would ask me if I wanted to go to one of the gambling clubs, I never much did.

  J.C. knew how to dress. His clothes didn’t look real fancy, but, somehow, you knew they cost a lot of money.

  Tim and Virgil spent money on clothes, too, but you never had to look close to see that. One time, we were all supposed to go over to this roadhouse where a band Tim liked was playing. Virgil said there would be a lot of girls there, and I couldn’t go looking like I was. He went and got one of his shirts—a beautiful red silky one, with gold stitching and pearl buttons—and he told me I had to wear it. I was worried about getting it torn—I had been to that same roadhouse with them before—but Virgil said there was no point in having nice clothes if they were going to stay in the closet.

  I didn’t give Virgil his shirt back right away. I wanted to get it all cleaned and ironed first. But when I brought it over to him, he told me I needed to keep it, because it didn’t fit him anymore. Besides, he said, he knew the shirt had brought me luck.

  That made me embarrassed, but it felt good, too.

  I never knew what happened to that shirt. I wasn’t wearing it when I got shot and arrested and all, and there was no one I could ask to go over to where I was staying and get my stuff. Maybe the cops got it.

  But J.C. didn’t live near me, the way Tim and Virgil had, so I couldn’t go over and ask for advice. J.C. wasn’t the kind of man you could just show up at wherever he was staying, anyway, even if you knew where that was.

  I went out to the stores. It took me quite a little while, but I found a real nice shirt. Not a red one, a dark blue one.

  Bonnie lived with her mother. She introduced me, and her mother asked me what I did for a living. I told her I was a mechanic—J.C. said to never tell people I was a driver; they wouldn’t understand it.

  Bonnie’s mother asked me where I worked, and I said I worked for myself.

  “You’re pretty young to have your own shop,” she said.

  “Well, it’s not really a shop, ma’am,” I said. “It’s just a garage behind the house I rent, but it’s got a lift, and industrial wiring for my tools.”

  “You work off the books, then?”

  “Mama!” Bonnie said. “That’s not your business.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I got a bank account for my business. And I pay my taxes regular, too.” I felt proud saying that. And I was thinking how smart J.C. was. It was him who told me I had to have a legitimate business.

  “It doesn’t matter if you make any money, Eddie. Just so you deposit some money. In the bank. You have to account for the money you spend, so the government doesn’t get suspicious. We all have little businesses,” he said. “Cash businesses. Like a parking lot or a cigarette store. You see what I’m telling you?”

  “I … think so.”

  “You have to pay taxes,” J.C. said. “You don’t pay taxes, they know you’re doing crime. A smart thief always has a good civilian front.”

  “Hah!” Bonnie said. “Not the answer you expected, huh, Mom?”

  Bonnie’s mother laughed. “Fair enough,” she said. “I apologize, young man. But Bonnie’s my only child, and you know how that is, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  It was almost nine when we got to Enrico’s, the restaurant I had picked out. When we got inside, there was a man standing behind a little desk.

  “May I help you?” he said to me. He didn’t sound like he wanted to help me.

  “We want to eat dinner,” I told him.

  “You, uh, have reservations, I trust?”

  “I didn’t … I mean, I thought we could.…”

  Bonnie grabbed my arm and pulled a little, so I had to lean down toward her.

  “I don’t want to eat here, Eddie,” she said. “I heard bad things about this place. About the food, I mean. Can’t we go somewhere else?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But I don’t know any—”

  “Oh, I know a wonderful place. Do you like Chinese food?”

  The restaurant we went to was just like I would have picked out, if I had known what I was doing. We had a whole big booth to ourselves. There was all kinds of different food, and I liked every bit of it.

  I was really glad that Bonnie had known Enrico’s had such a bad reputation. The Golden Dragon was a million times better, even though it didn’t cost anywhere near as much.

  After that, we went out three more times. To the Golden Dragon twice, and to a club, once. But Bonnie didn’t favor the club. I was glad—I don’t like it when it’s very loud, either, but I thought she might have gotten tired of just going out to eat.

  She always looked so pretty. Not just when we were going out, but all the time. Once, she came by my garage on a Sunday, just to have a soda with me. She was wearing a pair of overalls and a white T-shirt with short sleeves. I remember how her arms looked in that shirt, all nice and round.

  I hadn’t said anything to Bonnie about going away for a few days. I didn’t want to act like it was a big deal; I mean, that it would be a big deal to her if I was going to be out of town for a while.

  I planned on asking her to the movies when I got back. And I thought, if I got her a nice present, she would know that I hadn’t forgot about her just because I was away. I thought her mother would like that, too. Not a present for herself, but that I got Bonnie one. Her mother was that kind of person, I could tell.

  I was thinking about maybe a little bottle of real good perfume. The girls I knew from Tim and Virgil were always saying how much they loved perfume. Clothes and jewelry and perfume. It would make me too embarrassed to be buying girl’s clothes, and I didn’t know anything about jewelry—Rochelle had picked out that bracelet her ownself. So I figured on the perfume.

  In the mall, I couldn’t find a place with bottles of perfume in the window. But I did find one with store dummies all dressed in clothes you knew had to cost a lot of money, so I went in there.

  The place was really big. Not as big as a Wal-Mart or a Sam’s Club, maybe, but it was three stories, and it sold all different kinds of stuff.

  I wasn’t sure where to go, so I just walked around. I was feeling good inside. I had money in my pocket and I was dressed all neat. Nobody knew me in that city. If anyone saw me, they would think I was a regular man. Maybe one who had a job in a place where I made a good salary. A man who had a wife and kids, and a nice little house.

  That’s when I first saw Daphne. And if I’d been a regular man, I would never have known what she was doing.

  She was a tall girl, kind of skinny, with short yellow-blonde hair. She was wearing a shiny black dress and high heels. She looked very classy, like one of those window dummies come to life.

  When I first saw her, she had her pocketb
ook—a black, shiny one, just like her dress and her shoes—open at the top. It was on a strap over her shoulder, dangling down by her waist. She picked up a wristwatch from one of the counter displays with her left hand. Then, quick as a flash, she cut something off it with a little pair of scissors in her right hand, and dropped the watch into her pocketbook.

  She moved away from the counter, just taking her time and looking around, like she couldn’t decide what to buy.

  By the time she was close to the escalator, she had put a few more things in her bag. A lipstick, I saw for sure. And a little white jar of something.

  That’s when I saw the man watching her. He had on a dark green sport coat, and a white shirt with no tie. He went everywhere the girl did, but never all that close. A young guy, kind of pudgy, with a bully’s look on his face.

  At first I thought he was working up his nerve to talk to her. But then he turned to look over his shoulder, and I saw the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.

  I knew there wasn’t much time. And I knew I was being stupid, but I still went over to the shelves where the girl was looking at those little tiny computers you can put in your pocket.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said.

  She looked up real quick. There were two dots of red on her face, one on each cheek. Her eyes were very big. Her mouth was open a little bit.

  “There’s a man been watching you. He’s been watching you put stuff in your purse. I think he works for the store.”

  She turned her back on me and walked away, moving smart, like she was about business. She marched right over to one of the registers, and started taking stuff out of her pocketbook. A woman came over from behind the counter. I couldn’t hear what they said to each other but, finally, the woman behind the counter rang up all the stuff the girl had. The girl took out a credit card.

  The pudgy guy in the suit coat walked past me. He gave me one of those “I’ll know you next time” looks, but he didn’t say anything.

  I finally found where they sold the perfume. A nice older lady with a pearl necklace sold me a tiny little bottle for more than fifty bucks, so I knew it was really good stuff.