The Getaway Man

by Andrew Vachss

“About what?”

  “About your share.”

  “I’m getting my share,” I told him.

  “Yeah, I know. I mean … you’re not slow, are you?”

  “If nobody’s chasing us, I always—”

  “I don’t mean slow driving. Christ, what are you, some kind of relative?”

  “Huh?”

  “Of J.C.’s. You any kin to him?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he sure looks out for you.”

  “I know.”

  “What’s the point of having a getaway man if we’re going to be in this fucking tank?” Kaiser said from the backseat.

  “The point,” J.C. said, turning around to look at Kaiser, “is that, where we’re going, we have to blend in. The law sees this big old Jeep, they figure we’re a hunting party. Deer season’s open. We got licenses and everything. That explains why we got the rifles. And that’s why we’re dressed for the part. Understand, now?”

  “Yeah,” Kaiser said.

  “It’s all part of the plan,” J.C. told him. “My job is to think ahead. That’s what I get paid for.”

  The house was mostly glass, shaped like a triangle, with the point on top. It was set in a stand of trees. If you weren’t looking for it, you would probably never see it.

  “Some ‘hunting lodge,’ huh?” J.C. said. “Only thing that doctor hunts up here is pussy.”

  “You sure the cash’ll be there?” Kaiser asked.

  “Cash and gold coins,” J.C. said. “This guy’s been doing outlaw abortions for years. He won’t do regular ones. Even comes out against them; says it’s ‘killing the unborn.’ Pretty slick, huh? Who’d ever think he was the man to see if your daughter was six months gone?

  “He’s got a little place where the girls can stay, before and after. Full-service. I heard he gets fifty large for each one. And not a dime of that gets reported, so it can’t go into the banks. He’s all-the-way dirty. When he comes back and finds his stash looted, he’s not even going to call the cops. This one is perfect.”

  “It’s a decent-sized place,” Gus said. “I wish we had an idea where he kept it.”

  “We’ve got all the time we need,” J.C. told him. “And nobody’s around to hear the noise.”

  Gus went in first, around the back. When his flashlight blinked from inside the house, Kaiser took hold of a sledgehammer in one hand and a big pry bar in the other and walked over to the front door. J.C. was right behind him, carrying a toolbox.

  I knew they must be smashing the place to pieces inside, but I only heard a couple of thumps every so often.

  I couldn’t leave the engine running; it isn’t good for a motor to be idling for hours. I got out some cotton rags and sprayed cleanser on them. Then I did the windshield, the headlights, and the wipers, just in case. I’d already hooked up a toggle switch, so we could run without taillights if we had to.

  I never looked at my watch once, but I knew it was hours passing just by how I felt inside.

  They came out in a line. Gus was first, then Kaiser, then J.C. Gus and Kaiser were carrying tools; all J.C. had was a little suitcase.

  When I saw them coming, I got out to open the doors for them. Gus turned around, so he was facing Kaiser. He put his tools on the ground.

  “Don’t get in the car, Eddie,” J.C. said.

  Gus took out a pistol. He pointed it at Kaiser’s stomach.

  “There’s one behind you, too,” J.C. told him.

  “Hey! What the fuck is—?”

  “Open your hands,” J.C. said. “Let everything drop.”

  Kaiser did what they told him. J.C. took out some plastic loops and tied Kaiser’s hands behind his back.

  “Walk,” J.C. said. He made a movement with his head for me to come, too.

  They marched him back into the house. Inside, it was all wrecked. Holes in the walls, chunks of the wooden floor pulled up, furniture all slashed, guts leaking out. There was a railroad spike driven into the floor, deep.

  They made Kaiser go over by the spike. They told me to go get a kitchen chair. When I came back with it, they made him sit down. Gus pulled Kaiser’s arms up, then dropped them over the back of the chair.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” J.C. said to Kaiser. “Where are they?”

  “What are you—?”

  “Your partners,” J.C. said. “Where are they? At the bottom of the private road? Back at our hideout? Where?”

  “You are stone motherfucking crazy,” Kaiser said. He didn’t act scared at all.

  “I am,” J.C. said, like he was agreeing with him. “But this is just business. We need to know how to get away from your partners. We need you to tell us.”

  “This is all bullshit,” Kaiser said. “You just don’t want to pay me my share. I fucking knew it.”

  J.C. put one hand under Kaiser’s chin, and lifted it up. He brought up his pistol, and moved it slow in front of Kaiser’s eyes. Then he pushed the barrel into the side of Kaiser’s neck.

  J.C. held it there while Gus wrapped more of the plastic cuffs around Kaiser’s ankles, doing it so quickly I could hardly see his hands move. Then he made a loop out of the plastic, so Kaiser’s ankles were chained to the spike.

  Gus stepped back a couple of feet. J.C. stepped away, too. Kaiser was staked out solid; no way he could move from there.

  “Show him,” J.C. said to Gus.

  Gus reached in his jacket and took out a fat sausage, like you’d have for barbeque. He held it up for Kaiser to see, like he was trying to sell it. Then he took out a coil of copper wire and cut off a piece with a pair of pliers.

  “You wrap it around like this,” Gus said. “Couple of times, nice and tight, so it cuts off the blood flow.” He showed Kaiser what he meant. The sausage bulged around where the wire cut in. Three ugly little blisters, ready to pop.

  “Depending on how tight you wrap it, takes as little as fifteen minutes, to over an hour. But, eventually, the tip turns black. No blood getting there, that’s what happens. Like the reverse of a hard-on. Or a blowjob from a vampire.”

  Gus smiled. His face stayed flabby, but his little eyes were like shiny, hard black buttons.

  “And then it just falls off. But that’s okay—the wire’s so tight, you don’t bleed to death. Like a tourniquet on a wound. After a while, the next piece falls off. One piece at a time. When it’s all done, you look just like a pussy. A pussy having her period.”

  Kaiser’s face got all wet and suety colored. He smelled ugly.

  Gus took out a pair of thin rubber gloves, like you see nurses wear in the clinic. He put them on.

  “When we’re done, we’re leaving you here for the cops,” J.C. said to Kaiser. “It’s up to you. If you don’t want to go back Inside without a cock, you’ll talk before it falls off.”

  Gus unbuckled Kaiser’s belt. I turned my face away. I knew I was going to be sick. I wanted to be outside, behind the wheel.

  “At the first turnoff!” Kaiser said. His voice was high and thin, like a sliver of glass. “Just past that stand of white birch. They’re going to block the road with some big rocks.”

  Gus stepped away, slipped around behind Kaiser’s chair. That seemed to calm him down.

  “How many?” J.C. asked him.

  “Five. There wasn’t going to be any shooting. When the retard gets out to see what’s wrong, they’re going to swarm the car. I told them, you’re a professional. When you see all that hardware, you’ll just give up the money.”

  “So Eddie’s the retard, huh?” J.C. said. “You think it was a high-IQ move to smuggle that little cell phone in with you?”

  “I … I didn’t have no choice, I swear. They’ve got my sister. They said, if I didn’t—”

  “If you have a sister, you’ve been fucking her since she was ten. After your father got done with her,” J.C. said. “Just thank fucking Odin or whoever that I can’t stand a murder rap. When the cops get here, you tell them any story you want. But if you mention any of our names, you�
�re a dead man, no matter where they hide you. Understand?”

  “Yes. You don’t need to do anything to me. I wouldn’t—”

  Gus stepped out from behind the chair and clamped his left hand on the side of Kaiser’s face. His right hand flashed. There was a little thudding sound. When Gus took his right hand away, an ice pick was sticking out of Kaiser’s ear.

  I didn’t take us back the way we came. I drove the car through the woods. The Jeep was perfect for that. I went real slow and careful, until I found a dirt track and I could make some speed. We stayed with the track until it dead-ended.

  After that, we walked. Gus had a compass. We came out of the woods before first light, and I found a car for us in a few minutes.

  In the morning, J.C. divided the cash three ways. “I’ll have to put the coins out on the wire,” he said. “Could take a while, cost us a few points, but it’s the only way to play it safe.”

  Gus didn’t say anything to that. Neither did I. J.C. wasn’t the kind of man to cheat his partners.

  J.C. went to get himself another bottle of Coke. He drinks dozens of them every day. Ice cold, right out of the bottle.

  Gus was sharpening one of his knives. He’s got a lot of them. Keeps them like razors.

  When J.C. got back, I asked him, “How did you know?”

  “About the doctor? He’s a big man. With a big mouth. A pussy hound, like I said. Man thinks with his cock, he’s not thinking straight, Eddie. You never want to forget that.”

  “Not about the money,” I said. “About Kaiser. How did you know he was setting us up?”

  Gus laughed out his nose, the way he does when he thinks somebody’s being stupid.

  “I didn’t know,” J.C. said. “It was just a bluff.”

  “You mean, you weren’t really going to let Gus … do that to him?”

  “Nah. What for?”

  “To make him tell—”

  “That stuff never works,” Gus said. “Not to get information, anyway. It’s a crapshoot. I’ve seen guys take stuff make you toss your cookies just to hear about, and never say a word. And I’ve seen them die from fear, too, before you even get started. They go into shock, like—their hearts just stop.”

  “There was always that chance,” J.C. said. “We knew he had the phone, but we didn’t know if he ever used it. Anyway, you can’t trust any of those fucking Nazis. A mutt like him, soon as he got squeezed, he would have given us all up, anyway.”

  J.C. took another hit off his bottle of Coke. “Some tools, they’re only good for one job. When you’re done, you throw them away, am I right?”

  “Sure, J.C.,” I said.

  That was about a year and a half ago. The last job we did before this one. And this one, it will be the last job we do, ever.

  “This one is our retirement score,” J.C. said. “It all comes down to the odds. Percentages. No matter how perfect you plan, there’s always the chance of a wild card being dealt. The wheels can always come off. You do enough jobs, sooner or later, you’re going to get popped.”

  “You ready to go legit, Eddie?” Gus asked me.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Later, I wondered about it. Wondered about what I would be if I wasn’t a getaway man anymore.

  “Nobody’s going home after this one,” J.C. had told us. “Nobody’s going back to tie up any loose ends. Nobody’s going back to say goodbye. Everything you want to take, you bring with you, all right?”

  That was why Vonda was with us. Vonda is J.C.’s woman. She’s been with him a long time, I think.

  Gus didn’t bring anybody with him. Me, neither.

  When I moved out, I didn’t just sneak away in the middle of the night. That wouldn’t be good at all—it’s the kind of thing people talk about. I told some of the guys who hung around the garage that I was pulling up stakes, heading for California. Guys who like cars are always talking about doing that. I’ll bet folks who spend a few winters out here talk about it, too.

  I didn’t have a phone in the house where I lived, but there was one in the garage. A pay phone.

  I figured I didn’t have to do anything about that phone, but I did use it to cancel my electricity. The propane man would just see I had moved when he came out next.

  One of the reasons J.C. picked this cabin is because of the barn. It’s in sorry shape. Probably hasn’t been painted in fifty years. There’s even big holes in the roof. But it’s got good electricity running out to it, and there’s enough space for all the cars.

  J.C. has a brand new Ford Explorer. A blue one, with a trailer hitch for towing his boat.

  “After this, I’m a retired businessman, Eddie,” he said when he showed the whole rig to me. “This setup, it’s perfect camouflage. Cops expect outlaws to move fast—only a civilian would be driving a rig like this.”

  Gus had a white Cadillac.

  My car wasn’t a new one like theirs. Mine was a 1955 Thunderbird. I hadn’t been planning to put it on the road so soon, but when J.C. said this was the last job, and we couldn’t go home after it, I hurried up and got my car ready to travel. The interior’s not finished, and I haven’t painted it yet, but it runs beautiful.

  The Thunderbird was the only thing I wouldn’t have been able to leave behind. I’ve had it for a long time. I still think about the way I got it, sometimes, because nothing like that had ever happened to me before.

  The old lady who had the car for sale told me it was out in her garage, and I should go look at it for myself. It was jammed tight against the back wall, covered with a dusty tarp. There wasn’t any overhead light in the garage, but the sun came in the open door enough for me to see what I was doing.

  I only got the tarp a little way up before I saw what it was. When I peeled it off completely, I could see the Thunderbird had been sitting there a long time. The tires were all flat, the rubber on the windshield wipers was so dry it crumbled in my fingers, and there was orange peel on the rocker panels and around the headlights. The chrome was all pitted, and the floor of the trunk was rusted right through.

  It wasn’t locked. The interior wasn’t so bad; but the seats had some ripped seams, and the dashboard had cracks in it.

  The key was in the ignition, but I didn’t try to start it up. It looked like nobody had in a real long time.

  I put the tarp back on and closed up the garage. When I got back to the front door, it opened, like the lady had been waiting for me.

  “Well, young man?” she said.

  “It’s a real nice car, ma’am,” I told her. “But I couldn’t afford to buy it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you know what that car is, ma’am?”

  “I most certainly do. It was my husband’s car, Lord rest his soul, and it was his pride and joy. He was a minister, my husband. He used to call that car his little sin, because he loved it so. Kept it polished like a gemstone.

  “When we’d go for a ride in that car, we knew people would be talking. A minister in a car like that, and a bright red one to boot! Certain as winter, some old nasty-mouths would be saying that’s Satan’s own color. But Hiram always said, his judge was the Lord, and he wouldn’t answer to anybody else.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But, I mean, do you know what it’s worth?”

  “Well, there was another man come here a week or so ago, he allowed he could let me have a thousand dollars for it.”

  “That’s a Thunderbird, ma’am. A ’55. I could tell by the taillights. And I’ll bet it’s all original, too, just like it came from the factory.”

  “Oh, it is certainly not,” she said. “It is in terrible condition, I’m sure. My husband’s been gone, it’ll be ten years this spring, and I haven’t so much as washed it.”

  “No, ma’am, I mean, it’s not changed from when it was new. It has the same motor and the same transmission and—”

  “Well, that it surely must have. Many’s the time the mechanic told Hiram he should get new parts for it instead of fixing up the old ones. It would
be much cheaper to put a modern engine in, over the long run. But Hiram couldn’t bear to have that. He just spent the money to keep her … he called that car ‘she,’ can you imagine? … running. Pride. Like I said, pride.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But what I’m saying is—”

  “If you’re going to be explaining things, you better come on in and have a cup of coffee with me,” she said.

  Her house smelled a little bit like lemons. She took me through the living room. All of it was wood, dark and light, and it all shined like new. There was a big Bible, lying open on one of those things a preacher stands behind when he preaches.

  The old lady told me to sit down in the kitchen. She brought me a cup of chicory coffee, and took one herself.

  “Now,” she said, “what is all this about my husband’s car?”

  “It’s worth a lot of money,” I told her. “I don’t know how much, exactly, but more than I could pay, that’s for sure.”

  “More than the thousand dollars that other young man offered me?” Her eyes were brown. Bright and sharp, not filmy, the way some old people’s eyes get.

  “A lot more, I think,” I told her. “There’s places you could find out from.”

  “What places?”

  “Well, I don’t know, exactly, myself. There’s magazines about old cars, for people that collect them, that would be one place. I don’t sell cars; I only work on them.”

  “But you’re sure it’s worth more than a thousand dollars?”

  “Ma’am, I absolutely know it is. There was this one guy, he had a car like yours—not exactly like it, his was a ’57—and he paid twenty-five thousand dollars for it. Of course, his was all in perfect condition, but, still.…”

  “Are you a Christian, young man?”

  “I … I guess so.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘guess so’?”

  “Well, I’m not nothing else. You know, like a Jew or a Arab or anything.”

  “Are you a churchgoer?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You mean you don’t go regular, or you don’t go at all?”

  “I don’t go at all,” I said.

  “Hmpf!” she said, kind of to herself. “I was sure you’d turn out to be born-again.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said. “Thank you for the coffee.”