The Getaway Man

by Andrew Vachss

  “Why do you call them curtains? Because you can slide them open?”

  Gus laughed. His laugh is always short and dry. Not like something’s funny; like he’s making fun of something. “We called them that because it was curtains for anyone who walked past them, see?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You missed out on all the fun,” he said. “How old were you when you first went down?”

  “Nineteen,” I said. I knew he meant real prison, not the kiddie camps.

  “I was a year younger than you when it was my turn,” Gus said. “Only, back then, as long as your beef wasn’t too bad, they gave you a choice. You could take the ride, or you could give Uncle four years.”

  “You could go in the army instead of jail?”

  “Sure. Happened all the time. It was just the same, really. In the army, you know what they called guys who made a career out of it?”

  “What?”

  “Lifers,” he said. “You see what I mean?”

  “Yeah. But, being in the army, it’s something, you tell people you did that, they respect you, right? Not like being in prison.”

  “Maybe they do now,” Gus said. “When I was in, nobody respected you. Vietnam wasn’t a real war.”

  “But there was fighting, right? People died.”

  “Oh, a whole bunch of motherfucking people died, kid.”

  There were some parts of the job where the best you could do was look it over real good. When I checked those things, it wasn’t really scouting. It was the part I was going to have to do myself, like practicing on the roads.

  When I went out to check everything for the last time, I took Vonda with me. For cover, like J.C. said.

  We parked over near where we were going to leave the truck. After I made sure everything was going to fit just right, we drove over to the place Gus had picked out for J.C.’s trick on the cops: an old played-out quarry that hadn’t been worked in years.

  I pulled the car way off to the side, where you couldn’t see it from the road, then I walked over and took a closer look.

  The ground up to the lip of the quarry was all rock and hard-packed dirt. I came up on it real careful, just in case it got loose without any warning.

  When I looked over the edge, I could see Gus was right. It must have been a thousand feet to the bottom, easy. Sometimes, a quarry will have water at the bottom, but this one was nothing but stone all the way down.

  I paced it off a half-dozen times. There wouldn’t be any lights around the night we did the job.

  When I got back to the car, Vonda was waiting for me. But she didn’t act impatient, even though she couldn’t play the radio or smoke while I was gone, in case someone might take notice.

  “That curtain thing for the truck is amazing, Eddie,” she said. “You really did a great job.”

  “It was Gus’s idea,” I told her.

  I reached over for the ignition key. Vonda put her hand on mine.

  “They don’t know how long it’s going to take you, Eddie,” she said. “Let’s go back to where the curtain is. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  It seemed like it didn’t take long. But when I looked at my watch, it was more than an hour later.

  “We’re really kind of late, already,” I told Vonda.

  “Please,” she said. Real soft, like the first time she play-begged me. “I’ll just run in and get what I want. It won’t take five minutes.”

  Even though it was a video store, I didn’t go in with her. I could never get out of a place like that in five minutes.

  When Vonda came out, she was swinging a plastic bag in her hand. She looked so happy.

  “I got you a present, Eddie,” she said, when she got in the front seat.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a surprise. I mean, you know it’s a movie, right? But what movie? That’s the surprise. You have to take it with you, so J.C. doesn’t see it.

  “Put it in the garage with your other tapes. But you have to promise me not to look at it. I want us to watch it together, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “What the hell are you up to?” J.C. asked me.

  It made me jump a little bit—J.C. almost never comes out to the barn at night.

  “I’m making something. For the hearse. Just in case.”

  “Just in case what?”

  “In case we get chased.”

  “We’re not going to—”

  “I know that,” I said. “But this won’t slow us down any. And it could buy us some time. If we ever needed it. If it works.”

  “Show me,” he said.

  So I showed him the tank I had welded up, with the rows of spigots coming out the bottom. It looked something like the mufflers you see on those old Volkswagens some guys convert into dune buggies for off-road racing—that’s where I had got the idea.

  The tank was going to run across the back of the hearse, just over the bumper. I was going to fill it with ball bearings—I had a whole barrel of them, soaking in forty-weight. When I pulled the lever, the ball bearings would spill out behind the hearse. No way anyone chasing us could stay on the road when they ran over them.

  “That’s a sweet piece of engineering,” J.C. said.

  Even with all that had been on my mind, it still felt good when he said that.

  “It’s like you always say,” I said. “If you plan for things to go wrong, they usually don’t.”

  He gave me a big grin. Then he went back to the cabin.

  Vonda came out to the barn that night. I was on the couch, but I was just sitting there, thinking.

  “You didn’t watch that movie I bought, did you?” she said.

  “I would never do that. I waited for you. Did you want to watch it now?”

  “No, not now. I can’t stay long. And, anyway, I don’t want us to watch it out here. J.C. and Gus are taking off again in a day or two, for one last time. We can watch it then.”

  “Okay.”

  Vonda picked up my pack of cigarettes and lit one for herself. She didn’t sit down. I couldn’t see her face in the dark.

  “When this is over, he’s not going to take me with him, Eddie,” she said. “I’m good for some things, sure. But, after this job, he won’t need me for any of them.”

  “But … but you said … you said, if you ever tried to get away from him, he’d track you down, Vonda. If he doesn’t want you anymore, why would he care?”

  She took a long drag from her cigarette. I could see her face behind the red glow for a second.

  “Think about it,” she said.

  “I have been thinking about it,” I told her. “Only, this makes it different. Makes it easy. If J.C. is going to leave you, you can go with me. In my car. I’ll split my share with you, Vonda. There’ll be plenty—”

  “You think it’s that easy? You’ll be in the hearse; they’ll be in the truck. With the money.”

  “They have to come back here, Vonda. Everything’s here. Their cars and all their ID and—”

  “Oh, they have to come back all right,” she said. She took another drag. “They have to clean up all the loose ends before they get gone for good.”

  “But if they—”

  Vonda ground out her cigarette in the hubcap I used for an ashtray. “I have to go in now, Eddie,” she said. “Just think about it, okay?”

  The next day, we were all eating lunch in the cabin. The television was on, with the sound off. Gus liked it that way. He was squeezing his hand things. Click-click.

  J.C. told Gus about what I was rigging up with the ball bearings. Gus nodded at me, like he does when I finally understand something he’s been saying.

  J.C. wanted to know when I’d be finished with the hearse. “A few more days,” I told him.

  Vonda and J.C. argued about something before they went to bed, but I didn’t hear any sounds of hitting through the walls all that night. I guessed they had made up.

  When I got up the next morning, nobody was around.
I made myself some bacon and eggs. I don’t cook as good as Vonda, but I do pretty good. Virgil always said he was going to teach me to barbeque someday, but he never got the chance.

  I made plenty extra, in case they came out and wanted something, too. But nobody did. So I went to work.

  I was in the barn when I heard the car take off. When I went back over to the cabin, J.C. and Gus were both gone.

  It was after lunchtime, so I made myself a sandwich.

  Vonda didn’t come out of the bedroom until almost three o’clock. I looked at her face, but I couldn’t see any marks.

  I asked her if she wanted something to eat.

  “Not now, Eddie,” she said. “I have to take a hot bath.”

  Vonda was in there a long time. I didn’t know what to do. I went over to the door, stood real close by, but I couldn’t hear anything.

  I knocked. Soft, but loud enough for her to hear.

  I still couldn’t hear anything. I opened the door, slow. In case she was.… I couldn’t even say the rest of that in my mind.

  Vonda was in the tub. She was crying, but quiet, like she didn’t want anybody to hear.

  “What is it?” I said.

  She started crying louder, then.

  I went over and held the back of her head.

  It took a long time for her to tell me what happened. The reason I hadn’t heard anything the night before was because J.C. had tied her up. He wanted to do something to her she didn’t like. And he wanted Gus to do it to her, too. He put tape over her mouth, so she couldn’t yell.

  That’s why she needed the bath, because what he did hurt so much.

  She said, sometimes, J.C. and Gus had her at the same time. She said Gus liked to hurt girls, and J.C. let him do what he wanted.

  I closed my eyes. When I did, I saw little red dots, like the tips of cigarettes.

  “Wash me, Eddie,” she said, crying. “Get me all clean. I have to get all clean.”

  She was so limp, I had to hold her arms up to wash under them. When I was all done with her front, I said, “Vonda, do you want me to.…”

  “I’m dirty, Eddie,” she said. She turned over in the tub. She put her hands on the edge so she could keep her face out of the water, and I did her other side. “Scrub hard,” Vonda said. “Get it all.”

  When I was all finished, I helped her stand up. I got the towels and patted her dry.

  Vonda turned her back, and said something real low.

  “What, girl?” I said.

  “Am I all clean now, Eddie?”

  “All clean,” I said.

  She turned and kissed me. Not a sex kiss; on the cheek.

  “I can always count on you,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed now.”

  When Vonda came out of the bedroom, she had her hair in a ponytail, like she did before, and her face was all scrubbed. She was wearing a big white T-shirt that came down over her knees. For a second, a picture of Janine popped into my mind. I wondered if they had treated her good in that foster home.

  “I want to tell you a secret,” she said.

  I sat down in the easy chair. Vonda sat on my lap. Not the way a woman does. All curled up, like a little girl.

  “It seems, all my life, I’ve been looking for a getaway man,” she said. “Even when I was a kid. Other little girls, they used to dream about Prince Charming. You know, someone to ride up on a white horse and take them to a castle, where they’d be a princess and everything would be perfect. Me, I always knew it would be a man in a car. Honking the horn in front of the house. And I’d run out, and go away with him.

  “I ran to that horn plenty of times, Eddie. Only it was never a prince behind the wheel.

  “All my life, I’ve been waiting. What I told you before, it’s God’s truth, Eddie. You’re my getaway man. That’s my half of it, Eddie. The other half, you have to make come true. Promise me.”

  I didn’t tell Vonda about my own dream, because it was already coming true. But I did promise her.

  “I wish I could sleep with you,” Vonda said, when I came back into the cabin that night.

  “Why couldn’t we?”

  “Not that, Eddie,” she said. “Sleep with you. The way a wife does with her husband. In the same bed. All night. So when I woke up in the morning, you’d be the first thing I saw.”

  “We can do that,” I said. “We can—”

  “We will do that,” she said, in a fierce voice. “But we can’t do it here. Not ever. I don’t know when they’re coming back. I never do. And if J.C. ever caught us, you know what he’d do.”

  I wasn’t sure what he would do, but I didn’t want to argue.

  “But we could do something like it,” she said. “If you’re willing.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want, Vonda.”

  “Go sit on the couch,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  She was gone a lot more than a little while. I just sat there.

  When she came out of the bedroom, she was wearing a black slip. Her hair was down and she didn’t have on any makeup. Or any shoes. She looked real little that way.

  “This is like a nightgown, isn’t it, Eddie?”

  “I guess it is.”

  She had a blanket in one hand. She gave it to me. Then she laid down on the couch, so her head was in my lap.

  “Put that over me,” she said.

  I did that, and she snuggled into it so it was all wrapped around her.

  “I’m going to sleep,” she said. “Right here. Just a little nap. You can watch television; it won’t bother me at all. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “And, when I wake up, you’ll be right there, Eddie. I feel so safe when I’m with you watching over me, I could sleep like a baby. I’ll bet I have sweet dreams.”

  I stroked her hair, to help her fall asleep.

  “Goodnight kiss!” she said, in a bratty kid’s voice.

  As soon as I kissed her, she closed her eyes.

  I was watching a TV movie. The Badlands. It was about a young guy who killed a whole bunch of people. He had his girlfriend with him the whole time he was doing it. They drove all over the place, across the state lines and everything. But, when the cops got close, he didn’t try to get away; he just gave up.

  The girl was real young, just a baby who didn’t know anything. The movie tried to make it out like she was as guilty as him. But I could tell she was innocent. He was a guy who just liked killing, and she didn’t have any choice but to go along with him.

  Vonda stirred in my lap. “Hi, honey,” she said.

  That was the first time she ever called me that.

  “Did you sleep good?” I asked her.

  “Like an angel,” she said. “Eddie, could you do something for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you sleep out in the barn tonight? On your couch? I’m afraid, if I knew you were sleeping in the next room from me, I couldn’t stop myself from going to be with you.”

  “We could just—”

  “Please, Eddie,” she said. “I know I’m being a pain, but, just this once … ?”

  When I got up in the morning, I went into the cabin to take a shower. The room where Vonda and J.C. stayed was closed; I guessed she was still asleep.

  I was eating breakfast when Vonda came out. She was wearing her bathrobe. It’s white, and it looks like it’s made out of towels. She had the belt tied tight, but I could see she didn’t have anything on under it.

  She went into Gus’s room. I had never seen her do that in all the time we had been staying there.

  She came out with a cigar box in her hands.

  “This is Gus,” she said. And she handed the box to me.

  I opened it up. Inside were pictures. Girls. They were all tied up. But not like Daphne wanted to be tied up—these girls, it looked like they were tied up for real. And the way they were tied, it had to hurt. One girl, from the look on her face, you could tell the ropes were really cutting into her.

  There
was no reason to tie them up like that just to keep them from getting away, so it had to be like it was with Daphne. But I could tell it wasn’t.

  At the bottom of the pile, a girl was tied to a long, thick piece of wood, like a pig on a spit. She was facing the camera. There was a man behind her, but you couldn’t see his face. Her eyes had a lot of white showing. Her mouth was open, like she was screaming.

  “This is Gus,” Vonda said, again. I couldn’t tell if she meant it was Gus in the picture. I didn’t want to ask.

  “Careful,” she said. “They have to go back in the exact same order, otherwise he’ll know someone was looking.”

  I didn’t touch them. Vonda stacked them, so it was like they were before. Then she went and put the box back in Gus’s room.

  I went back out to where the cars were.

  I didn’t see Vonda all that day. But we had supper together. She made a stew, with all kinds of stuff in it. I told her it was the best I ever had, and I wasn’t lying—Virgil never made stew.

  “Thank you, Eddie. That was sweet. Are you ready to see your movie now?” she asked me. “The present I got for you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, go get it!” she said, smiling at me.

  The movie was Rebel Without a Cause. The cover on the box had a guy in a leather jacket, standing next to an old Mercury.

  “It’s not about driving, Eddie,” Vonda said. “It’s a love story. But it’s my favorite of all time. And I wanted you to watch it with me. Is that okay, honey?”

  I told her sure it was. Just because all my own movies are about driving doesn’t mean I couldn’t like anything else.

  We sat down together and watched. The movie was about a kid who didn’t fit in. He never fit in. His family just moved to a new town, and he didn’t fit in there, either.

  There was a girl he really liked. A pretty one, with dark hair. Only that girl already had somebody—the leader of the gang he wanted to be in.

  The kid in the movie, he was trying to make the other kids like him, but it wasn’t working. They wouldn’t let him join. So he got in a drag race with the boyfriend of the girl he liked.