The Getaway Man (11 page)

“Yeah. Like
strippers wear.”

“You mean a G-string? No, those are
hidden. In the back, so it looks like they’re completely naked. This is a
thong. You’re supposed to see a little bit of color around the
waist.”

Daphne walked past me, real slow.

“See?” she said.

“It’s black.”

“How very observant you are, Eddie. Anyway, I thought it would be
perfect to wear tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to be bad,” she said.

“
I
can’t just wait at the curb,” I told her.
“There’s no parking there. If I hang around, some security
guy’s going to come over and ask me to move.”

“Just tell him to—”

“Daphne, if you do
something like this, the last thing you want to do is make a fuss, get people
to notice you. Just tell me what time you’re going to come out, and
I’ll be right there, guaranteed.”

“Oh! Yes,
that’s even better. You act like you’ve done this before,
Eddie,” she giggled.

I wanted to tell her that I was a pro. And
that what she was doing was just a stupid crazy game. But I didn’t say
anything except, “Not me.”

D
aphne said
nine-fifteen. At ten after, I crawled the Lexus along the sidewalk, like I was
looking for a place to turn into one of the rows. The parking lot was crowded
with cars and clogged with people. When it finally got clear behind me, I
stopped and opened the trunk, like I was going to load it up.

I was
behind the car, watching the store, when Daphne came busting out, walking fast,
swinging her purse, heels going
click-click
on the sidewalk. I slammed
down the trunk, got behind the wheel, and pulled up right across from her.

She jumped in the front seat, said “Get going!” through her
teeth, like she was afraid somebody would hear her.

I whipped through
the lot, keeping it smooth. “Come on!” Daphne said to me.

People who don’t know think a car’s not going fast if the
engine doesn’t roar and the tires don’t squeal. When we got out to
the street, I gave her what she wanted.

“
L
ook!” she said, when we got inside the gate to
her father’s land. She reached in her purse, held up a little
scarf.

“Okay,” I said.

“Eddie, this is a
Hermes.
Very
expensive.”

“Ah,” I said, like
I understood.

“We made a clean getaway,” she said.

It made me blue to hear her say it like that.

D
aphne opened her mouth. She held still while I tied
the scarf behind her head, like a gag. Then she pulled up her skirt and put one
leg over me.

I didn’t even have to pull that thong thing down.
Just moved it over to the side.

“
N
one of them worked out for
you, huh?” the guy in the video store said, when he saw me walk
in.

“They weren’t bad, but—”

“Oh, I’m hip. The fit is everything. Try me on it
again.”

“Try … ?”

“Tell me what
you want,” he said. “
Think
about it, then tell
me.”

“I … it has to be about driving. Not about the
cars. Not a chase, either. I mean, it’s okay if it
has
a chase,
but.…”

The guy just looked at me, waiting. He was very
patient. I guess because he was an expert, and he was used to people like me
not knowing how to say exactly what they wanted.

“It has to be,
maybe, the man’s
job,
” I told him. “But not like a
truck driver. Or a racer. More … special. Like not everyone could do
it.”

“
Thunder Road
,” he said.

“What?”

“
Thunder Road.
The
greatest moonshine movie ever made. Robert Mitchum wants to.… Never
mind, you take it, try it out for yourself, then let me know.”

“
W
ere you in prison?” Daphne asked me one night.

I had always been afraid Bonnie would ask me a question like that. Or
Bonnie’s mother, more likely. But I could tell from Daphne’s face
that she wouldn’t think being in prison was a bad thing.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you’re so young. Was it
a long time ago?”

“Long enough.”

“Did
you have to be in handcuffs a lot?”

“No. Just when they
arrest you. Or when they transport you, like to court for your trial, or to a
different lockup.”

“Did you hate it?”

“Prison?”

“Being in handcuffs.”

“I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t so bad. And it never
lasted long.”

“I wonder what that feels like.”

“Prison? It doesn’t feel like—”

“Handcuffs. I have a pair. Very nice ones. They’re lined in
velvet. But I was always afraid of them.”

“I—”

“Come on, Eddie,” she said.

I
t was about six weeks after I first met her that I went over to
Daphne’s for the last time.

“I need the keys,” she
said.

“What?”

“To my car. I need the keys
back.”

“Okay,” I said. I took them out and handed
them to her.

“Please don’t be mad, Eddie,” she said.
That’s when I knew what she was talking about.

“I’m
not,” I told her.

“You’re not going to stalk me, are
you?” she said.

I just shook my head. It had been bad enough
being a fake getaway man; I wasn’t going to be a fake stalker, too.

B
efore I left that city, I went by the video store one more time.

“Well?” the guy said, as soon as I walked in the
door.

“It was a fine one,” I said.

He nodded like I
was making good sense. I was glad he didn’t ask me to explain. I had
tried to work it out in my head, what I was going to say, before I went there,
but I kept getting stuck. The guys who ran moonshine, they were real drivers.
It was like … I don’t know, a contest, maybe. If they got through,
they got paid. If they didn’t make it, they went to jail. But they
weren’t bad men, and they always had people pulling for them. Not because
they wanted the money, but because it was their own people.

For those
men, driving the moonshine, that was their job. Even the cops who chased them
respected them, if they were good at it.

“I knew it!” he
said. “I’m on your wavelength, now. I’ve been holding this
one for you.
Moonshine Highway.
The perfect vehicle for Kyle
MacLachlan—remember him from
Twin Peaks
? This one’s a
minor classic. Underrated and understated. Very
noir.
”

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

I held
out my hand for him to shake. I could see from his face he wasn’t used to
that, but he nodded like he always did, and gave me a good grip.

W
hen I got back to where I was living, it was like the time with Daphne
had just gone past without me realizing it. Like it never happened.

I had the portable TV and VCR to remind me that I’d been with her.
But when I tried to think about that time, it was like trying to read a book
through a Coke bottle.

I
called Bonnie. Her mother said she was
married.

“That was … quick,” I said.

“It was to Kenny, her old boyfriend,” Bonnie’s mother
said. “They’d been engaged once, but Bonnie had broken it off.
Kenny’s in the military. He came home on leave, so they had to act fast
if she was going to go back to the base with him.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Eddie,” she said.
“Bonnie tried to call you, but you were out of town on that job. She
thought you would have been back a long time ago.”

“I got
held over.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have mattered, Eddie.
I wouldn’t want you to think that.”

“I don’t
think that,” I told her.

S
ometimes, we have to wait around for
a few days before we do a job. So we can be close when the time comes. Laying
in the cut, J.C. calls it.

Once, when we were alone, J.C. told me
there was another reason. Nobody gets told the whole plan until we’re all
together. After that, nobody leaves, so there’s no chance of anybody
talking.

This one time, there were four of us in on it. Gus always
works with J.C. He’s an old guy; older than J.C. “Gus was in the
war. Not that desert vacation,” he told me. “The real one. In the
fucking jungle.”

Gus looks all soft, flabby even, on his face.
His hair is rust-colored, thin on top, but he combs it over from the side and
you can’t really tell unless he turns a certain way. Most of the time, he
wears a cap.

“Gus can make things go boom,” J.C. said, the
first time he introduced us.

“Virgil was studying on how to do
that,” I said. “So we could blow this safe we were going
to—”

“Virgil was an amateur,” J.C. said.
“Just like that dumb cowboy brother of his. Gus is an artist.”

I didn’t say anything. I don’t like it when J.C. says things
about Tim or Virgil, but I never let him see how I feel. I’m trying to be
a professional.

“Guys like that, they never think about anything
longer than tomorrow,” J.C. said. He was watching my face. I wondered if
J.C. could read my mind, like Gus is always saying he can. “Their idea of
planning a job is figuring out which way to turn at the first corner. Cowboys,
they never last.”

“It wasn’t Tim’s
fault,” I said. I wished I could have stayed quiet, but I felt like a
chicken was pecking at my nerves.

“He didn’t plan it
out,” J.C. said, like a preacher from the Bible. Not like you
couldn’t argue with
him
; like you couldn’t argue with the
truth.

I wondered how J.C. ended up in prison himself, being that he
could plan so perfect and all, but I never asked him.

I know Virgil
would have.

B
esides Gus, on this job we had another
guy. Kaiser. His work was muscle. This was the first job I had ever been on
with him.

He was a biker, or something like that. It was hard to
tell from his tattoos; he had so many they got all smudged together, especially
on his arms.

Kaiser was always looking at his own arms, like he wanted
to make sure they were still there.

J.C. was going over everything with
us again. He always says, you can’t stick to the plan if you don’t
know
the plan.

“Speaking of plans, what do we need a
wheelman for?” Kaiser said. “This isn’t no bank we’re
doing.”

“You never know,” J.C. said. “You never
know when you’re going to need a getaway man. And a driver like Eddie,
that’s the best insurance you can buy.”

“Driving’s driving,” Kaiser said. “I got a dozen
brothers who can haul ass.”

“Driving’s not the same
as sticking,” J.C. told him. “No matter what happens, Eddie will
always be there when we come out.”

“Fuck, he’ll be
the
only
one there, way out in the boonies in the middle of the
night.”

“I know what this is all about,” J.C. laughed
at him. “For a Nazi, you’re a real little Jew, huh? Forget it, pal.
It’s equal shares all around, like I said it was going to be.”

“Equal? You’re taking half off the top before we split
anything.”

“That’s for the planning,” J.C.
said. “The other half’s for the execution. You know how it’s
done. Your work, it takes a couple-few hours. But the setup, my piece,
I’ve been working on it for months, already.”

“What
do
you
have to say, Gus?” Kaiser asked him.

“Me?” G us told him. “I don’t have anything to say.
You didn’t want to come in on this with us, the time to say so was before
you got told all about it.”

“I’m not saying anything
like that,” Kaiser said. “I just don’t see why this kid
should get a full cut just for being a limo service.”

“You
don’t have to see,” Gus said.

“
N
o hard feelings,
right?” Kaiser said to me, later.

“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.”

“
W
hat’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.”

T
he 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.”