The Getaway Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

took it out and tried it, to make sure it worked.
    One
    night, Virgil asked me what the hell was taking me so long. Before I could say
    anything, Tim said, “Eddie knows what he’s doing.”
    That made me even more determined to do it perfect.
    When I was
    done, the car looked like it was normal, if you didn’t get too close. I
    even got the lights hooked up. There was only the one seat in the front, but we
    weren’t going any long distance. The bad thing about it for a getaway car
    was that it only had two doors. If you’ve got more than one man coming,
    it takes longer to jump into that kind of car. But Tim said he had a plan for
    that, too.
    T he building was against the side of a hill, so you had
    to climb a long flight of outside stairs to get to the door on the second
    floor. That was around the side; the front was the same level as the
    ground—that’s where they had the strip club.
    “The
    game’s upstairs,” Tim said, “but the chase is going to come
    from around the front. They’ll have to call down for help.”
    “What about doing their tires?” I asked him. “So they
    can’t chase us.”
    “You see how many cars there are in
    the lot, Eddie? We don’t know which ones the bouncers drive. We’d
    have to do them all. Anyway, there’s way too much traffic in the lot,
    people coming in and out all the time. Anybody spots us doing the tires,
    we’re done. You’ve got to
drive,
kid. All
    right?”
    “I got it,” I said. My chest felt big with
    what Tim had called me. Same as Virgil.
    I started the engine. We rolled
    over to a spot right next to the bottom of the stairs. Tim and Virgil got
    out.
    They climbed up the stairs. I lost sight of them when they went in
    the door.
    I closed my eyes for a second, to fix the road I’d have
    to drive in my mind. Then I waited.
    Somebody came charging down the
    stairs. Virgil. He grabbed the widemouth can he had stashed at the bottom, ran
    about halfway back up, and started splashing gas all over the steps as he
    backed down again.
    Three shots blasted. Tim came flying down the
    stairs, a laundry sack in one hand. When he got to where the gas was, he threw
    down the sack and vaulted off. Soon as he was in the air, Virgil lit the whole
    thing up.
    I revved the engine, put the car in first, held the clutch
    down.
    Virgil threw the laundry sack in the side window. It landed right
    next to me. He crawled in behind; Tim jumped in the front. They pulled their
    masks off.
    The flames were swallowing the stairs. I dropped the clutch.
    We came out of that lot like a shotgun blast. The stock car got a little
    sideways on the dirt, but I was ready for it to do that, and I never had to let
    off the gas.
    The road went straight as a string for about five miles
    before there was any chance to turn off. I couldn’t see any lights behind
    us.
    “We’re gone!” Tim said, looking over his
    shoulder.
    We were almost to the first turnoff when I saw a pair of
    pickups coming toward us. Suddenly, they slammed on their brakes, blocking the
    road.
    “Well, look at that. Hillbillies got themselves a CB radio,
    huh?” Virgil said. I couldn’t see his face behind me, but I knew he
    was grinning.
    I stabbed the brakes as I gunned the engine and
    downshifted all the way to second. As we started to skid, I cranked the wheel
    hard over, and floored it. The stock car got sideways, powersliding right at
    the two pickups. I whipped the wheel back to the left and we slipped around
    them with about a yard to spare.
    A big chunk of the windshield
    disappeared just before I heard the shots.
    “Come on,
    cocksuckers!” Virgil yelled right in my ear, blasting his pistol out the
    window.
    Tim was somewhere under all that glass, but I could see him
    moving.
    Everything slowed down then. I could see it all happening, like
    we were underwater. I felt a couple of shots go into the rear of the car, like
    they were going into me. Tim’s face was all bloody. He was trying to get
    his gun up. One