The Getaway Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

real good cook. Specially his barbeque. He
    made his own pit on the side of the house, out of some special bricks that came
    from a famous barbeque oven in Kansas City. Virgil said, after a lot of years,
    the bricks get to hold a flavor, and whatever you cook in them gets some of
    that flavor, too.
    I was never sure when Virgil was having fun with
    me, when he told me things, but his barbeque was good enough he could have
    opened a restaurant. Tim was always after him to do that. He said we all had to
    have regular, legitimate businesses to be in, because stickup men never die of
    old age, and we couldn’t just keep on the way we were forever.
    Virgil said we were going to all do it, someday. We’d have a big
    barbeque joint. Virgil would be the cook, and Tim would be the manager.
    “And we’ll have a beautiful little garage right next to
    it,” Tim said. “Maybe a body shop, or a place for motors. Right,
    Eddie?”
    “Sure,” I said. But I was really wishing they
    had asked me to work in the restaurant.
    W e were all out by the
    barbeque pit one afternoon. Virgil had been doing something with the meat all
    day—he had all different kinds, not just pork, like you see in some
    places—and he was just starting to put it on the fire. A car pulled up.
    An old one, is all I remember about it.
    A woman got out of the front
    seat. She was kind of heavy, with long straight brown hair.
    “Brenda,” Tim said to Virgil.
    The woman walked over to
    where we were standing.
    “I got to talk to you,” she said to
    Tim.
    Tim looked over at Virgil. Then he moved his head to the side a
    little bit, so you could see he was listening.
    “Wallace.…” the woman said.
    “I’m not
    doing this again, Brenda,” Tim said. “That’s your man. And
    that’s your choice. You think I forgot what happened before?”
    “This is—”
    “What, Brenda? This is
    different? How many times you come around here, looking for money because
    Wallace beat your ass and took your check? But that wasn’t enough for
    you, right? You wait until I’m off somewhere and sneak yourself up here.
    Virgil, he takes one look at your face all bashed up, and what does he
    do?”
    “I didn’t mean for him to—”
    “You’re a no-good, lying bitch, Brenda,” Tim said. His
    voice was as calm as if he was asking you if you wanted a beer. “You
    think, because we’re kin, you get to play us over and over, don’t
    you?”
    “Tim, I swear—”
    “
Don’t
fucking swear,” Tim said. “It
    wasn’t the judge who sent my brother over that time, Brenda. It was
    you.”
    “I’m sorry. You know I never
    would—”
    “You never would what?” Virgil said.
    His voice was soft and quiet, like Tim’s. “Get me some County time
    for whipping that piece of shit Wallace? Yeah, you’d do that. You
did
that. But you know what, Brenda? That’s not why I’m
    done with you, even if you are Mom’s baby sister. I didn’t mind
    doing the time. I thought it was worth it. I figured that was it for Wallace;
    he’d be afraid to show his mangy face around you. And then what
    happens?”
    “Virgil.…”
    “You take
    up with him again,” Virgil said, still quiet. “I’m on a
    fucking road gang, and Wallace is back with his favorite piece of
    ass.”
    “There’s nothing for you here, Brenda,”
    Tim said. “We never thought we’d see you again, and that’s
    the way we wanted it. You may be a stupid slut, but you’re not
that
stupid, you didn’t know how we felt about you. If Mom was alive,
    she’d spit on you for what you did to Virgil, so don’t come around
    using her name like you did before.”
    “It’s not for
    me,” the woman said. Her face was all twisted up, like she was going to
    cry, but she didn’t. “It’s about Janine.”
    “I don’t know any Janine,” Tim said.
    “She’s Wanda and Roy’s girl,” Brenda said.
    “You know Wanda was killed by that drunk driver year before last. And
    then Roy took with the cancer. He’s been in