The Getaway Man by Andrew Vachss Read Free Book Online

vitamins in some joints. And things for your cell, like a radio.
    But the deal is, there’s only the one commissary, so you don’t have
    a choice. If they want to sell Milky Way bars for five dollars, and you want a
    Milky Way bar, you pay that five dollars.”
    “But it’s
    not like real prison,” I said. “So how come the people in those
    towns, why don’t they just get in their cars and drive someplace else to
    shop?”
    “Things were different back then,” Tim said.
    “Back when they had those company towns, if you lived there, you probably
    didn’t have a car. Besides, you didn’t have any cash money. They
    just paid you in scrip.”
    “What’s scrip?”
    “Like a piece of paper that you could use for money. But it was only
    good in the stores the company owned.”
    “Isn’t that
    crooked?” I asked him.
    “Our granny thought it was,”
    Tim said. “She was the one who told me and Virgil about company
    towns.”
    “Because she lived in one?”
    “Sure did. She and my granddad, a long time ago. She was a real old
    lady when she told us about it.”
    “Your granddad was a
    miner?”
    “Not for long, he wasn’t,” Virgil
    said.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “He went into
    business for himself,” Tim said. He was smiling, like he does when
    he’s happy.
    “What business?”
    “Same one
    we’re in, Eddie,” he said.
    “What happened to
    him?”
    “The law got him,” Virgil said.
    “He went to prison?”
    “Never once,” Tim
    said. “My granddad got shot down by the law. They came to take him, and
    he wouldn’t go.”
    T im said the bank would be swole up
    with money by noon every Thursday. That’s because Thursday was payday at
    the mill, and everyone came to the bank to cash their check. The armored car
    made the delivery early in the morning. The first shift at the mill ended at
    three, so we had what Tim called a window—we had to get in and out while
    it was still open.
    “I’ve been looking at that little
    bank for over a year now,” he told me and Virgil. “There’s
    only one guard, and he’s about a hundred years old. Spends all his time
    jawing with the customers, like it was a general store, or something.
    There’s only one camera, and we can take that out with spray paint. I
    guess there’s silent alarms and stuff, but all we need is about five
    minutes in there, then Eddie gets us all gone.”
    Tim leaned way
    back in his chair, puffing on his cigarette like it was a big cigar.
    “Boys,” he said, “that little bank, it’s like a
    cherry on top of a chocolate cupcake. All we got to do is pluck it
    off.”
    I never found out what happened inside that little bank,
    not until the trial.
    It was just after two in the afternoon when we
    pulled up. Tim said that’s the time it was always slow in the bank,
    specially on Thursdays.
    Virgil had a double-barreled sawed-off. Those
    are good for scaring people, Tim said. Much better than a pistol. Virgil
    carried the shotgun under his coat, against his chest, held there by a loop of
    rawhide around his neck. Tim had a pair of pistols, like he always used to
    carry.
    “Five minutes, Eddie,” Tim said to me. Then him and
    Virgil went into the bank.
    The clock on the dashboard was one of those
    digital ones. It said 2:09.
    The clock said 2:12 when I heard the crack
    of a pistol. Then the boom of Virgil’s shotgun.
    People started
    screaming.
    I started the engine and backed the car up to the front door
    of the bank.
    There was more gunfire. Then it got real quiet.
    I
    got out and opened both back doors. I jumped back in the driver’s seat
    and watched the mirror to see when Tim and Virgil came out.
    I heard the
    sirens, off in the distance.
    I put the getaway car in gear, holding it
    in place with the brake.
    The dashboard clock said 2:17 when the first
    trooper’s car roared up. There was another right behind it. And then a
    whole bunch more.
    The cops piled out. They hid behind their cars,
    aiming their guns at the