Free The Getaway Man by Andrew Vachss

was
    worried about getting it torn—I had been to that same roadhouse with them
    before—but Virgil said there was no point in having nice clothes if they
    were going to stay in the closet.
    I didn’t give Virgil his shirt
    back right away. I wanted to get it all cleaned and ironed first. But when I
    brought it over to him, he told me I needed to keep it, because it didn’t
    fit him anymore. Besides, he said, he knew the shirt had brought me luck.
    That made me embarrassed, but it felt good, too.
    I never knew what
    happened to that shirt. I wasn’t wearing it when I got shot and arrested
    and all, and there was no one I could ask to go over to where I was staying and
    get my stuff. Maybe the cops got it.
    But J.C. didn’t live near
    me, the way Tim and Virgil had, so I couldn’t go over and ask for advice.
    J.C. wasn’t the kind of man you could just show up at wherever he was
    staying, anyway, even if you knew where that was.
    I went out to the
    stores. It took me quite a little while, but I found a real nice shirt. Not a
    red one, a dark blue one.
    B onnie lived with her
    mother. She introduced me, and her mother asked me what I did for a living. I
    told her I was a mechanic—J.C. said to never tell people I was a driver;
    they wouldn’t understand it.
    Bonnie’s mother asked me
    where I worked, and I said I worked for myself.
    “You’re
    pretty young to have your own shop,” she said.
    “Well,
    it’s not really a shop, ma’am,” I said. “It’s
    just a garage behind the house I rent, but it’s got a lift, and
    industrial wiring for my tools.”
    “You work off the books,
    then?”
    “Mama!” Bonnie said. “That’s not
    your business.”
    “No, ma’am,” I said. “I
    got a bank account for my business. And I pay my taxes regular, too.” I
    felt proud saying that. And I was thinking how smart J.C. was. It was him who
    told me I had to have a legitimate business.
    “It doesn’t
    matter if you
make
any money, Eddie. Just so you
deposit
some
    money. In the bank. You have to account for the money you spend, so the
    government doesn’t get suspicious. We all have little businesses,”
    he said. “Cash businesses. Like a parking lot or a cigarette store. You
    see what I’m telling you?”
    “I … think
    so.”
    “You have to pay taxes,” J.C. said. “You
    don’t pay taxes, they know you’re doing crime. A smart thief always
    has a good civilian front.”
    “Hah!” Bonnie said.
    “Not the answer you expected, huh, Mom?”
    Bonnie’s
    mother laughed. “Fair enough,” she said. “I apologize, young
    man. But Bonnie’s my only child, and you know how that is, don’t
    you?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said.
    I t was almost nine when we got to Enrico’s, the
    restaurant I had picked out. When we got inside, there was a man standing
    behind a little desk.
    “May I help you?” he said to me.
    He didn’t sound like he wanted to help me.
    “We want to eat
    dinner,” I told him.
    “You, uh, have reservations, I
    trust?”
    “I didn’t … I mean, I thought we
    could.…”
    Bonnie grabbed my arm and pulled a little, so I
    had to lean down toward her.
    “I don’t want to eat here,
    Eddie,” she said. “I heard bad things about this place. About the
    food, I mean. Can’t we go somewhere else?”
    “Sure,” I said. “But I don’t know
    any—”
    “Oh, I know a
wonderful
place. Do you
    like Chinese food?”
    T he restaurant we went to was just like I
    would have picked out, if I had known what I was doing. We had a whole big
    booth to ourselves. There was all kinds of different food, and I liked every
    bit of it.
    I was really glad that Bonnie had known Enrico’s
    had such a bad reputation. The Golden Dragon was a million times better, even
    though it didn’t cost anywhere near as much.
    A fter that, we
    went out three more times. To the Golden Dragon twice, and to a club, once. But
    Bonnie didn’t favor the club. I was glad—I don’t like it when
    it’s very loud,