Free The Getaway Man by Andrew Vachss Page A

either, but I thought she might have gotten tired of just
    going out to eat.
    She always looked so pretty. Not just when we were
    going out, but all the time. Once, she came by my garage on a Sunday, just to
    have a soda with me. She was wearing a pair of overalls and a white T-shirt
    with short sleeves. I remember how her arms looked in that shirt, all nice and
    round.
    I hadn’t said anything to Bonnie about going away for a
    few days. I didn’t want to act like it was a big deal; I mean, that it
    would be a big deal to her if I was going to be out of town for a while.
    I planned on asking her to the movies when I got back. And I thought, if I
    got her a nice present, she would know that I hadn’t forgot about her
    just because I was away. I thought her mother would like that, too. Not a
    present for herself, but that I got Bonnie one. Her mother was that kind of
    person, I could tell.
    I was thinking about maybe a little bottle of
    real good perfume. The girls I knew from Tim and Virgil were always saying how
    much they loved perfume. Clothes and jewelry and perfume. It would make me too
    embarrassed to be buying girl’s clothes, and I didn’t know anything
    about jewelry—Rochelle had picked out that bracelet her ownself. So I
    figured on the perfume.
    In the mall, I couldn’t find a place with
    bottles of perfume in the window. But I did find one with store dummies all
    dressed in clothes you knew had to cost a lot of money, so I went in
    there.
    The place was really big. Not as big as a Wal-Mart or a
    Sam’s Club, maybe, but it was three stories, and it sold all different
    kinds of stuff.
    I wasn’t sure where to go, so I just walked
    around. I was feeling good inside. I had money in my pocket and I was dressed
    all neat. Nobody knew me in that city. If anyone saw me, they would think I was
    a regular man. Maybe one who had a job in a place where I made a good salary. A
    man who had a wife and kids, and a nice little house.
    That’s when
    I first saw Daphne. And if I’d been a regular man, I would never have
    known what she was doing.
    She was a tall girl, kind of skinny, with
    short yellow-blonde hair. She was wearing a shiny black dress and high heels.
    She looked very classy, like one of those window dummies come to life.
    When I first saw her, she had her pocketbook—a black, shiny one, just
    like her dress and her shoes—open at the top. It was on a strap over her
    shoulder, dangling down by her waist. She picked up a wristwatch from one of
    the counter displays with her left hand. Then, quick as a flash, she cut
    something off it with a little pair of scissors in her right hand, and dropped
    the watch into her pocketbook.
    She moved away from the counter, just
    taking her time and looking around, like she couldn’t decide what to
    buy.
    By the time she was close to the escalator, she had put a few more
    things in her bag. A lipstick, I saw for sure. And a little white jar of
    something.
    That’s when I saw the man watching her. He had on a
    dark green sport coat, and a white shirt with no tie. He went everywhere the
    girl did, but never all that close. A young guy, kind of pudgy, with a
    bully’s look on his face.
    At first I thought he was working up
    his nerve to talk to her. But then he turned to look over his shoulder, and I
    saw the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
    I knew there wasn’t
    much time. And I knew I was being stupid, but I still went over to the shelves
    where the girl was looking at those little tiny computers you can put in your
    pocket.
    “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said.
    She
    looked up real quick. There were two dots of red on her face, one on each
    cheek. Her eyes were very big. Her mouth was open a little bit.
    “There’s a man been watching you. He’s been watching you
    put stuff in your purse. I think he works for the store.”
    She
    turned her back on me and walked away, moving smart, like she was about
    business. She marched right over to one of the registers, and