by BobMathews
A CLEAN GETAWAY
By Bobby Mathews
*****
PUBLISHED BY
A CLEAN GETAWAY
Copyright © 2012, Bobby Mathews
*****
As always, for Misty and Noah
*****
When I hit the guard in the face with the pepper spray, he screamed like a woman giving birth. He dropped the two heavy canvas bags he was carrying and reached for his eyes. I dropped the pepper spray and scooped the sacks up and ran past him as fast as I could. No one really even looked my way. They were watching the guard, curled now in the fetal position, as he wallowed on the sidewalk and tried in vain to clear his eyes. The other guard had climbed down from the driver's seat of the armored car and was tending to his partner. I was in the clear.
Around the block, Curtis had the car idling, parked parallel to the curb and with plenty of change for the meter. I tossed the bags into the back seat and slammed the door closed. Curtis was supposed to drive away then, like nothing had happened. Instead he hit a button to scroll down the electric window.
“How'd it go?” He said.
“Perfect,” I said, “if you'll get the hell out of here.”
Behind us we heard the woop-woop of a police cruiser arriving at the scene, and beyond that the somewhat higher pitch of an ambulance siren. I stripped off the heavy canvas gloves I was wearing and put them in my front pocket, hanging out a little.
“Jesus, you didn't kill the guy, did you?” Curtis said.
“No. Just get moving. I'll see you in a couple of hours.”
When Curtis drove away, I walked around the block and came back to the scene of the crime. The paramedics had washed the guard's face and were escorting him into the back of the ambulance. His partner was giving the cops a description of the guy who had assaulted his partner and stolen the money bags.
Good luck with that.
More cops were arriving, most of them scratching their heads in confusion at the thirty-odd men who stood on the sidewalk. We were all dressed to work, in lace-up boots, blue jeans, gray T-shirts and hard hats. Most of them were like me, in their mid-20s to late 30s. We all had canvas or cloth work gloves, and many of us wore safety goggles on our helmets. And none of the others had a clue what was going on. The cops weren't letting anyone leave until they knew what was going on, so I settled in to wait.
It took them an hour to get to me. When they did, they wanted to see my identification. I showed them a driver's license with the name Phillip Orr, and an address in Queens. They took down the phone number I gave them too. But Phillip Orr was a blank wall. It's just something I came up with for registering online. When I finally figured out how to go through with the money grab, I had a graphics guy I know make up a phony driver's license. And viola', Phillip Orr was born.
“What's your story, Mac?” The patrol officers had given way to detectives, and the one questioning me was burly, as so many of them are, with a hatchet face and a ferret's beady, calculating eyes.
“I saw an ad on Craigslist for construction workers,” I said. “Said to be here at 8 a.m., dressed in jeans, a gray T-shirt and a hard hat for day labor.”
“Great.” He said. “Same story we got from everyone else. You see anything at all that happened here?”
“No,” I said. “I was the last one to get here, I think.”
There was something he didn't like about that answer. He took me by the arm and pulled me over to the line of squad cars that still sat, lights revolving, at the curb. He sat me in the passenger seat of one of the cars. No frisk, no handcuffs. Whatever had his wind up wasn't enough to make me a full-on suspect. The detective left my door open. He came around to the driver's side, sat down and read my license information into the car's two-way radio.
“Sorry about this, Mr. Orr,” he said. “I just want to validate your information.”
“No problem,” I said. When the radio crackled again and the cop reached for it, I hit him in the face with my left elbow. His head snapped back, and he clawed for his gun. I pulled mine out of one of the pockets of the tool belt first. It was a little .25 automatic. At this range it was just as lethal as his 9-millimeter. I had the hammer back and the barrel in his ear before he could do anything.
“Take your gun out with your forefinger and thumb,” I said. “Toss it in the floorboard.”
He did it.
“I'm going to close my door,” I said. “Then you're going to drive us away from here.”
He shook his head. He had to know that the farther away we got from the crime scene, the less likely his chances of survival. I pushed the gun harder against him.
“If I go out, I'll make sure you go with me,” I said. When he didn't respond, I switched the gun briefly to my left hand, then reached over with my right and closed the door. I could feel his muscles tense, but he was smart. We hadn't been in the cruiser more than a minute. The detective adjusted his mirrors, waited until it was clear, and then pulled out into traffic.
“Turn off the lights,” I said. The tootsie roll up top went dark, and we slid through the city relatively unimpeded. The detective was quiet for few minutes as he drove. I gave him minimal directions. The gun in his side had to hurt – he didn't have on any body armor. As we rode, I cursed myself. I never should have come back to the crime scene. I should have just hopped in the car with Curtis and rode away. But I thought it would be fun, you know, watch the cops mill around and wonder what the hell was going on. I'd know better next time.
“What tipped you?” I said.
“It's forty degrees out there, and you were the only guy sweating,” the cop said. “You probably pulled the heist, dropped the loot off with a buddy and circled the block. When you told me you got there late, it made me suspicious.”
“Not suspicious enough,” I said.
He nodded, and grimaced in pain. There was a purpling lump high on his cheek where I had struck him. It didn't do anything for his disposition, either.
His cell phone rang, and I made him turn it off. A phone sends out a signal when it's turned on, and a savvy tech can triangulate your position using cell towers – but only if the phone is on. The cop wasn't liking any of this. He especially didn't like that he couldn't get a handle on me. There was no way to turn me, no way to fix this situation. He just had to ride it out.
“You're going to have to kill me, you know,” he said. “It's the only way I'll stop looking for you. And if you kill me, it will only get worse for you. Kill a cop and they'll never stop looking for you.”
“Shut up,” I said. But he was right. The moment he'd put me in the squad car, my options had become limited. When he decided to check my ID through their computer, I was limited even further. And now I'd kidnapped a cop. This wasn't going according to plan. By now Curtis was wondering where I was. He wasn't calm enough just to wait for me.
We made a couple of turns into the warehouse district. As the neighborhoods fell away, I could see the cop getting more nervous. A couple of times the radio in the car crackled to life, and the detective reached for the microphone. Each time I shooed his hand away.
“What's your name?” I said.
He hesitated a fraction of a second before answering.
“Alex Kincaid,” he said.
“My ass,” I said. “Pull over at the curb, Alex, and show me your ID.”
He pulled over like I told him to and put the car in park. He produced a leather wallet with his shield and police ID. His name was Frank Morrison, detective second grade.
“Nice try, Frank,” I said. “Is that any way to start off a relationship? The next time you lie to me, I'm going to put a bullet in you.”
I had Frank pull back onto the street and we drove awhile until we found a deserted alley. I had him pull
in there, and I'll tell you this: I wasn't the only one sweating in that cop car. Morrison thought I was going to kill him, and if I'm perfectly honest, I had no idea what I was going to do. We sat in silence for a few moments.
“Look,” Morrison said, “I know what you're trying to decide. Do you kill me? Or do you fix this some other way. Right now you're on the hook for armed robbery, kidnapping and grand theft auto. But murder puts you in another league, kid. You don't want to do that.”
He was right. I didn't want to do it. I had never killed anyone before. And maybe I wouldn't have to.
“Turn the car off and get out,” I said. Morrison looked so relieved I thought he was going to faint.
“You're letting me go?” He said. I took the keys out of the car and got out of the passenger side, keeping the gun on Morrison at all times. He held his hands about shoulder high, palms toward me. He was backing away, slowly moving down the alley away from me.
“Stop!” I said. “If you run, I will kill you, cop or no cop.”
Morrison smiled a little and kept inching away from me.
“With that little thing, you'd be lucky to hit a billboard from that distance,” he said.
So I got lucky. I aimed at the middle of the mass and squeezed the trigger. Either the gun was way off or I flinched at the last instant. Instead of a hole in Morrison's torso, I had blown a
