The Getaway Man by Andrew Vachss

big,” she said. “If you know
    what I mean.”
    I didn’t know what she meant, so I just
    nodded. That satisfies most people.
    “Is this a good spot?”
    she said, after a little while.
    It was a single strip of blacktop, laid
    down like a runway for an airplane. Grass on one side of it, dirt on the
    other.
    “Does it curve at all?”
    “Up ahead it
    does.”
    “Okay,” I said, and stomped the gas.
    The car was faster than I would have thought, big as it was. Got around
    turns pretty decent, too, although it heeled over a bit. At the end of the
    stretch, I slammed on the brakes. The car didn’t skid at all, just
    scrubbed off speed in a straight line. Just as I got it stopped, I flipped the
    lever into reverse and floored the pedal. We went flying backwards. I spun the
    wheel all the way to the right and slammed it down into drive as I gave it the
    gun and cranked over to the left. We went steaming on back the way we
    came.
    “Wow!” she said. “What was that?”
    “It’s called a bootlegger’s turn,” I said.
    “In case you have to reverse yourself real quick.”
    “Do it again!”
    I thought she wanted to see how I did
    it, so she could do it herself, but no matter how many times I showed her, she
    never asked to try.
    It worked even better on the dirt road.
    “ P ull over there,” she said, after a while. “I never smoke in
    the car.”
    I could tell
somebody
smoked in that car,
    but I didn’t say anything.
    She got out and sat on the front
    fender, crossing her legs like she was on a couch. I stood next to her and gave
    her a cigarette.
    “So
that’s
the kind of driving
    you do,” she said. “Executive protection.”
    “I
    guess you could say that,” I said, although I wasn’t real sure what
    she meant.
    “What kind of gun do you carry?” she asked
    me.
    “I don’t carry a gun,” I said. “I’m a
    driver.”
    “Oh. What’s your name?”
    I told
    her. That’s when she said her name was Daphne. I never knew a girl with
    that name before.
    W e drove off the farm. I followed her directions
    to a big apartment house.
    The garage was in the basement. She had a
    different box to open the door.
    “That’s my space,”
    she said. It had little walls on each side, I guess so other cars
    wouldn’t bang into it when they opened their doors.
    I backed the
    car in.
    “You did that in case you had to get out quickly?”
    she asked me.
    “Sure,” I said. “I always park like
    that.”
    “Come on,” she told me.
    There was a
    little elevator in the basement. It only went to the lobby. We got out there. A
    guy in a uniform and a hat said “Good afternoon” to her, and called
    her by her name, with a “Miz” in front of it, like she was his
    boss.
    We got in the elevator. She touched PH on the pad. I watched the
    numbers as we went up—PH was the top floor.
    The room we walked
    into was bigger than a lot of houses I’d been in. It was all black and
    white, except for slashes of red in different spots—across the back of
    one of the chairs, on the seat of the couch, cutting across a lampshade. Even
    the floor was black and white, in squares. It kind of looked like a fancy
    bathroom, with a red rug.
    “Would you like a drink?” she
    said.
    I didn’t know the names of the kind of drinks she probably
    was thinking of, and I didn’t want to ask her for a beer, so I just said,
    “No thanks.”
    She went over to the bar to mix herself
    something. I looked out the window. It was easy—one whole wall was glass.
    I could see there was some kind of a terrace out there, but I couldn’t
    see how you could get to it.
    She came back with two glasses. “Ice
    water,” she said, handing one to me.
    “Thanks.”
    “You’re a wonderful driver, Eddie. Did you have to go to a
    special school to learn all those tricks?”
    “No,” I
    said. “I just pick things up on my own.” I wanted to tell her that
    what I showed her wasn’t tricks, but I couldn’t really do that
    without telling her what