The Getaway Man by Andrew Vachss

at me, waiting. He was very
    patient. I guess because he was an expert, and he was used to people like me
    not knowing how to say exactly what they wanted.
    “It has to be,
    maybe, the man’s
job,
” I told him. “But not like a
    truck driver. Or a racer. More … special. Like not everyone could do
    it.”
    “
Thunder Road
,” he said.
    “What?”
    “
Thunder Road.
The
    greatest moonshine movie ever made. Robert Mitchum wants to.… Never
    mind, you take it, try it out for yourself, then let me know.”
    “ W ere you in prison?” Daphne asked me one night.
    I had always been afraid Bonnie would ask me a question like that. Or
    Bonnie’s mother, more likely. But I could tell from Daphne’s face
    that she wouldn’t think being in prison was a bad thing.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “But you’re so young. Was it
    a long time ago?”
    “Long enough.”
    “Did
    you have to be in handcuffs a lot?”
    “No. Just when they
    arrest you. Or when they transport you, like to court for your trial, or to a
    different lockup.”
    “Did you hate it?”
    “Prison?”
    “Being in handcuffs.”
    “I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t so bad. And it never
    lasted long.”
    “I wonder what that feels like.”
    “Prison? It doesn’t feel like—”
    “Handcuffs. I have a pair. Very nice ones. They’re lined in
    velvet. But I was always afraid of them.”
    “I—”
    “Come on, Eddie,” she said.
    I t was about six weeks after I first met her that I went over to
    Daphne’s for the last time.
    “I need the keys,” she
    said.
    “What?”
    “To my car. I need the keys
    back.”
    “Okay,” I said. I took them out and handed
    them to her.
    “Please don’t be mad, Eddie,” she said.
    That’s when I knew what she was talking about.
    “I’m
    not,” I told her.
    “You’re not going to stalk me, are
    you?” she said.
    I just shook my head. It had been bad enough
    being a fake getaway man; I wasn’t going to be a fake stalker, too.
    B efore I left that city, I went by the video store one more time.
    “Well?” the guy said, as soon as I walked in the
    door.
    “It was a fine one,” I said.
    He nodded like I
    was making good sense. I was glad he didn’t ask me to explain. I had
    tried to work it out in my head, what I was going to say, before I went there,
    but I kept getting stuck. The guys who ran moonshine, they were real drivers.
    It was like … I don’t know, a contest, maybe. If they got through,
    they got paid. If they didn’t make it, they went to jail. But they
    weren’t bad men, and they always had people pulling for them. Not because
    they wanted the money, but because it was their own people.
    For those
    men, driving the moonshine, that was their job. Even the cops who chased them
    respected them, if they were good at it.
    “I knew it!” he
    said. “I’m on your wavelength, now. I’ve been holding this
    one for you.
Moonshine Highway.
The perfect vehicle for Kyle
    MacLachlan—remember him from
Twin Peaks
? This one’s a
    minor classic. Underrated and understated. Very
noir.
”
    “Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
    I held
    out my hand for him to shake. I could see from his face he wasn’t used to
    that, but he nodded like he always did, and gave me a good grip.
    W hen I got back to where I was living, it was like the time with Daphne
    had just gone past without me realizing it. Like it never happened.
    I had the portable TV and VCR to remind me that I’d been with her.
    But when I tried to think about that time, it was like trying to read a book
    through a Coke bottle.
    I called Bonnie. Her mother said she was
    married.
    “That was … quick,” I said.
    “It was to Kenny, her old boyfriend,” Bonnie’s mother
    said. “They’d been engaged once, but Bonnie had broken it off.
    Kenny’s in the military. He came home on leave, so they had to act fast
    if she was going to go back to the base with him.”
    “Oh.”
    “I’m sorry, Eddie,” she said.
    “Bonnie tried to call you, but