Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 1, January, 1957

Perfect Getaway by Henry Petersen

Knock him off and keep the entire haul. Easy. Just a bit of planning, that was all.

Clayton Falls was quiet that Wednesday morning as are most small southern towns in the cotton-picking season. The few cars, angled into the curb in front of the parking meters, belonged to the shopkeepers. The business establishments stretched for three blocks and then dwindled into residences, filling stations and, at one end, the town’s only hotel.

Jim Peterson, the town constable, sauntered along chatting idly with the merchants as they let down their awnings, washed windows and prepared for the start of a day’s business.

Mark Mathews, owner of the town’s printing establishment, hailed Peterson from across the street.

Peterson waved a greeting and continued on his way. As he crossed an intersection, he saw a prewar car parked in front of the town’s only bank. A young man sat with the motor running, smoking a cigarette and idly watching the smoke drift through the window.

Inside the bank, they would be getting ready to open. This young man was probably waiting for that, Jim Peterson thought.

But when Peterson was about ten feet from the car, the bank doors burst open violently and a rather effeminate looking young man in a tropical hat and suit with a briefcase in one hand and a gun in the other rushed out. Peterson went for his gun, but there was an orange flash, an explosion in his stomach and everything went black.

When they had shot past the few small houses on the edge of town the gentleman in the Panama suit reached up, took off his hat, removed some bobby pins, and let a mass of golden hair fall loose. The “gentleman” was obviously a girl. Another movement removed her tie and grasped a zipper at her collar that ran neatly out of sight to the crotch of the pants. In a second she was out of the quick change outfit, and clad only in a bathing suit.

The young fellow driving the car checked his watch and then half turned to the girl with a smile, “Three minutes. In two more we’ll be on our way.”

“So far so good,” the girl said and continued stuffing the loot into a motorcycle saddle bag. When she finished, she opened a small ladies’ suitcase on the floor, removed a pair of riding jeans, a white blouse, riding boots, but she did not remove the heavy window sash which it also contained. She then stuffed the clothes she had been wearing into the suitcase.

They had been passing through a heavily wooded section, but now ahead and to the right and about fifty yards away there was a break in the line of trees. They approached swiftly and braked to a sudden dusty stop. The driver reached back, grabbed the suitcase, ran about twenty yards off the road with it and pitched it into the stagnant green waters of an old gravel pit.

When he got back to the car, the girl was behind the wheel racing the motor for a quick getaway. He slid in beside her with a grin.

“Five minutes, forty seconds,” he said, after a glance at his watch.

“Should be at the bikes in three minutes,” she said, taking a sharp turn without slowing down.

The young man reached under the seat and pulled out a black leather motorcycle jacket and slipped into it.

“How do I look?” he asked. “Like a Wild One, huh?”

“We’re not out of this yet.”

“Look, three minutes after we get on those bikes, we’ll be out on the highway. And nobody’ll be able to tell us from a couple of ordinary citizens on a motorcycle trip. We got out-of-state plates and drivers’ licenses plus phony identification papers. What are you worrying about, Baby? You planned it real well.”

She said nothing but she thought, “Yeah, I planned it real well. You’ll never know how well I planned it.”

She made the turnoff onto a little wagon trail that ran through heavy brush and timber.

The car slid to a stop next to a pile of green brush. They jumped out and began uncovering the sleek new English motorcycles. As the girl strapped the saddle bag to her bike, the young man was about to protest, but thought better of it.

Soon they were thundering down the road, and making good time. Then the road began angling upward, steeply, as it led to the top of a mountain that rose a thousand feet above the highway below it. At the crest, the road veered dangerously to the right and then began its winding descent to the highway. It was a dangerous curve, but the girl wasn’t worried; she had taken care of the brakes — no question about that. It was going to be a perfect job. A fifty thousand dollar haul, and all hers.

They rode hunched over, intent. The road began to drop sharply away now, one hundred, three hundred, five hundred feet. They were seventy yards away from a bad turn; it was time to slow down. They both retarded their spark and the English jobs backfired furiously. The girl kicked her foot brake. It went all the way to the footrest without any resistance. She hit it again frantically, but uselessly.

“Could I have taken the wrong bike?” she thought.

But she knew she hadn’t. The cross she had scratched on the handlebars was shining up at her. She glanced over at the young man. He had been watching her frantic efforts and was smiling.

His smile froze as he began frenziedly kicking at his brake, which she knew could not possibly work.