The Getaway Read online

  Text copyright © 2018 by Leopold Borstinski

  Published by Sobriety Press

  Cover design by Sobriety Press copyright © 2018

  Cover photo: Woodrow Walden

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  The right of Leopold Borstinski to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Published by Sobriety Press. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. For information regarding permission, contact [email protected].

  ISBN 978 1 9997705 3 2 ASIN: B079KQZLYN Kindle Edition

  For more information please visit LeopoldBorstinski.com

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  The Getaway

  by

  Leopold Borstinski

  1956

  1

  Mary Lou Belle's father died when she was only eight years old so her mother, Alice brought her up, along with her two brothers and two younger twin sisters. The eldest sibling was six and the youngest were born three years later. Times were tough in Texas for everyone and Alice’s lack of a man to support her made life even harder for her family.

  Tied to tending her young offspring, Alice rarely left their side and her only escape was the baptist church around the corner from her home. In particular, she leaned heavily on the kind words and understanding ear of Pastor Neil.

  In 1956, Mary Lou turned fourteen and Pastor Neil started to look after the kids for Alice on Sunday afternoons so she could take some time to devote to herself and not just to the family. She spent these invaluable hours in the bar with her girlfriends sipping Long Island iced teas where she listened to them complain about the men in their world.

  Pastor Neil brought along board games for the children to play. First he showed the youngsters how to play the games, then he would sit back and let them have their fun with snakes and ladders or checkers. Because of the age difference between herself and her brothers and sisters, Mary Lou sat back as well. Apart from her one male teacher, Pastor Neil was the only constant man of any significance in her life and she didn't want to squander that time with children’s games. This father figure was all she had and they enjoyed each other's company. She liked the fact he didn't spend Sunday afternoon talking about god like all the other priests felt the need to do.

  Just before Mary Lou’s next birthday, Pastor Neil asked her if she’d ever seen God’s Trunk and she confessed she had not. While the youngsters were playing their board games, they went into her bedroom and he showed her his Trunk and got her to touch it. Within three weeks, she was so used to God’s Trunk, Mary Lou would touch it and stroke it until its sap would rise and rush out of it. She made Pastor Neil very happy.

  On her fifteenth birthday, he bought her a large bar of chocolate, which he told her she did not have to share with anyone - just like their secret times together. He asked her if she’d started her woman's bleeding and she confirmed she had.

  The following week he encouraged her to take off her panties for him and over the next month instead of touching the Trunk and releasing its sap, Pastor Neil got Mary Lou to let him put his Trunk inside her Rosebush.

  The next school year came and went. Pastor Neil kept up his visits and Alice leaned more heavily on him. He would pop over of an evening during the week and they would talk. Sometimes she would cry and he would give her a hug for solace but always he would listen and be respectful of her, something her long-dead husband failed ever to do.

  Mary Lou’s school career bumped along near the bottom but she finally made some real friends and could engage in honest conversation with people her own age. Being seventeen, many of the girls were putting out for their guys, describing their sexual explorations in lurid detail during Monday recess. This was the point when Mary Lou discovered her Sunday afternoons with Pastor Neil were not normal by any stretch of the imagination.

  She knew her mother wouldn't believe her. She eavesdropped on Alice’s conversation with Pastor Neil one evening and they talked about getting married. They planned to move the family to the Pastor’s house next to the church.

  Mary Lou packed a bag she found at the back of the cupboard by the front door and stole a knife from the kitchen and hid it under her bed until the next Sunday arrived with a thud in her life.

  As always, the kids played their games while her mother got drunk in a bar. Pastor Neil took Mary Lou into her room and sat on the edge of her bed. She knelt down between his legs while he pushed his shorts down from under his cassock.

  Then without a word, Mary Lou grabbed the knife she’d placed so carefully at exactly the right position and stabbed and sliced at his groin. Blood poured everywhere and he rolled off the bed, writhing in agony. She reckoned she’d sliced his dick clean off.

  Mary Lou took the bag out of her wardrobe and stuffed her last few possessions into it. Then she turned back to Pastor Neil, picked up the knife she’d left on the bedside table and plunged it into his throat. As much as she wanted to watch that man suffer, Mary Lou Belle didn't stay to witness him bleed out. She walked out the room, out the house and out of that town - never to return.

  TUESDAY JUNE 17, 1968

  2

  Frank Lagotti drove his white van south at high speed down Hollins Ferry Road in the suburbs of Baltimore, ignoring any red lights trying to impede his progress. Next to him sat Brian and jammed under their feet where two black bags stuffed with banknotes, which a short while ago had been resting in the vault of the First Bank of Baltimore, Lansdowne Branch.

  Even though he'd extracted the cash from a bank, Frank was not a happy man. He had left two of his gang dead on the ground, but what really made him angry was his girlfriend had not kept her word to him that morning.

  Police sirens wailed behind them; they had exited the bank two minutes ago and the cops were already chomping at their heels. The sirens remained in the distance and Frank couldn't tell if they were gaining on him. Foot flat on the gas pedal, arms rigid-straight attached to the steering wheel, Frank stared ahead and continued to fume.

  Brian sat in total silence, an occasional glance towards Frank the only discernible movement in his entire body. Surviving the raid was one thing but they weren't clear and free just yet. He was lucky to be alive although there was no guarantee that state would continue. As a reflex action, he checked his guns were back in their correct place in his coat, having refilled the chambers in case of need.

  “Check mine.”

  Frank passed his revolvers to Brian who repeated the process and returned them to his boss.

  “I think they’re fading.”

  “Maybe, Frank.”

  The men sank back to silence as the van sped along the road heading for a barn which was the gang’s rendezvous. Frank was right, the sirens were fading: must have taken a wrong turning because even though Pete the Wheels spent a lot of time souping up their vehicles, the van was no competition for a police car in a high speed chase.

  That was
why Frank planned to set charges along the telegraph poles near the bank - to make it real hard for the cops to chase them. But the charges hadn't blown and the cops were behind them now. Seemed like their best hope was that wrong turning back on their trail. Not brilliant odds.

  Brian tried not to dwell on the events that had gone down in the bank. He knew he needed to keep his wits about him and remembering the blood pour out of Andrew’s chest was not the way to go.

  “Hop into the back and tell me if you can see anything.”

  Brian loped over the shift stick and landed on the mattress he’d found so uncomfortable on their way into Lansdowne. He shuffled to the small window at the rear of the van. He peeped out and stared.

  A lot of dust from the van’s rear tyres and an empty scene: road, verge, fields. Amazing how quickly the suburban sprawl gives way to the countryside. The land was flat and the road was straight so the tarmac looked like it fell away at the curvature of the Earth. Just at that point. Brian thought he spotted a red light. A flashing red light. But he couldn't be sure. He stared again but the sunlight was at precisely the wrong angle for him to be certain.

  “Well?”

  “Give me another minute. Might be something, might be nothing.”

  Frank knew Brian well enough to give him the time to decide - he was a professional. He rode shotgun for many jobs before this one. If the man said he needed time, he needed time.

  Tick tock.

  “And?”

  “There’s a red light on the horizon. Not catching us up but not going away.”

  “Hang on, I'll give ourselves an edge.”

  Frank waited two seconds and then flung the wheel hard right, forcing the van to career off the road, onto the dirt and into a field. He gunned the vehicle as it made its way over the bumpiest field in Maryland. The steel reinforcement attached to the chassis kept the van in one piece. It headed straight for a clump of trees and bushes. Frank skidded it to a halt, facing the road a thousand feet away. They waited.

  Five minutes later a single cherry top sped past staying on the road. Both men had guns drawn and had stepped out the van ready to let rip if anything left the safety of the highway. They stayed a minute to make sure the blue and white didn't return and hopped back into the van.

  “Gonna stay here all day?”

  “Nope. But if we’re not being chased, we don’t have to drive like we are.”

  Brian thought about that for three seconds then nodded understanding and, by extension, his consent. Not that Frank was asking for it.

  Nothing appeared. Not from the left or the right. There was the occasional chirp of a bird and the rustling of leaves in the breeze but apart from that: zip.

  Another ten minutes of silent waiting. Frank put the van back into gear and drove at a sensible pace back to the highway. Then he rejoined the road and traveled at five below the legal limit. He was right: if you travel at high speed, every cop will want to stop you. If you drive legal then they’ll only stop you for a bust tail light. And Pete already checked them the day before.

  Fifteen minutes later, the barn loomed in the distance. There were no cars out front but he expected that. Pete and Brian parked the vehicles away from the line of sight from the highway.

  Frank turned off the road and idled the vehicle round the side of the barn. There were three cars, filled with gas and ready to go. All were family saloons; nothing to raise an eyebrow of a hero citizen: a white Ford Galaxie, a blue Ford Falcon and a red Ford Torino. Brian noticed they remained in the exact location where he and Pete set them up the previous night.

  There was one exception: a black Cadillac parked at the end, blocking all three vehicles from exiting the makeshift parking lot. Stood next to the Cadillac were two men Frank and Brian recognized.

  Paul and Luigi were there to collect the take for Frank’s Shylock and money-laundering uncle, Frank Senior. Frankie to close family and friends. Nothing was out the ordinary so Frank and Brian stepped out the van to greet Frankie’s heavies.

  ◆◆◆

  When Mary Lou sped out the back of the bank lot, she contained a maelstrom of emotions. Her Barracuda took her away from the man she thought she loved and back into the arms of a man who’d have worked out she’d betrayed him.

  South onto Hollins Ferry Road and her thoughts were with Carter. He’d spent months telling her he would clear his gambling debt to Uncle Frankie by stealing from the bank on the day the gang was due to appear. Then he hatched a plan to steal from Frankie too. Instead of fleeing for her life, he was meant to be sat beside her with a bag full of cash.

  When he was a no-show, Mary Lou figured the smartest thing was to head to the barn and see if Frank got to the money instead. This would have been perfect were it not for one small detail. As she drove away from the First Bank of Baltimore, she noticed the silence. She might have placed the explosives on the poles near the bank but with all the stress of the morning, she’d forgotten to set the timers. Frank would be pissed.

  If that wasn't bad enough, Mary Lou had no idea why Carter hadn't appeared. Frank might have singled him out and done who knows what. She couldn't let herself pursue that idea for too long as it made her want to cry. If Carter was a sap, so be it, but he didn't deserve anything bad to happen to him.

  She remembered the words of advice she’d received repeatedly. Drive under the limit. Don't jump any lights. Don’t give the cops any excuse to pull you over. You’re just a single girl in a powerful sports car out for a tour of the countryside.

  Far off in her rearview mirror: a flashing red light. Mary Lou's heart sunk and her stomach tightened. Her bowels churned. A blue and white gained on her every time she checked its position.

  “Steady, steady. Keep your nerve.”

  Within a minute, she caught sight of the face of the driver clear as day, his car tucked in behind hers. She took her foot off the gas just for a second to give him the opportunity to pass her more easily, which he did. Hers was the only vehicle in the vicinity so he gunned his Chevrolet and sped off in front. Five minutes later, it had gone beyond the horizon. Almost instantly, so it felt, the barn appeared and Mary Lou slowed down and passed the building by six hundred feet or more.

  She let the Barracuda glide to a halt hidden among some undergrowth next to two trees. If anyone was already at the meeting point, she hoped they wouldn't have heard her arrival. She popped open the glove compartment and took out a small snub nose Pete had left for her in case of any trouble. He was a great getaway driver. Despite that, Mary Lou reminded herself the guy had been a creep every time he’d been anywhere near her and she should cut his throat before they were through.

  Mary Lou opened her door as quietly as she could and kept it ajar. She scampered out of the undergrowth and ducked from one tree or bush to the next until she made her way back to the barn.

  The building itself fell into disrepair a decade ago and the far wall had collapsed several years before then. The wooden structure contained a window on each of its short sides and a door and two windows on the remaining front side. These were just shutters now: the glass shattered and fallen away long ago.

  Mary Lou pushed the side shutter and revealed the derelict and empty building inside. There was a fence running down the middle to tie up farm animals and she made out pens on the far side. She barely lifted the shutter a few inches, so her view onto the back was limited. She knew the cars were out there somewhere but she couldn't see them. She closed the shutter to make sure it didn't slam shut and sneaked along the wall toward the back. At the corner, she espied the three cars but saw a fourth black one parked in front of them all. Strange, that wasn't part of the plan.

  She inched her head out further and recognized two men leaning against the far side of the car: Luigi and Paul, Frankie’s goons. She shivered because they creeped her out. Old school mafiosi in the making. Uncle Frankie was connected for sure.

  The white van appeared which was strange as Pete drove a Chevy Impale, not that lump of a thing. M
ary Lou craned further and witnessed two men get out, not the four who went to the bank. The others could be in the back but she’d thought they’d all want to head the fuck out of Dodge, as Frank used to say.

  First she recognized Brian. He'd been in the passenger seat. Due to the morning's sunlight, the other guy was in the direct path of the sun so all Mary Lou could see was his silhouette. Five seconds later, she saw Frank’s face and a tear rolled down her cheeks. He was safe.

  The men stood and talked a while. She couldn't hear a single word because they were too far away. Then they pulled out guns and fired at each other.

  3

  “Let’s be careful out there, Brian. Frank Senior won’t be happy with the way things have turned out so far.”

  “Okay, Frank.”

  The men slipped out the van leaving their doors wide open. Frank eyed Paul then Luigi and they both stayed leaning against their limousine. Relaxed.

  Frank took two steps toward them, stopped and Brian mirrored him.

  “Hey boys.”

  “Hi, Frank.”

  Paul had never spoken so much to Frank the whole year since he was out the can. Luigi remained his usual silent self.

  “Radio said you robbed a bank this morning.”

  “Yep. Shows there are some things you can believe on the radio.”

  “Big haul?”

  “Big enough, I reckon.”

  Beat.

  “Not like we've had any time to count it.”

  “Got it with you though?”

  “Yes. It’s safe with us.”

  “What about the others? Four of you walked into the bank. That was the plan. There's only you two and your goomah's missing.”

  “Plans change. Andrew and Pete didn't make it. No idea about Mary Lou.”

  “Didn't make it. Any loose ends?”