Note: This story was directly inspired by “Getaway Driver,” a scene from Stranded Teens. The characters and several story details are different, but there are enough similarities that I’m ultimately uncomfortable with not giving it proper credit. So, definitely feel free to look into that later if you like filmed porn. Enjoy!
= = = = =
The car door opened; he barely heard the words coming out of the young woman’s mouth because he saw the gun first. She had a duffel bag in her other hand that she tossed into his backseat, and the two words that managed to get through said all he needed to know in that moment:
“Drive. Carefully.”
So he started the car and did just that, winding his way out of the parking garage, casual as he could manage with a gun to his head. From brief glances to the side he could see the weapon was a little unsteady in her hand, but that didn’t matter; he wasn’t about to gamble his life on the theory that she didn’t actually want to shoot him.
But now that the initial shock had passed, he had to know: “What’s going on here?”
“What’s going on is that I just robbed a bank, my driver turned out to be a fucking junkie, and you were lucky enough to just be hanging out in the parking garage for whatever reason, which means you’re my new driver.” Her voice was firm and cool, with a slight Spanish accent and a surprising bit of gravel given her smooth caramel complexion.
“I can’t drive fast,” he said.
“Did I ask you to drive fast?” she asked.
She didn’t.
“Take the next left.”
He did. He was starting to feel the pull of the situation’s entire gravity. He asked, “Are you going to kill me?”
“Only if you do something very stupid,” she answered. “Just be cool. Play this right, and you might even come out ahead. Get on the freeway.”
He did. He didn’t see the sense in trying to run, at least not in that moment. She seemed desperate, but reasonable, the kind of kidnapper that probably wasn’t going to kill him without an excellent reason.
He could roll with this. He was used to rolling with things.
He didn’t often roll with loaded guns in his face, but he supposed he could look at it like an adventure.
“Listen,” she said, “I have to hold you overnight. Is there anyone here that’ll ask questions if they don’t hear from you?”
“Well, I just lost my job, but I’m renting a house with my boys, and there’s my parents, obviously.”
“‘Boys?’ As in kids?”
“No, boys as in…I mean—” In his increasingly stress-addled mind, he suddenly started thinking that he should pretend to have kids to maybe make his captor more sympathetic to him.
But she shut that down right away. “Hey,” she said with a gentle pat on the cheek. “Don’t lie. This car smells like weed and loneliness. You don’t have kids.”
“Look, I’m sorry, I just—”
“Listen,” she said. “I don’t like this gun any more than you do. I don’t like anything about this whole situation. Just take a deep breath and trust that I’m not going to use this without a very, very good reason. You’re doing great so far, just keep following my directions.”
So he drove on. Now he could hear sirens, blaring in the distance, drawing closer.
“Be cool,” she said once more, lowering her gun under the dashboard, her aim still true.
A cop car zoomed down the other side of the street, lights and sirens blaring, passing his car without a second thought. He unclenched. “You’re really good at this,” he said.
“I do my best,” she shrugged.
He nodded; her modesty was interesting for a woman who was able to pull off a daylight bank robbery, apparently on her own. He asked, “So where are we going, anyway?”
“We’re going to another car park to change cars, then we’re headed out of state. You don’t need to know where just yet.”
He took a deep breath, tried to make peace with his lack of control over the situation. “I get it,” he admitted.
He drove for another 10 minutes. The whole way, she made no small talk, speaking only to navigate him to the very top level of the car park. When he turned off the car, she finally asked his name.
“Jack,” he said.
“All right, Jack,” she said. “Circle of trust. Let me get your driver’s license.”
“Why do you need—”
“Jack. Do you want the gun off you?” He nodded. “Then give me the license.”
After a deep breath, he took out his license and handed it over.
She looked the card over. “You’ve got a nice smile, Jack,” she said, finally smiling in turn. “Cali DMV always wants you to smile for these things. I like that.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s nice,” he said, scratching his arm, trying to reconcile his nerves with the sudden awkward awareness of what a nice smile she had; not bright, but cool. Not entirely friendly, but disarming all the same.
“All right, let’s talk about this gun,” she said. “Like I said; not a fan. But I need it until we can get on the same page. Okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Okay, so first thing’s first. I’m holding you hostage because türbanlı escort you’re a loose end. Those words might make you shit your pants, but you’ve got nothing to worry about. The fewer bodies I drop, the easier things usually are for me. That said—”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
A pause. Not an uncertain one; it was the wince of someone who just lifted a scab off a wound. “Yes,” she said. “I killed him because he gave me no other choice. I’d do it again in a second. But that’s not how this has to end, and it’s not how I want this to end. What’s important to know is this: The only reason this is happening is because if I lose track of you before I’m ready to disappear, you could make life very difficult for me. But now, at the very least…” She held up his driver’s license. “…I know where you live. Right?”
“You do.”
“Good. That’s issue one settled. Issue two: The money.” She jabbed a thumb toward the duffel bag nestled behind her seat. “I haven’t counted it yet, but it’s in the ballpark of a half-million dollars. A number like that gives people ideas; it’s only natural. But if you were to follow through on those ideas, you’d be fucked because—”
“You know where I live?”
“Yes, but no. Because this money needs to be laundered before any of it can be spent. Try to spend it without laundering it, the cops will fuck you. Try to launder it yourself, the cops will laugh at you, then they’ll fuck you. You don’t have the skills or connections in place to handle this kind of money. For you, it’s more trouble than it’s actually worth. Do you agree?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen No Country For Old Men.”
She smiled. “I like you, guero. You keep that attitude up, you’ll buy yourself a lot of goodwill.”
“Yeah,” he said, unable to think of anything else, “cool.”
“So, third and final issue. Say a cop pulls us over for whatever reason. Do you tell him what’s up?”
“No.”
“Good. Why?”
“Because you’ll kill me. Or them.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But think of it this way. Right now, we have a simple arrangement, even if you were forced into it. I hold you for a night while I wait for my exit strategy to fall into place, then you’re free to go anywhere and say anything you’d like. The more people you bring into this arrangement, however, the more complicated it gets. Live or die, I assume we agree that ‘complicated’ is worse than ‘simple,’ yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded, then pointed the gun downward. “All right, Jack,” she said, extending her hand. “You can call me Jill.”
He shook her hand. “Really?” He tried not to sound too discouraging. “Jack and Jill?”
“It fits,” she said. “For the next 18 or so hours, we’re gonna be inseparable.”
“Wait. Before we go, can I grab my dugout box? It’s in the glove compartment.”
She opened the compartment and grabbed a small wooden box the size of a deck of cards; a Mr. Meseeks from Rick and Morty was etched into the front, his eyes drawn to look stoned. Her lips curled into a slight scowl.
“Look,” he argued, picking up on her sudden hostility, “do you want an anxious hostage or a couch-locked hostage?”
She nodded, mostly to herself, and handed him the box. “I can get behind that,” she said.
* * * * *
Following her to the dark red Ford sedan that served as her bugout car, he was able to better take in her figure. She was half a head shorter than him, but he didn’t think that meant much. His athletic ability ranged from average to aggressively decent, and while much of her figure was hidden under dark green cargo pants and a pair of Sketchers, her tight grey t-shirt showed off a toned upper body and suggested that anything he could do, she would beat his ass for.
That said, he didn’t really feel like doing anything about his sudden downturn in fortune. For one thing, something told him he could he trust her to release him as long as nothing went wrong. But if he was being honest, he was kind of awed by her to begin with. It certainly didn’t hurt that she was quite pretty; aside from her soft caramel skin and her smooth smile, she had long, luxurious dark hair tied in a loose, athletic ponytail, and narrow brown eyes that scrutinized the world and found it wanting. Those eyes gave her an air of untouchability that supported what he truly found amazing about her: she had just cleaned out a bank, was moving like it was just another random Tuesday, and so far she was getting away with it.
Basically, this chick was fucking cool.
On the road, she had him call his friends and let them know he wasn’t going to be around that night. He made up some story about feeling a little burned out and heading to Joshua Tree to get his shit together. His friends bought it, but he wished he sounded a little more casual, a little less stammery. He wanted his cool to match her cool.
Maybe it didn’t, but she was impressed all the same. She’d been noticing him, too; he was lanky but cute, with shoulder-length chestnut-colored hair, and a thin-yet-soft looking ümraniye escort goatee that should’ve screamed “epic douchebag” but instead tied together his entire chill vibe. He seemed to take everything in stride, including getting randomly taken hostage at gunpoint; having lived so much of her life looking over her shoulder, she admired that. Something about him just made her want to melt into him and absorb his calm, not that she could (or would) ever admit as much.
Shit, she thought to herself. Wish I met him any other way.
Regrets aside, things were less tense once they got onto the road, owing to a lack of a gun and the presence of some kicking jams that she had him periodically feed into the CD player between check-ins with the police scanner, which was all panic, no direction. They bonded over music; he was surprised to learn she was a bit of a Butthole Surfers fan, and was brave enough to tease her for bringing along Weird Revolution and not Electriclarryland. In her defense, she argued, “The Shame of Life” was an all-timer. He agreed; “shame about the rest of the album, though.”
They drove on for almost six hours. The city became the suburbs, the suburbs became the desert, the sedan zoomed past Joshua Tree and Coachella and the San Bernardino Freeway became plain old Interstate 10. Somewhere between that point and the sign that officially welcomed them to Arizona, his curiosity got the better of him.
“Why bank robbery?” he asked. “How bank robbery? I mean, I’m guessing we’re pretty much the same age, I worked in a stockroom, you’re fuckin’ Robert De Niro in Heat.”
“Neil McCauley?” She smiled that cool, above-it-all-but-still-amused smile of hers. “He’s pretty cool, but I’m more of a Jack Foley type.”
“Yeah, fuckin’ whatever. You’re still way better at this than you should be.”
She nodded. “Let’s just say I’ve had an interesting life,” she said. “That, and a list of grievances with our government that got very, very long over the last couple of years.”
“…yeah, uhm, sorry about that.”
“You live in SoCal,” she said. “I’m going to assume it’s not your fault. Anyway, I love money, I love taking money from assholes who have too much of it…this seemed like a better fit.”
“That’s cool.” If there was any other response to “I rob banks for a living and I’m awesome at it,” it wasn’t coming to him.
“So what about you?” she asked. “What drives you to hang in a parking garage in the middle of the day?”
“I dunno,” he said. “I told you I lost my job, right?”
“How’d that happen?”
“Boss piss-tested me out of nowhere because his boss wanted to bring his nephew in and someone had to go.”
“Mierda cabrones,” she growled. “Fucking scumbags keep sticking it in and breaking it off.”
“I mean, what’re you gonna do? Weed’s legal, but it was still against corporate policy. And like I’m gonna sue to get my precious stockroom job back, you know? But yeah, I guess I needed some space to figure out what the move was, and then you barged in.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry you’re dealing with this.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be alright. Honestly? This whole thing’s a little scary, but it doesn’t suck as much ass as you’d think.”
“Well,” she said, “I’m glad to hear that at least.”
* * * * *
By the time they pulled into a motel somewhere in the Arizona desert, the sun had nearly sank under the sandy horizon, painting the world orange and red. The building was ugly, an old dilapidated sore on the beautiful emptiness of the desert. The rooms had no air conditioning, and there was a smell wafting over from a nearby chicken farm. But their room had two beds, the TV worked, and the drunk dude watching over the place minded his own business. It would do.
Before she could let herself get settled, she had correctly surmised that if her hostage was going to get baked, he was going to want some food. So she ran out to grab dinner from the nearby road stop, waving his ID in front of his face as a gentle reminder of his limited options for running, and he turned on the TV, taking out his dugout box and packing his one-hitter full of bud.
She made the news, sort of; somehow, security cameras never caught her face. The story was that she had casually walked up to a teller and passed him a duffel bag with a note on it. The note warned him not to make a scene or hit the silent alarm; that if he did, she would start shooting, as would two other people inside the bank. (Her comparison to Jack Foley, it turned out, was apt.) “She said I could make this easy or hard,” the teller told the reporter, “and the thought of getting caught up in a mass shooting, seeing my friends die, it just scared the, uh, heck out of me.” He tried to put in a dye pack, but the robber knew what he was doing and tapped on the glass, subtly motioning to her gun. She’d been wearing a hoodie and a plastic mask at the time that scrambled her features, making identification impossible.
Again, he realized, blazing up his acıbadem escort one-hitter; so fucking cool.
She returned bearing tacos from a nearby Mexican hole-in-the-wall, as well as cookies and chips from the gas station. Smelling the floral bud in the air, she grinned her grin and asked, “I take it you’re all good?”
“Holding up,” he said. “Robbery’s all over the news by the way. Cops still don’t know what the fuck.”
“I know,” she said, laying out the sack of tacos on the bed. “Turned the police scanner back on while I was out there. Dragnet isn’t even approaching the state line.” She kicked off her shoes and plopped down on the bed, sitting upright, legs crossed, and grabbed a taco.
“Well, shit,” he said after swallowing his first bite, “you won, didn’t you?”
She shrugged, taking her own first bite of taco, swallowing it with a cringe. “Ugh. Actually, I think I might’ve lost. These tacos are trash.”
Now he shrugged. “Tastes better than I expected from a taco joint in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe it’s just the pot.” He pulled out his dugout box and started packing his one-hitter. “Want some?” he asked.
She gently waved him off. “I’ll deal, thanks.”
“I’m not gonna run away if you get stoned or anything.”
“I know.” She did. As they quietly went through their meal, she found herself surprised at how relaxed everything was for a supposed kidnapping. Maybe it was the unique circumstances; she needed a hostage at the exact moment he apparently needed a shakeup. Two people with extreme needs colliding into each other at the exact moment they needed to; how often does that happen?
Never, right?
The tacos just weren’t working for her, and she wasn’t that hungry anyway, so she pulled herself off the bed and grabbed the duffel bag, lifting it onto the other bed. She unzipped it, and braced herself for her favorite part of the job.
When she turned the duffel bag over, green paper rained down upon the unused bed in fat stacks of 100s. She closed her eyes and sucked in the smell, Jesus that smell of the ink was so good. She took a stack, relishing the feel of the fibrous paper on her fingertips, and flipped through the crisp bills with her thumb as if preparing to shuffle a deck of cards. Bliss.
He watched her work in fascination; this was normally the part of the night where he started wondering if he was a robot since he thought he kept taking bites of his food the exact same way, at the exact same interval. Instead, he couldn’t get over just how much money he was looking at; more than he had been destined to see in his lifetime, easy. He remembered her telling him it was natural to get ideas around this much money; he was sure grateful for that heads-up now.
It took her some time to sort all the bills, to count and recount the stacks, do some math on a memo pad. After an hour, she came up with the number “$580,000.”
“Daaaaaaaamn.”
“Exactly. I told you what would happen if you tried to spend this money, right?”
“Be sexually violated by the cops or some shit,” he said, prompting a smile from her. “You don’t gotta worry about me…I mean, that’s what everyone says…”
“I believe you,” she assured him, stuffing the money back in the bag. “I think you’re smart enough to know that your best move is to just sit tight.”
“You’d be amazed how smart you become when you don’t have any pride,” he shrugged.
“Pride’s overrated,” she said, voice faltering a bit, movements slowing. She looked down at the still-opened duffel for a moment, then sat down on the bed.
“My last job was in West Texas,” she said. “This was about a year ago. Now, I don’t want to tell you too much about how I work, but from our time together and what you probably saw on the news, I’m sure you can figure out enough of my MO.”
“Sure.”
“Well, I spent about a month or two researching the place, the employees, hiring crew to back me up in case shit goes south. This bank was looking like any other bank, right? Granted, this is West Texas we’re talking about, so it wasn’t going to be a big score, but whatever. I like to mix it up.
“So I walk into the bank, my team’s in place, I approach the teller, everything’s five by five…there’s this big guy a few feet away from me. Can’t be any younger than 50. He’s got a red trucker’s hat, sunglasses, a long greying beard, and a black shirt under an open leather vest, it says ‘Welcome to America. Now Speak English.'”
“Shit. He sounds cool.”
She shook her head. “I’m seeing him from the corner of my eye. He’s carrying, and he’s staring at me, like he’s sizing up the situation and thinking of all the free NRA merch he’s gonna get once he puts me down. I realize, I’m about to draw down with this guy. And I don’t even think about it. I pull my gun a split second before he does…” She mimed shooting the guy with a finger gun. “Two shots to the chest. He actually shook as he went down, I dunno, like he walked into his surprise party and died of a heart attack from the shock.” She sighed. “First and last guy I ever shot.”
“Oh, shit.”
She nodded. “Obviously it worked out. Robbery turned hostile, alarms got tripped, we didn’t get as much as we wanted but we got enough. It was just…troubling, how easy it all was. Didn’t blink, didn’t throw up after the adrenaline wore off.”