Dirty Money (2008)(aka Breakout) by Richard Stark

Author:Richard Stark [Stark, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The week at the doctor’s house was grueling. Nick

had a terrific sense of urgency, a need to take

action, but there was never anything to do. All

week the television news told him the heat was

still on, and he knew he was the reason why. If it

was just the bank’s money, they’d ease off after a

while, but he’d killed one of their own, and they

weren’t about to let up.

He kept trying to make plans, come to decisions,

but there was simply not a single move he could

make. If he left Dr. Madchen’s house, how long

would it take them to catch up with him? No time

at all. But how could he stay here, like this, as

though his feet were nailed to the floor?

He had never thought before that he might some

day go crazy, but now he did. The jangling electric

need to do something, do something, when there

was nothing to be done; there was nothing worse.

He thought sometimes he’d kill the doctor, take his

car and whatever valuables he had in the house,

and head north. But then he’d remember the

roadblocks, and he knew it couldn’t happen. He

didn’t have safe ID. They had his picture. What

was he going to do?

By Friday evening, when the doctor told him the

maid would be coming back tomorrow and Nick

couldn’t stay at the house any longer, Nick was

ready to go, it hardly mattered where. He’d been

more beaten down by the week of inaction than if

he’d spent a month in a war zone. When the doctor

gave him the ultimatum— too timid for an

ultimatum, but that’s still what it was— he actually

welcomed it, as a change, any change from being in

this paralysis, and he knew immediately what he

was going to do.

“Tomorrow,” he told the doctor, “when you go get

this Estrella, you’re gonna drive me somewhere,”

and the next day he had the doctor drive him past

the church, but without stopping or pointing it out

or making it seem as though the church had

anything to do with his plans. But then, a little

farther on, where the road curved and dipped

down to a bridge over a narrow stream, Nick said,

“Stop here, I’ll get out and you drive on.”

The doctor stopped, beside the road just before the

bridge, and Nick got out, then stooped to look back

into the car and say, “We never met each other,

Doctor. If you make no trouble for me, I’ll make no

trouble for you.”

“I won’t make any trouble.”

Nick believed him; the doctor’s face looked as

whipped as his own. “Thanks,” he said, and shut

the car door, and the doctor’s Alero wobbled

away over the bridge and out of sight.

Nick saw no other cars as he walked back to the

church. Would it all be the same? He was counting

on it. His idea, if it could even be called an idea,

was to grab as much of the money as he could,

steal a car from somewhere around here, then

drive it strictly on back roads, keeping away from

the roadblocks.

Canada was still the best hope he had, if he had

any hope at all. He’d head north, up through the

winding little roads in the mountains.

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