I needed money fast so I took a job as a getaway man. I was used to that as women were always telling me to get away.
+++++I left the motor running as the gang went into a house and soon came out again, carrying a woman who’d had a paper bag put over her head. Whether it was because the gang didn’t want her to see them or whether it was for esthetic purposes I didn’t know.
+++++The gang wore balaclavas over their heads as well, in case the victim’s bag tore, I supposed.
+++++They dragged her into the limo and told me to drive until they told me not to drive.
+++++We ended up in an alley off Vine, and they shuffled her out of the limo, and upstairs into what must have been their hide-out or lair (although I saw no lions).
+++++I followed them as George and Harry (for those were their names) carried the woman by the arms and legs, the woman kicking George in the groin each time they took a step.
+++++They dumped her into a chair, she removed the bag from her head, revealing a very fetching face, and she slapped George, who fell into Harry, who fell into their leader, who I knew only as their Leader. The kidnappee growled at George.
+++++George tried to be tough. “And stay there.”
+++++“Let me go!” cried the kidnappee, whose name turned out to be Myrtle.
+++++Harry acted just as tough. “Considering all the hard work we did to kidnap you, that hardly seems likely.”
+++++“You scum,” retorted Myrtle.
+++++The Leader took us all aside and they removed their balaclavas which seemed to have defeated the purpose of having them on in the first place. “OK, now, what’s the first thing we do? George?”
+++++George was definite about this. “The first thing we do is kill her.”
+++++The Leader sneered at him. “No, no. That’s the last thing we want to do.”
+++++George thought this over. “Do you mean, that’s the last thing we want to do, meaning, we’re never going to do it, or, that’s the last thing we want to do, in a true and actual sense?”
+++++“What do you think?”
+++++George got a blank look on his face. He wasn’t used to thinking.
+++++Harry had an idea. “I think the first thing we ought to do is tie her up so she can’t get away.”
+++++“Excellent idea,” said the Leader. “George, did you get the rope?”
+++++“Rope? I thought you said dope.”
+++++“How are we supposed to tie her up with dope?”
+++++George had an answer. “Well, we could make her really confused.”
+++++Harry had another idea. “Why don’t we just ask her nicely?”
+++++George and Harry nodded to each other, then sauntered back toward Myrtle, whistling nonchalantly. “Would you stay here with us, please?”
+++++“Eat worms!” cried Myrtle.
+++++Harry pondered this. “Is that a yes or a no?”
+++++The Leader considered this setback. “All right, we’ll just have to watch her carefully.”
+++++George and Harry did. I wondered what I was doing there.
+++++The Leader continued. “What we need now is a ransom note.”
+++++Harry brightened at this. “Oh! Can I do that? Can I, can I? I love cutting little letters out of magazines.”
+++++“George, where are the magazines?”
+++++“I forgot them.”
+++++The Leader started to get exasperated, and I was almost ready to go until I heard his next idea. “Well, we’ll phone in the ransom demand. I’ll go to a phone booth.” He searched through his pockets. “Does anyone have a nickel?”
+++++They searched through their pockets and couldn’t come up with any change. I already knew I had none.
+++++“No, no nickel,” said George definitely.
+++++The Leader turned to Myrtle. “Excuse me, miss, do you have a nickel we could borrow?”
+++++“We can pay you back when we get the ransom money,” added Harry helpfully.
+++++Myrtle sneered at them. “I wouldn’t give you the sweat off my butt.”
+++++George saw the problem with that statement. “That’s not what we asked for.”
+++++“Check her purse,” said the Leader.
+++++Harry opened her purse, and threw things on the ground – – magazines, a rope, a book, a scarf. “No, nothing,” he said.
+++++I started to say something but thought better of it.
+++++The Leader was undaunted. “Well, I’ll see if I can beg for a nickel. What’s her father’s phone number?”
+++++Harry and George looked at each other, and no glimmer of thought passed between them.
+++++Harry turned menacingly to Myrtle. “What’s your old man’s phone number?”
+++++“Do you think I’d tell you?”
+++++“Well, I was hoping.”
+++++“Forget it.”
+++++“Not exactly Amelia Earhart, are you?” I never did figure out what that meant, nor did I pursue the thought for very long.
+++++“OK, I’ll check the phone book then!” said the Leader. “Where does the old boy live?”
+++++Again, Harry and George had no idea.
+++++George spoke up first as a thought attempted to develop in what passed for a brain lobe. “Well, it couldn’t be that difficult to find him. What’s her last name?”
+++++“Smith.”
+++++“Wait a minute,” said Harry. “She’s wearing a wedding ring. Smith is her married name.”
+++++The Leader countered this with, “She might have kept her own name when she got married. She might be a real Smith.”
+++++“Hey,” said George, “if she was African, she’d be a blacksmith.”
+++++“Shut up, George. What’s your name?”
+++++“George.”
+++++“Not you, idiot.”
+++++“Buzz off!” cried Myrtle.
+++++George pointed proudly at her. “Buzzoff! She’s a Russian!”
+++++Harry had been looking through Myrtle’s purse and had found an address book. “There’s an address here. We could go to her house, speak to her husband, and ask for her father’s phone number.”
+++++“Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious?”
+++++“Well, of course it does to us, but we’re the kidnappers.”
+++++George seemed to think this was a particularly stupid idea, and said so. “You moron, if we spoke to her husband, how do we know he’d even have her father’s phone number?”
+++++The Leader had had enough. He took Harry and George over to the side of the room. I sat down, expecting more of the same. “Boys, I don’t see any other way out of this. George, what’s the last thing we do?”
+++++George knew this one. “Well, the last thing we want to do is kill her.”
+++++“Right.”
+++++“So what do we do?” asked George, no longer following what was going on.
+++++“We kill her.”
+++++“No, you just said that’s the last thing we want to do.”
+++++“That’s right,” said the Leader, putting his balaclava on again for no reason that I could understand. “That’s the last thing we do.”
+++++George was now satisfied. “So we don’t want to do that.”
+++++“No, we don’t want to do that, but—”
+++++“Well, that’s good,” said George, “because that’s the last thing we want to do.”
+++++The Leader tried again. “George, we’ve done everything else and it hasn’t helped, so the last thing we do is?”
+++++George had this down pat. “The last thing we do is kill her.”
+++++“That’s right.”
+++++“So what do we do?”
+++++The Leader jumped over Harry or rather, through him, and put his hands around George’s neck. “Kill her, George! Kill her!”
+++++George was content. “No, that’s the last thing we do.”
+++++Harry tried to break up the fight between George and the Leader but got himself entangled, and they all fell to the floor.
+++++Myrtle had been watching them all this time and began to put all the things back into her purse. She watched them for another minute, then got up, nodded to me, and left.
+++++The three of them finally noticed what happened.
+++++George was, surprisingly, the first one of them to figure out what had happened. “Now, that’s the last thing we want to do.”
+++++I never got paid for that gig.

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Bill Kitcher

Bill’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published and/or produced in Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, and the U.S. His stories have appeared in Fiery Scribe Review, Guilty, Mystery Tribune, Revolute, New Contrast, The Prague Review, Eunoia Review, Once Upon A Crocodile, Pigeon Review, Ariel Chart, Little Old Lady Comedy, Yellow Mama, Black Petals, Slippage Lit, and many other journals. His novel, Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep, will be published in 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing.

Latest posts by Bill Kitcher (see all)

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