Innocent on the run. Part 28.

'Shut up you crazy bastard.' Shifty bellowed, but he was smiling. The car slowed a little, and soon they were right out in the country, with not another vehicle in sight. The driver turned off on to a dirt track and they bounced along the uneven ground for a few miles before coming to a halt under some trees. Another car was waiting there, and they transferred the holdall to its boot, before climbing in and driving away. The men were in an excellent humour, laughing and telling the driver how easy it had been, as they drove off the dirt road and back on to the highway. They headed back towards the city and took the ring road, by-passing the centre. Once away from Houston they headed South, keeping to the speed limit. Two police cars passed in the other direction, with their lights flashing, and Shifty waved them goodbye out of the back window. The driver thought it was a huge joke. Ricky was worried. What would they do with him? He could identify them. What was also bad, was that the bank staff could identify him. He was as much a bank robber as they were. Who would believe that they forced him to do it ? He hadn't been threatened inside the bank. He'd done as he was told and picked the bags of money up. To anyone watching, he must have seemed a part of the gang. He thought he was in trouble before, but that was nothing compared to the trouble he was in now. The car drove on down the highways, Ricky sitting in the corner, lost in his own thoughts. Two hours later they turned the car off the highway, onto a dirt road, and after a couple of miles, pulled up at a lonely farmhouse and drove the car into a barn. The two men in the front got out, and, as the driver opened Ricky's door, the other one opened the boot and got the holdall out. Ricky got out and was escorted into the farmhouse by Shifty and the driver. 'Don't even think about running anywhere,' Shifty told him. 'We're thirty miles from the next farm.' Shifty unlocked the front door and they went into the living room. The driver went to a refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen and came back with six beers. The three men opened beers and drank noisily. 'Have a beer, kid.' The driver said. 'I won't tell the cops you're under age.' He laughed, spilling some beer from his bottle. 'No, thanks.' Ricky said. It was beer that got him in the mess he was in, in the first place. Shifty and the other man were pulling the money bags out of the holdall, and putting them on the kitchen table. The driver took Ricky by the arm and sat him down on a kitchen chair where they could keep an eye on him. They emptied the bags of money on to the table in a pile and started counting it. Ricky had never seen so much money before ! There was a mountain of it, and it took ages to count ! The three men were ecstatic! The driver grabbed Shifty and did a little dance with him. 'Yahoo,' he whooped. 'Sixty eight thousand dollars. Whoooee.' 'Cut it out, you moron,' Shifty laughed. The other man was grinning all over his face. 'Take a good look, kid,' he said. 'You'll never see that much money again.' They divided the money into three piles and each put his pile in a bag, storing the bags in a cupboard. Shifty tucked the guns in his waistband and threw the holdall in a corner. The driver took some steaks out of the fridge and got a frying pan out. He heated the pan up and threw the first steak in. It was huge and filled the pan, and it smelled great as it sizzled away. He turned it once after about a minute, then once that side had cooked for a minute, he tipped it onto a plate, and passed it to Shifty. He cooked another one, said 'Here, Dan,' and the other man put down his beer and took it. The last one he cooked was for himself. Ricky looked at the meat and felt hunger pangs. He was ravenous. 'Do one for the kid.' Dan said. 'Let him do his own, I ain’t his servant.' Ricky got up from his chair and took a steak from the pile on top of the fridge. He heated up the pan again and cooked it. It was the first time he'd cooked a steak, and maybe it was a bit burned, but it tasted heavenly. 'Now, look,' Shifty said, opening another beer, and lighting a cigarette. 'We've got to decide what to do with this kid. He can identify us, and we could go down for a long time for this job.' The driver went across to the fridge and got another six beers out. He and Dan opened bottles. 'I only want to get out of the country...' Ricky began. 'Shut it ! ' Shifty warned. 'What's that ?' the driver asked him? 'I'm an illegal immigrant. I just want to go home to England. ' 'No one knows you're in this country?' Shifty asked. 'No.' he lied. 'Well then, it's easy.' Shifty told the others. 'We can knock him off and no one will miss him.' 103. Ricky was petrified. They were going to kill him. He started babbling, 'No, No, you don't need to do that, all I want is a ship and I'm out of the country, drop me off at a port and I'll jump a ship, I'll be gone before you know it, no one will ever know I've been here and when I'm gone you're .....' 'Shut up !' Shifty screamed. Dan said, 'We can't take you anywhere kid. They're looking for three men and a kid, the kid wearing dirty blue coveralls. The whole state will be out looking for us.' 'Yeah,' the driver giggled, 'We're famous, kid, we'd never make it. We're like the James gang,' and he drew an imaginary gun and said 'Bang bang,' laughing hysterically. He crossed to the cupboard and took a bottle of whisky out. Breaking the seal and holding it to his mouth, he gulped the fiery liquid down, and belched. 'Wow, ' he gasped. Shifty took the bottle off him and drank deeply. 'We got to think,' he said, and lit a cigarette. Ricky's stomach was knotted up and he started to shake. 'Maybe if two of you stayed here and the other one took me.....' 'Get this kid out of here,' Shifty bellowed. 'I can't think straight with him yakking.' The driver took Ricky by the arm, and dragged him up off the chair. There was a door opening off the kitchen and he kicked it open and shoved Ricky inside. He looked around him, but there was no means of escape. There was no window and the walls looked solid. It was a store room with shelves full of tins of food. Boxes and sacks of other goods were stacked at one end and large pieces of meat hung from hooks in the ceiling. It looked as though the three men had taken enough stores to last them years. Obviously the plan was to hide out here, after getting rid of him, Ricky thought. He was in big trouble. He listened at the door to try to overhear what their plans for him were. Shifty was talking rapidly, but Ricky couldn't hear what he was saying through the thick door. He heard the driver's maniacal laughter once, but he gave up trying to eavesdrop after a while and sat in the corner with his back against a sack. Chapter 9. Shifty said, ` We got no choice, he got to go.' The driver handed the whisky bottle to Dan, and said, 'O.K. I'll do it. I'll squash him like a bug.' and he squeezed his thumb down on the table. Dan drained the whisky bottle and laughed. 'Just breathe on him, skunk breath, that'll be enough.' The driver roared with laughter, beating his fists on the table. 'Skunk breath,' he repeated. Shifty got a new bottle of whisky from the cupboard and opened it, taking a long swallow, before passing it to Dan. Dan paused before taking a gulp. 'It's a shame,' he said. 'He seems like a nice kid' 'Yeah, a nice kid who can get us twenty years each,' Shifty told him. 'You ain't going soft on us are you, Dan.' 'Hell no.' Dan replied. 'I know it's got to be done.' 'And I'm the one to do it,' the driver added. He pointed his finger like a gun and said , 'Bing. Kaput. Finito.' Dan handed the bottle to the driver who took a large swallow, before passing it on to Shifty. 'We don't want a mess in here,' Shifty told him. 'Not like that last one you did. He bled all over the place.' 'Yeah, he was a bleeder,' the driver slurred. 'Hish blood wash all over.' He spread his arms to encompass the area that the blood had covered, and grinned. Shifty took another swallow and handed the bottle over to Dan. The whisky was affecting all of them by now, but they were all on a high, and knew they could handle it. Dan took a swallow from the bottle and said, 'Do it outside somewhere, and make it clean.' 'Right, clean. I'll take him over to the swamp, stand him on the bank, then Bang, right in the head. He falls in the swamp and the 'gators have him for breakfast. That's clean, he gets a wash as well.' He bent over the table laughing uproariously, slapping the table with his hands. Dan passed him the bottle and he sniggered as drained it in one swallow. 'Man, that's good ,' he gasped. Dan crossed over to the cupboard and looked in. 'Maybe we should have got more whisky. These bottles are going too fast.' He took another one out and opened it, taking a deep draught. The driver slurred, 'There's another case, in the shtore room,' as he took the bottle and drank. 'Yahoo,' he screamed, out of the blue. 'Sixty eight thoushand,'and drummed his heels on the floor. The others laughed at him performing, and Shifty took the bottle from him and took a drink. 'I told you guys to stick with me.' he shouted. 'Stick with me, I said, didn't I, huh ?' and he held the bottle above his head and did a little dance. 'Yahoo.' the driver echoed, bouncing up and down in his chair. Dan took the bottle from Shifty and drank. It was nectar ! He staggered as he put the bottle down, colliding with a chair. He steadied it and said, 'Friggin chair's alive.' 'In the morning, when it's light, I take him out and clean him up.' The driver shouted. 'Hey, that shounds like a song.' Dan said. His mouth was working , but the words were coming out wrong. He started singing. 'In the morning, when it's light.' 'The kid goes to the swamp, and the 'gators fight.' Shifty joined in. The three of them thought it was hilarious, and roared with laughter. The level of whisky in the bottle dropped until there was only a small amount left. 'Shit,' Dan held it up and looked at it, swaying a little and clutching at a chair back for support. 'Whisky don't last long.' Shifty staggered into the living room and sat down on the settee. Dan followed him with the remains of the bottle. 'Drink up, now, baby,' he said, holding the bottle up to Shifty's mouth. Shifty tried to laugh as he was drinking it and nearly choked. He was spluttering and gasping, spilling most of the drink down his front, as the other two laughed like mad. Dan weaved his way back to the kitchen table and threw the empty bottle at the wall. It bounced off the wall with a crash. 'Friggin bottle's dry,' he screamed. 'You sit down, Dan.' The driver said, and put a chair under Dan as he collapsed onto it. 'I'll fesh another one.' He got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled across to the cupboard. Taking another bottle out, he got the top off with a little difficulty and turned to Dan, but Dan was already passed out, his feet stretched out in front of him and his head resting against the back of the chair. The driver looked at Dan and shouted, 'Pussy,' before staggering in to the living room to give Shifty a drink. Shifty was also passed out, with his mouth open and loud rasping snores coming from it. The driver shook him by the shoulder, 'Wake up, you bastard.' he bellowed. But Shifty wouldn't wake if he'd put an atom bomb under him. 'Pussy,' he shouted. 'Pussies,' he called as he made his way back to the table. He sat down heavily and raised the bottle to his lips, taking a swallow. 'It's down to me to stay awake,' he shouted. 'It's down to me. Wheee,' and he took another drink from the bottle. He lowered the bottle and said, 'Wha...' as his head crashed onto the table and the bottle slid from his fingers, bouncing on the floor before spilling the contents in a wide circle around his chair. Ricky heard the bottle crash against the wall as Dan threw it, and ran to the door to try to hear what was going on. He couldn't make anything out, though, and stood there with his head pressed against the wood straining to catch a word. He heard the chair scrape back as The Driver plonked himself down on it, and he heard 'Wheee.' A little while later he heard the bottle hit the floor and roll around before coming to a stop. What did it all mean, he wondered! It was as quiet as the grave out there now and he tried the door handle. The door was unlocked. He opened it a crack and listened. Nothing. Then he heard a snore. He opened the door wider, and he could see the chair with The Driver's head and shoulders slumped on the table top. Sliding out into the room further, he could see Dan fast asleep on a chair, his head thrown back, snoring softly. Ricky crept out into the kitchen. Where was the Shifty one? He peered around the door of the kitchen into the living room, and he could see Shifty stretched out on the settee. The car. Make it to the car and get away. He was halfway across the living room to the door when he remembered the money. Maybe he could return it and clear his name. Although he hated the idea of going back, he crept back to the kitchen, scooped the money into the holdall and crossed back to the door, expecting at any minute to be shot in the back by one of the men. The hair was standing up on the back of his neck, but he made it to the door and let himself out. Stifling the urge to run for his life, he walked swiftly to the barn and opened the doors, hoping with all his might that they'd left the keys in the car. He opened the driver's door and looked in. Yes. the keys were in the ignition. He threw the holdall in and got in. Easing the door shut he looked down to the automatic shift and slid it into Park. Crossing his fingers once, he turned the key and the engine burst into life. Slamming the drive into Reverse, he floored the pedal and the car shot out of the barn. He forgot to grab the steering wheel but it didn't matter, the car shot backwards in a straight line. Only when he had gone a hundred yards or so, did he stop the car, slam it into Drive and floor the pedal again. He shot towards the house, and, in a panic, wrenched the wheel left. The car swerved madly away from the front of the house and screeched on two wheels in a tight turn, hitting one of the porch supports as it went. Copyright Deric Barry 2005. 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