The Get Away   Teresa P. Thompson   © Copyright 2002 by Teresa P. Thompson

          She sat on her suit case waiting for a taxi.  Lucinda could feel the wind brush

against her long flowing peasant dress as she watched the police cars race past the tiny

gas station.

     “Are you waiting for someone?”  The man, who had been standing beside her for

sometime, asked casually.

     “I called a taxi, but it doesn’t seem to be coming,”  she answered in a sarcastic tone as

she pulled her long red locks of hair behind her head.

     “I have one on the way.  If you are going in my direction, you are welcome to ride

along with me,”  the man said after explaining that he was on his way to visit his wife

who was in the local nursing home.

     The five minutes that passed before the taxi arrived seemed to stretch on forever to

Lucinda, as she listened to the man babble on about his wife’s illness and how he had

made it a priority to visit her every Saturday for the past two years.

     “Has it been a week already, Mr. Campbell?”  The taxi driver asked as he opened the

door for the elderly man.

     “Yes, it has,”  the man answered as he motioned for Lucinda to climb inside the cab.

     “This little lady has been waiting for a taxi for sometime, so I told her that she could

share the ride with me,”  Mr. Campbell said.  “I hope that’s not an inconvenience to you

Johnny.”

     “Certainly not. As long as she is going in our direction,”  Johnny said, never making

eye contact with Lucinda as she tugged her suit case into the taxi.

     “Where are all the police cars going this morning?”  Mr. Campbell asked as he wiped

the sweat from his forehead.

     “There seems to have been a bank robbery this morning,”  Johnny answered as he

slowed the taxi down in order to let a police cruiser pass.  “It must have happened before

the bank opened, when there were only two tellers there.  I heard that the bank tellers

were found tied up inside the vault and the robber, dressed in solid black, had gotten

away  on foot with several million dollars.  It was as though he just vanished into thin

air.”

     As the taxi pulled into the front entrance of the nursing home, Mr. Campbell reached

Johnny his usual five dollars.  But unlike all the other mornings, Johnny just smiled and

said, “This one is on me, old man.”

     As the taxi exited the parking lot, Johnny looked through the rear view mirror and

smiled as he said,  “The airport it is, Madam.”

     Lucinda patted the suit case full of money and grinned as she pulled the black ski

mask from her dress pocket.

     “I left the other clothes along with the gun in the garbage can behind the gas station,

but I just had to keep a little souvenir,”  she said as she waved the mask in Johhny’s

sight.

     “I’ll meet you in Acapulco in a week.  As soon as all of the commotion dies down

around here,”  Johnny said as he pulled the taxi into the entrance of  the airport.

     Johnny let out a “Ye-hoo” as he watched Lucinda exit the taxi.  Finally all the rides he

had given Mr. Campbell to the nursing home had paid off.   No one would have dreamed

of checking the same taxi that had made that same route every Saturday  for two years.

I live in Harlan, Kentucky.  I am a former newspaper reporter and  the mother of three daughters  from 21 years to three years old.  I enjoy writing short stories---both fiction and nonfiction.

Story List And Biography for Teresa.

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