When he got back to the car, the girl was behind the wheel racing the motor for a quick getaway. He slid in beside her with a grin.
“Five minutes, forty seconds,” he said, after a glance at his watch.
“Should be at the bikes in three minutes,” she said, taking a sharp turn without slowing down.
The young man reached under the seat and pulled out a black leather motorcycle jacket and slipped into it.
“How do I look?” he asked. “Like a Wild One, huh?”
“We’re not out of this yet.”
“Look, three minutes after we get on those bikes, we’ll be out on the highway. And nobody’ll be able to tell us from a couple of ordinary citizens on a motorcycle trip. We got out-of-state plates and drivers’ licenses plus phony identification papers. What are you worrying about, Baby? You planned it real well.”
She said nothing but she thought, “Yeah, I planned it real well. You’ll never know how well I planned it.”
She made the turnoff onto a little wagon trail that ran through heavy brush and timber.
The car slid to a stop next to a pile of green brush. They jumped out and began uncovering the sleek new English motorcycles. As the girl strapped the saddle bag to her bike, the young man was about to protest, but thought better of it.
Soon they were thundering down the road, and making good time. Then the road began angling upward, steeply, as it led to the top of a mountain that rose a thousand feet above the highway below it. At the crest, the road veered dangerously to the right and then began its winding descent to the highway. It was a dangerous curve, but the girl wasn’t worried; she had taken care of the brakes — no question about that. It was going to be a perfect job. A fifty thousand dollar haul, and all hers.
They rode hunched over, intent. The road began to drop sharply away now, one hundred, three hundred, five hundred feet. They were seventy yards away from a bad turn; it was time to slow down. They both retarded their spark and the English jobs backfired furiously. The girl kicked her foot brake. It went all the way to the footrest without any resistance. She hit it again frantically, but uselessly.
“Could I have taken the wrong bike?” she thought.
But she knew she hadn’t. The cross she had scratched on the handlebars was shining up at her. She glanced over at the young man. He had been watching her frantic efforts and was smiling.
His smile froze as he began frenziedly kicking at his brake, which she knew could not possibly work.