‘Quick, quick!’ Blue yelled, throwing himself through the open back door of the SUV. ‘Drive!’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Orange mumbled, adjusting his side mirrors.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Blue screeched from the back seat, the whites of his eyes standing out from his balaclava. ‘Drive!’
‘Hey,’ Orange said sternly, angling the rear-view mirror so he could look at his accomplice in the backseat. ‘Safety is important, young man. If you don’t prepare before you drive, you might not arrive alive.’
He nodded, lesson delivered, and started patting his jacket.
‘Now where did I put those keys?’
Blue groaned and slid down in his seat. The distant sound of sirens began to grow louder.
‘I’m going to prison,’ he whispered to himself.
The SUV rumbled to life underneath him.
‘Found them!’ Orange called back with a cackle. ‘They were in the ignition already!’
‘Drive the car!’
‘Yeesh,’ Orange muttered, dropping the transmission into drive and checking the traffic was clear. He paused to let a police car, lights flashing and sirens blaring, fly past, screeching to a stop outside of the bank. Orange shook his head.
‘Driving like that is why auto repair is such big business nowadays.’
Blue clutched his duffle bag and began to mumble a prayer his mother had taught him when he was a boy.
The coast clear, Orange finally pulled the SUV out, fiddling with the radio as they crisscrossed the suburban streets a full ten kilometres under the speed limit.
‘See,’ he chuckled, ‘slow and steady wins the– what the heck?!’
Blue glared at his driver from the back seat.
‘Who are you?’ he seethed.
‘You told me not to use my real–’
‘I was told you were a professional.’
‘Buddy, I’m just an average bloke who takes care of his car by getting an annual general car service around Bankstown, I don’t know who told you I did anything else.’
‘Wait,’ Blue frowned. ‘So you’re not a wheelman?’
‘Did Fred say I was? He’s always talking my business up,’ Orange chuckled. ‘He’s married to my sister, did you know?’
Blue let out a deep sigh, his fingers tightening around the duffle bag strap.