Charlie Huston - Caught Stealing

– We’re closed.

– Yeah, I know, but I have to get some stuff from my unit.

– We’re closed.

– Yeah, but I really need my stuff.

– We’re closed.

He turns his back to walk away and I start banging on the glass again. He turns back.

– Knock it off.

I bang harder.

– You best knock it off or you gonna get it.

Bang, bang, bang.

– OK. You want it, you got it.

He takes the keys from the clip on his belt, unlocks the door and pushes it open. As I move back, Paris steps from the shadows next to the door. He presses the barrels of the shotgun against the guard’s face and marches him right back into the office, followed by me and Ed. The boss guy sees us come in and stands up and puts his hands on his head. Ed locks the door and I take the bandanna he gave me back in the car out of my pocket and tie it around my face. It’s black, just like the ones worn by the brothersDuRanté.

I’m an outlaw.

Every now and then, if you’re lucky, you get to see someone capable of true excellence do what it is they are best at. As a boy I got to see Willie Mays play baseball. He never got credit for half of what he did because he made it look so easy. I don’t know how hard armed robbery is, but Ed and Paris make it look easy.

They work fast and I try to keep up. They force the guard and the boss out of the office and into the loading area, near the elevators. Paris keeps the shotgun where they can see it, while Ed does all the talking and occasionally points at them with a Colt that looks identical to the one Paris used to shoot rats at the dump.

– Who else is in the building?

The boss shakes his head.

– No one.

– Bullshit! Who else?

– No one.

Ed steps over and slaps him lightly on the cheek, like he’s a stubborn child.

– No one?

– They all split fast so they could watch the Mets game.

– Are the elevators still on?

– Yes.

– Are the alarms armed for the upper floors?

– No.

Ed reaches out and gives him that little loving slap again.

– I will kill you. I will kill you.

– Off, they’re all off.

Ed turns to me.

– Where to?

– Fourth floor.

Paris stays behind in case of trouble and the rest of us get on the elevator. Ed makes the guard and the boss stand at the far end of the elevator so he can cover them, while I operate the controls and take us to the fourth floor. I pull the doors open and Ed and I step out, followed by the others. I tell them the unit number and they lead the way.

At the door, Ed covers them and I open the lock and pull the door open. Ed takes a quick look inside.

– Cleanthat shit up and bring the bag out.

I go inside and stuff the cash Russ and I left scattered on the floor back into the hockey bag,then I zip it up and drag it into the hall. It’s heavy.Really heavy. Ed steps away from the door and waves the guys into the unit. He steps inside the unit, close to the boss.

– Where’s the alarm pad?

The boss nods.

– Right next to the office door in a locked case.

– Where’s the key?

– On the ring in my pocket. It’s the small silver round one.

Ed slips his hand in the boss’s pocket and pulls out the keys.

– How do we activate the alarm?

– Eight-four-five-one. Then press “cycle.” You have thirty seconds to leave and lock the door with the biggest key on the ring before the alarm goes off.

Ed walks very close to him.

– Tell me again.

– Eight-four-five-one.Cycle. Thirty seconds.

The boss tries to cower away from Ed, but Ed slips an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close.

– I’ll kill you both. I’ll come back from the dead and kill you both.

– Eight-four-five-onecycle thirty.

Ed backs out of the room and I close the door and lock it. He helps me carry the money to the elevator. We go down, get Paris, activate the alarm, lock the door behind us, throw the money in the trunk, get in the Caddie and drive away. Ed pulls the bandanna from his face and looks at me.

– See, we got it covered.

We’re in the apartment they grew up in.

– Roman got the Chink, and your boss got Bert, and Russ got Ernie. So who got Russ?

Their mother died some years back, never having reconciled with her hoodlum sons. A cousin got the lease and the brothers arranged for the apartment to be maintained as a hideout. Ed told me about it as we drove out here to Queens. Paris listened and added nothing of his own. I watch Bud lap milk from a little blue bowl on the linoleum kitchen floor.

Paris is sitting at the Formica-topped kitchen table, surrounded by the cash, tapping out numbers on a calculator and scribbling them down in a yellow legal pad. Ed and I sit on a beat-up couch with plastic covers. He’s drinking a Heineken. I’m drinking ginger ale.

– I got Russ.

Paris looks up from his figures and Ed nods his head.

– No shit?

– No shit.

– What’d you get ’imwith?

– A baseball bat.

– Fuck.

I’m squeezing little dents into my soda can,then popping them out. Pop, pop, pop, pop.

– Well, Russ wasa OK cat, but I guess he kind of screwed us all. Damn, a baseball bat?

– Uh-huh.

– I’m tellin’ you, Hank,watchin ’you, it’s likewatchin ’ a egg get all hard-boiled. No shit.

Paris clears his throat and Ed looks over at him.

– Well?

– Four million five hundred twenty-eight thousand.

– No shit?

– Yep.

– How ’bout that?Only twenty-two K short. Let’s hear it for Russ keeping his fingers out of the till.

I take a swig of my soda.

– Exceptfor trying to rob it all.

– Well, yeah, but the man wasn’t exactly made of steel,ya know?

– I know.

– Great thief, though.Great fucking thief.

He and Paris raise their beers and drink a toast. My stomach churns as I think about the pulpy dent I put in the side of Russ’s head. I sip more ginger ale and look out the tiny slit window, which lets no light into the basement apartment. I get up off the couch.

– I need to use the can.

Ed has gone over to the fridge for another beer.

– Down the hall on the right. Hold the lever down for a second or it won’t flush all the way.

I put my soda can on the coffee table, grab my bag and walk down the shag-carpeted hallway.

– Don’t take forever. I want to make that call.

The walls of the hallway are lined with photographs, each one marking the passage of another year. The first is of a handsome young couple with their newborn, a chubby little Paris. The next one is the same: the couple is on the plastic-covered couch, Paris between them getting bigger. Ed arrives in the third photo and sits in his big brother’s little lap. They grow, Paris a shy beanpole and Ed, small and intense, always wearing the outfit his brother wore a few photos back. At the tenth picture, the father disappears. There are six more. In each the boys edge toward one end of the couch and their mother toward the other, until in the final picture they sit at opposite ends, staring into the camera, unsmiling. Soon after this point, these small, beautiful boys will whip another child to death. I look at the eyes in the photos: Paris looks afraid, Ed looks hurt. I go into the bathroom.

The toilet has one of those fuzzy covers and a cushy seat. I sit to pee just because it looks so comfy, and it is. I hold the handle down and keep it there while the toilet flushes. I take off my jacket and grimy sweatshirt and crusty T-shirt and unwind my bandage. I dig the first-aid stuff out of my bag and clean my wound again and rewrap it. Then I find an extra T-shirt and a heavy flannel in the bag and put them on. There’s a wicker laundry hamper in the corner and I toss my dirty stuff inside. When I packed the bag, I didn’t bother with pants. Way to think ahead, asshole. I look in the mirror and John Carlyle looks out. He looks like he’d like to kick my ass. I open the door and go back down the hall so I can use Ed’s phone to set up Roman and Bolo to be murdered. I feel pretty good about it. Does that make me a bad person?