by Ian Bull
“You’re late,” Paul says to Sam.
“I’m here, aren’t I? And my offer to skip this last job still stands. You’ll make more.”
Paul snickers. “That’s funny. Shall we go back to my office?”
Kath is already in Paul’s office. She leans against his desk, dressed in jeans and a tight motorcycle jacket, and a red shirt underneath. Her hair is back in a bun, with a wisp that’s fallen loose across her face. The whole image drives Sam nuts when he sees her, but he keeps quiet, aware that Paul is observing them.
“Hello again,” Sam says to her.
“Hello,” Kath says, backing away from the table. “You want to see the madness he wants us to attempt? This job is impossible.”
“For experts like you? This is a cakewalk,” Paul says.
Sam moves closer to the table. There are charts and architectural blueprints stretched out and held down with paperweights. Sam glances at the corner and sees the address – 404 Montgomery Street, in the heart of downtown.
“You want us to break into the Flood Building? If we don’t get caught going up, we’ll get caught going down. The entire building has got those new security cameras, and guards in the lobby,” Sam says.
Kath has given up fighting and leans against the back wall, shaking her head.
Paul moves behind his desk, forcing Sam to step aside. “Hear me out. On the sixteenth floor is Kearne Securities, the largest brokerage house on the West Coast. Stock and bond sales are all electronic now, but sometimes, clients still want the actual papers, the real stock and bond certificates. They’re either old and they don’t trust computers, or they want to hand them out for gifts, wills, graduations. So Kearne gets them for them, and vaults them,” Paul says, then pauses for emphasis, looking at each of them. “My sources say that there are two million dollars in unmarked certificates in their vault right now.”
Sam examines the architectural designs. Paul has also arranged photos of the lobby and the sixteenth floor where Kearne Securities is. There’s a stack of paperwork with phone numbers, plus a breakdown of the number of guards working, their shifts, their names, the loading elevators, the number of security cameras – it’s all there.
Sam is impressed. Paul has done his research. That doesn't mean, however, that the plan is going to work. If he studies these papers, he will know everything about the Flood Building and Kearne Securities, but he still won't know how to break in.
“How do we get past this security team? And their cameras?” Sam asks.
“You can’t. He knows it’s an impossible job, that’s why he gave it to us,” Kath say, crossing her arms. She puts the back heel of her boot against the white wall, marking it.
“You just put a mark on my wall,” Paul says.
“I know,” Kath says, and drags her heel down, leaving a long black streak. “Are you going to blow up over a mark on the wall?”
Paul mumbles his fake laugh to keep from exploding. “You people act like it’s Fort Knox! Their security is lax. I’ve been planning this for years, waiting for the right team, and you two are it. It’s all there on paper. You will each have over seven hundred thousand dollars. You can retire forever.”
Paul steps away from the desk and allows Sam to move close again. Sam leafs through the plans, examining the elevator shafts and the camera setups. He looks at the pages with the guards’ schedules and the garbage pickups. He examines the electrical and fire systems. After ten minutes of close examination, he steps back again.
“Kath is right, it can’t be done. You can’t stand that we’re almost out from under you, so you stick us with this.”
Paul crosses his arms and stands by the door. As if by magic, Inge opens the door, enters and closes it behind her and leans against it, blocking any chance of an exit. "This is what we agreed on. Three jobs, and we pick one each. But if you all want to back out now, we can restructure your debt and we can make other arrangements."
“So you can string us out forever? You are the devil," Kath says.
Inge growls and moves toward her, and Paul puts his arm up to block the white she-bear from attacking. Kath stands her ground, even though the hair on her neck stands straight up.
Sam rolls up the papers and slides them into the cardboard tube. “I’m not backing out now. I’ll find a way to do this job. I’ll use what you’ve given me, and then come up with my own plan. That means it will be on my schedule. Then I’ll never owe you a damn thing again.” He opens the satchel and slides in the stack of composition books, legal pads and the book of photo prints.
“You can’t take all that,” Paul says. “You have to work on it here.”
“You worried I’m going to go to the cops? Or do something stupid? Leave it on bus seat? That hasn’t happened so far,” Sam says, and heads for the door.
“Those stock certificates won’t be in that safe forever.”
“You said you’ve been planning this job for years. Now you want it done in two weeks? You can wait a couple of months.”
“Wait a second, you don’t speak for me, “Kath says.
“Then I'll do it alone. Have fun working for Shorty the rest of your life," Sam says. Inge lunges at Sam, who ducks her punch and then trips her with a sideswipe with his foot. Inge staggers three steps but regains her footing. Sam slams the door behind him.
Paul and Kath stare at each other for a full minute. Inge stares at them staring at each other. “Make her leave,” Kath finally says.
Paul nods at Inge. “Darling, can you bring us two cups of iced coffee?” Inge makes her low cat growl noise and departs. She looks crushed as she walks out.
“You're such a lucky man," Kath says. "Cujo loves you."
“Say what you're going to say, or I'll have her punch your teeth down your throat."
“The job is too big.”
“That’s why I picked it,” Paul says, and sits behind his desk, gesturing for Kath to sit opposite him. Kath obeys.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kath asks.
“I know what’s going on with you two.”
Kath is glad she’s sitting so Paul can’t see how much her legs are shaking.
“Relax! I asked you to get close to him, and you did!” Paul says.
She crosses her legs and her arms, trying to look chic and in control, while she fights to keep from dry heaving.
Paul points at her, now serious. “Except you think you know him. You don’t.”
“But you do?” Kath asks.
“You want to know how much he bad-mouthed you the last time we met? He’ll do anything and say anything to get that money he stole and get out from under me. Even if he has to roll over you to do it.”
Kath exhales with disgust, but as she does her breath trembles, giving away her heartbreak. That’s enough for Paul to know he has an opening and he flies into it.
"Poor Kath. Still have a soft heart? Trust me, he has other things planned."
Kath stiffens in her chair and narrows her eyes at the man she hates most in the world. “Yeah? What’s he got planned instead?”
"He'll say he's doing this job. He may even plan it out, perfecting every detail. But what he'll do is find the half million he stiffed me for, and then skip town."
“How did I know it would circle back to this?” Kath asks, shaking her head.
Paul leans forward, putting his elbows on his desk. "I know this man. If he had the money, he'd have taken off a long time ago. This forces him to make it happen now."
"You're wrong; there's no money."
Paul laughs. “Don’t be naïve, Kath. He’s playing you. Sam is a smart man who likes to play dumb. But I’m smarter.”
“I’m not breaking into the Flood Building. I’m done.” Kath gets out of her chair.
Paul wags his finger at her. “You’re not done. And you won’t have to break in.”
“What will I do instead?”
Paul gets up out of his chair and walks over to her. “Tell him you want in after all. He
won’t refuse. Then just keep your eyes open, and let me know when he makes a move,” Paul says. He lowers his voice. “And anything he does could be a move, remember that.”
“You two are like Spy vs. Spy in Mad Magazine, two idiots trying to outsmart each other,” Kath says. She tries to open the door, but Inge is on the other side, blocking her exit.
Paul reaches out and gently shuts the door again. “He will betray you. Just make sure you do it to him first.”
“I will. And then I’ll be done with both of you, forever,” Kath says, looking down at this ruthless man two inches shorter than she is.
Paul reaches up and strokes her face with the back of his hand. "Am I that bad? I'd hate to lose you from my life. We can always make new arrangements. We can all benefit."
Kath recoils from his touch, but Paul steps closer, leaning in to kiss her. Inge swings the door open. Kath ducks under her arm and darts down the hallway, past the exercise equipment and out the front door of the health club.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
S am spends the day riding Muni, thinking about his options. He rides the 38 Geary bus out to the Ocean and then back downtown. Then at the Embarcadero Station, he jumps on the L-Taraval streetcar and rides it all the way to Wawona and 46th Avenue, out by the Zoo. He sits in the very back on the right-hand side, with the window open, the same seat he chose as a teenager when he rode buses everywhere in The City. Every few minutes he scribbles an idea down on a tiny pad that he pulls from the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he puts it away and looks at the traffic out the window.
He ends up on the sidewalk in front of the purple house where the mean old lady with the eye patch lives, Mrs.Wilkenson. He looks up at her window, starts to head up the stairs, then changes his mind, then goes up and almost rings the doorbell, but changes his mind, more nervous than he was on his last two heists.
He rubs his face, paces some more, then pulls out an envelope from inside his jacket. He makes sure Mrs. Wilkenson isn’t ready to dump bleach on him from above, then dashes over and slips it into the mail slot next to the garage door. Mrs. Wilkenson appears in the upstairs window in her Hawaiian print housecoat and black eye patch, swearing and shaking her fist.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
S am carries two heavy-duty plastic shopping bags and darts up the stairs of the Fog Cutter Motor Lodge on Lombard Street. No one sees him pull out a key and go inside Room 28.
Kath comes out of the bathroom and watches him stow the heavy bags by the bed. “Where have you been?” she asks.
“Thinking. And buying.”
Sam pulls out his purchases and tosses them onto the bed. Hammers, rope, pliers, screwdrivers, headphones, dishwashing gloves, bolt cutters, electrical wires, batteries.
“You can’t do this.”
“We’ll use our plan. Otherwise, it’ll be a rerun of what happened to me two years ago.”
“You’re trying to beat him and he’s trying to beat you. Both of you will lose.”
The bed is covered with tools and electrical equipment. Sam stares at it, his leg shaking. He bites his fingernails, which Kath has never seen him do before.
“Did you hear what I said?” Kath asks.
Sam turns fast to face her. “You’ve got to trust me, Kath. Please.”
“I’m trying.”
Kath stares into his eyes, waiting for him to look away. That would be proof that he’s lying. But he knows enough about how lying works to keep his pupils locked on hers.
Sam doesn’t answer; instead, he winks at her and flashes that charming smile that he perfected staring into the brushed aluminum mirror in his prison cell.
Kath knows she’s being played, but she’s falling for the player and she so badly wants to believe him. He reaches for her and she walks into his arms.
They kiss, long and hard, while inching towards the bed. They’re about to fall on a bedspread full of tools and gear but catch each other just in time. Sam gathers the edges of the bedspread up like a sack, lifts it off the mattress and lays it on the floor. He pulls out a hammer and screwdriver, jams the metal of the flathead into the seam of the Magic Massage box, and with one good whack, pops it open. Two twists on the wire and the mattress whirrs to life.
Sam pulls Kath down onto the bed. He smiles, and she giggles, as they hide their worries, both from themselves and each other, at least for one more night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
H onesty truly is the best policy, because lying is too much work. Being a professional thief is the worst kind of liar to be: it’s high risk with low pay, and the job of lying never ends. It’s much easier to plug away at a 9 to 5 job, and many still exist in 1980, with health benefits, retirement plans, vacation time off and coffee breaks.
However, if you can't sit at a desk, if you can't abide people who are not as smart as you telling you what to do, or if you have too much mental baggage, self-loathing and fear to hold a regular job, you can maybe convince yourself that stealing is a better option. It works well if you're good at stealing, but only for a little while.
Sam and Kath fall into this category. They’re good enough thieves that instead of facing their problems with the world, with themselves and with each other, they choose instead to invest all their brain power toward planning the impossible heist. For weeks they spend eighteen hours a day working on their last gigantic lie, which they both know will not have a good ending. They don’t focus on the ending, however. They focus on the planning, which at least they're doing together.
They spend every night in a different motel in San Francisco, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, always choosing a motel with Magic Massage units. They always pay in cash ahead of time, leave early, and leave a slightly charred fifty-dollar bill to pay for the damaged Magic Massage box they smash open. They have plenty of slightly charred Ben Franklins from the safe heist that they can’t use otherwise, and leaving an anonymous payment for the damage done makes them feel like they are paying off a karmic debt.
Sam uses cash to buy a blue and white Volkswagen microbus, one of the few larger vehicles that Kath is willing to ride in. Sam takes out the backseats so it can hold all their gear, and it’s anonymous enough that no one notices them parked in the same spot every day.
They always leave their current motel early, with the next one already prepaid. They are up and out the door by four a.m., and then they set up shop across the street from the downtown Flood Building where Kearne Securities has offices on the top floor. They park their microbus at five a.m. and watch everyone arriving for work. Since the Stock Market opens at nine in New York, traders in San Francisco must be at their desks ready to trade by six a.m., so there is a steady stream of Kearne employees coming in early. Sam and Kath watch everyone entering through the front and the back, cross-checking the schedules of every delivery truck, every postman, and every security guard who comes in and out of the building throughout the day.
The Flood Building was built in the 1950s, so it doesn’t feel ancient in 1980, like some of the other downtown buildings that were built in the 1920s. It’s sixteen stories, which makes it a difficult job, but it’s not as impossible as doing a heist in the eight-year-old Transamerica Pyramid, just a few blocks away, which is impossible to penetrate.
For lunch, they move inside a small cafeteria restaurant called the Marlin Spike and watch more deliveries and exits. Eating tuna melt sandwiches and drinking black coffee, they note which delivery guys are friends with which guards. If they sit at the right table they can also see deep inside the loading dock to the service elevators, and how often they run.
After a week of constant observation, Sam and Kath start scouting the lobby.
One afternoon, Kath dresses in a crisp business suit, but snaps off a heel, scrapes holes in both knees of her pantyhose, musses up her hair and leaves a dirt streak on her cheek. Then she limps into the lobby of the Flood Building and holds up a broken strap to a purse.
“Purse snatcher! He came out of this building!�
�� she shouts and points up the street toward some nameless thief who’s not really there. Two guards run outside after the nonexistent perp, while two others help her sit down.
They call the police, give her water, and when she demands to see their monitors, they tolerate her coming behind the security desk to examine all the TVs they have, allowing her to see all the cameras broadcasting in the lobby, in the elevators and on the loading dock. Their cameras only record twelve hours at a time, and when they go back and examine the grainy electronic footage, they see no snatcher appear on any monitor.
“Maybe I was wrong about him coming out of your lobby,” Kath says. “I’m sorry.”
She disappears before the police arrive. However, she knows the number of cameras in the building, and the number of guards on duty.
The next week, Sam walks into the Flood Building wearing green overalls with an Otis patch on the chest pocket and a tool belt around his waist. He signs the building visitor ledger as an elevator maintenance worker named Otis Holbrook. In 1980, if you dress like a maintenance worker and have a name tag, people still believe you are who you say you are.
“I’m here for the safety check on your elevators,” Sam says, as he signs the guest log.
“Safety check? The building manager never told us,” the guard says.
“That’s the point. I’m with the State Certification Board, so I do spot checks,” he says.
I thought you worked for Otis Elevators,” the guard says pointing at his patch.
“I do that, too. Ad my name is Otis, which is another reason I love elevators. Come see,” he says and waves for a guard to follow him into an open elevator.
Sam points at the elevator safety certification mounted above the rows of buttons. “Your certification is five years old. Time for inspections.”
“How long is this going to take?” the guard asks, not thinking that Sam’s multi-tiered story invention makes no real sense.
“Not long, but I have to go up through these trapdoors,” Sam says, and points up at the metal flap in the roof, common on older elevators, which grants you access to the elevator shafts. “I’ll turn each elevator off for about half an hour. I’ll do these two in front first. You have two service elevators on the loading dock too, right?” Sam asks, looking at his notepad.
