Liars in Love

by Ian Bull

  “Sam!” Kath yells.

  Sam is in the Bay View Motel, and Kath is holding his fist in her hands. He pulls his hand away and turns off the beeping alarm clock on the nightstand.

  “You hit me in your sleep. What are you doing?”

  “I was defending the beach,” Sam says.

  “Was Rose helping you? You were yelling her name.”

  "Sort of," Sam says, and gets off the bed. They are both still dressed in their street clothes. The sound of foghorns drifts through the window, revealing the source of his other dream noise. A thin beam of light from a street lamp ekes through the window, lighting up one side of Kath's face.

  Sam goes to the small desk where his plans are spread out from last night. “You have this memorized?” he asks.

  Kath nods. Sam tears the pages in half, then rips them again, and then again, until his months of work is just confetti. He tosses it all into the trash. He carries the can into the bathroom, dumps it all into the toilet, and flushes it away. Sam exits the bathroom and picks up his black canvas bag with all his supplies. Like an Eagle Scout gone bad, he’s prepared.

  Kath opens the door, and they walk out.

  They climb into their blue and white Volkswagen bus. In the back is a large canvas rolling cart with a locking wooden top, the kind Sam used to push when he worked in the laundry in San Quentin. This one, however, is clean and new and full of gear. Sam tosses his black canvas bag in next to it.

  “Am I going to fit in that cart with all our gear?” Kath asks.

  “You’ll have room to spare. I measured,” Sam says, and they drive along the Embarcadero towards downtown. They park in the darkness underneath the Embarcadero Freeway off ramp that leads into the Transbay Bus Terminal. They exit the Volkswagen. Sam opens the back and pulls out his black bag, but they leave the canvas cart on wheels inside. Sam pulls out two pairs of yellow latex gloves and hands one to Kath. They pull them on.

  “How much money did you put in your shoe?” Sam asks.

  “Five hundred dollars. Just in case I have to run.”

  “Good. Me too. He’ll be coming out in five minutes,” Sam says.

  The guard who works at the Flood Building loading dock during the day exits the Transbay Bus Terminal and walks up Mission Street towards work. As he passes Bluxome Alley, Kath steps out of the darkness.

  “Good morning,” she says in a voice with just enough allure that he stops – and Sam walks up behind him and puts a gun to his temple. “Get into the alley,” Sam whispers in his ear.

  The guard obeys, and Sam handcuffs him to a drain pipe in the very back of the alley and slaps a thick piece of duct tape across his mouth. “Someone will find you by ten a.m.,” Sam whispers in his ear.

  Ten minutes later, a green S.E. Reikoff Food Truck with the restaurant logo – “Enjoy Life – Eat Out More Often,” written on the side comes to a stop on Second Street and Bryant. It’s full of food for the caterers at the Flood Building. Kath steps in front of the truck and waves. The man leans on the horn –

  – just as Sam same steps on the running rail, opens the driver’s door and puts a gun to his head. Kath gets in on the passenger side and grabs the man’s keys.

  Ten minutes later, Sam handcuffs the driver to a drain pipe at the back end of Cosmo Alley while Kath puts duct tape across his mouth. Sam also takes the man’s shirt, but coves him with an itchy wool army blanket that he bought at the surplus store, just for this occasion.

  Sam climbs behind the wheel of the food truck. Kath is already in the passenger seat.

  Sam isn't thinking; he's just doing. His plan is proceeding, and there's no reason to talk.

  Kath is proceeding without speaking as well, but she is thinking, however. She is waiting for Sam to divert from his perfect plan that she studied last night. That’s the moment he will betray her, she realizes, and that’s when she must put her own plan into place. All emotion must be pushed down. She will follow Plan A until he forces her to proceed with Plan B, and she will make her own plan happen, without emotion, like someone flipping a light switch.

  Ten minutes later, Sam backs the truck up against the back of the VW bus. He and Kath hop down from the cab, and Kath opens the back hatch of the Volkswagen while Sam opens the back door of the food truck.

  Inside the truck are tall metal racks full of food for the caterers, but there is space near the door for Sam’s laundry cart. Sam slides out two long pieces of wood from inside the Volkswagen, and lines them up with the interior of the truck, making two little wood bridges between the backs of the two vehicles. He and Kath roll the cart along the pieces of wood from inside the Volkswagen right into the truck.

  He slides the gun inside his front pocket, takes off his jacket and shirt and puts on the truck driver’s official green shirt, zips his clothes up inside his black bag and tosses it in the laundry cart. He gestures for Kath to climb in next. She climbs in the truck.

  “Once you lock me in here, there’s no turning back,” she says.

  “We have to be on that loading dock in five minutes,” he says, and slides the door shut.

  Kath mutters a prayer to herself in the dark. She lifts the wooden top off the laundry cart, adjusts Sam’s bag inside and climbs in. She gets the wooden top closed, sealing her in, just as Sam drives away.

  Five minutes later, Sam backs the green food truck up to the loading dock of the Flood building. A guard steps out of the metal cage and punches out his time card as Sam climbs down from the cab of the truck.

  “You’re a little early, aren’t you?” the guard asks.

  “Tell me about it. Last minute order for a catered lunch for the bigwigs at Kearnes. It throws my whole schedule out of whack.”

  “I’m punched out, and you can’t unload until Tom gets here. Sorry,” the guard says. “I have to close the doors.”

  Sam puts his hands together like he’s praying. “This job is a nightmare. Do me a solid and just let me unload my truck into the fridge or I’ll miss my next drop off. Tom Jenkins is a friend of mine, we go to Raiders games all the time.”

  The guard looks at his watch, then waves at Sam. “Pick up the main phone and let the guards at the front desk decide what to do. Say that Tom’s late and I’m already gone,” the guard says as he steps off the loading dock and disappears into the grey predawn light.

  Sam opens the back of the truck and wheels out the covered canvas cart on wheels. He wheels out the metal racks with all the food, but instead of loading them into the large refrigerator on the loading dock, he positions them in front of the elevator – creating a barrier that no one can see past, including the camera, mounted high on the wall.

  In the front of the building, the one guard on duty walks back and forth along the marble floor by the front doors, waiting for the day to start. If he were behind the desk, he wouldn't be able to see the service elevator on his monitor, only the tall metal racks from the food truck blocking his view, but Sam watched his habits long enough to know he always paces in the early hours before the building opens.

  In one hour, the caterers will arrive and want to load food onto their own smaller rolling trays. The first employees for Kearnes Securities will then arrive at five-thirty in the morning and prep the office for the traders, who will drive their luxury sedans and sports cars into the underground parking below. They’ll ride up the elevators at five-fifty in the morning and be ready at their trading consoles at exactly six in the morning, ready for the stock market opening in New York.

  On the loading dock, Sam lifts the wooden lid off the laundry cart and helps Kath step out, safe from view in their hidden area framed by the tall metal food racks. They push the button for the elevator.

  The doors open and Kath and Sam step on. Sam pulls the stop button, freezing the elevator in place. He pulls out a walkie-talkie from his pocket. Kath pulls out hers.

  “Channel one, copy,” Sam says.

  His voice crackles on her walkie-talkie. She pushes her button and replies. “Copy,” she
says, and her voice crackles back on his walkie-talkie.

  “Keys,” Sam says, and pulls out the elevator key and the alarm key she copied for him.

  “And I have my key too,” Kath says with a barb of sarcasm, and holds up her copy of the copy of the elevator key. “Let’s hope they work, right?”

  “Hope is my middle name, baby,” Sam says. Kath rolls her eyes.

  Sam jumps up and pushes the trap door in the ceiling, knocking it open. He had left it unlocked when he “serviced” the elevator. Sam jumps, grabs the lip, puts his feet against the elevator wall and pulls himself up into the shaft.

  He leans his face back through the hole and motions for Kath to toss him his black bag from inside the laundry cart. She pulls it out and lifts it up, and he grabs the handle and pulls it through the trap door.

  “I’ll walkie you when the alarm system is off, and you can come up. If you don’t hear from me in ten minutes, open the elevator doors and walk away,” he says – and his face disappears into the darkness.

  Kath sighs and looks at her watch. It’s ten minutes past four. She must give him credit; his plan is right on schedule. No reason for Plan B yet.

  Sam is inside the elevator shaft – a huge open square column in the middle of the building. It has four elevators – two service elevators that face the back of the building, and two more that face the front of the building, completing the four portions of the square. Sam steps from one elevator roof to the next.

  Sam kneels on the roof of the front facing elevator and opens the trapdoor roof without making a sound. He listens for the guard. The lights are on inside, including the lights for the floors. He pulls up a section of duct tape that's taped to the roof of the elevator that he's on, and exposes wires – wires he stripped and prepped for this moment. He untwists one set of wires, and twists together another set of wires, and he peeks back down inside the interior of the elevator cabin. The interior lights go off, including the round lights above the door that illuminate the floor numbers.

  Sam puts the duffel bag on like a backpack, sits down on the lip, and eases down into the elevator cabin. His feet make a noise when he lands. He listens for a second but does not hear the guard. He pulls out his flashlight and lights up the button panel.

  “I hope these work,” Sam says to himself. He sticks the elevator key in the slot next to the button for the sixteenth floor and twists it. The elevator rises, but all its lights stay out. Sam’s rewiring trick worked. He swallows and wipes away sweat from his forehead.

  Out in the lobby, the guard pacing the lobby’s marble floor hears the elevator move, but when he glances over, he doesn’t see the numbers light up. He goes back to staring out the front windows. He’s more concerned with the Lincoln Town Car parked across the street and wonders how many people are inside.

  Cliff and Dozer are in the front and Paul is in the back, but no one can see through the tinted windows Paul installed. “One hour doesn’t leave him much time,” Paul says, looking at his watch. “I’d like to see how he pulls this off.”

  “Are you sure Kath said he’d be doing it between four and five?” Dozer asks.

  “I’m not even going to answer that,” Paul says. He pulls out a walkie-talkie from his pocket, sets it to channel one and turns it on.

  The elevator reaches the sixteenth floor. The doors open, and beeping begins. Sam steps off the elevator, sticks the alarm key in the alarm pad on the wall and twists – and the beeping stops. Sam carries his black bag past the trading area and the offices. The rising sun is just a red line over the distant Oakland hills.

  He reaches the kitchen area. He tries the doorknob. It’s locked. He puts down his bag and unzips it and takes out a screwdriver and a rubber mallet. He puts the screwdriver into the lock and smashes the rubber mallet hard against it, busting the mechanism open. He flashes the light inside the hole, flicks a latch and opens the locked doors to the service area.

  He clicks his walkie-talkie. “Come up,” he whispers.

  “On my way,” her voice crackles back.

  The elevator reaches the sixteenth floor. The doors open. Kath pushes the laundry cart off the elevator. Sam looks at his watch.

  “We have ten minutes,” he says.

  He helps her push the laundry cart out of the service area while avoiding the one security camera, past the trading area, ending at Mr. Smythe’s office. His door is also locked, but with another two whacks with the rubber mallet against the butt end of the flathead screwdriver, the office door opens. Out the window, the sun is now a tiny yellow dot on the horizon, but it’s growing.

  They push the laundry cart inside and move all the chairs out of the way, until the laundry cart is butted up against the oak end table which hides the Honeywell Steel Security Safe. Sam opens the wooden lid of the laundry cart and lifts out a crowbar. He reaches inside the laundry basket and unclasps a dozen snap ties from around each corner post, and lifts off the canvas, leaving just a wood board nailed into a square of two-by-fours attached to wheels. He puts the cart’s canvas skin aside, picks up the crowbar, jams it under the base of the safe, and lifts.

  As the safe tilts, Sam drops the crowbar and grabs the safe before it falls over, and keeps it teetering on edge. He motions to Kath. "Push that thing against it hard," he whispers, and Kath pushes the wooden cart up against the safe that Sam holds at an angle. Sam lowers the safe down as Kath pushes, and the safe lays down on its side, right on the exposed wooden base of the cart. Sam pushes and teeters and shimmies the entire two-hundred-pound safe until he gets it onto the wood base of the tilted laundry cart…and then he eases the cart back down onto its wheels.

  “Done,” he says, and reaches over and grabs the canvas and wood top and he and Kath ease it back down over the four corner poles, covering up the heavy safe as if it were just dirty laundry. They snap all the metal clasps back into place.

  Sam pulls out the final few items from inside his amazing black bag. The Apex Catering shirts they wore a few weeks back, with the Joanie and Bob name tags still pinned on. Sam takes the gun out of his pocket and tosses it in the cart – the gun is empty anyway – and he and Kath take off their hats and shirts and put on their uniforms. Last of all, Sam pulls out the metal briefcase with Paul’s fingerprints on it and leaves it on the floor, right where the safe used to be. He then puts the wooden lid back onto the laundry cart and locks it with a padlock.

  “It’s a quarter to five, let’s go,” Sam says.

  He and Kath push the cart as hard as they can, and it moves an inch. They push again, and once the wheels are moving, pushing it is easier.

  The plan is working, Kath thinks. They’ll ride the service elevator back down to the loading dock, push the cart back onto to the food truck, and drive it away just before the real caterers arrive. Then they’ll go back to the Volkswagen bus, bring the two ends close, roll the cart back into the Volkswagen, and drive it to the garage she rents of Shotwell. Sam will crack the safe there, and leave Paul his cut in the garage. They will call Hal, Sam’s parole officer, so the man can hear that Kath exists. They may even drop by his office and say “hello.” Then they will escape The City and drive to Sacramento or wherever Sam wants to go. Wherever he chooses is fine by her, just as long as it’s far away from here.

  Kath realizes that she made a mistake. She was wrong about Rose. She shouldn’t have called Paul, she thinks. She should have trusted Sam, and now she may have ruined it.

  They push the cart hard and bang through the metal doors and into the service area and Sam pushes the button, calling the elevator back up.

  “What if the catering staff is already there?” Kath asks. “Some of them get here early.”

  “Those are the gung-ho ones. They’ll be unloading the racks of food we left out and putting them on the metal carts or putting them in the refrigerator. I’ll just push the cart onto the truck and tell them it’s an emergency and drive away.”

  “You mean ‘we’ drive away,” Kath says.

  The el
evator doors open with a ding. Sam and Kath push the cart onto the elevator.

  "No, I drive away. I want you to ride down one more floor to the parking garage and get off there first," Sam says, and instead of hitting "L" for the loading dock, Sam punches "P1" for the first floor of the parking garage. The elevator starts down. "We have five minutes before the first traders show up. I have a surprise for you."

  Sam flashes his crooked smile, the same one she first saw in Macy’s months ago. He’s a liar after all, and she’s a fool to have trusted him. Most of all, Kath wishes she’d never stolen those gloves in the first place. Then she would never have met him, and none of this would be happening.

  Kath clicks her walkie-talkie “Plan B,” she says, and hits the “L” button on the elevator.

  “What are you doing?” Sam yells. “Your surprise is on P1!”

  The elevator doors open on the loading dock. Paul and Cliff stand there, with guns pointed right at Sam. Cliff jams his foot against the closing door so it stays open.

  “Let’s go, Sam. We’re taking a drive to your ‘usual’ spot in Truckee,” Paul says. “Rose is waiting.”

  “What did you do? I had it all worked out,” Sam says to Kath.

  “I’m sure you did,” Kath says.

  “Shut up and get off the elevator,” Paul says.

  “What about the safe? There’s a hundred thousand in certificates in there,” Sam says.

  “When Kath told me about your plan, I called Smythe and told him. That safe is empty,” Paul says, and waves for Paul to step off the elevator. “I told you, always do it my way.”

  Sam doesn’t move. Paul lowers his gun, reaches into the elevator, grabs Kath by the forearm and drags her out onto the loading dock. “Come on, Joanie from Apex Catering,” Paul snarls. “We’ll go visit the old lady with the eye patch and get her to tell us where Rose is hiding. Cliff, shoot him.”

  Sam jumps up on the laundry cart top, kicks Cliff’s gun out of his hand and leaps up through the open trapdoor in the ceiling of the elevator. Like a circus gymnast, he lifts his upper body through and pulls his legs up next, before Cliff or Dozer can even react.