Defenders of Shadow and Light: Ghost Thief

by Jason Levine

  Chapter Three: Going From Bad To Worse

  Murray kept running from alleyway to street and back to alleyway again. After he was sure he had lost any trailing guards, he stopped to catch his breath. He held the refrigerated case against him and felt wetness again. Silently cursing under his breath, he examined his hand. It was fine. The fabric of his outfit was definitely soaked, though. Murray didn’t think it was blood. If not blood, then what…

  With horror, Murray looked at the refrigerated case. The guard’s first shot. The one that “missed” him, had actually hit the case. Black liquid was oozing out of the side. Murray opened the case up and quickly removed the vials. One after another, Murray saw that they were shattered. The last vestiges of their contents dripped away. Thankfully, though, the last vial was intact. Unfortunately, the refrigerated case was no longer keeping cool. It was rapidly losing temperature to the warmer outside air. His employer had warned him that the vials’ contents could only survive out of refrigeration for half an hour. Any more than that and they would be useless. If the contents were useless, Murray would not be paid and he wasn’t going to let this happen. He put the vial back in the case and sealed it as best as he could, hoping that the residual cold temperature would buy him some time.

  Surveying the part of town he was in, Murray spotted a delicatessen. He figured that they might have equipment to keep food cool. He headed into the alleyway next to the store and found a side entrance. After breaking into a high security bio-engineering firm, picking the lock on a neighborhood deli was a breeze.

  Murray entered the door, closed it behind him, and felt along the wall until he found a light switch. Turning it on, he found that he was in the deli’s kitchen. A silver counter-top gleamed in the light. Above the table hung many pots of various sizes. Murray walked past two large ovens and stacks of sharp knives.

  Finally, Murray found the deli’s refrigerator. Inside, were loaves of bread, sliced meats, and various other supplies. Murray moved some of the food to the side and placed the cooler into the refrigerator. Although the equipment was too big to take with him, it would help keep the remaining sample from going bad.

  Pulling an old flip phone from one of his pockets, Murray called his employer. He explained the situation and gave his location. The employer told him to stay put. They would send someone to retrieve the sample and give him his payment. While he waited, Murray helped himself to some of the food in the deli’s kitchen. He had definitely worked up an appetite running from those guards and a sandwich hit the spot. Murray stayed in the kitchen–out of sight from the street. As much as he knew he had lost them, he half-expected to see guards from the lab canvassing the streets outside.

  Soon enough, a car approached and drove into the alley. Murray looked through a peephole in the side entrance and saw two men wearing dark suits get out of the car. The identical watches on their left arms glowed blue in the dark alleyway. The larger of the pair had jet black hair except for two jagged streaks of red running from the front of his head to the rear. He adjusted his tie as if it were tied too tight around his neck, took a comb out of his jacket pocket, and ran it through his hair. Though his suit was loose fitting, there was no mistaking that he had muscles to spare. The shorter man, however, was thin and wiry. His blond hair curled across his scalp. He looked around nervously, clutching a briefcase in one hand and what Murray guessed was a new refrigerated case in the other. They walked up to the side door and knocked three times.

  Murray reached for the doorknob to let them in, but in the darkness, missed it entirely the first time. On his second attempt, Murray grabbed hold of the knob and opened the door.

  “Where is it?” the larger man asked, pushing through the opening.

  “It’s right here in the refrigerator. I ran into some trouble getting out of there.” Murray replied.

  “You were spotted? Are the contents damaged? We won’t pay if it’s damaged.”

  “Relax, I lost the guards if you’re worried about them tracking me. And the stuff should be fine in here,” Murray patted the refrigerator that he had stored the vials in.

  “We’ll be the judge of that.”

  The larger man turned to his compatriot. “Brad, test it.”

  Brad walked up to the refrigerator and took out a pair of thick gloves. He carefully removed the vial from the damaged refrigerated case and took its temperature with an infrared thermometer.

  “Three degrees above optimum, Eddie”, Brad said. “Not perfect, but it should be fine.”

  Brad placed the vial in a new portable case. Then, he pulled out a large plastic bag and carefully placed the shot refrigerated case inside. He removed his gloves, placed them in the bag, and tied it up.

  “Put the bag in the trunk and the case in the backseat. Be careful with both of them!” Eddie instructed.

  Brad glanced at Murray and did as he was told. Eddie turned to Murray and set the briefcase upon a counter.

  “My employer thanks you for your assistance. I think you’ll find that this covers the agreed upon amount.”

  Murray opened the briefcase and examined the money inside. He had gotten good at counting money quickly, spotting fake bills, and identifying any dye packets that could cause issues. Within a few seconds, he could tell that the entire amount–twenty thousand dollars–was inside and nothing but cash was in the briefcase. Still, he made a show of looking over the contents.

  “Looks like it’s all there”, Murray said, closing the briefcase.

  “We’re going to leave now,” Eddie informed Murray. “It would probably attract unwanted attention if anyone saw you coming out with us. Wait at least five minutes before leaving.”

  He didn’t even wait for Murray to respond before turning around and exiting the deli. Brad was waiting in the car. He had already started it and was sitting in the driver’s side. Eddie got into the passenger’s side and they drove off. Murray glanced at a clock on the wall. It was 2:15 in the morning. Although he didn’t consider himself “employed” by these people anymore, he also knew well enough to abide by any last requests his employers had. That could make the difference between being hired again and losing out on future jobs.

  At 2:19, Murray picked up the briefcase. He risked walking out of the deli’s kitchen and into the front of the store to look out of the window. At first, he didn’t pay attention to the sirens. In the city, there are almost always sirens somewhere. If Murray jumped at every one he heard, he’d be as paranoid as his weird neighbor. As they got louder, though, Murray paused at the door. Looking down the street, he saw four police cars racing up. They stopped in front of the deli and shined their headlights into the store.

  “We know you’re in there,” one of the officers bellowed into a bullhorn, his voice shattering the calm of the night. “Come out with your hands up!”

  Murray was momentarily blinded and thrown off by the police’s sudden arrival. He found himself heading for the door and quickly stopped himself.

  “Great. Who called the police?” Murray asked. “Brad and Eddie? Some bystander who spotted a lot of late night activity in a closed deli?”

  Murray risked another glance out of the window.

  “Oh well. It doesn’t matter right now who called them. The important thing is that I need to get out of here now.”

  Obviously, a head on confrontation wasn’t going to work. Even if he had remembered to reload his staves, there were at least eight police officers outside. Three guards were too much for him earlier so eight officers were definitely more than he could handle head-on. Murray ran to the side door and headed into the alleyway. As he entered the alley, he heard shouting coming from the street. The officers, apparently, had had the same idea as Murray and three were running down the alley at him. Murray ran from alleyway to alleyway in an effort to lose the police tailing him.

  Murray found himself at a fork in the alleyways. The paths broke off into two directions. He was sure that only one led to a road. The other was a dead end. Panic numbed
his brain, though, and Murray couldn’t remember which was which. His brain flashed images from the alleyway incident after the museum job.

  Murray shook his head and silently cursed himself for making such a rookie mistake. Cool heads were always better in a crisis, Murray knew. Panicking brains made mistakes. Cool heads could find a way out of a situation no matter how bad it was. Normally, Murray stayed calm no matter what, but for just a moment his brain let panic in and that moment was all it took.

  With the shouts of the officers getting closer, Murray found he was out of time. He headed left and looked behind him just in time to see the officers round the corner right on his tail. Murray looked ahead and stopped before he hit into the brick wall. He had chosen wrong. He was trapped.

  Murray pressed his back against the wall and tried to calm his brain. There was no place to hide–and no time besides. The officers could see him and would know exactly what he ducked behind. He couldn’t scale the wall and he had foolishly ran past the last of the fire escape ladders that led up the buildings surrounding him. Three officers approached, guns drawn and ordered Murray to drop the briefcase and reach into the air. They kept far enough away that Murray knew that drawing his own weapons would result in him getting shot before he could even strike one officer.

  Murray clutched the briefcase to his chest. He wasn’t going to let go of his money so easily, but he didn’t see any way to escape. He pressed against the brick wall harder trying to think of some way out of this, but it seemed hopeless. Something brushed by his leg and–in another rookie mistake that he immediately regretted–Murray jumped forward. A rat paused in place while trying to run towards a garbage can. Unfortunately, the officers took Murray’s leap to be a sign of attack and they opened fire.

  Chapter Four: Through The Brick Wall

  Time seemed to slow down. Murray instinctively knew that the bullets were on their way and backed up. He stepped on the rat, lost his balance, and went tumbling backwards. Murray hit hard against the ground. As he picked himself up, he looked back towards the police–amazed that they had somehow missed. Instead of three police officers, though, all Murray saw was a large brick wall. Murray spun around, sure that he had simply gotten turned around, but he wasn’t in the alleyway anymore. He wasn’t sure how, but he was on the other side of the brick wall.

  Murray stood still staring at the wall. He didn’t remember scaling it. He didn’t think he could have. So how had he gotten onto this side of the wall? For that matter, how did the officers miss? Murray examined himself but could not find even a tear in his outfit.

  His only injury seemed to be that he hit his head as he fell. He noticed the briefcase lying on the ground nearby, picked it up, and examined it. Except for some minor scuff marks, it too was free of damage. Perhaps he had somehow dodged the bullets, taken out the cops, gotten over the wall, and hit his head on the way down? Maybe that’s why he couldn’t remember doing all that?

  Murray could hear shouting from the other side of the wall. If he had knocked out the police, they had come to. Or maybe additional officers had arrived. Either way, Murray had to get out of there quickly.

  Thankfully, the officers didn’t seem to be able to scale the wall like Murray apparently had. They would likely try driving around instead to block him off. Murray was able to put considerable distance between him and the police before they could do that, though.

  After he was sure he had completely lost the police, Murray made his way to an alleyway where he had stashed a change of clothes. He approached a dumpster in the alley and reached behind it. He moved a piece of cardboard, revealing a large backpack. Murray changed out of his “work suit” and into a red polo shirt, dark blue jeans, and a pair of white sneakers. He placed his work suit into the backpack and removed his hat, mask, and goggles.

  Murray caught a glimpse of his reflection in a broken mirror on the ground. He ran his fingers through his short cut black hair. Longer hair would be an issue with his outfit so he kept it closely trimmed. The goggles hid his blue eyes well. His thin frame and height of five feet ten inches wouldn’t give the police much to go on. Still, he had little time to pause, he thought as he put his hat, mask, and goggles into the backpack.

  Finally, he opened the briefcase and began transferring the money to his backpack. It was a tight fit, but he was eventually able to get it all in.

  Closing the briefcase back up, Murray threw it into the dumpster. The police were looking for a thief wearing black with a mask, goggles, a cap, and a briefcase. They wouldn’t think twice about a man wearing normal clothes with a backpack. Murray walked along the street, into a subway station, and boarded a train without incident. There was no sign of pursuing police officers anywhere.

  The subway car was deserted which let Murray sit down and relax until he reached his stop. Though he preferred the “disappear into the night” approach, he still exercised frequently in case he needed to outrun guards. Still, this night had taxed Murray’s stamina to the breaking point. He fought off the urge to pass out. The last thing he needed was some petty thief grabbing his backpack full of cash while he slept. Finally, Murray reached his stop and exited the subway car.

  Walking up to his building, Murray looked it over. It was a five story brick building that had been some sort of factory in a previous life. The landlord was nice enough and tried to keep up with repairs, but there was always so much to do and so little money to pay towards them. This meant that the building perpetually seemed like it could look great if only four or five projects were done. Compared to some of the other buildings in the neighborhood, though, that looked like they’d crumble to dust if you sneezed at them, Murray’s building was practically a paradise.

  Murray walked through the large front doors–bright blue because the landlord had just finished painting them his favorite color–and entered the common area. Murray was glad to see that it was empty. He didn’t mind his neighbors. They were nice enough and didn’t ask embarrassing questions about Murray’s occupation. Still, it had been a long night and Murray just wanted to get to sleep.

  Murray looked at the elevator, weighing it versus the stairs. On one hand, the lab’s elevator shaft made him not want to get into another elevator soon. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if he could make it up three flights of stairs. The elevator won.

  Murray walked out of the elevator car and down the long hallway to his apartment. The red wallpaper was probably spectacular in its day, but had long since faded to a faint pink.

  An apartment door opened and out popped the head of Murray’s next door neighbor, Thomas Sunzen. Thomas was short, only about five foot two at most, and overweight. He wore a shirt that was two sizes too big half tucked into his sweatpants. Thomas’ most prominent feature, though, was his hair.

  Thomas was almost entirely bald. More than that, his scalp seemed perpetually shiny as if he put on a daily coat of wax. Out of the sides of Thomas’s head, though, grew two large bunches of hair. The brown and white mixed hair extended a good six or seven inches out from the sides of his head. It was almost as if Thomas decided to divert people’s eyes from his shiny dome by making his side-hair as ridiculous as possible.

  “Pumpkins!” shouted Thomas, looking Murray up and down. “Horses are not touching our marshmallows.”

  “Hi, Thomas,” Murray sighed. Thomas was nice but not all there. In the eight months since Thomas and his niece moved in, Murray saw Thomas like this many times. Half of the time, you could have a normal conversation with him–mostly involving the results of the latest game shows he had watched. The other half, though… Well, it was best not to strain your brain trying to figure out what he meant. Especially not when you were exhausted from a long night of thievery and running from the law.

  “Santa came!” Thomas said. “The gift. Hold your breath when you open it.”

  “Thomas!” came a voice from Thomas’ apartment.

  Thomas’ niece, Ruth Foyt, emerged wearing only an overly long t-shirt. Nothing was revea
led by her attire, but Murray’s mind began filling in the blanks in spite of his exhaustion.

  Ruth lived with and took care of her uncle. Though they were related, they were nothing alike. Ruth was 26 years old and a few inches shy of six feet tall, with long, straight hair that seemed a dazzling red. She wasn’t supermodel thin, but wasn’t portly like her uncle either. Finally, while Thomas seemed to constantly be on the verge of losing his mind, Ruth had a sharp wit and seemed knowledgeable beyond her years.

  “Uncle,” she admonished Thomas. “How many times have I told you not to wander outside?”

  Ruth herded Thomas towards the door.

  “Sorry, Murray,” Ruth said. “Uncle wandered out again. I must have forgotten to lock the door.”

  “No problem,” said Murray as Ruth pushed her uncle back into the apartment. He muttered something about flying with pigeons being dangerous as he was led inside.

  “Late night?” asked Ruth. Murray knew that his neighbors tended not to pry into each other’s business. This was more polite conversation with an invitation to share only as much as Murray was comfortable sharing.

  “Yeah,” said Murray. “These late night deliveries are rough, but they pay the bills.”

  This was true enough. He did “deliver” the vial to his employer and the money would certainly pay his outstanding bills.

  “Well, I’ll let you get some rest. When you’re ready, stop by. I baked some brownies earlier.”