Rocks Beat Paper

by Mike Knowles

  David sighed. “I don’t have access to the security room. We have two security guards in the store, and one is responsible for monitoring the store cameras. They walk in with Saul in the morning and they leave with him at night. There is no time that I could get inside.”

  “He has to pee sometime,” Miles said.

  David nodded. “He locks the room when he does. And don’t say eating because he does that at his desk.”

  “Two guards seem like overkill. One is basically watching the other one work,” Diego #1 said.

  It wasn’t overkill. It was something else. “One guard is for the customers,” I said. “The other one is for the staff.”

  Every head turned to look at me. From the expression on David’s face, I could tell I was right.

  “’Bout time you said something,” Miles said. “I was beginning to think you fell asleep.”

  “You’re right,” David said. “Let me backtrack a bit. I’ve been working for Saul Mendelson for twenty years. I was his apprentice, and it was always his plan for me to take over the business from him when he was ready to retire.”

  “You two have a difference of opinion on the date?” Miles asked.

  “Saul should have retired over a year ago. That had been the plan. But something happened. He changed. He forgets things. He’ll lose track of order dates or where he left his tools. He confuses dates. He’ll talk to me about pieces for customers who died years ago, but it’s clear he thinks they’re still alive. And recently, he’s become paranoid. And mean. He accuses the staff of stealing, he’s suspicious of the customers, he even sometimes thinks I’m out to get him.”

  “To be fair,” Miles said, “you are trying to rip him off.”

  “I have no choice,” David said. “The business is starting to lose momentum. It still makes a hell of a lot of money. Saul hired talented people and taught them things they could never have learned anywhere else. Plus, we still have name recognition and a client list that other jewellers would kill for.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Diego #1 said.

  “We’re just rolling forward — it’s all momentum. There is nothing driving us. If anything, Saul is putting on the brakes. Last month, he fired two jewellers with twenty-five years’ experience between them. He didn’t replace them. Yesterday, he forgot they were gone. He was screaming about how they were late to work and about how this generation has no respect for what they do. He was ready to fire them all over again before I reminded him that he already had. We are barely keeping up with demand right now. Everything has been delayed at least twice, and the clients are talking refunds. I tried to talk to Saul, but all he wanted to talk about was another jeweller who he is sure is stealing from the business. If we lose another body, there will be another round of delays and it will mark the beginning of the end for us.”

  “If everything is behind, why is the take so high?” Diego #1 asked. It was a good question.

  David ran a hand through his hair. “That’s the one and only upside for us. Supply has nothing to do with demand. He’s been ordering stones and metals every month. Sometimes twice a month. He’s stuck in a loop; he’s convinced it’s 2005.”

  “That a good year for jewellery?” Miles asked.

  “It was a good year for Saul. A couple of A-list celebrities, real A-list celebrities, wore his work on the red carpet. And they said his name to Joan Rivers, to Access Hollywood, and to Entertainment Tonight. The very next day we were inundated with orders.”

  “What A-listers?” Miles asked.

  David said two names that made an impression on everyone in the room except for me.

  Johnny was the first to recover. “So, he’s buying diamonds?”

  “Raw diamonds,” David said.

  “Where is he keeping them?”

  David busied himself with the laptop; a few seconds later the image on the screen was replaced with a picture of a safe. “He keeps them in these.”

  “How many?” Diego #1 asked.

  “Two,” David said. “One in back and another in Saul’s office. That one there is Saul’s. I managed to get a shot of it when Saul stormed out to berate the security guard about his inability to catch employees stealing from him.”

  “They look heavy duty,” Johnny said.

  David said something, but I ignored it. I was watching the Diegos. Both men eyed the screen with a level of attention they never gave the basketball game. Diego #2 pulled his gaze away from the television to put on a pair of glasses. As soon as he had the eyewear on, his eyes were back on the screen.

  “That Italian?” Diego #2 asked. The question wasn’t for David. It was for his brother.

  Diego #1 shook his head. “Look at the dial.”

  Diego #2 squinted. “Swiss.”

  “Uh hunh.”

  “Shit.”

  “Uh hunh.”

  “What?” Johnny asked. “They extra hard to open or something?”

  “Take more than a can opener,” Diego #2 said.

  “Couple of hours with a diamond-tipped drill bit and a scope would get us a look at the change hole. ’Course, I’d want to see the specs first.”

  “We’d have to go in through the side,” Diego #2 said.

  His brother nodded. “For sure. No other way with something like that, but I’d rather know the sweet spot than waste time groping around.”

  “What about using a torch?” Johnny said.

  “I’ve seen it done,” Tony said.

  “Maybe with some box you found in a bedroom closet. You can’t cut into something like this.”

  “Why not?” Tony asked.

  “They layer the metals. They put a layer of stainless steel behind the heavier gage layers. The combination makes cutting in impossible. You just get a headache from the smell and the fucking light,” Diego #1 said.

  “Maybe you should use something a little stronger,” Johnny said.

  “Something louder,” Tony added.

  Diego #1 pointed at the screen. “That box right there is a high-maintenance piece of ass. You want inside, you need to push her buttons just right. You need to seduce her nice and slow. That’s the only way to get her to open her door.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  Diego #2 pulled his eyes away from the TV screen. “What it means is you can’t blow open a safe like that. That’s not some commercial safe that people use to keep their mother’s wedding ring away from a burglar. That safe is seriously heavy duty. Inside the door is a pane of glass. If the glass shatters, from something like an explosion, the inner bolts will slide into place and lock it up tight. That’s why we need the drill and the scope. We need to get around that glass.”

  “How long would something like that take?” David asked.

  Diego #1 said, “With the right tools and a look at the specs — a couple hours.”

  “Total?”

  “Each,” Diego #2 said.

  “So, two hours,” David said.

  Diego #1 shook his head. “Four.”

  “I don’t get it. Two hours a safe. Two men. Two safes. Two hours.”

  Diego #1 shook his head. “I need my brother working with me. He has to monitor the glass while I work the drill. I make a wrong move and that thing will turn into the world’s most expensive paperweight.”

  “So best-case scenario, we’re inside for four hours,” Tony said.

  “That’s without any complications,” Diego #1 said. “And when have you ever worked a job that didn’t have complications?”

  Johnny dug huge fingers through the curly nest of hair on his head. “What’s our window?”

  David was quick to answer. “Saul leaves with security at eight o’clock every night.”

  “A twelve-hour window is a good stretch. A man could get a lot done in twelve hours,” Johnny said. He aimed a
sneer at the woman sitting on the opposite side of the room. “No offense.”

  Miles leaned towards the woman next to him. “Is he insulting your gender or your productivity?”

  The woman laughed.

  “What did I tell you about that mouth?”

  Miles smiled. “You said I couldn’t say rumpus room. You never mentioned anything about what I could do with my mouth.”

  “Add keeping it shut to the list.”

  Miles opened his mouth to say something, but I spoke first. A fight would derail the conversation.

  “When is the film festival?” I asked.

  “The end of the month. It runs through the last week, and on the Sunday there is a huge gala to close it all.”

  “Saul has us working overtime on new pieces that no one has seen invoices for. As designers finish up their dresses, there will be some legitimate orders coming in, but not as many as Saul envisions. After that, the business will quiet down for a while.”

  “Run the slideshow again,” I said.

  David nodded, likely relieved for the break from the spotlight.

  One by one, the images made a second appearance. I saw the door, the waiting room, the showroom, and the backroom from numerous angles and distances. Interspersed were a few good shots of the security office and the cameras positioned around the store; emphasis was placed on the safes and the glass cases containing the custom-made jewellery.

  “How did you get all of these?” I asked.

  “My phone. It took me nearly a month to get them all. I had to time it just right. When the guard left his room to use the washroom, I took two shots. I never got greedy, and I never got caught.”

  I nodded. “I didn’t see another door. Fire codes should demand a fire exit.”

  David paused. “There’s a door,” he said. “It’s in the back next to the security office. I didn’t take any pictures of it because there’s nothing to see. Saul had the door custom made. There are no hinges exposed, and it’s heavily reinforced. On top of that, there’s an apartment building looking down on that side of the store. I figured any noise out there would put too many eyes on us. I can’t see it as our way in.”

  “We need pictures of it,” I said. “You might not see it as our way in, but it might be our way out.”

  “I never thought of it that way.”

  “That’s why you brought us on.”

  David nodded. “Okay, I can get shots of the door.”

  “Where does all the work get done? I only saw one office.”

  “That was mine,” David said. “There are four more like it, but the other jewellers are in them all day and they lock them when they leave. I wasn’t able to catch security taking a washroom break at the same time as one of the jewellers, so I just took shots of my office.” While he spoke, he brought up the pictures of his office. David’s office was a square that didn’t appear to be much bigger than ten-by-ten. There was a desk pushed against the wall in the right corner. On the desk was something that looked like a microscope, a jeweller’s monocle, and various tools left wherever they had been put down. All of the equipment surrounded a larger machine in the middle of the desk. The machine had nothing to do with jewellery; at least not the design part. The thirty-second time limit for the slide was up and it was replaced with another image of the room. The new image was from a different angle. The shot showed off a bookcase that was twenty percent full. The spines of the books were just clear enough to make out; all of them were jewellery books. The rest of the bookcase was devoted to housing random items that David had likely brought into his office at one time or another. I saw loose papers, binders, and an empty duffel bag lying unzipped on a shelf. In the half minute of wait time for a new slide, I felt a slight agitation begin to grow in my mind. Something about the slides wasn’t sitting right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I probed my mind, sending sonar out into its depths, but whatever had prodded my brain had dove deep. The image on the television changed again. The new image was of the back of the office door. The door was open and through it I could see down the hall to another door, this one out of focus.

  “That door looks different,” I said.

  David looked at the screen and then back at me with a quizzical expression on his face.

  “The one down the hall.”

  “Oh, that’s Saul’s office,” he said.

  “We never saw that,” I said.

  “That’s because no one gets in there without him. Saul makes sure of that.”

  “You have nothing else on that office?” I asked.

  David shook his head. “I was lucky to get that shot of the safe.”

  “But you’ve been in there?”

  He laughed. “A million times.”

  “Sketch it out,” I said.

  “I can do that.”

  “Now,” I said. “We’ll wait. In the meantime, run the slideshow again.”

  “Again?” Johnny said. “We just saw it twice.”

  “You ready to sign on?”

  Johnny shrugged. “Money is right. That’s enough for me.”

  “Enough for me, too,” Tony said.

  “What other reason do you need?”

  “Was the money right on the job that put you inside?”

  Johnny’s eyes narrowed. “What the fuck you know about that?”

  “The ink on your arm says you’ve been inside.”

  Johnny looked at his forearm. “So the fuck what?”

  “The fuck,” I said, “is what I’m asking about. Was it the money that caused the fuck?”

  “Nah, it wasn’t the money. I got sold out. A guy on our crew got pinched and traded up. I took the fall and kept my mouth shut ’cause I’m a stand-up con.”

  “And now you’re out and looking to start earning again,” I said.

  “Damn straight. I missed out on seven years of work.”

  “Seven years away isn’t a reason to take a job.”

  “It ain’t just that,” Johnny said. “The money is right, and I seen the job. I think we can make it work.”

  “You’ve seen the job?” I said.

  “Twice.”

  “How many cameras?”

  “What?”

  “How many cameras are positioned around the store?”

  Johnny looked at the television. The slides were moving too slowly to give him any help.

  “David, is there any food left?” I asked.

  “Yeah, tons.”

  I looked at Johnny. “Go get something to eat.” When the big man didn’t answer, I said it again, “Go get something to eat.”

  He gave me his version of a hard stare. “Who died and put you in charge?”

  Miles cut in. “I got this. My dangerous-guy banter has been getting better.” He looked at Johnny. “Okay, say that again, but say it to me, not to Wilson.”

  Johnny’s fists clenched into two flesh-and-bone sledgehammers. Whatever anger he had worked up for me had just fuelled the forest fire he already had burning for Miles.

  “Just get a plate and sit down,” I said. “The warm shrimp has to be better than listening to Miles.”

  Miles looked at me. “That was hurtful.”

  “I’ve just about had it with this shit,” Johnny said. He started to walk away, but then turned to face me. “You and I aren’t done. Not by a fucking mile.”

  “Doesn’t have to be a mile to be done,” I said. “It’s just ten feet to the food.”

  I nodded at David. “Again.”

  The three men on the couch were still seated. Diego #1 said, “You heard the man.”

  “I’ve seen this thing more times than I can count,” Alvin said. “I’m getting something to eat.”

  “No one, but that could change.”

  I looked at Miles. “What?”

 
“That was the line.” He did a terrible impression of Johnny’s deep southern drawl. “Who died and put you in charge? No one, but that could change. Badass right?”

  I ignored him and watched the slides again.

  “It was a pretty good line.”

  Miles looked over at the woman still seated in her chair. “It was wasn’t it?”

  “Very Eastwood,” she said.

  The slides shifted from the door to reception.

  Miles ignored the TV in favour of the woman. “How’d you get in on this?”

  “Every job needs a driver.”

  “And that’s you?”

  The woman leaned forward. She had taken off her jacket after the first run through the slides and folded it over her knee. The plaid button-down she wore fell a few inches and exposed the top of her bra. “You have a problem with that?”

  “What, because you’re a girl? Or because you’re black?”

  “Take your pick.”

  “I don’t have a thing about girls behind the wheel. And as for the race thing, it’s not like you’re Chinese.”

  The woman leaned back and gave Miles a sour look. Her obvious distaste lasted until she noticed Miles laughing at her.

  “You’re screwing with me.”

  “Just a little,” Miles said. “Now, let me ask you something. As our official driver, what is your policy on rides home?”

  The woman held out her middle finger. “You can ride this.”

  “Got it. There’s only room for one.”

  I looked at Miles. “Shut up.”

  Miles looked back at the woman. “See why I need a ride home?”

  If anyone said anything during the rest of the slideshow, I didn’t notice. I couldn’t see the job yet; it was there, but I couldn’t see it. I knew that if I just kept watching, I would see something in the slides that we could take advantage of. Once I had that, the rest of the job would fall in line. It was there, buried in the images. I just had to keep looking for it. There was something else about the job that I couldn’t see yet — something lurking beneath the surface. It had bothered me on the first run through and I was determined to work it out. I used the slides to mentally walk the space. I noticed things I had missed on the other runs, but I didn’t find a solution to my two problems. I didn’t see the job yet, and I couldn’t shake that feeling living in the back of my mind. I stared, lost in thought, at the final image of the safe until the screen went black.