Rocks Beat Paper

by Mike Knowles

  Johnny rested his pool cue against the side of the table and took hold of the two corner pockets. “You ready to sit down about this?”

  “I want to see it again.”

  Johnny threw up his hands. “You got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!”

  I ignored the big ex-con and caught David’s eye. “Play it again.”

  David nodded, but I could see that he didn’t have much patience left. He hit the keyboard with a hard jab and muttered, “I’m getting something to eat.”

  The words were petulant, but they seemed to have the power of a burger chain slogan. The Diegos got up and followed David to what was left of the chips.

  The computer tech got up a second later and spent a bit of time pulling up his pants. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said.

  “We might as well get something, too,” Miles said. “This could take a while.” Miles and the woman got up and found a bowl of popcorn in an unoccupied corner of the room.

  “Don’t listen to them.” I turned my head and saw Alvin crouching down so that his mouth was level with my ear. “Take all the time you need.”

  I spoke without taking my eyes off the screen. “I was going to anyway. I either take the time to look over the job now, or I do the time later.”

  “You mind telling me what it is you’re looking for?”

  “The job,” I said.

  “You aren’t going to find a better one. At least not one that pays like this.”

  “I don’t doubt that the money is there. I can see that. What I can’t see is how to walk away with it.”

  “You saying it can’t be done?”

  “I’m saying I can’t see it — yet.”

  Alvin was quiet for the next few slides. When he finally spoke again, it was quiet. “When I reached out to Jake about this job, I asked him to put in a call to you. I wanted you on this.”

  I said nothing.

  “You put together a job for me about a year back.”

  “I remember. It was a three-man takedown of a high-roller card game.” Alvin had worked out the, ‘Freeze, nobody move!’ all on his own. He was just lacking the how to get in and, more importantly, how to get away. I had been working as a set-up man for a while using Jake as my broker. Jake was a professional middleman for crooks. For a finder’s fee, Jake offered to connect people with reliable professionals. Alvin got in touch with Jake and he, after he had collected his money, gave Alvin a way to get in touch with me. Alvin told me about the score; I got five grand for figuring out how he would get it and keep it. “How much was the take?”

  “A hundred split three ways.”

  “Makes all that time arguing about spending five on me seem reasonable.”

  Alvin put his hands up. “I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong. That’s why I asked Jake to get a line out to you. You got us in and out of that game without a hitch. We need that here.”

  “That’s the problem,” I said. “All I see here are diamonds and hitches.”

  Miles spoke up from the other side of the room. “Sounds like a country song.”

  Alvin ignored Miles. “Keep looking. There has to be a way.” He laughed to himself. “You know how many people I told about that card job? No one believes the part about the fire hydrant. If you figured that out, you’ll get this.”

  “Is that what this is about?” Johnny called from the pool table.

  Miles had worked his way into a game and had been about to break when Johnny bellowed. He looked up at the bigger man with a scowl on his face. Johnny liked that; he liked it so much he waited for the cue to move again before he finished his thought. “You need a way in? I got your way in. Just ask nicely with a big fucking gun.”

  I ignored the con. The slides kept to their leisurely pace. After ten of them, I tilted my head and spoke to Alvin without taking my eyes off the screen. “Why are you here, Alvin?”

  “I tol’ you, Wilson. It’s Vin.”

  “Tell me why you’re here. Are you here for you or are you here for your brother-in-law?”

  Alvin smiled. “A little from column A; a little from column B. The take from the card game didn’t last as long as I had hoped it would. I bought a few things. Low-key shit. A leather jacket, a couple rounds, a motorcycle.”

  “Low key,” I said.

  “Anyway, a guy from the neighbourhood ratted me out to another guy from the neighbourhood. Guy number two was someone I owed some money to. And before you know it, poof, thirty becomes zero. Well, negative three thousand. All because of a goddamn rat.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Negative three thousand. I had ten left, but I owed thirteen.”

  “No,” I said. “Not that. The guy from the neighbourhood.”

  “The rat?”

  “The rat,” I said. I sat back and took my eyes off the screen. I didn’t need to watch anymore. I had found what I was looking for, and my mind was busy running with it. “You can turn that off. I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  We were all sitting down around the coffee table. The computer had been pushed back and the television was off. There was a clock on the wall with its hands competing for the twelve.

  “Alright,” Alvin said. “You’ve all seen the job. And you all stayed, so that means you want in. Now, we talk details.”

  David leaned forward, positioned his hands like a director framing a movie scene, and took over. “I figure you should hit the store in the daytime when everyone is busy working. You could round everyone up, lock the doors, and then use the rest of the day to get into the safes. You just need to come up with a way to deal with the security system.”

  No one said anything.

  “It’s a good plan,” David said.

  “It’s a bad movie,” I said.

  “Reservoir Dogs,” Miles said.

  “You’re not hearing me,” David said. “You could lock up the place and cancel all of the appointments. You’d have all day.”

  “Front to back is a linear progression,” I said. “Won’t work.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?” Johnny said.

  I looked at the bigger man. “It means front to back is a straight line with two locked doors and three cameras before we even get to the showroom. We’ll be watched the whole way, and the second any of us get out of line, the guard watching the cameras is going to hit the alarm.”

  “But we can hack the alarm and make it so it doesn’t work,” David said. His tone was becoming condescending.

  “So the alarm doesn’t work. Where does that get us?”

  “It gets you inside,” David said.

  I nodded. “With two guns in front of us and eight cell phones. Have you watched the news lately? They don’t even need cameramen anymore; everyone is a goddamn breaking-news reporter. An alarm is easier to deal with than the people.”

  “So what do we do?” David asked.

  “We do it at night. You said Saul leaves around eight and doesn’t come back until nine the next day. Night means more than twelve hours with no people and no cell phones to deal with. We just need to get around the alarm.”

  David cut in, “Can you do that, Elliot? Can you get in?”

  “You mean hack the panel and get us in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It could be done,” Elliot said as he cleaned his glasses with the bottom of his shirt. “But it wouldn’t do you any good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The easiest way in is to rig the machine to register a legitimate entry. I saw the alarm panel in the pictures. The image is enough for me to get the specs.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is an after-hours entry will show up on the alarm company’s computer. Judging from the outside panel, the system is expensive. That means the company running it is all ab
out bells and whistles. An after-hours entry, legitimate or not, is going to warrant some attention. Most likely, the security company will turn on the cameras and take a look.”

  “So let’s give them something to look at,” Miles said.

  “Like what?” Elliot countered.

  “Like David,” Miles said.

  “What? That’s not part of the plan. I’m just the inside man.”

  “Relax,” Miles said. “No one is asking you to hold a gun or anything. You just need to walk in, go to your office to get something you forgot, and then set the alarm again when you leave.”

  “How does that help us?” Elliot asked.

  “If there is a blind spot, we can get to it while the alarm is powered down. Then David seals us inside with the alarm back on.”

  “Two problems,” David said. “One, I seriously doubt there’s a blind spot, and two, I don’t have the alarm code.”

  “That’s a possible problem and a technicality,” Miles said. “We could solve problem number one by manufacturing a blind spot.”

  Johnny elbowed his partner. “Listen to this asshole. How the hell do you manufacture a blind spot?”

  The room went quiet and all eyes were on Miles. “Off the top of my head, I’d say a spotlight through the doorway would blind the camera and get us inside to a place that’s out of frame.”

  The answer was interesting — really interesting. It shut Johnny up and everyone else waited for Miles to go on.

  “Problem number two is no problem at all. No one knows you don’t have an access code. Who’s to say your boss didn’t give you the code during one of his episodes? If the security company turns on the cameras and you’re doing something mundane like grabbing your coat, what are they going to do? You think they’ll call the cops?”

  “We don’t know what they’ll do,” Elliot said.

  “So we do a dry run. David will be our canary in a diamond mine. We send him in and see what happens. If it works out, the next time we send him in, he won’t be alone.”

  “I don’t know if I like it,” David said. “It’s a lot of risk.”

  “There’s some of that when you decide to steal millions from your boss.”

  “It’s not a bad plan,” Elliot said.

  “Thank you,” Miles said.

  “There are some strong elements to it, but it won’t work here.”

  “Wait. What?” Miles said. “Why not?”

  I looked at Elliot. “Tell him.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Your whole plan hinges on sneaking us in and stashing us until the cameras stop watching,” Elliot said.

  “Right,” Miles said.

  “But that isn’t an option — not with those motion sensors.”

  “Motion sensors?” David said.

  “On the underside of the camera,” Elliot said. “You can see the lens if you know where to look.”

  “Even if there was a blind spot, the cameras would pick us up the second we left it.”

  “Well, fuck,” Miles said.

  “So we’re back to square one,” David said.

  “What do we need?” I said.

  “Diamonds,” Diego #2 said. “We need diamonds.”

  I nodded. “And what do we need to do to get them?”

  “We need to get inside without setting off the alarms,” Diego #1 said.

  I looked at Elliot. “Can you do that?”

  “I can do that, but not from the front door. I’d need a crack at the computers in that back office.”

  “You ever do something like that before?” Alvin asked.

  “Sort of. Not in a jewellery store.”

  “But you think you can?” David said.

  Elliot nodded. “Back in school, I rigged a security system to do something similar. We walked into the Dean’s office and stole all of his furniture without a single alarm sounding.”

  There was a short silence while everyone appraised Elliot. The man was in no kind of shape. His body was slowly deflating, and he wasn’t working on keeping the sinking ship clean. His hair was greasy; his glasses were greasier. The slovenly appearance made his age difficult to determine.

  “School?” Johnny said. “You did something like this in school? I stole a kid’s lunch money when I was in school; I threatened to stab him with a plastic fork from the cafeteria unless he gave up his allowance. I guess to you that would count as successful armed robbery experience.”

  Elliot fixed his four eyes on Johnny. “The school was MIT, so no.”

  “So you’re good,” Miles said.

  Elliot nodded. “I don’t think I would be here if I wasn’t.”

  “You get away with it?” I asked.

  Elliot shook his head.

  “Not so good,” Miles said.

  Elliot pushed his glasses up his nose. “The work wasn’t the issue. The work was top-notch hacking. I didn’t get caught because I was sloppy; I got caught because my roommate walked in on me when I was writing the worm. It was the damnest thing. He was eating a burrito and it squirted onto his shirt. He went over to my console because I kept Kleenex next to my computer —”

  Miles snickered.

  “You never peak at someone’s screen. It’s an unwritten rule. But when he grabbed the Kleenex, he saw it. It was right in front of his face. When word about the Dean’s office got out, he turned me in. He hated my guts because he thought I hacked his Warcraft account. I did, but he couldn’t prove it. That pissed him off even more than the hack. So when he had something he could prove, he did.”

  “Back to good then,” Miles said.

  “I can co-opt the system, but I need to get into it. For what is at stake, I’d need to do the work on-site.”

  “How do we make that happen?” David said.

  “Not my department,” Elliot said.

  “You can’t do it using the internet or something?” Johnny said. “We’ll make sure no one walks in eating a burrito.” He looked at Diego #1. “Right?”

  Diego #1 gave Johnny a look that was all ice. “I’m not that guy. You try that shit and it will go somewhere. Comprende?”

  Johnny smiled. “I like this one.”

  “Johnny makes a point. You sure you can’t hack the system remotely?” David asked.

  “This isn’t a registrar’s office,” Elliot said. “The system in place is expensive, and expensive means good. I can’t just sit at a Starbucks around the corner and take control of the store with my laptop. I need access to the site so I can introduce a virus that will get us what we need.”

  “So we have a man who can turn off the alarm and cameras provided we get him in so he can look over the computers,” I said.

  “And how do we do that?” David asked.

  “We don’t,” I said. “You do.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “This again? I’m the inside man. I’m not supposed to be a part of the robbery. That wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “There never was a plan,” I said, “just a goal.”

  “My goal was to stay out of it.”

  I shook my head. “Not possible. You have a part to play in this and the sooner you get your head around it, the sooner we will have a plan. You said that Saul planned on handing over the business to you one day.”

  David leaned forward in his chair and brought his hands together. “That was always the plan.”

  “Does that mean he considers you important?”

  “Of course.”

  “He relies on you?”

  David rotated his wedding band again and again. “Yes.”

  “You’re the number two in the operation?”

  “Yes.” David put a little edge on the word. Things were getting away from him, and he didn’t like it.

  “If the toilet breaks, what happens?” />
  He took his hand off his ring. “What?”

  “Yeah, what?” Johnny said.

  “Just tell me what happens if the toilet breaks,” I said.

  “Where are you going with this?” Diego #1 asked.

  “Let’s hear him out,” Alvin said.

  “If it breaks, who handles it? You? Saul? Someone else?”

  “I do.”

  “What about a problem with the register. Who takes care of that?”

  “Me,” David said.

  “A computer issue?”

  David’s eyes opened wide. “Me. I do. I think I see where this is going. You want me to make a call to a computer repairman, and that repairman will be Elliot.”

  I nodded. “But first, I want you to break the computer.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “I can’t break the computer.”

  “Sure you can,” I said. “You just need to do exactly what I tell you to do.”

  “I keep telling you, me being involved was never part of the plan.”

  “Having us over to your house to eat warm shrimp in your rumpus room —”

  “Thank you,” Miles said.

  “— so we can look at pictures you took of where you work — so that we could rob it — makes you involved.”

  Alvin nodded. “He’s right, David. You’re the inside man.”

  “And that means we need you to get inside,” I said.

  “That’s why they don’t call it the outside man,” Miles said. He looked around the room. “Am I right?” He got four eye rolls and no responses.

  “You’re the only way this works,” I said.

  Johnny looked like he was gearing up to say something, but David spoke first. “So how do I break a computer that belongs to a guy who sits in front of it all day. It’s not like I can just wait for him to take a piss. If he leaves his office and comes back to find his station wrecked, he’s going to know something is up. The first thing he’ll do once that computer is back up and running is check the tapes. When that happens, I’m fucked. We are all fucked. You ever consider that? Or are you going to tell me that is part of the plan, too?”