I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. To Charlie’s credit, he calmed down pretty quickly after that, although he still didn’t see the funny side of it.
“I’ll do it over again, Charlie. Don’t worry; it’s only a day lost. Take this as my practice round.”
“OK,” he replied, placated at last, “From here on I strongly suggest you carry the bag under your armpit. And walk slowly to keep it from jiggling. Got that?”
“Got it. But you’ll have to take the handles off. After a while they hurt too much.”
“I can do that. You’d better practise for a while around the house; and don’t dare drop it.”
I wandered from room to room with the man purse sandwiched tightly under my armpit, twisting my body to angle the lens upwards to point at the corners of each room. An hour and a half later, Charlie finally let me stop. He took the bag and examined the results while I waited, nervously this time. I’d had more than enough video-taping for one day.
The kitchen door opened and Charlie came in, camera in hand.
“Well . . . ?” I said.
He frowned and said nothing, just gave me a reluctant thumbs-up and handed me back the man purse.
*
I got to the Zheng Building nice and early the next morning. Though I didn’t really need to go there, I took the elevator up to my office just in case anyone was observing me on a security camera. It was what a real tenant would do. After sitting around for a few minutes inside, deep breathing and calming myself, I carefully adjusted the man purse under my armpit and tightened the strap around my shoulder so that the bag couldn’t budge. The electronics inside the soft leather bit into my underarm. I slowly made my way to the nearest elevator, making sure it was one of the two that went all the way down to the vault floor, and practised some video-taping angles and poses as I descended.
When the elevator doors slid open, revealing the stark white foyer in front of the vault, I panned the camera around the room to capture its layout and features. I approached the day gate and pointed the man purse at the security camera above my head, keenly aware that I was filming them filming me.
Remembering Charlie’s wrath, I took care to keep the camera steady and aim it well. One thing that hadn’t occurred to me last night was that the ceilings in this building were higher than the ones in Charlie’s house. That meant the video cameras were higher up than I’d practised for, and I struggled to direct the concealed lens upwards to get good footage. It would have been easy if I could have just held the bag out and pointed it, but of course I couldn’t do that. Instead, I had to tilt my upper body back at an extreme angle that must have looked as if I was in the early stages of an epileptic fit. Or it would have if I could have held such an awkward position for longer than a second or two.
I was buzzed through the day gate and once inside the vault was able to film more openly. There were no guards in here and no video cameras either. Probably using tenant privacy concerns as a cover, Zheng had ensured that no visual records existed of precisely what he was storing and removing from his safe deposit boxes. But this not only suited him; it also suited me very well indeed.
I filmed the interior of the vault, paying special attention to the motion detector on the wall on the left side of the room and the light detector attached to the ceiling. Then I opened my safe deposit box and filmed it inside and out. I took a tape measure from my pocket and recorded the precise dimensions of the door, the deadbolt, the keyhole, and the interior of the box itself, writing the details in a tiny notebook I’d brought for the purpose.
There wasn’t much else left to do. I felt the wall with my fingertips, tapped it with a knuckle and even stuck my ear tight against it. As far as I could tell, it was solid concrete. That meant it could be cut through, given heavy power tools and plenty of time. I quickly dismissed the idea: my research told me that these walls and floor were highly likely to be imbedded with seismic sensors that would be triggered by any attempts to drill or dig into the vault. I’d have to find another way in.
I heard the elevator doors open. Someone was coming. I quickly finished up and tucked the man purse back under my arm.
The day gate buzzer sounded and another tenant came into the vault, an elderly man with long white hair, slightly stooped and wearing a very expensive dark blue pinstripe suit. I closed my deposit box as he entered, gave him a curt nod in passing, and tried to film the vault door as best I could as I exited through it.
*
I made up my mind that I never wanted to have to carry the stupid little purse ever again, so spent the rest of the day wandering around the public areas of the building, filming everything I thought it might be useful to have on tape. With the purse cocked tightly under my arm I had to keep tilting my upper body back at the same awkward angle, until at one point I was sure I’d pulled a muscle.
I rested for a while in my office and left around three o’clock. It was a quiet time of day and I decided to film one last panoramic shot of the foyer, taking in the hallway leading off to the elevators. I stood in the middle and turned in a very slow circle, pivoting around on the backs of my heels, keeping my body as stiff as possible.
“Something wrong, sir?”
I nearly fell over. It was the security guard at the front door. He must have seen me pirouetting like an idiot and come inside to investigate. My mind whirled.
“I seem to have forgotten something,” I muttered, scratching my head as if trying to recall it. “Sorry to alarm you.”
He gave me a pitying look. “Not at all, sir.”
I pushed my bottom lip up a bit and tried to look wide eyed and high on something illegal. “I had a bit of a bender last night and it’s made me absentminded today.”
“Lack of sleep does that, eh?”
“Yes, I’ll just be on my way now.”
“Good afternoon, sir. Take care.”
I walked slowly out the door and hoped I’d done enough to fool him.
*
I dropped the camera off at Charlie’s and he seemed pleased to see me. The tension between us had gone and I was glad of that. I reminded myself that it was actually a good thing that he was being fussy about the proper use of his electronic toys. He took the camera away to check the film and I must have done well as he came back smiling.
“Good job, Mike. I have what I need now.”
I acknowledged the praise but didn’t stick around. My body felt achy and sore, as if I’d worked out too hard, and I attributed it to delayed stress from the foyer incident. I got home shortly after five and sat on the bed, my back propped against the wall, a big glass of chilled French Chardonnay in my hand. Despite the mess I’d made of filming the foyer, I knew I’d made really good progress otherwise. Now I needed an evening free from planning the heist, a few hours when I could relax and forget about cameras, locks and alarms.
I had to see Emma. It had been far too long since the last time, when we’d met covertly at her place. I picked up the phone to call her then my tiredness led me to do something extremely reckless. I put the phone down again and decided to make her a surprise visit.
Twenty minutes later I stood at the end of the block where she lived. My eyes scanned the area in front of her building. No black BMW, no Wark, no other signs of danger. I estimated that I could get inside in a minute or less. Unless I was extraordinarily unlucky and Wark drove up during precisely that minute, what could go wrong? I needed to see her.
I walked quickly up to the front entrance of her building and buzzed her suite. Long seconds ticked by. Was she out? That was perfectly possible, so why hadn’t I seriously thought about it? I buzzed again, keeping the button depressed to a count of ten. At last I heard her voice.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, Mike. Let me in.”
She didn’t say anything else, but the door clicked open and she was waiting for me at her suite. I stepped inside.
“Wait a sec,” was all she said. I took off my shoes in the hallway as s
he closed her living room blinds all the way across the curving, north facing wall then came back to me.
“Why are you here?” she said sharply.
“Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong.”
She frowned. “Did anybody see you?”
“No, I’m sure of it.” This clipped exchange was hardly the warm, passionate welcome I’d imagined.
“I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t come here?”
“Relax, it’s OK. It’s been a tough day. I had to see you, that’s all.”
She seemed to thaw at that point and at last I got the embrace I needed.
“I’m just scared, Mike. But I’m glad you’re here.”
We separated and went on into the living room.
“I worry that he’s got a telescope trained on me,” she explained, pointing at the blinds, “And that there’s still a bug in here.”
“Charlie would have found it,” I said. “Anyway, didn’t you change the locks?”
“Yes, but maybe there’s one that Charlie didn’t detect.”
“I’ll get him to come back, do another sweep if you like,” I said in my most reassuring voice.
She shrugged. “Guess I’m just getting paranoid. Anyway, sit down. How’d it go today?”
I stretched out on the couch and told her about the filming problems and my encounter with the security guard. I was just about to relay the happy ending when I heard a scraping sound at her suite door. A sound like a key in a lock.
Emma looked at the door aghast. I followed her gaze and saw the door start to open. By then I was already diving behind the big screen television in the corner. Emma rushed to the door as I squirmed in behind the television. I watched in horror as Zheng walked in, Wark, his human baboon, following behind.
“Whaaa . . . what are you doing here?” Emma stammered.
“Get out of my way,” Zheng replied.
My hiding place was useless and I knew it. The big, flat screen was on a low table and there was a gaping space between the bottom of the television and the table top. The moment Zheng walked into the living room I was doomed and, with Wark here, there’d be no escape. I looked around frantically. There was nothing but window and nine pitiless storeys of height behind me. Then I noticed that where the outside window ended there was an internal window area between the living room and the dining room patio next to it. But, unless I smashed the glass, there was no way to get through it.
Or was there? My eyes lit on a small catch at the side of one pane. I pressed it down and pulled at the green frame around the pane. It swung open on hinges. As Zheng and Wark walked into the room, I dived through the narrow aperture. There was no time to close it behind me.
Zheng came right up to the blinds and I could see him in full profile. If he had looked in my direction we’d have been eye to eye. Instead, Emma stood behind him and he turned and gave her a cold stare.
“Why are all the blinds closed?” he demanded.
“Why are you here?” Emma replied, ignoring his question.
“Can I not visit my own property?” he said.
“This suite or me?” Emma replied.
Zheng smiled humourlessly. “Both, my dear, both. You have some explaining to do.”
“I’ve nothing to say to you,” Emma spat back.
“On the contrary, it came to my attention that you changed the lock here. Fortunately Wark noted the name on the side of the van of the locksmith you hired. I had to threaten the man with a lawsuit if he did not supply me with a new key to my own home. That was very embarrassing.”
“Too bad. And this is not your home.”
“Indeed it is, and I have a right to inspect it whenever I wish.” He moved away from the window.
Alarm bells immediately went off in my head. I wasn’t safe yet. If Zheng and Wark entered the dining room I was bound to be spotted out on this small patio. I looked around and was relieved to see bi-fold patio doors open in the warm evening. I slipped between them into the dining room. A long table occupied the middle of it and I thought about crawling in under it, but there didn’t seem to be enough room between the chairs and I’d have had to make a lot of noise moving them. To my left was a door-sized opening which I ducked through into the long, narrow kitchen. Zheng and Wark still seemed to be in the living room and I intended to get as far away from them as possible.
“I want you out of here,” I heard Emma say.
“And out of your life, no doubt,” Zheng replied. “Since I have better things to do than trade insults, you will get your wish for the former if not the latter. But only after Wark and I have had a little look around.”
I was still horribly exposed. The way the suite was laid out, anyone walking from the living room window to the front door could see into every room apart from the bedroom. That was no good to me as I was pretty sure that Zheng would go in there just to spite Emma. I made another instant decision and snuck down the hallway to the bathroom. On my way I saw my shoes on the floor beside the little table, where I’d left them. Zheng mustn’t have noticed them on his way in, but he was bound to on his way out.
There was no time to stop and pick them up. I slid my right leg across the smooth floor and with the side of my foot pushed the shoes underneath the low shelf at the bottom of the table before slipping into the bathroom. Keeping the door open a crack I was still able to hear voices, although I couldn’t see anyone.
Seconds ticked by and I became increasingly worried. My instant decision didn’t seem so clever anymore. What if Zheng came in here? I looked around the small room. Towel rail, scales, shower stall, mirror, washbasin, the usual stuff. And absolutely nowhere to hide. Footsteps approached.
“I need to check if you are maintaining the value of my property, my dear. Perhaps I shall send you one of my young maids.” Zheng was standing right outside the door.
“Don’t you need your maids for your own bedroom?” Emma replied, flinging back Zheng’s taunt, “And, I’m not your ‘dear’ anymore.”
The bathroom door moved slightly. I jumped in my skin. There was a tiny closet right behind the door, hidden away in a corner. It was my only chance. I opened its folding mirror door and groaned inwardly when I saw the shelves inside, filled with clean towels. There were a few centimetres of space between the front of the shelves and the door. It would have to do.
I squeezed in between the shelves and the door, standing on my toes and drawing in my breath to make myself as thin as possible, and pulled the mirror door towards me. I couldn’t close it fully but it came across enough to conceal me.
“Excuse me a moment, my dear.”
I heard the bathroom door open and Zheng come in. The door bashed against the closet mirror and I held it tightly so that it wouldn’t spring open and reveal me. The edges of the shelves dug painfully into my back and head, and I knew I couldn’t hold this position for much longer. Already my body was beginning to quiver and I might lose my balance any moment.
Zheng, of course, took his time. He urinated in the toilet bowl, not bothering to flush it afterwards. The taps came on and I presumed he was washing his hands.
Just a little longer. I only have to stay stretched like this just a little longer.
A loud snorting sound almost made me topple over. Zheng was hawking phlegm from his throat. He spat in the washbasin. At long last I heard the room door open again and Zheng leave.
I let my long-held breath out, pushed the mirror door open and slumped to my knees.
Outside, I heard Zheng say, “Now just a quick look around. Wark come and help me.”
I got my breath back and cautiously opened the door. Zheng and Wark seemed to moving around in Emma’s bedroom and she was no doubt keeping an eye on them. I grabbed my shoes from under the table and opened Emma’s front door as quietly as I could.
Minutes later I ran out the front entrance of the building, past a gleaming black BMW, down to the end of the block and around the corner.
*
When I got bac
k to the apartment I stripped off my sweat-sodden shirt, lay on the bed and eventually managed to relax. As I cooled down I thought long and hard about what had just happened and how we ought to respond to it. I grabbed my cell phone and called Emma’s number. She picked up on the second ring.
“I take it Zheng’s gone?”
“Wait,” she said. I heard a door opening and the swooshing sound of water running. She’d turned on a tap to mask the sound of our voices.
“In case those bastards left any bugs behind them,” she explained.
“Don’t worry,” I assured her, “I’ll have Charlie come by tomorrow, first thing. He’ll scan for bugs and I’ll get him to change your locks himself this time.”
“Make sure he comes incognito,” she replied, “Now that we know for sure I’m being watched.”
I got straight to the point. “I still want to see you tonight.”
“Is that wise?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I replied. “At first I thought we’d have to keep away from each other from now on. But if we do that I’ll never be able to pull off the heist. I need to be able to coordinate things with you, and we both need to unwind from time to time, normalise things a bit. If we let Zheng dictate our lives he’s already won.”
There was silence at her end. “OK,” she said at last, “I’d like that too. But this time I come to you. Wark could still be out there.”
“Good. Never let the bad guys triumph, eh?” I said. “Let’s meet somewhere neutral and public. We just have to be careful about it.”
“Sure, after what happened here I really want to see you too. And I’ve something to show you.”
“What is it?”
“That would be telling. You’ll find out soon enough.”
We arranged to meet inside Fifth Avenue Cinema on Burrard Street. I was pleased that she seemed just as eager to still meet up as I was, but couldn’t figure out what it was she wanted to show me. After a quick shower I put on a fresh shirt and caught a bus outside the Tim Horton’s coffee shop on Broadway.
Meaner Things Page 13