But I couldn’t convince myself. In the movies it would knock him out cold and in the next reel he’d be bandaged, but fine, laughing about it to some detectives. In real life it would be different. I might kill him or leave him brain damaged, a vegetable in a hospital bed. I imagined Jeff collapsed on the floor, moaning in agony, his skull fractured.
I couldn’t do it. It was a line I wasn’t prepared to cross.
In only a few seconds he’d be at the door. I ducked down, grabbed my bags and crawled across the floor, reaching up and switching the video recorder back on as I went down the row. At the last desk in the far corner I squeezed backwards into the narrow gap between the swivel chair and the leg space, curled my body up and pulled the bags of loot in behind me. It was the best I could do in the twenty seconds I had.
I heard Jeff insert a key in the door, pause, and try the handle. He’d discovered the door was unlocked. That alone would immediately make him suspicious. He entered the room and I remembered the crowbar sitting propped against the doorframe. Would he notice it? If he did, and picked it up, I’d have no chance of getting past him.
I lay motionless, my body scrunched up and barely able to breathe. The sharp edges of videos in the backpack pressed into the small of my back.
I imagined Jeff’s eyes roaming around the room as they got used to the gloom. He’d see the row of desks, each with its chair pushed snugly up into the space behind. All except for mine. He might think it odd and come over and take a look. Or it might never occur to him.
Anyway, it didn’t really matter. He was bound to notice the busted cupboard door locks as soon as he switched on the lights. I held my breath and waited for the inevitable.
Jeff didn’t switch on the lights. Maybe this room was so familiar to him he didn’t need to; it was impossible to figure out. I heard him come further into the room. What the hell was he doing?
Whatever it was, he didn’t seem to be in any hurry. A swivel chair squeaked, telling me he’d sat down behind one of the desks. Something clicked and a glow of light appeared in the room. He’d switched on one of the video monitors. Panic shot through me. Now I knew for sure that it was only a matter of time before he sounded the alarm. Once he saw the old tapes playing in the machine . . .
Then I realised that the surveillance equipment would be recording new, current images over the old footage. So I was okay and out sight. But what about Charlie and Emma?
The uncertainty, and my inability to see what was going on, was killing me. I reckoned that Jeff would be at his usual desk, which was at the opposite end of the row, near the glass partition. There was a small space between the two bags I’d pulled in behind me. Like a slowly unwinding coil, I eased my head, snake-like, out through this gap.
I had a side view of Jeff, and was slightly to the rear of him. He was peering intently at the image on the monitor screen, leaning right up close to it. The light from the screen lit up his frowning face in a bizarre, multi-streaked luminescence. I watched as he fingered some buttons beneath, switching from camera to camera with well-practised motions. He seemed to be checking the entire building. For signs of intruders?
This surveillance included, of course, the garage. If Charlie and Emma were following my instructions, they’d be lying prone underneath black sheets, the bags of loot stuffed in the trunk, and all would be well. The garage was a dark place and, provided Charlie and Emma kept still, Jeff would have great difficulty spotting them even if he knew exactly where to look.
I was a lot more worried about my own situation than theirs.
At last Jeff moved away from the screen and pushed his chair back. He fumbled in his pocket, took out a bunch of keys and bent down to the bottom drawer of the desk. Reaching in to the back of the drawer he took out a large silver hip flask.
He leaned back on the swivel chair, raised his legs and rested his heels on the desktop. With a sigh of satisfaction he unscrewed the top of the flask and glugged down several mouthfuls. His other hand rested on the video switches and he continued to survey the building through the images on the screen in front of him. Every minute or two he changed the camera view and took another drink from the flask.
Minutes that seemed hours dragged slowly by, and I wondered how long this would go on. I wanted to stretch, to crawl out of this confined space where I was feeling increasingly claustrophobic. I knew I was dehydrated and could cramp up at any moment. The room was stuffy and my breathing was becoming laboured.
Entombed under the desk, a wave of depression came over me. Jeff D. seemed to have some sort of sixth sense ability to hone in on me wherever I was in this building. If he’d been able to use his other five alcohol-numbed senses a bit better he’d have nabbed me by now. I peeped out again, observed his profile in the glow of the screen and silently cursed his existence, using every swearword I could think of, and inventing some new ones of my own.
It seemed much longer but it was probably only about fifteen minutes before Jeff emptied the flask and tossed it back into the drawer. He switched off the monitor and I felt a surge of optimism, sure that he was at last about to get up and leave.
Instead, he put his feet up again and leaned even further back in the chair. He folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.
Now I knew why he’d kept the room dark. It was better for snoozing.
*
The room seemed to grow even warmer and my clothes were now sticking to my body. Fearing the onset of muscle cramps, I decided to flex my arm and legs in the tight nook under the desk. I managed a couple of centimetres of movement; any more risked making a noise and that would really give the game away. I daren’t bring my arm all the way up to look at my watch but I reckoned that another twenty minutes or so had passed since Jeff D. had switched off the video screen and begun his snooze time.
My thoughts went again and again to Emma and Charlie waiting down in the garage. They must be getting frantic by now, especially Emma, but they couldn’t wait forever. Before dawn broke they’d have to leave for their own safety. I couldn’t expect anything else. I estimated that it must now be coming up to five o’clock, which gave me a maximum of an hour to get out of here, probably less if I was honest.
I considered making a run for it while Jeff was asleep. The risk of waking him was hard to assess; he’d drunk a lot of liquor, but that didn’t mean he’d gone deaf. This was my biggest problem – there was no way that I could get out of the security room quietly. Even if I abandoned the two heavy canvas bags of loot, which I was loathe to do having lugged them this far, I still had to shift them out of my way. Being full of loose stones and jewellery, it was impossible to do that silently. And I would have to take the videotapes, which rattled around in my backpack when I moved. Then I would have to crawl across the floor right past Jeff, get to the door, and open and close it silently in the dark.
No problem doing any of that if I was Brad Pitt in Ocean’s Eleven, but complete folly to attempt it in the real world.
I listened intently for the slightest sound of snoring coming from Jeff, which might indicate deep sleep, but he was silent. For all I knew he was simply resting his eyes and might get up at any moment. I’d long since run out of new silent insults for the man, but I repeated some just to pass the time.
More precious minutes passed and I began to despair. This was a pathetic way for it to end: stuck under a desk whilst a drunken security guard, who was nevertheless surely destined to nab me, snoozed across the room. By now my mind was beginning to swoon from utter fatigue and nervous exhaustion, and my body was so stiff and rigid that I didn’t think I could uncurl myself, even if Jeff D. were to magically vanish in a puff of smoke.
A cell phone rang, cleaving the still air like a knife. At first nothing happened. Answer it, you drunken bastard, answer it. My mind flung the words at Jeff D. like mental daggers. Without opening his eyes, he stirred slightly and rubbed his face with his hand, the phone still ringing. Its volume seemed pathetically low.
His han
d left his face and crept to his pants pocket where there was a slim rectangular bulge. My heart soared.
The ringing stopped. Jeff’s hand came back up to belly and rested there. The room was silent again. I wanted to scream in sheer frustration, blow him away with a banshee wail. If I’d still had the crowbar I might have used it.
I made myself calm down and started counting seconds in my head. The phone would ring again, I told myself. The phone had to ring again. Whoever it was would call back. It had to be so. It would be so.
I counted thirty seconds and began to despair. How long does it take for someone to redial? Thirty-five seconds? Forty?
The cell phone rang again. This time Jeff stirred immediately, fumbled the phone out of his pocket and held it to his ear, his eyes still shut.
“Waa . . . Oh, it’s you.” His eyes finally opened. “What you mean snuck out? You know I have patrols to do, check the floors, that takes time . . . I’m on the main floor right now . . . No, ’course I didn’t doze off again . . . Don’t be a baby, what could happen up there? . . . ’Course I’m coming back up, I’m working my way there right now . . .”
The call ended abruptly. Jeff muttered an obscenity and glared at the phone for a moment before slipping it back into his pocket. He took his feet down off the desk and sat up straight. His hand went to the monitor switch, then paused half way as if he were reconsidering. He looked at his watch and shook his head slightly.
At long, long last he stood up, stretched, and walked to the door. I heard it noisily open and close. He was gone; my ordeal was over. I moved my stiff, aching legs forward and pushed the canvas bags away with my arms, making some space to ease myself slowly out. My clothes were moist with perspiration and I longed for a drink of water, but the plastic bottles in my backpack were completely empty. I slumped forward on my hands and knees and began to crawl out from under the desk.
The door opened again and I froze.
Footsteps hurried towards me. I had no time to do anything other than turn my head in the direction of the sound.
Jeff D. strode to his desk with a bunch of keys in his hand. He stooped down, locked the bottom drawer with the liquor flask in it, and put the keys in his pocket. Without pausing he turned on his heel and walked away. Once again I heard the door close behind him.
Okay, that has to be it. That really has to be it. I gave him another minute to get in the elevator, then emerged from beneath the desk. I couldn’t even straighten up. Like an old man I had to stretch my limbs in slow motion until the stiffness went away. Gradually my muscles softened. Blood flow restored, I was able to move reasonably freely. I pushed the bags ahead of me and crawled all the way to the door.
Even though I was sick to the teeth of this room, and wanted out of it at all costs, I fought back the urge to get up, open the door and leg it out to the garage. I still had to be careful. By now Jeff D. was probably back up on the third floor with his cutie-cum-harridan, whispering all kinds of pacifying sweet nothings in her shell-like ear. On the other hand, he might have another hipflask stashed somewhere else and be making his way to it.
I peeped out the corner of the window and checked that the coast was clear. The foyer was deserted, but I made myself count to thirty before I stood up. My hand was on the door and I was about to leave when something nagged at the back of my mind and made me hesitate. Was I forgetting something? I thought hard and it came to me. The video recorder was back on and would catch my image as soon as I exited this room. I hobbled over to the equipment and switched it off again.
The crowbar was still propped up against the wall. Somehow, Jeff D. had missed it every time. Seeing it gave me one last, capricious idea. I picked it up with my still-gloved hand and carried it to his desk, carefully placing it in front of the video monitor. As an afterthought I positioned a white plastic ruler and a pencil exactly parallel to the crowbar, one on each side of it. They would give Jeff something mysterious, but meaningless, to think about when he discovered them. Hopefully he’d pester the detectives about it.
Back at the door I took one more careful look around, hoisted the straps of the bags over my shoulders, then threw caution to the winds and hoofed it down the hallway.
*
I made it across the foyer to the connecting door into the back corridor. So far, so good. I dived through, caught one of the heavy bags in the door and nearly fell over. Urging myself to one last monumental effort, I wrenched the bag free and shuffled my way down the narrow, gloomy passageway.
Halfway down, I heard something behind me. With a bag on each shoulder I would have to stop and unload to look back to see who it was. There was no way that I wanted to do that. I decided it had to be the bane of my existence, that dozy, drunken ape Jeff D., exercising his psychic sixth sense again, twitching his nostrils and muttering, “I smell the blood of a diamond heister.” Who else could it be?
The urge to pause and look back suddenly became overwhelming. Now that I’d left the main building it was pitch black here in the corridor, but I thought I might see the fire door slowly closing on its spring hinges. Nothing doing; I couldn’t see anyone, but I might have looked too late. I hefted the bags again. The straps cut deeply into my aching shoulders as I stumbled forward, but there was no way that I was going to abandon this much loot now. Jeff would have to catch me up and wrench the bags from my cold, dead hands.
Of course, he might be about to do just that. With my head down I hoofed it even harder, sweat trickling down my forehead and into my eyes. I hurried on, certain now that he was coming after me. Rapid footsteps echoed around the walls. He was getting faster too, running, catching me up.
I broke into a run myself and pelted down the dark corridor towards the garage, ignoring the weight I was carrying and the exhaustion of my body. A couple more minutes and this would all be over.
Something touched my back near my neck. A hand? Jeff’s? I swear it burned like a hot iron. I felt him right behind me, heard the heaving of his lungs, smelt his sweat . . .
He mustn’t catch me. No-one had ever caught me. My leaden legs ached and my heart pounded in my eardrums, but somehow I kept running.
Faster, faster, I’m almost there.
Suddenly the floor disappeared from under me and I hurtled forward into emptiness. My skull smashed into something very, very hard. For an instant there was incredible pain.
Then the lights inside my head went out.
27.
THE GREAT ESCAPE
The flight attendant left the plastic tumbler of white wine on my tray. I picked it up and downed half of it at a gulp, the sharp grape aftertaste pinging on my tongue. I craved something stronger – two fingers of Black Bush whiskey would have done the job nicely – but nursey sitting beside me insisted that I had to keep off hard liquor for now. After we landed I could indulge in anything I liked, she promised, including the local rum. I intended to keep her to that promise.
“Head still sore?”
I turned and gave nursey, also known as Emma, my best attempt at a smile. “Still throbbing quite a bit. I’m just glad to be this far. Feel stupid in this hat though.”
“Take some more Tylenol if you need to.” She looked out the window at the clouds, then back at me. “Anyway, the hat suits you.”
As the hat I was wearing was a silk lined fedora, something I’d never worn in my life before, I begged to disagree. But my head ached too much to argue, and at least the hat hid the shaved bit of my scalp and the half dozen stitches.
“A couple more hours and we’ll be in Barbados,” she said.
“You’ve always wanted to go there, haven’t you?”
She smiled wryly. “Actually, I’ve been here once before. This time will be different though.” She gave my hand a tight squeeze. “Still don’t remember anything?”
I knew what she was referring to and grimaced. “No, nothing. I remember running down the corridor in the pitch dark with Jeff D. hard on my heels. I think I tripped or something. Then nothing.”
I blushed under the hat and tried to defend myself. “Yeah, that was pretty stupid; I can’t believe I did that. But stupid can happen when you have the hound of hell on your heels.”
She put her hand over her mouth, but I still saw the grin behind it. “Once again, Mike, there was nobody there.”
I frowned. “So you keep saying, but I’m sure there was. Jeff D. was after me.”
“See him?”
I had to be honest. “No, but I heard him.”
She stopped grinning, twisted around and touched my cheek with her hand. I liked all this tactile stuff. “You poor boy. You finally lost it right at the end, didn’t you? Your mind started playing tricks on you.”
I was about to protest again, then recalled how completely stressed out and exhausted I’d been by the time I’d started off down that dark hallway. Instead of arguing I simply nodded to her in reluctant agreement. “So you’re saying I imagined it?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Least I held on to the swag,” I protested.
“Yup, I hauled the bags to the car first, then came back for you.” She gave me a coy look. “Just kidding,” she added.
I thought about it for a minute. Try as I might, I still couldn’t remember a thing after I’d launched myself into space over the concrete steps.
“Was there a lot of blood?” I asked, lowering my voice.
“You got it all over one of the bags.” She leaned close to my ear. “Ruined one of them. Had to burn it. All of them in fact.”
“Well, at least you got some blood diamonds.” It was a feeble joke, even by my standards.
“How did you know I was there?” I asked.
“I was standing on the other side of the door, out of camera range,” she said, “Waiting for you; worried sick if you have to know. You’d been gone so long I was frantic by then. I’d thought a million times about going back to find you.”
Meaner Things Page 27