by John L. Monk
No suitcases or loose change or piles of dirty clothes anywhere in sight. Looking at the bed, made up so tightly only a maid could have done it, I knew the room was vacant. I wasn’t here to steal, only to use the bathroom and wash the grit from my hands while I got up the nerve to do something so monumentally stupid I’d probably try it.
After drying my hands, I went back out, closed the door behind me, and left it unlocked. If I lost my nerve, I’d go back to my room and enjoy the rest of my vacation like a normal person. My idea of a normal person being someone who worked nine to five and recorded television shows while they watched other television shows. Then I’d fly home and go to prison.
Twelve stories below, a silly end to an odd life stared up at me, whispering, You’re only ordinary, who are you kidding?
Fighting back a sudden and powerful shame, I straddled the rail, leaned out toward the other side, and swung around the metal plate. I held myself fast with my right hand, bracing against the plate with both feet, my left arm dangling uselessly by my side. I was in good shape, but hardly an acrobat. Still, I was pretty sure I could make it over a mere body length with a good solid shove.
Biting my lip, I bunched up and launched backwards.
I’d intended to twist in midair so as to see where I was headed, but ended up turned halfway. All but my foot cleared the balustrade, sending me crashing into one of the glass doors and making one hell of a racket.
“Jesus,” I said, wincing at the pain shooting up my elbow from where I’d smacked it.
The glass was fine and my elbow would be too, in a minute. Rubbing my arm, I got up and gazed down, squinting past the resort lighting. There was simply too much light.
When I turned back to have a look at the doors, I saw the drapes in the windows move ever so slightly. I couldn’t tell if someone had peeked out and closed them quickly or if there was a fan spinning inside. If I waited long enough I’d know, but the more I waited the more opportunity there was to get caught.
Sliding doors, as well as the normal swing variety, ran the length of the lavish suite. The sliding doors were the same ones they used everywhere, so I knew I could get in. Looking close at the one in front me, it didn’t look like it was alarmed. On a hunch, I gave it a tug—and it slid right open.
I laughed quietly. It was almost a truism in the burglary profession: the more secure people think they are, the less secure they act. Twelve stories up and suspended between two towers and they’d left the door wide open.
The bedroom I stepped into was unoccupied. And yep, there was a vent somewhere blowing cool air around. But I spared no more thought for that because it took everything I had to keep from giggling. I hadn’t just entered some rich person’s house—I’d broken into an emperor’s palace.
Gold-painted metal or wood, shimmering gold satin with blue and black highlights gleamed at me from everywhere. Almost like the designer hadn’t trusted himself to tackle the task of living up to the $25,000 price tag and had just brought in lots of gold. It was an eyeful of wealthy splendor. The bed in front of me was heaped so high with cushions—mostly gold—that anyone who wanted to sleep there would have had to dump them on the mirror-like marble floor. The walls were covered with so many tapestries and frosted mirrors and glass cases with island artifacts and sculptures that it felt like more of a museum than anything else.
The Swanson mansion had a beauty to it, if you ignored the rough treatment it had endured over the years. This was more like a caricature of beauty, however dazzling. Looking around, I couldn’t understand why anyone would want so many chairs and couches in a bedroom. Who hangs out in bedrooms?
Moving on, I set out to explore the rest of the suite and had to revise my original opinion all over again. I loved the beautiful grand piano with the artsy seashell sculpture on it. But then, anything musical is a thing of beauty already. I wanted to sit down and play it, but first I needed to know how. Then, born in that brief moment, I had a new goal in life. Maybe they’d let me take up an instrument in prison. Not in a maximum-security prison, sure, but would I really get something like that?
I pushed the thought away and checked out the twenty-two-karat gold-plated chandelier I’d read about down by the pool. It wasn’t solid gold, but neither was it gold electroplating. Once properly separated from the steel, the gold could bring me close to fifty grand. If I were in the States, I’d take it apart with a hacksaw and bring it out in pieces, then work on it from the safety of my apartment. Here, that wasn’t an option. Even if I could bring it out without getting caught, I’d lose my chance at whatever Miss Rhodes carried around with her.
I found what I was looking for in the closet, ugly and boxy and alone on a shelf: the hotel safe. It answered the question as to whether or not they used the same type here. They did. Same white color, same keypad, and big as a microwave. Because the door was open, I saw it only had a single bolt to lock it in the frame. That’d be good to know if I wanted to brute force it. Fun as that might be, it wouldn’t be necessary. I didn’t recognize the model, but I knew the company: Messer Safe Co.
The way a hotel safe works is whatever number you enter when you lock it is the number you use to unlock it. When the door opens, the code gets erased. If you forgot the code, there was still the master code to fall back on. Only the manager of a hotel should know it, but he or she frequently parceled it out to trusted people—otherwise the manager would never get any sleep. One thing to note about these safes is they run on batteries. Batteries die—something not lost on companies like Messer Safe Co. This model had a tiny brass nameplate on the door about the size and shape of a flattened penny. Two small brass Allen bolts fastened the plate to the box. They may as well have drawn an arrow pointing to it, saying, “Here’s the bypass keyhole!”
I left the safe open and alone for now, then checked all the balcony doors of the suite. Nearly all of them were unlocked, which didn’t surprise me. In a way, it sort of irritated me. All the money the hotel charged and this was how they protected their guests.
Satisfied with the recon and ready to go, I found the door out and took it down a small hall to the private elevator. There was a little security dome like the one in the lobby, but I pretended not to notice it. Odds were good there was an empty chair on the other end—because who stares at an empty elevator lobby all day, especially one to a room no one’s supposed to be in? Still, I was in enough trouble already. I chose caution over cockiness and took a ride to the second floor, again pretending not to notice yet another security dome when I got out. Then I found the stairs to the lobby and went to the bar.
“How can I help you?” my friendly bartender said.
“A glass of water, please, and thanks.”
Chapter 16
The next day, Saturday, I found a hardware store in town and bought a set of Allen wrenches in both standard and metric units. I also got a Leatherman multi-tool. I asked the shopkeeper if he had any paperclips. He said he didn’t sell them, but had a couple of large ones in a drawer I could have. I said that’d be great, then thanked him and left.
The sun and the humidity had turned unbearable, so I took off my pack and clipped it to a hook under the seat. My back was wet where the pack had rested, and the feel of the circulating air was like a mini air conditioner.
On the ride back to the hotel, a small white van swerved into my lane. I barely avoided it by angling into a narrow delivery-way behind a row of shops. Unbalanced, the bike wobbled a few yards, causing me to leap at the last second when it fell over in a heap.
Three islanders jumped out of the van. One of them had dreadlocks and a menacing look about him. Another had psychotic eyes and an aluminum baseball bat. The third was the bellhop I’d supposedly punched in the face.
“I hope you guys got insurance,” I said, pointing at the scooter. “I declined to pay the fifty bucks.”
“To hell with that scooter, mon,” Dreadlock said, sounding Jamaican. “We’re here for payback, okay?”
The slu
gger with the bat said, “You like hitting my brother? You think you’re better than us, yeah?” He did a little twirly thing with the bat to show me I wasn’t better than him.
The bellhop just glowered, not saying anything.
“Hey look,” I said to him. “I was drunk, okay? I’m sorry. I wanted to apologize when your boss told me what happened, but you already left.”
There seemed to be some sort of struggle going on behind his eyes, like he wanted to show how tough he was, but he really didn’t want to be there. His brother’s doing, then. Probably an older brother, if he felt he had to perform for him.
“You’re going to pay,” Bellhop said, making it sound like the hardest thing he’d ever said. Then he came at me, fists raised, with the other two beside him.
Before Bellhop got in range, Slugger swung the bat, narrowly missing me as I leapt backward—he was aiming for my head, dammit. I didn’t think Dreadlocks and Bellhop were killers, necessarily, but this guy was nuts.
Not wanting to stick around to decorate a coroner’s report, I turned tail and showed them what four nights a week on a treadmill and a triple shot of adrenalin looked like. If Fruit or Manny had been back there, I imagine they would have shot me. Maybe in the Bahamas they liked to pop baseballs at people. When I glanced back, at first I felt relieved they weren’t giving chase. And then my heart sank: they were loading my scooter into their van.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Put that down!”
Dreadlocks grinned my way and pointed at me. All I could do was watch as they finished loading it in. Pretty fast, too—almost like they did it all the time. And I didn’t dare try to stop them for fear they’d beat me to death. I’m sure they didn’t appreciate the angry look I gave them.
Dreadlocks was the last to get in, merrily flicking me off before they drove away, leaving me with a long walk back to the hotel in the heat.
These were the kinds of thieves I hated—the kind that chased you with a bat and took your stuff. They hadn’t just taken the scooter, they had my backpack, and all the things I needed for the Poseidon score, not to mention my passport and my safe deposit key and bump keys. At least I still had my wallet.
I saw a cab coming and waved it down. The young guy behind the wheel nodded me over, and I got in. He didn’t ask where I was going. He just leaned his head back and raised his eyebrows. Very cool.
I could be cool, too.
“Poseidon Hotel, Mac, and step on it.”
Big bright smile. “Okay.”
On the way there, I looked dejectedly at the little building I’d rented the scooter from and wondered what I’d tell the guy who worked there.
When we got to the Poseidon, I said to the cabbie, “Sorry, do you think you could take me to the Comfort Suites?”
“No problem,” he said, and smiled again.
I wasn’t feeling generous, but I tipped him well anyway. He’d gotten me out of a bind. Also, I didn’t want him to call a bunch of his friends to come and kneecap me. The friendly islander thing was completely revealed for the sham it was. Even the Poinciana trees had begun to look sinister.
After some searching, I caught up with Donald, my waiter from the other night, talking to another waiter over by the bar.
“Donald, hey, you got a second?” I said.
“Aha! You going to fight me?”
He did a little mock-boxing thing with his hands, teasing me.
“I don’t want to fight anyone, I swear. Listen, you know the guy I hit?”
“The guy?”
“Yeah, the bellhop. The manager said I hit the bellhop. I don’t know his name.”
Donald’s look got sly. “You mean Eddie? Why you want to know about him for? You want to finish the job, eh?”
He did the little boxing punches again, then laughed and made just kidding gestures.
I was in a terrible mood, but I smiled and said, “Actually, Eddie and his brother and another guy ran me off the road and tried to kill me. They stole my scooter and my pack. I was hoping you could tell me where he lives.”
“You want to call the police on him?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t. I just want what’s mine, that’s all. Maybe if I show I know where he lives, he’ll give it all back.”
I had no intention of asking for anything, but Donald didn’t need to know that.
He stared at me like I was crazy. “You’re going to knock on his door? If you do that, his brother will cut you up with a machete. Why don’t you call the police?”
Oddly, calling the cops had never occurred to me. There was a lot of suspicious stuff in my pack. What kind of tourist carries around night-vision goggles, Allen wrenches and rings of bump keys, bits of wire and mysteriously marked graph paper? Maybe Eddie would tell them I was a terrorist and hope to get off for doing the world a public service. The truth was I couldn’t know what would happen once the law got involved.
“Donald, I hate the police. If you can get me his address, I’ll pay you for it.”
He grinned at that. “Yeah? How much?”
“How about a thousand?”
“Man,” he said, eyes widening. “You’re serious, huh? A thousand for his address? For that, I’ll take you there myself. When do we leave?”
“When do you get off work?”
“It’s dead around here. I can go now and they won’t care.” He spread his hands wide, grinning like a fairy tale cat. “They love me here.”
Despite my mood, I smiled.
“I was thinking of going in tonight,” I said.
Donald snorted. “Soldier, you go to Nassau Village at night—white boy like you—you’re asking for it. You should talk to him during the daytime while there are still some tourists getting their stringy blond hair done. Much safer.”
“I gotta level with you,” I said. “I’m not gonna do a lot of talking, and the less tourists around the better.”
Also, by going at night, I hoped to surprise him.
Donald laughed. “Oh yeah—you’re a tough guy. I’ll take you, but I’ll wait in the car, okay? I’m not a tough guy. Just ask my wife.”
I told him I’d meet him outside the Poseidon at midnight, and wonder of all: he agreed. He even gave me a lift back, and I thanked him for it.
When I got back to my room, I poked and prodded the little safe in the closet but couldn’t do anything without my tools, so I gave up and tried to get some rest.
After twenty minutes of not sleeping, I got up to watch TV. None of my training had prepared me to deal with machete-wielding Bahamians. I’d had my hands full with the baseball bat variety.
I was sitting outside on the curb when Donald arrived, on time.
“Are you sure about this, Mr. Mosley?”
“Yeah I’m sure. Oh, hey,” I said, handing him today’s thousand dollar withdrawal from my Bo Mosley account. Then I added another thousand. “For being so cool.”
I wanted to say, “For being the only friend I have,” but that’d be sappy, and I hardly knew him. And how messed up was it that my best friend was someone I didn’t even know?
“I’m twice as cool now, Mr. Mosley,” he said, laughing.
“Let’s just go.”
Despite Donald’s friendly demeanor, he didn’t say much on the way. I didn’t either. For my part, I tried not to glower or make him uncomfortable. I didn’t want him changing his mind.
We pulled in front of a tiny yellow house with a scrub yard and a light on inside. Someone had put up a too-short basketball pole with a chain net.
“Who lives here?” I said.
“Eddie,” Donald said. “By himself.”
I didn’t see my scooter anywhere, just an old hatchback.
“You got anything to drink?” I said, staring nervously at the house.
Donald laughed. “I don’t drink anymore, Mr. Mosley. When I was young I drank too much. I always had to have a woman when I did! Now I’m married.”
Was it me, or did he sound a bit wistful at the end of that?
<
br /> “Got it,” I said. “Wait here.”
I got out and headed over to the little yellow house. Along the way, I reached down and picked up a large smooth rock. When I got to the entrance, I kicked the door in near the doorknob. It was a cheap door and the jamb splintered away, sending it flying inward.
Bellhop Eddie was napping on a long couch with the TV on. Startled awake, he leapt to his feet when he saw me.
“Hey!” he shouted.
I raised the rock over my head and yelled, “Where’s my backpack?”
“What?”
“Where’s my backpack?” I yelled, louder.
“Over there—don’t hit me!”
I looked over there and saw it on a table with some of my things lying beside it. I pointed at him to stay put, walked over, and checked inside.
“Where’s the rest of it?” I said, shoving a ball of twine and some putty into the pockets they’d come from. My passport and goggles were missing. Everything else seemed like it was there, including the safe deposit key I’d zipped into a small pocket.
“Well?” I said, standing over him with the rock.
“Derek has everything else, I swear. Don’t hit me!”
“Who’s Derek, your brother?”
He shook his head. “No, the man with the dreads.”
“You got a phone?” I said.
He nodded and pointed over at it, hanging on the wall.
“You got another phone?”
He shook his head.
Calmly, I went to his kitchen, found a knife, and cut the cord from the wall to the phone. Eddie didn’t say anything—he looked frightened out of his mind.
Good.
“Eddie,” I said as I left the house. “You let them know we’re coming and I’ll come back and murder you.”
I dropped the rock before getting back into the van.
“You know where someone named Derek lives?” I said.
“I love you tourists,” Donald said, laughing. “You think everybody knows everybody.”
Grimacing, I went back to the house and found Eddie talking on a cellphone. When he saw me, he flinched.