Insecure

by Michael Shevlin

  ‘I think most bank jobs are just a guy with a gun and a willingness to use it.’

  ‘Exactly. Stupid bloke walks into bank and demands money. This would be more: smart blokes walk into a bank and take the money, without them knowing – or at least finding out after it’s too late.’

  ‘Dan, hate to be blunt, but you ain’t got the balls to do something like that.’

  ‘How do you know? Even I don’t know, but for a bit there was a big bit of me wanting to find out. Just because I haven’t done anything illegal before doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m incapable of doing it. Maybe I can bring a fresh approach to robbery, I haven’t got a record, I won’t be a suspect, I don’t fit the profile – I can just disappear after it’s all over.’

  ‘So that’s the reason? You think that you – or we - could get away with it?’

  ‘No, I hadn’t thought about it like that, but now that you mention it, yeah.’

  ‘How much then?’

  ‘What,’ I said fuzzily.

  ‘Fucks sake Dan, how much money does it hold?’

  ‘Well Pat said, in one of the emails, that at any one time the bank itself holds a few million in cash, but that the computer system holds billions.’

  ‘Billions?’ Rich put his glass down. ‘Jesus fuck!’

  ‘That’s what I said, that’s why I considered it.’ Rich reached for the magic box, there was a knock on the door. Rich popped the box in a draw in the desk just in case. Carrie’s head appeared round the door.

  ‘Flippin’ ‘eck, smells like a coffee shop in here!’

  ‘Wanna join us,’ I said. I swept my arm to indicate the chair beside me. She looked at me and then looked at Rich, and shook her head.

  ‘No, you’re all right. Rich, could you get some more fives for me, I left my keys at home.’ Rich rubbed his face and got up.

  ‘Sure, how much?’

  ‘Hundred?’ Rich left the room with Carrie and I sat and waited. I got restless and wandered around the room touching things here and there, looking in boxes and generally being nosy.

  It’s a bad character trait.

  There were boxes full of wine glasses, wine, ashtrays and linen. The usual array of stuff you’d find in a restaurant. But, being Rich, there were also small boxes of Japanese toys, DVDs, Cds and a couple of games consoles.

  I sat in Rich’s chair, swung myself around in it and thought about how cool it would be to run a bistro. Rich could pick the name, but I’d pick the furniture, the menu and the staff. I’d been to so many bad restaurants and knew exactly what I didn’t want, but been to enough good ones to know what I did. Good service, yet friendly. Good food, but simple and unpretentious.

  Rich must have gone to the club’s safe and got tied up with some other business so I decided to roll my self another joint. I always get onto a bit of a self-destructive roller coaster when I get pissed or high and just want to get more and more off my tits. I think I just like being smashed, of my brain working in linear mode.

  I pulled open the drawers at the front of Rich’s desk and found his magic box in one of them, nestled like a squirrel in a leafy nest of receipts and bills. I took the box out and caught a glimpse of a saucy pen that our dad used to keep in his sock drawer, I parted the paperwork and picked it up, turning it this way and that, lost in nostalgia, missing our Dad. I pulled the drawer open further and delved inside, using the pen to turn things this way and that: books of matches, post-its, envelopes, key rings, a canvas bag with stones in it, a wooden ruler. Again, stuff.

  The tip of the pen connected with a felt bag tied at the opening with a white cord. The pen, using the strength of my fingers, wouldn’t budge it. I discarded the pen and pulled the bag towards me and lifted it out of the drawer.

  I knew instantly what it was when I felt it in my hand. It was heavy, but not as heavy as I was expecting. I undid the drawstring and tipped the gun onto the dark wooden surface of the tabletop. It was still in a plastic bag, invisibly sealed somewhere. Consciously keeping the barrel pointing away from myself, I turned it over in my hands, careful not to make any of the moving parts move. After studying it for a while I slipped it back into the bag and placed it back in the drawer, closed it and proceeded to roll a joint.

  A few minutes later Rich came back and sat down on the other side of the desk, on which my feet were resting.

  ‘Settling in to your new role?’ he said, gesturing at my feet.

  ‘Something like that,’ he sat down and I offered him the ashtray, ‘how long have you owned a gun, Rich?’ His expression didn’t change and he took the joint and inhaled deeply.

  ‘Couple of years.’ He squinted at me, and waved some of the smoke away. ‘Are you shocked?’

  I thought about that for a bit and decided that I wasn’t shocked, just a bit afraid for him; afraid that he works in a business that might need one.

  ‘No, I’m not. Why do you have it?’

  Rich sighed, ‘’member when we had that spot of trouble a couple of years back? Those guys who were offering to supply security and had a go at George?’

  ‘Yeah, but I thought that worked out in the end?’

  ‘It did, absolutely. But ever since then I just thought: what if? So I bought myself a piece, just in case it ever came down to it. I’ve never used it, but it sometimes makes me feel better to know that it’s there.’

  ‘Have you ever shot it?’

  ‘Yeah, took it out into the woods and popped a few tin cans, make sure it was working.’

  ‘But it’s brand new, still in its wrapper.’

  ‘No, that’s so if I do use it I can throw it away and destroy the bag with my prints on it.’

  ‘Oh.’ I thought about that for a while, ‘how do you know something like that?’

  Rich shrugged, ‘dunno, just do, just picked it up somewhere, overheard it – fuck knows’

  I opened the drawer again and pulled the bag out again and slipped the gun out onto the tabletop again.

  ‘Careful, bro, its got bullets in it.’ I looked at him and picked the gun up a bit more gingerly than I did before. I glanced along its matte surface, admiring the machined finish. It was an automatic, but that was all I could tell about it. It had a little red spot by a lever and a trigger and a whatsit that went back.

  ‘So where’d you get it?’

  ‘Some geezer that comes here now and again got hold of it. It’s brand new, got it in it’s packing case.’

  ‘Probably been used in a murder or something.’

  ‘Nah, there were no marks along the barrel, it’s brand new alright.’

  ‘What do all these things do on it?’

  ‘Well that lever is the safety – that’s on at the moment – that’s the trigger but it won’t fire until you cock it by pulling back the casing along the top and take off the safety. Then when you pull the trigger the recoil pops the spent case out of there,’ he pointed to the side of the gun, ’and brings another round into the chamber. That’s why it’s called an automatic. With a revolver you pulling the trigger is how you bring another bullet into the chamber.’ He watched me closely as I aimed the gun at a picture on the wall. ‘It’s a Berretta 9mm, apparently it’s a tip-top pistol.’

  ‘Pistol, is that what you call them?’ I slipped it back into the bag and slid it back into the drawer, Rich seemed to let a small breath out. ‘Thought you called them shooters or - what was that word you used earlier? – Piece, that’s it.’

  ‘But pistol is the proper, technical term.’

  Rich having a gun was not surprising, but I’d never thought that he’d be this dodgy. I always knew that he’d been buying stuff that was probably nicked, dealing with people who were probably criminals and involving himself in the seedy aspects of London life, but owning a gun definitely upped the ante and made me look at Rich and his life a bit differently.

  Who knows where he got his money? He never told me where he got it. He never said that he’d borrowed it or made it, just that he’d got some spare cap
ital to do this venture, or freed up some money to organize that enterprise. I just assumed that, even though he was dodgy as, that he’d done as I would and gone cap in hand to his bank manager and said that he had a great idea and could he borrow a small van’s load of money. I just hope that I haven’t planted a seed and that the Bistro business is going to take a back seat to the robbery business.

  Rich sat musing for a while. ‘Billions…certainly makes you think alright, can see why you’re so excited.’

  ‘Think it was more to do with breaking Pat’s password than anything else – I’m more excited about us going into business together.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s gonna be cool,’ Rich sipped his wine, ‘so, do you reckon that the main password, the daddy password, will be hard to crack?’

  ‘I don’t know, I guess so – come on Rich, let’s drop it. Thought you said it was a stupid idea?’

  ‘It is a lot of money though Dan, you’ve got to admit, I just want to knock it around the conversational squash court for a bit.’

  ‘You wouldn’t nick all of it though, just a bit.’ I said after a pause.

  ‘Eh? What’s the bloody point then?’

  ‘Rich, if you take – say – thirty billion dollars out of circulation, you nick it electronically, that is going to show up somewhere. That’s a shit load of money.’

  ‘Well, yeah, they’re going to miss it.’

  ‘Miss it? That’s like the GDP of…I don’t know, Luxembourg. You open an account at Natwest the day after you clear out another bank with a cheque for thirty billion dollars your going to get more than a ceramic piggy.’

  ‘Obviously you’d go offshore though, Nassau or the Cayman’s’ said Rich

  ‘Doesn’t matter, you put that much money into any account – into loads of accounts, it’ll show up, it would a massive impact on the financial world.’

  ‘Oh right, like nicking money from Mum’s purse?’

  ‘Exactly.’ When Rich and I were kids we would always run out of pocket money and would find other ways of supplementing it. One of our more desperate measures was to nick a couple of quid out of our Mum’s purse that she would leave in her handbag beside the telephone. We would have debates over how much she would miss. Would she miss the volume of coins or would she miss the value?

  ‘So,’ said Rich, ‘if a bank was missing a tenner, it might possibly be discovered, but probably not, and the bank would probably write it off as…acceptable and expected pilfering by the staff.’

  ‘One hundred pounds,’ I continued,’ would possibly not be missed, if stolen in the right way, because in terms of a local branch it is really nothing much at all they might even shrug it off as an accounting anomaly or they spent too much on paper cups that year – whatever.’

  ‘But, ten grand? Unless that is hidden in a really cunning way, they are going to know. This is what banks do – they’d know. Now, the trick is trying to judge how much they wouldn’t miss and how to cover up the fact that we have just nicked some of their small change they keep knocking around in case they need to feed a meter.’

  ‘How much do you reckon then?’ asked Rich.

  I leant my head on my chin and thought about that for a bit. ‘I reckon about fifty million would probably go un-noticed for a little while, enough time to move it, hide it and distribute it.’

  Rich whistled. ‘That’s a lot of money.’ I nodded. ‘What was your plan? Obviously we are talking theoretically…’

  ‘I don’t really know, I just thought that if we could get the other password, then that would be the hardest part of the whole exercise, going into the bank, well, I thought I’d leave that to you.’

  Rich laughed, ‘I haven’t got a clue how to get into a bank, I guess we’d have to go in during the day.’ I rested my chin on my hand and thought for a bit. During the day was risky, everyone could see you, there would be witnesses, there would be members of the public, staff, security guards, policemen – every man and his dog.

  ‘We couldn’t creep in at night then?’

  ‘You are joking?’ Rich saw that I wasn’t. ‘They have more than padlocks on the front door. They’re going to have big locks, security guards, CCTV – the works. At least during the day the doors are open, you can walk in and then walk out – ‘

  ‘-and get lost in the crowd.’ I suggested. Rich nodded and looked off into space. It was a look of his that I had seen before, it meant that he was thinking seriously and thinking quite hard. Shit.

  ‘That’s the trick isn’t it? Blending into the crowd afterwards, getting away. Where is this place?’

  ‘Dunno, Pat didn’t say. It’s probably in one of those emails that I read and I must have forgotten it. The city, I suppose.’

  Rich had that twinkle in his eye that I had seen before. He had it when he whipped out the expensive bottle of wine we were drinking, that twinkle spelt trouble - I could just sense it.

  ‘Rich, I don’t want you getting any funny ideas.’ Rich looked mock surprised: who me? That twinkle again. ‘What have you done?’ Rich arched his eyebrows, ‘Rich, I can tell by the expression on your face, I can smell mischief coming off you like Lynx’

  ‘I made a couple of calls when I went to the safe, just a couple of little ones, tentative ones.’ I could feel my stomach sinking to the floor.

  ‘What about?’ I knew, I just knew. Rich looked at me, he knew I knew and he was trying to find an angle from which to throw what he had to say next at me.

  ‘I’ve got a mate –‘

  ‘ - No, no, no, I don’t want to hear this.’ I stood up and clamped my hands over my ears, like a cryptic monkey and started pacing the room.

  Rich watched this performance and waited for my chanting to subside, like a spectator at a slow tennis match. I stopped and looked at him. He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in my direction. ‘Are you at least going to listen to what I’ve got to say?’

  ‘No, call the fucking dogs off, this stops right now.’ I flopped back into the chair. ‘I shouldn’t have told you in the first place.’

  ‘Well you did, so fuck it.’ He pushed the pack of cigarettes over to me. I took one out and lit it.

  ‘Seriously, call back and say you’ve changed your mind.’

  ‘That’s going to be hard.’

  I picked up the phone beside me and slammed it down in front of him, ‘no it isn’t, it’s even a push button phone. Go for it.’

  ‘All I’ve done –‘

  ‘I don’t give a shit, call whatever goons you’re networked with and tell them that there’s a change of plan, you’re retiring, you’re lame, you’re sick, whatever – just say it’s off, rain’s stopped play.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Dan, don’t get so worked up.’

  ‘Don’t get worked up? Don’t get worked up?’ I was starting to feel sick, the mixture of panic and fear combining with a terrible feeling of being out of control turning my stomach head over heels. I rubbed my temple and the smoke from the cigarette made my eyes water. ‘Why can’t you stop this?’

  ‘Because the guy I phoned is just a little bit connected.’

  I was too wasted to think this through properly. ‘And that means?’

  ‘You know? He’s been around a bit, done a little time, knows a few people –‘

  ‘-A gangster?’ I said.

  ‘Barney? A gangster? A bit…he knows people.’ Rich tapped his cigarette. ‘He can get things, but more importantly he knows about this stuff.’

  ‘So you told him about the…idea.’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘What did you ask for then?’

  Rich stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Just a couple of favours. He knows someone who is a computer whiz – ‘

  ‘There is no fucking way that you’re going to get someone to break into Pat’s place, I will not even hear of it.’

  ‘Doesn’t need to break in though, does he?’ He let this hang in the air long enough for my stoned mind to make the obvious leap.

  ‘N
o, no, no –‘

  ‘- You said he was a bit of a wanker anyway, what would it hurt?’

  ‘- No, no, no –‘ I clamped my hands over my ears again.

  ‘ – He’ll be round tomorrow, he won’t be long, he’ll just check it out –‘

  ‘- Tomorrow? Phone and cancel, Rich, Please?’ I looked at him earnestly. ‘Please, Rich, I’m fucking serious; I don’t want to get into this. I don’t want us to get into this.’

  ‘Don’t be soft, we’re just checking it out, be cool.’ I couldn’t believe that Rich had done this, couldn’t believe that he had taken the decision to do this out of my hands. I knew what he was like, but I didn’t think he’d actually take this to the next level. I stubbed out the cigarette and picked up the pack, grasping for another, my hands were shaking.

  ‘Oh come on Dan, where’s your sense of adventure?’

  I barked a laugh. ‘Adventure? This isn’t the cinema, Rich, this is real life, with real bullets and real policemen, who will try very hard to make sure this doesn’t happen. I don’t want this to happen.’

  ‘Listen, ‘said Rich, leaning forward, ‘this guy’ll come round, tap a few keys, say that’s it’s tighter than a gnat’s chuff and then we can forget it and Barney’ll forget it and we’ll all be cool.’

  ‘What if he breaks it? Will we be not cool?’

  ‘Then, well then we take that information and bury it, if you really want out, then we can bury it.’ He said this without averting his gaze. Sometimes you just knew when someone was lying but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Rich was definitely lying, but I guessed I could work on him when the next stage came along, at least I had bought myself a bit of time.

  ‘When’s this whiz coming round then?’

  ‘Just tomorrow, that’s all Barney said, but definitely tomorrow.’

  ‘Great, I’m being visited by the bloody Gas Board…’ Rich laughed and I shook my head. This seemed to clear it a little bit. ‘You said favors, plural. What was the other one?’