by Richard Long
The locker was filled to the brim with gold.
When Rose stepped into the closet, she was almost as awestruck by the size of the space as she was by the rays of golden light streaming from the locker. But instead of wondering how Martin came to be in possession of enough gold to ransom a Mayan princess, she became totally preoccupied with trying to figure out why his closet was so much bigger than hers. If she had known anything about carpentry, she could have looked up at the ceiling and seen that a new wall had been created that ran the entire length of one side of the room.
Everyone in Manhattan complains about closet space. Not Martin. When he didn’t have enough room to suit his needs he simply made some more. The added wall had the dual advantage of making his “sitting room” perfectly square (ah, symmetry!) while creating ninety-six square feet of extra space. He could fit a lot of stuff in there.
After her initial excitement wore off, Rose became more aware of all that other stuff. There was a clothes rack and a dresser and a small cot next to a tiny table and a lamp. There was a bookshelf above the pillow on the cot and a poster of a painting by Andrew Wyeth called Christina’s World taped to the ceiling above it.
“Holy shit,” she whispered upon realizing that this extremely big closet was actually an extremely small bedroom. “Is this how people who sleep in cardboard boxes feel?”
Then she saw the chair. It was at the foot of the cot facing the wall. It was a little kid’s chair with an embroidered pillow and a ratty stuffed dog sitting on top of it. She picked up the pillow and was about to read it when she saw Michael kneel in front of the footlocker.
“Whoa!” he gasped reverently, drawn to the gold like a beaver to wood. It was all he saw and all he ever wanted to see. He dug both hands into the gleaming heap with all the fervor of…well…a drunken pirate. “Yarrrgh!” He didn’t say it, but as he dug his hands in deeper and deeper (oh my God it goes all the way to the bottom!) he felt woozy with desire.
“Whoa!” he repeated. Rose set the pillow down without reading it and walked over. The light from the single bulb overhead made the gold sparkle like ocean waves at sunset. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
So this is why you always see people throwing coins in the air when they find a treasure chest. It was exactly what she wanted to do and it almost hurt that she couldn’t. She couldn’t, of course, out of respect for Martin. That, plus a healthy dose of trepidation over what he would do if he saw them in his closet at all, never mind throwing his gold rapturously in the air.
Where did he get all this? Shit. He had stolen it, of course. He really was a criminal. A thief and a killer. Or maybe a merc! she thought, still trying to pull a plum out of the pie. Why she thought being a merc was more palatable than a thief or a hit man didn’t occur to her; she was just happy to come up with any explanation for the footlocker that didn’t imply that Martin was even more dangerous and demented than her father.
Strangely enough, some of Rose’s speculations about Martin’s career path were correct. He had been a soldier and later, a mercenary, if the assignments were challenging enough. He enlisted in the navy when he was just sixteen, only a few months after leaving Paul, signing up mainly to get as far away as he could from anywhere he had ever been before. He used one of his many fake identities (Dan White was still his favorite) to fool the recruiters, not that they cared much anyway. His drill instructor was so impressed with his already finely-honed combat skills that he was immediately trained as a SEAL.
Martin enjoyed it immensely. He liked swimming underwater in that cool, dark, silent world. He liked blowing things up. He liked it so much that he resigned after his first tour of duty, just so he could enlist in the Army and train as a Green Beret. He enlisted everywhere except NASA…which he still harbored regrets about. The military life was a hard life, but compared to those years with Paul, it was like a trip to Disney World. And along with the rigorous lifestyle, there was a regimental predictability he found extremely comforting. But after a while, he got tired of taking orders from men he respected even less than Paul, so he packed away his uniforms and became a mercenary, only to discover that he hated taking orders from petty despots and contract soldiers even more than his previous commanders.
He bummed around for a while before settling into his current abode. Then one rainy afternoon, while he was leafing through Soldier of Fortune, an ad for bounty hunters caught his eye. It sounded perfect. It was, for the first three years. He was his own boss and could pick his own assignments. Nobody to report to. Even better, no one to talk to. He preferred hunting sex offenders, pedophiles in particular. He liked catching them…dead or alive, as the saying goes.
However, none of those previous professions in any way accounted for the vast amount of gold Michael and Rose were staring at so intently. Michael had a much more informed deduction about the treasure’s origin, not that it mattered to him right now. He only knew one thing. He wanted it. He wanted it bad. His mind went into overdrive trying to figure out how he could possibly wrangle it away from someone as incredibly lethal as Martin.
But he was injured now, wasn’t he? Fuckin’ A right he was! He sure as shit wasn’t at the top of his game now! Maybe Paul would be interested in knowing more about this situation. Maybe he would help him. Maybe they could be partners!
The instant he thought about teaming up with Paul, his euphoria evaporated. Paul didn’t seem like the kind of guy you could talk to about partnerships. Definitely not equal partnerships. On the other hand, a finder’s fee wouldn’t be out of the question, would it?
Shit. He had to have that gold. He had to!
Back in the kitchen, Paul was edging uncomfortably close to Martin.
“I’m guessing it’s been a while since you had your pipes cleaned, and I can’t fault you for feeling some loyalty to this feisty wench for helping you out of that scrape downstairs. But now that you’ve put the plumbing in, what other good can come from this sordid little tryst? Do you really think you’re doing her a favor bringing her into this cramped little lockbox you call a life? If she ever finds out who you really are and what you’ve done, d’ya reckon she’ll keep hangin’ around? Trust me, even if you’re riding her tall in the saddle, you’re certainly no one’s idea of Prince Charming. She’ll leave you high and dry just like she thought of doing a few minutes back. You saw her looking at the door. You can’t trust her. A girl like her is no different from slow-acting poison. You might as well gargle with Drano and spare yourself the wait. So now it’s time for you to put all those warm, fuzzy feelings back inside your zipper and wave this bitch a sad farewell!”
“No!” Martin yelled, standing toe to toe with Paul again. “I won’t!”
Paul shoved Martin’s gasping chest so hard he knocked him back on the table.
“You don’t understand me, boy!” he yelled fiercely. “That girl is not for you!”
“What do you mean, she’s not for me?” Martin shouted with equal passion, trying to get up from the table while Paul pinned him down by the shoulders.
“She’s only going to hurt you more in the end,” Paul lied, pressing down harder.
“No!” Martin shouted, not knowing what else to say, or even what he was feeling.
Paul bit his lip, trying not to laugh. But as he felt the depth of loneliness and despair howling from every pore of Martin’s being, as he saw the tiny whirlpool rising in the whites of his eyes, he experienced a surge of emotion he didn’t think he was still capable of feeling.
“It’s…okay,” he said haltingly, easing his pressing hands. “It was wrong of me to interfere. This is your life and you’re entitled to the pleasures you can take from it. I’ll leave you two alone now…and you can sort all this out for yourself.”
Martin eyed Paul suspiciously. When he saw the sadness in his face, he felt a glimmer of hope. “Do you mean it?” he asked, his eyes probing for any trace of deceit.
“Yes,” Paul answered, shocked to feel a lump in his throat.
Martin slowly rose from the table and gave Paul a hug so strong it hurt his gun wound. Paul hugged him back even harder. They backed up a foot and looked into each other’s eyes. Then Paul squeezed the back of his neck between his massive thumb and forefinger and Martin fell to the floor like a tipped cow.
Pow! The sound of the thud reverberated through the walls and floor. Paul knelt over Martin’s body and made sure no serious damage was done. When he was certain he was simply unconscious and would remain so for approximately eight more minutes, Paul straightened up and shook his head sadly.
“Martin…will you ever learn?”
Rose didn’t hear the thud as much as she felt it. Martin had soundproofed the closet, so it was difficult to hear anything above the din of golden nuggets cascading into the locker through Bean’s greedy fingers. She hadn’t heard the yelling. But the thud? That she felt.
Michael felt it too. He was terrified. They looked at each other and the door leading back to the kitchen. Neither wanted to move. They watched silently, ears pricked up like hound dogs’, waiting for the aftershock. When none came, Michael relaxed a little.
Rose was too worried to relax. Martin was out there, alone, with him. She wanted to hide, but she couldn’t. She had to see if he was okay. So she stood up and walked into the big white room. It was so quiet now. So quiet. Rose took a tiny step toward the door with her tiny left foot, then stopped, wishing she had more courage. She took another step anyway.
I wanted to cheer her on. Tell her how brave she was. Tell her that courage didn’t mean you weren’t afraid, it meant taking those tiny little steps despite your fears! I thought about giving her a bigger, longer pep talk, but it really wasn’t necessary. Before she took another halting step, Paul opened the door.
“Dearie, could you give us a hand?” he asked sweetly. “Martin had himself a little faint and bumped his noggin.”
Rose ran past Paul down the hallway so fast she left skid marks on the white floor. Martin was lying a few feet from the kitchen table, a puddle of drool beneath his open lips. “Oh, God!” she shouted, dropping to her knees, cradling his prickly head. “Baby…talk to me!”
“I’m afraid he isn’t feeling too chatty,” Paul said, leaning over her shoulder. “He’s suffering from hypovolemic shock. What he needs now is a good long nap, so if you could give me a hand, let’s get him into this nice cushy chair over here.”
Paul didn’t need any assistance relocating Martin, but he loved group participation. He turned Martin over on his back and hooked his hands under his armpits, asking Rose to help out with Martin’s size-twelve feet. Michael entered the kitchen and was quickly recruited to grab another leg. After they eased him into his tan leather Barcalounger, Paul was about to wrap his thumb and forefinger around Rose’s neck in thanks for a job well done when Michael began tugging his sleeve like an animated chipmunk. Paul reluctantly withdrew his grip. As Rose leaned down to pat Martin’s pasty forehead, Michael whispered into Paul’s ear as quietly as he could: “I have to show you something.”
“Could you grab an ice pack from the fridge and cool down the dear boy’s head?” Paul asked Rose. She glared at him, but Paul knew she wouldn’t hesitate to fulfill his request. Rose was in full Florence Nightingale mode and as far as she could tell, Paul was as concerned about Martin’s well-being as she was.
She went to the freezer and pulled out a plastic sleeve that was the perfect size for a forehead compress. Shit, was there anything Martin wasn’t prepared for?
Actually, yes. He wasn’t prepared for Paul’s Vulcan nerve pinch and the ill effects it would have on Rose’s health if Paul left the building with her in the remaining minutes he would be unconscious. The ice pack wasn’t going to help matters either, since it would constrict the local blood vessels even more, thereby lengthening his stay in Neverland.
While Rose had her face in the freezer, Paul and Michael walked down the hallway and into the white room, closing the door behind them. “Hhmph! What do you think about that?” Paul snorted appreciatively. He sat in the white chair and gazed into the blinding vision of nothingness. He kept staring and had the biggest surprise of a very eventful day. The white wall disappeared and he was seeing into the hidden realm. Oh, my! My, my, my! Now this is a room with a view. Looks like I underestimated you once again. It seems you have the gift after all!
“No!” Michael whispered from the closet, frantically pointing at the locker. “Here!”
Paul was extremely annoyed at the interruption. When he saw the bullion and Michael’s reaction, he was more amused than irritated. “Gold? You’re all hot and sweaty over a box of gold?”
“Duh,” Bean wanted to say, but instead he asked, “Isn’t this the gold you took from Firth?”
Paul looked inside the box. “Some of it, I suppose. There was much more than this.”
“More than this?” Bean asked in a whispered cry. “Are you kidding me?”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t kid about that. Firth had gobs and gobs of the stuff. Be prepared was his motto and like a good boy scout—or maybe Chicken Little—he stuffed as much in his mattress as he could for that long rainy day he knew was coming.”
Paul paused to savor Michael’s greed-widened eyes, before continuing in a whisper, “And as much gold as he had, Lord Firth was far from the only one, laddy. We paid visits to a number of these survivalists over the years, all with the same morbid doomsday preoccupation and a corresponding certainty in the revival of the gold standard. I can’t see why, but Martin loves the stuff. Meself, I couldn’t care less.”
“How could you not care about that?” Michael gasped, pointing at the shiny nuggets.
“Shit, boy, you’re as silly as he is for hoarding it. Let me tell you something about gold. It’s dirty and it’s heavy. If you like things that sparkle, consider diamonds instead. Much easier to travel with. And much, much easier to trade on the international market.” Then he added with a wink, “But if it’s gold that captures your fancy…I suggest you simply take it.”
Michael’s look of shame was instantly replaced with unvarnished admiration and an even more palpable greed. Paul stared back at him like a game show host pointing to door number three. “But what about them?” Bean asked anxiously.
Paul paused as if deep in thought. “Well, Martin will be coming around soon and I’m sure he wouldn’t take kindly to you running off with his precious baubles, now would he?”
Michael shook his head. His knees were shaking too.
“Then I suppose you have no other choice but to kill him while he’s napping.”
“I couldn’t do that!” Michael gasped.
Paul shook his head sadly. “I didn’t think so. So put down the lid and let’s see how the lad is convalescing.”
“You…could do it,” Michael suggested hesitantly.
“Oh, no,” Paul said, shaking his head vigorously, “I couldn’t possibly. Martin’s a dear old friend of mine. Still, I’ll agree it’s the best chance you’ll get and I wouldn’t stand in the way of someone so ambitious. Yet, I’m afraid you’d be totally on your own with this venture.”
Fuck! Bean clutched the Luger in the pocket of his army coat as he stared at the gold again. Could he do it? Could he really kill him? “But if I used this…” Michael mumbled desperately, pulling the gun out, “wouldn’t that bring the cops up?”
Paul chuckled, breathing in the scent of Michael’s rising corruption like a fragrant wine. “So use your hands…a kitchen knife,” he said after a long, deep sigh. “Personally, I don’t care if you use a candlestick in the ballroom with Professor Plum—all I know is that you better think fast. I can’t imagine you’ll stand much of a chance with Martin awake.”
“What about the girl?” Michael asked, thinking as fast as he could.
Paul looked into Michael’s hungry eyes. He knew there wasn’t a chance in Hades that Bean could actually pull it off, but it wouldn’t hurt to let him try, would it? It wouldn’t hurt to give the lad some practice!<
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“I’ll take care of the girl,” he said flatly. “The rest is up to you.”
When Rose heard the door close at the end of the hallway, she stopped halfway between the freezer and Martin, the ice pack numbing her fingers. Then she remembered the way Michael had been looking at the gold. They’re going to rob him! She ran over to Martin’s chair. “C’mon, you gotta wake up,” she whispered, shaking him hard.
He was out like a log. She looked nervously down the hallway, wondering what they were up to back there. She tiptoed down the hallway and put her ear against the door. At first, she heard mumbling, then Paul’s voice, “So use your hands…a kitchen knife…”
Rose gasped involuntarily, covering her mouth with one hand while she leaned against the wall for support. Her knees were buckling. She kept listening anyway. Her ear was pressed so tightly against the wood that she could have been standing on the other side.
She missed the part about Firth. But she heard the worst part, about Martin and…her.
“I’ll take care of the girl. The rest is up to you.”
She heard their approaching footsteps and ran as quickly and as silently as she could down the hallway. When she reached the kitchen, it looked like a fork in the road. To the right, Martin, still unconscious in his chair, like a football fan passed out from too much beer and pizza. To the left…the doorway. It was crazy to stay. They were going to kill her. Martin too. But when she saw him there, helpless as a sleeping child, she couldn’t leave him. So she ran over to Martin and shook him so hard his belt buckle jangled. But dammit, he wouldn’t wake up!
BRRRRAAAAAANNNNGGGG! Michael was turning the doorknob when Martin’s buzzer rang. It was incredibly loud, more like a car alarm than an intercom buzzer. Martin had rewired it. He heard buzzers going off in the apartments on all sides of them too, even above and below. What the fuck was going on?