by Bill Mason
“A safe?” I felt something tickle the base of my spine. “What, you mean a real one, right there?”
“Yeah. Behind the counter in the concession stand. Keeps the weekend receipts there until the banks open Monday morning.”
I flicked my hand dismissively and picked up my drink. “How much money could it possibly be, a place like that?” I asked as casually as I could.
There was something playful in Sam’s voice as he said, “Few thousand, more or less.” He pulled out a fresh cigarette and stuck it between his lips.
It was an effort to keep my hands steady as I lit a match and held it to the tip as he inhaled. “That much?”
“Easy.” He pulled back and exhaled a cloud of thick blue smoke. Watching me.
“Huh.” I shook the match out. “Imagine that.”
I then steered the conversation elsewhere while a piece of my brain thought about what I could do with an extra few thousand in cash. It was all just wishful thinking, of course, but the next morning I was still thinking about it, and the day after that as well.
“This is a joke, right?”
Barb was half smiling out of the side of her mouth, as though waiting for a punch line. She had a dishrag in one hand and a pot or something in the other.
“No joke,” I assured her. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Fun. Right. Since when is your idea of fun to—”
“You finish up here,” I said as I walked out of the kitchen. “I’ll go get Suzi.”
Helluva game, miniature golf. Couldn’t seem to get enough of it. I dragged Barbara and little Suzi over there every weekend, which turned out to be fine with Barbara. I think she was glad to see me relaxing, even if miniature golf was a strange pastime for a former rackie tough guy.
I didn’t have any real intention of doing anything about the safe. I just thought it would be kind of interesting, a harmless diversion, to check out the premises and play a few mental what-if games. Truth was, I was having a hard time keeping my mind on my job because it kept wandering back to that damned golf course. I figured that once I actually saw the place, I’d quickly identify a dozen obstacles that would make any kind of actual attempt infeasible. Then I could finally stop thinking about it all the time, except for the laughs I’d have about it with Sam over another round of drinks.
I didn’t bother with the driving range; it was too far from the concession building to be useful. Miniature golf was my game, and I tried to take in as many details as I could about the layout while Barb concentrated over her putter and little Suzi gurgled happily at the windmill, storybook castle and other brightly painted props around the course.
The parking lot was wide open to view from the street and was empty every night. Any car left there after hours would be noticed immediately by the cops, who patrolled the area frequently. The closest place to leave a car was about a quarter mile north, at a motel where cars came and went at all hours and there was plenty of parking. I noticed a ravine that ran parallel to the road, right past the motel parking lot. There was a trickle of water at the bottom, and I guessed that the depth probably varied with each rainfall or dry period. I got an idea about how that ravine might be useful in a pinch.
The safe was right where Sam said it would be, behind the counter. After having thought about it so much, actually seeing it there in real life filled me with feelings I hadn’t been at all prepared for. One of them was an odd but powerful attraction—so strong I had trouble tearing my eyes away. Another was dread, almost a foreboding, that if I didn’t cut this off right now, I might find myself sliding out of control down a steep, slippery hill. It was like staring at a high diving board and being simultaneously drawn to it and terrified of it, all of that layered over a core of inevitability that became harder and harder to ignore with every passing minute.
I didn’t know anything about safes, but this one looked like a real piece of junk, massive and squat, about three feet on each side, with a round door, its fading green-enamel paint chipped in dozens of places. How hard could it be to smash open an antique like that?
The alarm “system” was so rudimentary, I didn’t pay it much attention. It wasn’t even monitored but was just a bell to scare away casual vandals. I’d seen similar cheap setups in dozens of apartments in the building I managed, and the only trick here would be to find out how it was powered, where the triggers were and if there was a second bell.
So, okay, there were plenty of obstacles, just as I’d thought. But with each subsequent visit I thought of ways around them. I tried my damnedest to think of every possible problem, but no matter what I came up with, I had a solution as well. At the same time, my mind-set had shifted out of hypothetical mode. I found myself spending hours visualizing every step of an actual robbery, right down to what my hands would be doing, how things would look at various distances from the streetlights, even what the temperature would be and how I should dress. I began writing down the kinds of equipment that would be required and how it should be packed, and I made adjustments as I thought of potential problems. Eventually, about three weeks after our first round of miniature golf, I couldn’t think of anything else.
It was good timing, because Barbara was starting to wonder about these little trips. I spent nearly all our time there looking around at everything other than her and Suzi and the idiotic windmill on the fifteenth hole, and it wouldn’t be long before it became obvious I had something other than a career on the pro tour in mind.
That I was actually going to do it was by then a given. I didn’t recognize this trait of mine at the time, but I would later. Once I began thinking about how to pull off a dangerous and difficult heist, I wasn’t much different from a research scientist or an inventor: Hell or high water, I would find a way to solve the puzzle and then I’d do it.
The Sunday night after our last visit I parked my car in the motel lot and slipped into the ravine. “Slipped” is the right word, too, because I was loaded down with nearly a hundred pounds of gear and could barely keep my footing. I had no idea how to crack a safe, so I brought along everything I could think of to smash my way into it: sledgehammer, chisels, assorted power tools, you name it. I also had a flatbed dolly tucked under my arm. If I couldn’t get into the safe on-site, I’d just haul the whole damned thing away and work on it elsewhere.
The bottom of the ravine was mucky, so I had to walk along the side. My load was heavy and uneven and I was panting by the time I came abeam the concession building and finally climbed out. Getting inside was as easy as I thought it would be. One snip with bolt cutters and the large padlock on the door fell off with a loud clatter.
I went around the counter and stopped to consider the safe, which, now that the moment had come, looked twice as heavy and solid as it had before, as if defying me to breach its walls.
It was a good call on the safe’s part.
At about three A.M. I sank back against the wall, thoroughly exhausted and bathed in sweat. I’d spent well over two hours working on the safe. After smashing it repeatedly with the sledgehammer, jamming chisels into every available crack, destroying three rotary-saw blades, and bending two unbendable iron pry bars, I finally got the top layer of steel off, only to find concrete jacketing underneath. More banging, chiseling, drilling and sawing, and I came to more steel under that. Two solid hours and I’d gotten maybe two inches into what was probably eight inches thick altogether. I decided to try another tack and smashed the combination dial off. The handle held as firmly as ever, and now that the dial was gone, there was no way to get at the mechanism that moved the interior steel bars holding the door shut.
It was frustrating as hell because by now the door had loosened a little, with about an eighth of an inch or so of play between it and the body of the safe. But I knew that was only because a hinge was slightly out of alignment; it didn’t mean the door would be any easier to open, and I knew that further attempts would be futile. I needed some serious tools, not the kind that could be hauled around in a
gunnysack.
I wasn’t ready to give up. Although I’d brought a dolly, I hadn’t contemplated using it to haul the safe away, but now I had no choice. I managed to upend the safe and get it onto the dolly, then gathered up my tools, set them on top of the safe and shoved it toward the door.
Everything was fine as I pushed the thing along the paved path past the mini golf course, but as soon as I rolled it off the asphalt and onto the grass near the creek bed, the dolly wheels sank deep into the soft ground. And that ground was much firmer than the creek bed.
I leaned on top of the safe, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I had a vision of the owner returning on Monday morning to see his safe sitting out on the grass atop a hopelessly mired dolly, laughing his ass off over what kind of dumb schmuck had tried to rob him. It gave me strength.
I upended the safe, flipping it off the dolly and onto the grass. Then I flipped it again, grunting and wheezing with the effort, then stopped, looked around and listened. Once again, two flips, stop and listen, but not as long as I should have. I felt very exposed and wanted to get to that creek quickly. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to lower the safe down when I got there, but that decision was made for me when it let go before I was ready and tumbled over the edge, crashing through the underbrush and slamming into the muddy bottom with a sound like . . . well, like a three-hundred-pound safe falling ten feet onto mud: a squish, splat and splash all rolled into one. I threw the dolly and my tools down after it and then climbed down myself.
It took some doing to flip the safe out of the muck that seemed determined to suck it back, only to have it plop right down again, albeit now three feet closer to the motel. I did it again, four more times, then went back to pick up the tools and dolly. In the dim light of a quarter moon, the creek looked like it stretched into the darkness forever. As I caught my breath, I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t important what it looked like, only how far it really was. I started to do a quick mental calculation: A quarter mile to go, that was about thirteen hundred feet, with three feet of progress every time I flipped that green monstrosity on its side, that was how many times I’d have to do this? I decided I didn’t want to know and bent to the task once again. At least I wasn’t exposed anymore.
The mud was killing me. I tried to move slightly up the side of the creek bed to firmer ground, but the resultant awkward angle of the safe—think of skiing across the fall line—meant I could never let go and take a break, so that didn’t work. I tried opening the tool sack and laying it down in front of the safe. That was slightly better, but then there was nothing left to put in front for the next flip, because the bag was now underneath the safe. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort, and now I also had a soaking wet, muddy sack of tools to contend with, which only made the whole enterprise even more obnoxious.
One glance at my watch told me I’d better stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with it. All I needed was for the sun to come up while I was still in the gully. At least the moon had already gone down.
Eventually, somehow, I made it. Thoroughly wrung out after some six difficult hours of nonstop work, I can’t even conjure up how I managed to roll the safe up the side of the creek bed, but I did. I could see the first faint hints of sunlight to the east and hurried to bring my car around to where I’d left the safe. When I drove up, headlights off, I could just make it out in the starlight, a squat, ugly, malevolent thing. In my weakened, suggestive state I could feel it mocking me.
I backed the car to within a foot of the safe, got out and opened the trunk. Heaving, struggling, straining, I simply could not get the thing up and over the lip of the trunk. It was too damned heavy and the lip too high. But I couldn’t give up, not after the insane ordeal of getting it this far. There had to be a way.
The car was an old two-door Comet with very wide openings into the front. Feeling I no longer had many options (but plenty of tools), I unbolted the bench-type seat and put it in the trunk, then got the safe up and over the doorsill and into the car where the seat used to be. I covered it with a towel and got in. There wasn’t enough room to push it completely away from the driver’s side to the passenger’s, so the only way I’d be able to drive was to sit on top of the thing. I had to bend forward with the back of my head wedged against the roof and my toes barely touching the pedals. I drove away like that, not even daring to think what I would say to any cop who pulled me over.
I drove to the building I managed, changed cars and drove home. That was even harder than stealing the safe in the first place, because despite being tired, wet, scared, relieved and half a dozen other things I couldn’t sort out, I was so thoroughly exhilarated, I could hardly sit still to drive.
Trying to sleep was even worse, but I think I managed an hour or two.
Before dawn on Monday I muscled the safe down into the basement workroom using a heavy-duty hand truck and went to work with an oxyacetylene cutting torch. It wasn’t very difficult to get the door off with that tool; I’d thought about it the night before and realized that all I had to get through were the hinges. I had it done by midmorning.
Inside, it was a mess. Sure, there was plenty of cash, but muddy water had gotten in through the loosened door while I was rolling it along the creek, and I was looking at one giant, filthy, soggy mass of green and brown. Unable to tell a bill from a rotted leaf, I loaded the whole cruddy pile into two plastic garbage bags and threw them in the backseat of the car. I got the safe into the trunk using the hand truck and two boards propped up to form ramps, then headed far out of town, dumped the safe into a lake and drove home.
After emptying the bags into the bathtub, I ran the shower and was able to separate out the cash and the leaves as the water rinsed the dirt away. After I loaded the junky stuff back into the plastic bags, I grabbed some bills and stuck them to the tiled walls to dry. By the time those walls were completely covered, I’d barely made a dent in the pile, and so proceeded out to the hall, then the bedroom, then the kitchen.
I’d hoped to get this all done and put away before Barbara came home, but that part of the plan didn’t work out. When she walked in that afternoon, just about every square inch of the downstairs rooms and half the upstairs was covered with ones, fives, tens and twenties. Not just the walls, either. There was money on the floors, tables, chairs, lamps, television set, cabinets . . . everywhere. As Barbara stood and stared, open-mouthed and speechless, a dried bill came loose and fluttered to the floor. Her eyes followed it, and when it landed, it seemed to snap her out of whatever shock she was in.
“What the hell is this!” she demanded, her eyes flashing menacingly as she waved a hand around the room.
“It’s money.” I didn’t mean it to sound sarcastic, but I guess it did.
“I know it’s money,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Whose is it and what’s it doing on our walls!”
“It’s mine. Ours. It got wet and I needed to dry it out.”
To say that she was angry doesn’t quite do justice to her reaction, but despite how she was feeling, she stopped talking at that point and literally bit her lip. She knew I’d done something illegal and also knew that if I wanted to tell her, I would, so there was no sense in her badgering me, and even less sense in my toying with her. She also knew that whatever explanation I came up with was going to be pure bullshit, and I knew that she’d know. “I broke into a safe.”
Her eyes started to roll back into her head, but she recovered quickly. “What safe? Where?”
“The miniature golf course.”
I could see her instantly realizing all the implications, and, as it happened, the worst ones occurred to me at the same time. I hadn’t put them together fully until that very moment.
“All that time we were there together,” she said, her voice on the edge of cracking, “it wasn’t for us? You were planning a robbery?”
I was pretty well prepared to take some serious abuse for having committed a crime, but what I wasn’t ready for was Barb’s intense
feeling of having been betrayed. To her, the worst part of the episode was that I’d deceived her. She’d gone along with what seemed to her an oddball passion for miniature golf, and the whole time it was going on, I’d really been lying to her. She seemed to be having trouble deciding whether to be crushed or angry, but anger was easier for her to deal with, so she went with that.
That anger had other sources as well, the most obvious being that I’d put her and our daughter in jeopardy in addition to myself. Despite Barb’s absolute innocence in the matter, a gung-ho prosecutor could make the case that she’d helped me scope out the job. And if both of us went away for it, where would that leave little Suzanne?
Barb had already seen firsthand the kind of grief that lawless behavior could bring down on a family. She’d been through it with her brother, then again with him and me when we’d hit that gas station. She married me anyway, believing or hoping I’d had all the larceny knocked out of me after my monthlong stint in the Cuyahoga County cooler, then she walks into the apartment one day and sees money plastered all over the place. She knew instantly that trouble was about to come her way again.
Luckily, Barb’s way of being righteously pissed off was to clam up and refuse to talk to me. She didn’t even help peel the bills off the walls and furniture before storming out of the house. Later, when we did talk about it, I assured her in no uncertain terms that it was a snap opportunity that was so easy, I couldn’t turn it down, a one-shot deal to get our bank account jump-started, the last sowing of my wild oats, what kind of father and husband would I be if I ever pulled something like that again, and on and on until she was finally convinced it would never happen again and didn’t every family need at least one great big secret that fifty years from now would seem funny and romantic?
Truth was, I was deceiving her again, because I couldn’t say for sure that it was really just a single opportunity seized, to be repeated no more and therefore pointless to dwell on. I hadn’t taken any time at all to think about the larger implications and honestly didn’t know what any of it meant.