by Mike Knowles
I rode the bike behind the BMW down two ramps to a parking space marked 826. I kept the bike close enough to the cars parked on the opposing side to feel their bumpers graze my pant leg. Riding to the far right didn’t make me invisible in the rear-view, but it would make it tough for a cursory glance to pick up. In the end, it didn’t matter — Dickens was comfortable in his underground garage, so he didn’t look behind him once. When he pulled into the empty spot, I overshot the BMW by two spaces. I leaned the bicycle against a Land Rover that barely fit into the cramped parking spot provided by the building and walked back the way I had come. Andrew Dickens had only managed to get a single foot on the pavement; he had parked so close to the car next to him that he was unable to step out of the car under his own momentum. He had put a hand on the door and was using it to support himself as he struggled to get out of his seat. His peripheral vision picked up movement and he turned his head to confirm what he thought he saw. His head never made it all the way around to look at me. My fist connected with the base of his jaw, just under his ear. There was a loud cracking sound followed by the even louder sound of the door dinging the neighbouring car. The Buffalo Met director’s head moved diagonally up between the door and roof of the car. He crested six inches above the door and then began a quick descent back into the crevice created by his partially open door. The downward momentum buckled his knees and sent his unconscious body backwards onto his car seat.
I unlocked the doors of the BMW using the button on the door armrest and lifted Dickens’ feet into the car. Before I closed the door, I popped the trunk. I retrieved the bicycle and began the quick disassemble that was its best-selling feature. The bike went easily into the slim trunk and I closed the lid. I opened the passenger side door and pulled Dickens across the middle console and into the seat. I quickly zip-tied his hands behind his back before using two larger ties to bind his ankles and legs above the knee; after that, I buckled him in.
It only took three slaps to rouse him. As soon as he got out his first “What the hell?” I slipped the largest tie around his neck. The thick plastic band was meant for securing large trees, so it fit a human neck with no problem. I pulled the ends back hard enough to bounce Dickens’ head off of the pad. He struggled, but stopped when he heard the plastic teeth begin to click. I had fastened the tie behind the headrest and eliminated some of the slack.
“Stay still,” I said. “Or I make it tighter.”
Dickens stopped moving and turned his head to look at me. I pulled the tie closed another few inches.
“I didn’t move.”
“I know,” I said. “I just told you that so you’d hold still.”
“What do you want?”
“For you to stay put,” I said as I got out of the back seat.
I got behind the wheel of the BMW and reversed out of the spot. I drove back through the garage and used Dickens’ automatic door opener to raise the door. I pulled out of the garage and pulled the emergency brake. I got out and collected the paint can I had left behind along with the can of spray paint. I got into the car again and tucked the paint behind the passenger seat. Dickens looked at me with panic set so deep in his eyes that it might have taken a lease there.
“What do you want?”
“Same thing, Andrew.”
“How do you know my name?”
I grinned without taking my eyes off the road.
“You don’t have to do this. You can have the car. Take it. Take the keys, my wallet, my computer. I won’t report it.”
The grin on my face stretched a little wider. Someone might mistakenly call it a smile, but not if they really looked. If they looked close, they would see that the grin was something else. I had inherited it from my uncle. His grin always came at times when a grin was the last thing you expected to see. But that was just it — the grin showed up and it spoke scary volumes. It told people that things weren’t what they seemed. I had inherited the grin, but not genetically. As a youth, I had practised the look in mirrors, in car windows, anywhere I found myself alone. Eventually, the grin came to feel natural — that was when I knew that it was mine. Andrew saw my mouth pull wider and it took something from him.
“What do you want?”
“I’m not stealing the car, or your wallet, Andrew,” I said. “I’m stealing you.”
At that moment, the fear that had leased space in his eyes opted to buy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I didn’t drive the BMW back to the motel. We had taken up residence in a new place for the job. Miles had spent the previous day with a realtor checking out properties around the city. To hear Miles tell it, the woman was more than happy to spend the day showing him as many places as he wanted to see. According to the con man, the last place on her list was a two-bedroom apartment in the city. The property was hers — it wasn’t on the market, but the bed was available for a short lease. Miles wasn’t interested in square footages, costs, or the woman — it was the details he wanted. The realtor had no idea that some of the small talk that took place between the flirting and touring was the real business being conducted.
It was the third place out of nine that turned out to be the one. The house had been on the market for over a year after the bank had foreclosed and found an old woman dead under decades of hoarded trash. The garbage and the body were cleaned out easily enough — the mould was another story. The asbestos was a lengthy afterword. The house was good for nothing other than a teardown, but all of that effort would eliminate any chance of earning a profit — no amount of granite and hardwood would change the neighbourhood the house was in. What set the house apart from all of the others Miles looked at in the eight hours he spent with the realtor was the garage. It had one, and it was attached to the house. It was this very garage that I drove the BMW into. Miles had been waiting since my call and he slid the door up seconds after the tires touched the driveway; he slid it back down a few seconds after that.
We cut the ties holding Dickens to the seat and carried him into the house. We put the concert hall director in the kitchen. There was nothing about the room that said kitchen other than the proximity to a battered sink. There was nothing homey or functional in the space. The room was bare save for four folding chairs we had picked up at a pawn shop and a scarred card table that had been left in the attic. Not even the walls had escaped the decay. Someone had stripped away drywall leaving old insulation, studs, and pre-war wiring exposed for any visitor to see.
We let Dickens fall into one of the chairs and watched as the older man fought to keep it upright using only his bound legs. Miles stayed with Dickens while I went back out to the garage to get everything that belonged to the director. I put his laptop and workbag on the floor, and then I fished his phone out of his suit jacket. The expensive dress shirt was soaked through with sweat. The abandoned home was hot in the late summer month but Dickens’ perspiration came from something other than the heat — it was fear that was making him sweat.
“If it’s money you want, I can get you money.”
I looked at the man and lifted my index finger to my lips. I shhh’ed gently. Andrew’s eyes locked onto mine and he saw something in them. Something that made him close his mouth.
Ten quiet minutes later, Carl and Ilir showed up with food. They walked in with a bucket of chicken and a bag of sides and each took a seat at the card table. Carl put a second bag on the table and shoved it towards one of the empty seats. I sat in front of the bag and looked inside. There was a salad in a hard plastic container. On top of the clear top were several bags of dressing. I took a chicken breast from the bucket and held it with the fingers of my left hand. With my right, I pulled a small folding knife out of my pocket. I had bought the knife at a local camping supply store for forty dollars. The designers were kind enough to install a button that opened the knife like an old-fashioned switchblade. I clicked the knife open and began carving pieces off the skin of t
he chicken breast. I sliced the naked chicken onto the salad and then began to eat. No one said a word while we ate, not to each other, and not to Andrew. Twice he thought about speaking. The first time I shhh’ed him without looking at him. The second time I just looked his way and he averted his eyes like a cowed dog.
We finished the chicken and Carl passed around wet wipes. Everyone cleaned up and tossed their trash into the empty bucket. I got up from my chair and turned to look at Andrew. He was staring at the table — at the men who had been eating while he sat bound in a chair. His skin was sallow and the hair on his head had wilted with sweat. One by one we all turned to look at Andrew Dickens. The bound man looked from one face to the next as though he were following the bouncing ball used to keep drunks singing along with a karaoke song. No one said a word to Dickens, not even when I slid the knife off the table and stabbed him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I walked slowly across the room. I let Andrew get a look at me, then at the knife. By the time he understood what was about to happen, it was too late to struggle. I took his throat with my left hand and brought the knife down hard into his thigh.
The scream that came from Dickens’ lips boiled up from somewhere deep inside like a kettle whistle. It was loud and shrill and went on and on. I wasn’t worried about anyone hearing him; the only neighbour close enough to hear anything was an old woman who we had seen wearing two hearing aids.
I took a step back, leaving the knife buried to the hilt in his thigh, and waited for the sobbing to end. When Dickens finally managed to meet my eyes, I spoke. “You are going to do everything we tell you and tell us everything we want to know, or I am going to do that again.”
Snot ran down the five o’clock shadow of the sobbing middle-aged man in front of me. Dickens blubbered and then cried when he looked down at the knife hilt trembling in his shaky leg. Slowly, a stain blossomed on his crotch until his pants were soaked from belt to knee with urine.
“Please, I’ll do whatever you say. Please just don’t hurt me anymore.”
“Laptop password,” I said.
Dickens gave it.
“Phone password.”
Dickens gave it.
“Please,” he said, looking at his leg and the blood creeping away from the puncture. “My leg. You have to do something about my leg.”
“As long as the knife stays in and you stay still, everything will be fine.” I wasn’t lying; I had picked my spot before I stuck the man. It looked bad, but it was just a flesh wound.
“Please, I need to get to a hospital.”
I ignored Dickens as I probed the laptop hard drive. The itinerary was in the same place it had been before. There had been changes since the attempt on the violin, but the changes weren’t anything we hadn’t expected. In fact, the alterations to the schedule didn’t go as far as I thought they would have. I went through the document once, then another time. Beside me, Miles was rapidly moving his fingers along the surface of Dickens’ cell phone.
“Who is directing everything tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? You mean the concert. That’s what this is about? I’m in charge.”
“No,” Miles said. “You’ll be sitting in the office with a nice view from the hallway. Someone else will be down on the floor making sure everything is going according to plan. As far as I can tell from the contacts in your phone it will either be Jonathan or Adam.”
“It’s Jonathan,” Dickens said.
Miles nodded and worked at the phone a little more. “It looks like the two of you communicate with texts and email mostly.”
Dickens nodded.
“Guess you’d have to if you leave at half past three every day.”
Dickens instinctively mustered up a bit of indignation at the dig about his work ethic, but it deflated before it made it past a narrowing of the eyes.
“Jonathan still at the concert hall?” Miles asked.
“What time is it?”
“Six,” Carl said.
“Probably,” Andrew said. “There was a lot to do before the show tomorrow.”
“You probably pushed it until three forty-five today then.”
I shook my head.
Miles laughed under his breath. “Didn’t want to exert yourself. Alright,” he said, looking up from the phone. “What do you want me to say to Jonathan?”
“Start with please tell my family that I am okay,” Dickens said.
Miles kicked Dickens under the table. “Not you, Andrew.”
I read through the file I had opened on the laptop once more. “They delayed the delivery of the violin until four. I’m guessing that they don’t want it out of the vault any longer than it has to be.”
“That means we have to do it the second way,” said Miles.
“Fuck,” Ilir said. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “Andrew, has any food been delivered for tomorrow yet?”
Andrew nodded slowly. “There were some cheeses and meats, some wine, smoked salmon the day before.”
“Tell Jonathan that you ate some of the salmon and now you have food poisoning. Make him toss the food to be safe and tell him that he is running the show until at least the afternoon.”
“Me?” Dickens said. “Okay, just put the phone to my ear.”
Miles cuffed Dickens. “You really are an idiot, Andrew. He means me writing as you.”
“What do I do, then?”
“Get some rest,” I said. “Tomorrow, you’re going in early.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SATURDAY
At three a.m., I shook Dickens’ shoulder. He came to slowly and looked around the room as though he was hoping the nightmare he had been having was only in his head. He cried when he realized that it wasn’t. All of the adrenalin that had been running through his body had eventually dissipated and Dickens had finally crashed around eleven thirty. At midnight, Miles took the BMW back to the parking garage where I had taken the concert hall director. Miles went up to Dickens’ apartment and took everything the older man would need for the following day.
Miles got some takeout on the way back and Dickens ate the cold pizza with his two hands bound together. When he was done eating, I cut his wrists loose and gave him a packet of wet wipes to clean his hands and face with. While he was wiping down, I cut the ties on his legs and gave the knife wound a fast once-over. After we had gotten everything we needed from Dickens, I cleaned up the hole I put in his leg. The thigh was layered with gauze and wrapped tight with a bandage to prevent blood from seeping through his pants. The first aid had done its job; the wound had not bled through the layers.
“Walk around and get used to how the bandages feel.”
Dickens looked at me like I had just asked him to do a handstand and walk around on his hands.
“You start seeming like you’re more trouble than you’re worth, and I might decide that I don’t need you anymore.”
That was enough to motivate the director. He used the chair to help himself to his feet and then he began dragging his injured leg around the floor. The right leg of his pants had been cut up to the mid-thigh, leaving Dickens with a dishevelled zombie vibe about him.
After a few laps around the dinner table, Dickens crossed paths with Carl. The driver shoved Dickens out of his way. “Walk it off, you pussy.”
Dickens wanted to whimper, he wanted to complain, but he just kept shuffling on. Four Advil and a bottle of water improved the leg enough for Dickens to graduate from shuffling to walking without the support of whichever wall or furniture was nearby. After ten successful laps, I stopped him on his way past the card table and knelt to examine the dressing on his leg. The bandages had done their job; the wound was closed and all of the fluids were still inside. Satisfied the dressing would hold, I stood and went into the living room.
I came back into the kitchen a second later and h
anded Dickens the suit he had picked up from the dry cleaners the other day; the suit was still in the thin plastic bag.
“Where did you get this?”
“That’s your question?” Miles said. “You haven’t said a word in like two hours and the first thing out of your mouth is about your suit?”
Dickens looked at the bag. “I was told not to talk.”
“Just get dressed,” Miles said.
Dickens opened the bag and ran his hand over the jacket. His eyes closed as he felt the smooth clean fabric. He was telling himself that it would be over soon, and that soon he would be back to wearing clean, tailored clothing and doing the kind of things people in fancy suits did.
“You want a minute there, Andrew?” Miles asked.
The words broke the spell and Dickens began putting the suit on. There were a lot of groans as the pants slid over his legs, but he managed to get them on without crying.
I finished putting on my own suit and grabbed the backpack. I nodded to Miles and he took a backpack of his own off the floor. “Three forty-five,” I said to Carl and Ilir.
Carl nodded. Ilir was still sulking. “Whatever,” he said.
I walked to the garage door. Miles followed. He stopped behind me and whistled three short sounds while he patted his thighs. “Here, boy, here. Who wants to go for a car ride?”
Dickens limped along behind us and into the garage.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
At three o’clock in the afternoon, we had been in the office for almost eleven hours. We drove from the safe house to the concert hall and Dickens walked us in the front door, reset the alarm, and then walked us straight up to his office. Even on the day of the big event the concert hall didn’t have twenty-four-hour security. The attempted robbery had put all attention on the violin, not on the venue, and as a result all of the thought and planning focused mainly on the instrument instead of on the concert. Even though security at the hall was lax, we took no chances. We kept the office door locked, the lights off, and sat on the floor when we weren’t using Dickens’ computer. The only time any of us ever walked more than five feet was when we had to urinate. In the almost twelve hours inside the office the small empty closet had been used as a toilet five times. Dickens, who was the first to christen the space, had fought it at first, but the water he kept nervously chugging eventually made a more compelling argument.