by Mike Faricy
“Well, Hub, are you gonna pay me back for half the gas and food I’ve paid for so far? I mean, wouldn’t that be fair?”
It was about that time that Hub saw the sign for Highway 138 and figured there had to be a bar or a liquor store somewhere down the road. Now he was standing in front of the cooler, staring at the racks of cold beer. He suddenly developed a craving for Dixie beer, hadn’t had one in over twenty years. Of course, things being the way they were, the Dixie was on the bottom shelf. One final twelve-pack was on the floor, pushed way in the back.
He was on all fours, reaching far back into the cooler, when he heard some sort of commotion. At first, he thought it was just the TV playing too loud. But at the same time, kneeling on the floor, he knew he didn’t hear a TV.
Lamont had held the door open for a rather large, heavy woman with a blonde wig, politely letting her enter ahead of him. He lingered for just a moment before he turned off the neon ‘open’ sign and quickly locked the door. He positioned the first balloon in front of the security camera, calmly grabbed a bottle of Captain Morgan, and walked purposely to the check-out counter. He kept an eye on the woman with the blonde wig, weighing her decision while she examined the selection at the half-pint counter.
The clerk, a skinny kid in a white T-shirt, was busy on his cellphone. Far too busy to pay much attention to Lamont. Without looking up, the clerk grabbed Lamont’s bottle of Captain Morgan and continued to talk into his cell phone, completely ignoring Lamont.
Lamont positioned his magnet directly below the camera, attached it to the metal shelf, and then calmly pulled out the giant chrome .45.
“Ah, I gotta go,” the clerk said into his phone. His saucer-like eyes were focused on the .45. “No, I just gotta go. Now.”
Lamont grabbed the kid’s cellphone, turned it off, and stuffed it into his pocket, an added bonus for a job well done. The kid stood riveted, a number of shades paler than a few moments earlier. Large saucer eyes focused on the chrome barrel pointing at him. Lamont waved the pistol, herding the kid toward the cooler. Along the way, he rounded up the woman at the half-pint counter.
“What in the Lord’s name you doing with that thing?” she asked, looking over her shoulder. “You’re gonna hurt someone with that, you don’t be careful. Waving that big ole thing around, scare me half to death,” she said and quickly grabbed a half-pint of gin as she fell in step behind the skinny clerk.
Lamont held the heavy cooler door for both of them as they stepped in, then slammed it shut and jammed a pair of pliers into the door handle, locking them inside. He was moving fast, and he felt as if there was something he was missing, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Directly behind the cooler was the office. The door was locked, and Lamont shouldered it open on his second effort. Fortunately, the room was empty except for a desk. Resting in the center of the desk was a fat green nylon bank bag zippered shut with a small padlock. Lamont grabbed the bag, smiling as he felt the weight of the thing, then looked around for the briefest of seconds before running back to the cash register. He laid the green nylon bag on the counter, laid the .45 on top of the bag, and began tearing currency out of the various compartments from the overflowing cash drawer. His plan was working perfectly.
He stopped suddenly, holding a thick stack of twenties in his right hand, thinking he heard something but not quite able to identify the sound. Of course, Lamont wasn’t familiar with the sound a twelve-pack of Dixie beer makes before it slams down on your head. Hub slammed the twelve-pack of Dixie onto the top of Lamont’s skull. His knees buckled, and he collapsed. As he crumpled to the floor, his head bounced off the register, splitting his forehead on the open cash drawer.
Hub continued where Lamont had left off. He emptied the cash drawer, removed the fistful of twenties still clutched in Lamont’s right hand, stuffed the .45 in his belt, the cash in his pocket, and placed the bank bag under his arm. He left the twelve-pack on the counter and, on his way out, grabbed a full case of warm Dixie.
Val was still sulking in the front seat, wondering what was taking Hub so long. “What the hell is that?” Val asked after Hub tossed the case of beer in the rear of the truck and slid into the driver’s seat with the green nylon bank bag under his arm.
“I guess some kinda giveaway special they’re running,” Hub said and stuffed the bag in the door pocket. He quietly slipped the .45 out of his belt and placed it on top of the fat green bag.
Neither one spoke as they pulled back onto the southbound interstate, although Val breathed a quiet sigh of relief once he realized Hub wasn’t heading north. Fifteen miles down the road, they saw the flashing lights of a police car and briefly heard the siren as it tore past them in the opposite direction, up toward Highway 138 and the liquor store. Hub had noticed the currency trap alarm the guy had triggered in the cash tray just before he’d decked him, old technology, at least twenty years old, but still effective. He figured he would just stay below the speed limit and rack this one up as a profitable day.
“Been thinking what you said.” Val was digging into his front pocket, peeling off two crisp hundred dollar bills from the wad and handing them to Hub. “Guess you’re right about helping out, anyway. We got a bright future ahead of us. No point in screwing it up over a couple of bucks,” he said, hoping two hundred would calm Hub down. “Besides, maybe it’s a good thing we got a little delayed. This way we can spend our first day on the beach. No hard feelings, buddy?” Val held his hand out for Hub to shake.
As they shook, Hub said, “Yeah, maybe it’s good we got delayed.” He checked the side mirror, making sure the case of Dixie was still in the back. He reached down to touch the corner of the green nylon bag before laying his hand on his lap, resting it over the fat wad of cash crammed into his jeans.
Chapter 7
They continued south toward the Florida state line. The only sign of the police was a Georgia State Patrol car in the median with its lights off, looking for late-night speeders. Sometime after midnight, they crossed into Florida.
Val was wide awake, scheming how he was going to convince Hub that breaking and entering would be a good career move. He kept returning to the money angle, Hub being broke and all. It hadn’t been lost on Val that, whenever he pulled out his thick wad of cash, peeling off a nice crisp hundred dollar bill, Hub followed the wad of bills with his eyes.
Hub was a tad more relaxed riding next to his bag of newfound wealth, not to mention a pocket in his jeans stuffed with cash. He rubbed his chin, lost in thought. Despite the unexpected windfall, he still had to come up with something job-wise.
“So, Hub, you got any ideas on making easy money down here? You know, not having to work like a dog?” Val wanted to stress two main points, money, plenty of it, and work. The less the better.
“No, nothing really definite. I want to get the lay of the land first. Maybe talk to Jimmy, see what’s available. He’ll most likely have a handle on the local scene. I could maybe do some painting or something.”
“Well, if you don’t mind my saying, sounds to me like you’re thinking about the same old sucker work,” Val said.
Hub shot a quick glance toward Val, not mad, just not quite following his train of thought. “What do you mean, ‘sucker work’.”
“Nothing personal. You know, the kind of work you’ve always done, the kind most folks do. You bust your ass for someone, throwing your back out, working weekends, keeping the world safe for some other jerk. Then, after you keep their feet out of the fire for a year or two, they call you into the office and tell you it ain’t working out. That’s sucker work. We’ve both been doing it since we were sixteen. Most people do it all their lives. But I just can’t anymore. This is the time, leastwise for me, to really make the change.”
Hub was quiet for a long minute, mulling it over before he finally asked the question. “So, if you’re not going to do it anymore, what are you going to do? You said you wanted to have your own dance school. But even if you do that,
you’re still working. Nothing wrong with liking your work, but you're gonna be doing that at night and on the weekends. It’ll be hard, won’t it? Everyone busts their ass, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, you dust yourself off, maybe get drunk, and then try something else.”
Val figured this was probably as good a time as any to feel Hub out on the subject. He cast his line out, getting ready to set the hook.
“Can you keep a secret?” Val folded his arms across his chest and stared straight down the road into the darkness.
“Yeah, sure. Why? What is it?” Hub asked.
“You know this big, fat, gorgeous pile of bills, this wad of cash I got in my pocket, here?” Val slapped his front pocket for emphasis.
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Well, I helped myself to it,” Val said, looking over at Hub.
Hub stared back not following at all. “What are you talking about?”
Val had the hook set, now he jerked the line, ready to begin reeling Hub in. “Just that. I helped myself. You know all those fancy things I sold from my mom’s estate, my aunt’s stuff? Saying I was fixing broken hips and paying for a rest home? Well, I never had an aunt. My mom didn’t leave any damn estate. Hell, she died owing the state money. What didn’t pay for her burial went to pay a few bills. God bless her, but she worked all her life, worked hard, and in the end, she was still broke. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Couldn’t fix it no matter how hard I tried.”
“So then, where did all that stuff come from?”
“Stuff? You mean that eight grand worth of stuff? Eight grand, man. I told you,” Val began reeling Hub in a little more, “I helped myself. All those late nights with those dance partners, nice ladies with nice houses. I just helped myself to a little bit of what they had. I helped myself to a little bit of what they didn’t need. A little bit of what they weren’t using. I just gave myself a little bit of a taste is all.”
Hub shot Val a long, quizzical look. He understood what Val was telling him. He’d even had his suspicions. But when push came to shove, he couldn’t quite believe what Val was telling him.
Val continued, “I took those items from women who would never really miss them. I didn’t clean them out. I didn’t tie them up, frighten them, threaten them, or hurt them. I just grabbed something they weren’t using anymore. It was like taking a little payment after giving them a fun night out on the town. You might say I was just recycling some of that stuff. Yeah, that’s it, more like recycling,” he said, liking the sound of that.
“Are you telling me you stole all those things?” Hub asked, already knowing the answer. “All that fancy stuff you said was in your family for years, and you didn’t have a use for it. The trays, the silverware, the diamond rings, those pearls, are you telling me all that stuff was stolen?”
“Well, that’s your way of describing it. Let’s just say I romanced the part about it being in my family for years. But it was most likely in someone’s family for years. And, as for stealing, hey, I took those women dancing, they had a great night, then I tiptoed out after telling them how wonderful they were. They felt warm and good about themselves, felt loved. Maybe for the first time in a long time, and all because I’m a nice guy. I could have beaten them up. I could have slipped them a drug, strangled them, raped them. Hell, I could have—”
“Okay! Okay! I get the idea. You’re a great guy, Val. There’s no one I’d rather have rip me off than you.”
“Well, you tell me, what’s that worth to some lonely old gal? Is it worth some little trinket off a dusty shelf? I’ll bet you a thick steak not a one of those women even knows any of that stuff is missing. If they do miss it, they’re gonna think they lent it to a neighbor, or their sister borrowed it and hasn’t returned the damn thing. It’s that simple. And I’ll bet you that I made ‘em feel good. In fact, I know I did. Not just that night, but feel good about themselves, like they aren’t some wrinkly, old thing no one cares about anymore. I made them all feel a lot better than some dopey pair of earrings or some silver tray does. That’s for damn sure.”
“What in God’s name are you thinking?” Hub asked.
“I just got done telling you, old buddy. Here’s what I was thinking.” He reached into his front pocket, pulled out the wad of cash to flash in front of Hub. “In a little over a few months’ time, your boy here cleared over nine thousand tax free dollars. So that makes it more like twelve or thirteen grand if you worked for it, paid damn taxes on it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Listen, we both had years when we barely made that the whole damn year. I did it in a few weeks. I didn’t sweat. I never had to deal with a boss or take a phone call from some pain-in-the-ass customer. I never had a sore back or hurt when I woke up. I didn’t have to hustle, scramble, or say ‘yes, sir’.”
Chapter 8
They drove on in silence for a good ten minutes.
“So what do you think?” Val finally asked.
“I don’t know, man. It’s still stealing and—”
“I’ll bet you, for this money,” Val fanned his wad of cash close to Hub, so he could hear the individual bills, smell the currency. “I’ll bet you lots of guys would kill for this money, literally. And I got it without anyone getting hurt. In fact, I got it by making people happy, Hub. Yep, making people feel good about themselves. Here, smell this. It smells like money,” he said, putting the wad up close to Hub’s nose and fanning it again.
Hub pushed Val’s hand away but not before he actually smelled the currency. Val was right. There was nothing like the smell of money, a lot of money, a wad of money. Nothing like the smell and nothing like the feel of lots and lots of money.
“I’ll bet you,” Val continued, “I didn’t spend more than three or four hours, total, getting all that stuff. A minute here, three minutes there, it was simple. Now, if this is nine grand, Hub, add a third onto that if I had paid taxes. It’s really like getting fourteen or fifteen grand. That’s about five thousand dollars an hour, according to my calculations. That’s what I mean when I say sucker work, and this ain’t sucker work, man. It’s smart work.” Val settled back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest. “Five grand an hour, man!”
He let that tidbit just kind of float out there for Hub to chew on and toss around.
“But, Val, aren’t you worried about getting caught? About the cops? What if one of those gals got out of bed and caught you? What if they called the next day and said, ‘Hey, I know what you did. Bring it back’? Or what if you answered the door, and it’s the cops with a mess of really pissed off women behind them?”
“Yeah, sure, Hub. That’s possible, but it never happened, did it? And you’re right. It could have. I was too close to it.”
“I wanted to conduct an experiment. I wanted to see if my theories worked, Hub. I learned that my theories are correct. Since that time, I’ve worked out a system that will protect me and whoever is involved with me. Protect whoever wants to get rich with me.”
He looked at Hub out of the corner of his eye, checking for some kind of reaction, not picking anything up. “I need to make sure that we’re far enough removed from the action, so there’s no way to tie us into any of this.”
“Back up for a minute, Val. What are your theories?”
“Well, the first theory is that these folks have a lot of expensive stuff, silver, jewels, you know. The second theory is they have so much they won’t miss the occasional item. The third theory is folks will buy this stuff, and this is important, for cash. We don’t take checks. We don’t take credit cards. We only accept cash. That means no trail. None.”
“The final theory is this. I was able to pick those items up, about sixteen grand worth, but it was risky. Let’s not kid ourselves. I could have gotten nailed, I didn’t, but I could have. So, here is the refinement.
“What if we knew, for absolute certain, no one was home? What if I had someone I could trust to pick up an
item or two, in and out in just one or two minutes, tops? No sign anything was missing. The police are never contacted, nothing.
“We sell the stuff. It’s not like any of it was ever reported stolen, and so the cops aren’t looking. But why would they be looking, because we’ll move it in a different state, in a different city? We get the stuff down here in Florida, what I call our Gold Coast. Just to be safe, we move it all four hundred and fifty miles north, back up in Atlanta, a completely different city and state. And remember, no one is even looking for any of this stuff in the first place.”
Val sat back, satisfied. It didn’t actually sound half-bad, even if he did say so himself.
Hub was deep in thought, looking for the flaws, aside from the obvious illegality. The ‘someone I could trust to pick up just an item or two’ sort of stuck in his mind, but he left it alone for the moment.
“So, how would you find these people? How would you know they’re not gonna be home?” Hub asked.
“Here’s the beautiful part,” Val said. “I’m told if I have my dance school, and if I’m a National Swing Champion, I’ll have quite a following. If they’re out dancing at my school, they’re not at home. Are they? Because they sign up, I have their phone number. I know their address. I know when they leave home and when they’ll return.
“I could even have a secure room where purses are locked up. You wouldn’t take the keys to get into their places. You would just have a copy of the keys made. Maybe we could get one of those key making machine things. Make a copy of their keys while they’re taking dance lessons and paying me for the privilege. It’s beautiful on so many levels. Get them on another night, maybe chat them up, and find out when they’re going to be out of the house. So there would be no way to tie it to the dance studio or me or you. We determine beforehand if it’s even worth your while to go in there.”