“Sounds nice.”
“Yeah, did to me too. That’s why I took the job. Should’ve known better.”
“Why?”
The thief’s mouth turned into a sad grin.
“Because Vince, guys like us don’t get victory laps. Or get to walk away.”
“What do we get then?”
The grin faded away, and the thief nodded toward the desk.
“We get notes.”
***
The two stood motionless for minutes, neither man knowing quite what to say. Then, Lazlo’s eyes flashed in the darkness, and his crooked smile returned.
“Vince, will you do me a favor?”
“Depends.”
“Look, I’m not going to beg. I know what you’re here for. I just don’t want to go out like a chump. I want a shot.”
Vince cocked his head to the side, questioning.
“What kind of shot?”
“A million-to-one.”
Vince stared at the sweating, obviously exhausted man. He knew Lazlo couldn’t grip a doorknob, much less escape from a room with a gun pointed directly at his chest.
“What did you have in mind?”
“I’ve got about thirty feet of rope on me. Lemme tie it to the desk and give that the hole in the window a try.”
Vince shook his head. “What good would jumpin’ out the window do?”
“Don’t know for sure. If I can grip the rope tight enough…might be able to swing out and back. Maybe blast through one of the windows of the floor below us.”
“You’d never make it. Even if you did, there’s a couple guys in the lobby. Just in case.”
Lazlo was shaking now, focused on Vince. “Believe me. I know the score, I just…”
The thief bowed his head.
“…sometimes it’s better to resign than get fired.”
Vince stared into the eyes of a man accepting his fate. He took two steps back and lowered the gun to his side.
“Your call.”
Lazlo removed the rope from his belt, and tied it to the desk. He didn’t bother to check the knot. He moved toward the window, just like Vince expected a professional thief to move: quiet, smooth. Lazlo looked at the night sky outside the window, a world beyond desks with notes. The thief took a deep breath before turning back.
“Vince, let me ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“You think one day there’ll be a note in a dark room, waiting for you?”
Vince saw no reason to lie. “Yes.”
The two men looked at one another with equal measures of respect and pity.
“Crappy job, isn’t it?” said the thief.
Vince laughed. “Yeah.”
Lazlo took three steps backward to get a running start, then hunched down and focused on the window—a sprinter in the starting blocks who’d already lost the race.
“Bye, Vince,” he said without looking over.
Vince holstered his weapon.
“Goodbye, Lazlo.”
***
It wasn’t until Lazlo broke for the window that Vince realized how quiet a backpack full of burglary tools could be, especially when running. The pack made no noise—no metal clanging against metal—almost like there weren’t any tools in it at all. As Lazlo dove through the opening, Vince noticed a shiny aluminum handle on the thief’s belly.
Looked like a ripcord.
“Son of a bitch,” Vince breathed.
His own note in a dark room suddenly felt a whole lot closer.
Trey Dowell lives in Saint Louis, Missouri with his Anatolian Shepherd proofreader, Lulu. Trey has won First Prize honors in Writersweekly.com’s 24-hour short story contest, as well as been a finalist in the Writer’s Digest Annual Genre Fiction competition. His crime short story Ballistic, published by Untreed Reads, is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and all the usual places. Trey also has a short story in the Rainstorm Press print/e-book anthology, Nailed, due in February 2012. His debut novel, The Aphrodite Way, will be finished in Spring 2012. He can be reached at treyd@swbell.net.
exit interview
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