Be an opener of doors.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Not like that!!!
— The Ghost Of Ralph Waldo Emerson
The plan was perfect.
I picked up an old Polaroid instant camera at The Shady Lady so I could take a picture of The B and give it to Dez.
Yeah, I tried calling her Destiny. Couldn't do it. Name's too dumb.
Anyway, The B was a regular at The Bitter End. Dez trolls for Johns there, so he'd be easy to find.
She'd flirt with him, like it's a date. She'd convince him to go skinny dipping at The Dunes. That's a popular spot on the edge of Lake Michigan.
She'd give me a heads up, so I could be there first, hiding.
It went down just like that.
I found his pants.
I grabbed his wallet and took a picture of his driver's license.
I snatched his keys and headed for The Boxtan Inn. The manager had a key machine. For ten bucks, he didn't care. I made copies of The B's keys and headed for The Dunes to put the originals back in his pants.
His driver's license gave me his address and I had a copy of the keys to his house. He had no idea. He just thought he had a wild evening with a pretty girl named... whatever name Dez gave him.
The hard part was waiting for the right time to rob him. Anytime was the right time, but I didn't want him to connect the dots between skinny dipping with her and his home getting cleaned out by me.
I even had some pros with a moving truck ready to haul everything away at a moment's notice. Pros, meaning, movers who do dirty work on the side. They'd pay me for the stuff, and they'd resell it. I'd split my take with Dez.
Easy.
I decided to do it in three stages.
One: Scope the place out. I am not a sloppy Steve.
Two: Let myself in to get an overview of the job, but disturb nothing.
Three: Come back with movers to haul everything away.
After that, I'd never go back to The Bitter End or anywhere else The B might be, because fuck that guy. I didn't need to see his sad sorry face. I just needed to know he got got.
Stage one was easy: The B worked nights. He was an audio engineer at The Crimson Ace, a casino at the harbor. Any night with an event meant he'd be there until at least 2am. He owned a small house in a neighborhood where most places had been divided into sublets. But not his. Nobody would care if they saw a moving truck, and his place had a long driveway leading to the side of the house. Much of it was obscured by trees. This was almost too perfect.
Stage two was where the plan fell apart.
I used my copy of his keys to let myself in.
What I saw wasn't right.
This guy was always flashing cash, but there were no signs of anything expensive in his home. Nothing said, "This guy has money."
It made no sense.
The walls were covered with framed and neatly hung posters, all of which were signed, presumably by bands that played The Crimson. They were probably free. The furniture was decent, but modest, and probably second hand. He had a desk with a calendar where he marked off dates for upcoming shows, or various other things. I laughed when I noticed a circle with a "NICE!" on the date he met Dez, but he didn't write down her name. Maybe she never told him.
Everything looked fine, maybe even nice by typical broke guy standards. But The B wasn't broke. He made sure people knew he was loaded. But there was nothing of value in his home.
It. Made. No. Sense.
Nothing suggested this guy was worth a damn except for a large safe, in the basement that was turned backwards to make it look like a file cabinet with no doors. It was heavy as fuck, but it was on a throw rug, which made it easy enough to turn around, with effort, once I realized what it was.
The safe had two keyholes. One of the keys was on his keyring, which meant I had a copy. So, where was the other one?
I started searching the house. And then I stopped.
"What am I doing? I was supposed to be in and out, just for a look at the job."
To Hell with it. I put everything back exactly as I found it, and I left.
"I will not become a Sloppy Steve."