chapter 54
THE OLD GUYS sat inside Walter’s recently rented minivan, the windshield wipers keeping rhythm with a Neil Diamond song playing on the radio. No one had said anything for several minutes. The tension was thick. They all stared at the dark front of the Gold Mine. During the chorus of “Sweet Caroline,” Bernard leaned to one side and farted loudly.
“Dammit, Bernard!” Walter said as he rolled his window down.
“Sorry. Dinner made me gassy.”
“We don’t wanna hear about it…or smell it,” Sebastian chimed in.
Walter rubbed his nose in disgust. “Sebastian, whatever you do, do not lick your lips…or smile. It’ll stain your teeth!” He laughed as he dropped the minivan into drive and pulled out of the parking lot with all the windows down. After a moment, Walter said, “Okay, guys, back to business. Wadda y’all think?”
“Tonight’s the night. We’re ready. We’ll be in and out in seven and a half minutes,” Sebastian explained. “That’s the maximum exposure we can afford.”
“He’s right. Tonight’s the night. Plus, the storm and the football game being televised on ESPN makes it even better,” Bernard added.
Walter pulled into an all-night convenience store, and the three guys filed out to pee and get coffee. Nobody said a word. Walter paid cash for everything. When he saw Bernard eyeing a pickled egg in a giant jar, he emphatically said, “No way in hell are you eatin’ one of those!”
Everyone laughed, including the store clerk. The levity seemed to ease everybody’s tension as they exited the store, chuckling to themselves.
Before they got back inside the van, Walter looked around at each of the guys and exhaled. “Okay. Let’s do this. Bernard, you’re driving.” Bernard clapped his hands and briskly rubbed them together. Sebastian smiled.
Bernard drove past their target. Nothing appeared to have changed. After a second pass, he pulled directly behind the store and cut the engine.
“Radio us if something happens.”
“No problem.”
“Bernard.”
“Yeah?”
“Please pay attention.”
“I will.”
Walter looked at his watch and said, “Someone call it.”
“I’ve got nine forty-five” Sebastian said.
“Okay, boys, synchronize. Let’s do this,” Walter said as he exited the vehicle.
Sebastian and Walter eased their doors shut and walked quickly to the rear entrance. Sebastian slid the new key into the stainless door handle, and they grinned at each other as the lock accepted it and turned.
“One down,” Walter whispered as they opened the door and rushed inside.
Walter used a small flashlight to illuminate the room. Sebastian used a clip-on light attached to the bill of his ball cap. After shutting the door, Walter went straight for the keypad. It was right where Bailey’s diagram had indicated. He stood in front of it, and it glowed red, indicating it was still armed and the magnet had kept the connection complete. Walter looked at Sebastian, and both men laughed as Sebastian patted Walter on the back.
“Two down,” Sebastian said just above a whisper as he looked at a ceiling-mounted camera pointing into the room. He knew it was too dark for the camera to reveal more than their outlines.
When Walter turned toward the office door, his light illuminated the full-body lion mount, causing him to jump back from shock. “Holy shit!”
Sebastian almost knocked Walter down when he saw the mount. “Dammit…I’m guessing Bailey didn’t tell you about that,” he nearly yelled.
“Not a word.”
Walter shined the light toward the office door. Sebastian’s gloved hand grabbed the knob. He tried to twist it, and it didn’t budge.
“Locked,” Sebastian said excitedly.
“What!”
“It’s locked!” Sebastian snapped as he turned to look Walter in the eyes.
“You’re blinding me!”
“Sorry,” he said as he clicked off the light.
“She also never said anything about this door bein’ locked!” Walter almost screamed in frustration.
“Well, it is, and we gotta deal with it.”
Walter tried the knob himself, and when it held tight, he exhaled. “Shit fire. Should we call her?”
Sebastian dropped to his knees and clicked on his flashlight. “No. Give me a minute.”
“Can you pick it?”
“Maybe,” Sebastian said as he studied how the lock’s mechanism pushed into the doorframe.
Walter stood still and held the light on the lock as Sebastian studied it. He couldn’t believe it was locked. From inside his jacket pocket, Bernard’s voice cracked over the radio, “Hey, guys!”
“Go ahead.”
“A black-and-white just went by.”
“The police? Shit. Did they stop?”
“No. They just drove by kinda slow, but they didn’t stop. Y’all hurry up.”
“We’re trying. We’ve encountered a slight problem.”
“What problem?” Bernard asked.
“Hang on,” Walter said. He was beginning to feel the pressure of the mission.
With a surgeon’s steady hand, Sebastian carefully slid his AARP card between the door and the jamb. When the card didn’t release the lock, he pulled out a thin-bladed pocketknife and inserted the blade in the same fashion.
“Is that gonna work?” Walter asked anxiously as he looked around the room.
“Just hush so I can concentrate!” Sebastian fired back. “You’re makin’ me nervous.”
The radio cracked again. “Fellas? What’s the problem?”
“Shut up, Bernard! We are workin’ on it,” Walter said and instantly regretted his tone. He knew Bernard was just trying to help. Everybody was wound too tightly at the moment.
“Damn! I almost had it,” Sebastian exclaimed. He took in a deep breath and continued working. His knife bit into the latch bolt, between the face place and the strike plate, and just as it was about to move, he released it suddenly and leaned back as if he had been shocked. He stared straight ahead at the knob and said, “Walter! What if this door is wired to the alarm? We didn’t plan for this.”
Walter cussed under his breath and then said, “I don’t know…you’re right. I don’t know what to tell you.”
Sebastian stood and calmly ran his fingers over the top of the door frame. “Nothing. You’d think he’d have some tight security,” he said.
“Sebastian, we’re just two old men who have never burglarized anything before in our lives, and we got inside this place with a magnet from a drugstore.”
“So, what are you sayin’?”
“This ain’t Fort Knox.”
“You may be right.”
“Just open the damn door. If the alarm goes off, we’ll just run like hell.”
Sebastian exhaled and leaned forward. “Promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Before you start runnin’, you gotta help me stand up.”