You know what I mean.
Man, Rick said, this thing we’re gonna do … do you even get how dicey this whole thing is?
Yeah, of course I do.
Do you?
Yeah, Nat said.
Rick was silent for a moment. Then he said, I’ve known you about as long as I’ve known anyone ever.
Me too.
Thing is, I don’t understand what’s been happening with you anymore. It’s like you’re, I don’t know, out of control or something.
Down the long length of the street, the police cruiser appeared, its taillights moving slowly away from them in the distance.
It’s like you’re not yourself anymore, Rick said. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s weird.
I’m still me, Nat said. He looked out the side window. An airplane, bright white and luminescent in the night sky, ascended off the runway. He could think of nothing more to say and so he said nothing. The sound of the airplane ran all through the car: a long hiss that seemed to grow louder and louder and louder and would not stop.
The sound of the descending plane was quieter through the floor-to-ceiling glass of the showroom floor but it felt much the same. He had been holding his breath and he exhaled now, long and hard, returning to the hallway and moving down its length to the alarmed exit door that opened outside. The panel there glowed faintly. Its screen read simply armed in blocky electronic letters. Next to that message was a green light. He knew that the alarm would be triggered when he pushed open the door, but whether that triggering would directly contact the police or would activate some blaring siren or would do something else entirely, he did not know. Rick would knock and he would push open the door and they would deal with whatever happened next.
Then Milt Wells’s office at last: a dark space cluttered with furniture and files and binders that burst into shadows in the blaze of the
flashlight. The safe in the corner looked more substantial than it had when he looked at it from across the desk: a thick, almost featureless black box perhaps two feet square and fronted by a silver dial and handle. At first he simply grasped that handle and pulled but the safe did not move and for a moment he wondered if it was somehow bolted through to the floor. The wall shelves had been built around it and he cleared one side of books and binders and then swung his foot up into the gap he had made and pressed it against the wall, levering out with his body, pushing with his foot as he pulled hard upon the handle, and this time the box slid out slowly across the carpet and into the room.
When he had pulled it as far as he could, he sat on the flat surface of the safe in the dark, panting, his arms tired from the effort of moving that thick box even a few feet, and then rose and entered the hall and stood near the back door, listening to the too-loud sound of his own breath and staring at the alarm’s glowing keypad with its single word of menace. He waited there until he could hear the sound of a car outside, the gears shifting, the sound growing louder and then the car’s engine sputtering to silence. The familiar squeak as the Datsun’s door opened and closed. He waited. And then came the knock, shave and a haircut, the sound so loud in the quiet of the dealership that it startled him even though he had been expecting it all night.
The alarm panel again. The glowing numbers. The green light. Armed.
Then he turned the handle and pushed open the door.
Rick stood there in the darkness, his father’s .38 revolver clutched in his hand, the Datsun just behind, its trunk already open. There was no sound, nothing to indicate they had tripped the alarm, but when he looked back to the panel the light had gone from green to red. A moment later the phone began to ring.
What the fuck? Rick said.
I don’t know.
Fuck, he said. Then he stepped over the threshold and Nat pulled the door closed behind him.
What took you so long?
That fucking El Camino, he hissed.
No way.
Yeah way.
I told you that guy’s been on me.
I had to drive all over town to get rid of him. Kind of freaked me out.
You lost him?
Yeah, totally. Where’s the safe?
Down here. What’s with the gun?
I don’t know, he said. I brought the rifle too. It’s in the car.
Dang, Rick.
Let’s just get this done and get the fuck out of here. I’m all spooked out now.
The phone had stopped ringing although it felt like some part of that bell-tone drifted in the black air all around them still.
He led Rick to the office and Nat closed the door behind them. Then the flashlight, everything bursting into shadows.
Christ, turn that off, Rick said.
Nat pointed to the safe. There it is, he said.
Yeah, I see it. Now turn the light off.
They both kneeled and then struggled to lift it, the two of them on either side, the box only two feet square but heavy, solid. The faint sense of something sliding within. Then it was up and in their grasp and they were moving through the door in tiny, mincing steps, Rick’s face there before him, as if they had embraced, or tried to, only to find this heavy iron cube between them, their expressions the same, as if each faced a mirror and the other had become his dark reflection.
Careful careful, Rick whispered.
They moved down the hall, the box heavy but manageable now that they were moving, and when they reached the exit door, Nat fumbled backward, catching the handle and opening it and then they were outside, the night cold and open and miraculous, and they laid the safe into the trunk, grunting and groaning and cursing, the little Datsun heaving down from its weight, and in the next moment the trunk was closed and they were both in the car.
Holy shit, Rick said. That was fucking intense.
We did it, Nat said. We fucking did it. He turned the key and the engine cranked and started and he levered the car into gear.