Day 205 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 5.1 - (1069 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 5.1

The door to the bank opened inwards and the two men stepped in, this time was different and yet exactly the same. They were a man short and that meant a new approach and that the timing would be more critical. Brian was going to have to take physical action, and it was not a prospect he was relishing. The reason he had gone with Michael, why he had accepted the assistance of Ivan via Mike, was so he would not have to go down any of the physical roads.


Yet here he was and it was only a few trips in and all of a sudden the requirement was on him, and it was a situation that required him to act before time ran out. They could only reset so many times before they ran out of window in which to act. Each trip shaved a little more off the start time, and a mess like the one with Ivan just now shaved even more time off the window of opportunity. They needed a bigger stake, two or three more trips to get the diamonds, to expand their cash base would be perfect. They would still need to launder the money, they would still need to find a cover story but at least they would have the cash.


Time was the one luxury that was not available, despite the apparent benefits of a time machine like the one Brian had developed, Brian himself was on a clock to get what he wanted, the chance to change the future. The future was know already, it was written and ready to go but knowing what was coming for himself only complicated matters, it did not make it any easier. As each trip that he took kept him on a time line within his corporeal self, there was a ticking clock on his life that was reducing, albeit with small increments, but time was a messy mistress to be having a careless fling with.


Michael patted Brian on the shoulder and headed across the bank floor to the spot where Nick the Guard was, in the middle of the room in transit as they came through the door. Michael pulled his gun and placed it squarely in the chest of Nick, who froze as soon as he felt the gun, backed up by the cold look in Michaels eyes. That was Brian's cue to act on the slower and less threatening guard by the door, so he stepped forward and raised his own gun to hit the poor unfortunate on the head. While Brian accosted the guard by the door, Mike disarmed Nick and put a pair of handcuffs on him, pulling them out of a pocket, his plan was more detailed now that there were only two of them. The odds, the variables and the tasks required for a two man job meant less time for each step and more care to potential outcomes.


The guard who's name was Simon by his name badge, leaned back and protected his head from the blow, cowering backwards and making a small noise in his throat somewhere between a protestation and fear. In that split second Brian chose not to follow through with the blow to the head, instead he levelled the gun like Mike was doing and waited for Simon to stand up right again and face him, face the barrel of the gun.


Brian was deviating from the plan, he could not bring himself to go through with the violence. He did not want to hit him, he did not want to hurt anyone, regardless of the lack of consequence when the time-lines reset, when the anomaly was reverted and all the after effects ceased to exist. In the first instance he still had to deal violence to someone, something he had trouble picturing. Though if he were honest it was the fact that he could picture it far too well. He could feel the bruising on the skin, the searing heat of being hit in the face, even though it was not his own. If he pummelled, if he used a weapon, something hard and unforgiving to strike with then he could fancy that he would feel the bone connecting. The idea that it could give under the force of the blow, snapping or cracking from his actions. He felt that in his imagination and he could not distance himself from it.


So when Simon flinched, ducked away from the blow with his own hands held up then he felt a relief that he may not have to go through with the plan as it was intended and that he could disable the guard without violence. He blushed in the revelation that he was not going to commit violence, and he smiled at the reprieve. Simon came out from his duck and cover routine to see a man white, nervous and smiling at him, suddenly the attacker had gone from an impending and unavoidable attack to a non threatening and inexperienced assailant.


One who could be fought back against. Simon reached for his own gun, holstered and clipped though it was, as Brian was fiddling with the handcuffs, ready to incapacitate Simon the guard. He was as unprepared for action as Brian was and he fumbled the clasp on his holster, unable to get it free in a smooth motion. In the same time Brian re-assessed his own situation and all of the nerves, the reticence and the empathy he had evaporated as he saw a man, reaching for a gun to shoot him. The preservation instinct kicked in and he lashed out and caught Simon square on the temple, as he had twisted to try and open the dome clasp on his hip.


Simon fell like a sack of potatoes, keeling over with a thud and blood started pouring from the gash left by the butt of the gun.


“You good?” Came the question from Mike who had Nick on the ground, face down and in cuffs with his hands clasped behind his back.


“Yeah.” Brian just stared at Simon, unconscious and bleeding in front of him.


“Brian?”


“I'm good. Really.” Brian made the OK sign with his thumb and finger, misreading the sentiment from Mike.


“The cuffs. He won't stay unconscious forever.” Mike nodded at Simon and that spurred his partner into action.

Day 204 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 5 - (1428 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 5

Monday 11:10 a.m. April 17^th


Michael was determined to get this right, and that meant they needed to follow a plan, stick to that plan and then leave as soon as the plan was in place. The coffee shop where Brian had held a gun on the girl at the register, was the perfect staging area. They had the clear view of the plaza, they knew exactly when and where things would be happening, they knew how much time they would have.


Brian had his coffee but his hands were still shaking from the stress, the tear gas and the sudden violence in his little group. Things were not going according to plan, not at all the way he envisioned things. Mike was definitely a plus for the team, he knew from the start that he was not going to be able to do this on his own, he needed someone like him on his side. Someone canny, someone knowledgeable and ruthless. There was no way that they could cut Brian out of the deal, and he had ensured that not only was there no way for them to learn how to use the machine, there was also a back plan, or two. Mike was the guy who would stop at nothing, he would just continue on and get things done regardless of who or what was in the way. He was not a bulldozer, but he was an irresistible force of will.


The blunt instrument in the pack was Ivan, he was the muscle and the intimidation, when necessary. Michael had picked him because they had history, they worked together before and he had always been solid and dependable, at least by Mike's accounting. He was there to hit, to stand over people and to task orders, follow them and be a team player. To be fair that's exactly what he was doing, but there was a madness to him that neither man predicted. He had taken to time travel like a drunk to a free drink, and it created a new element in his psyche.


Killing without consequences was his addiction, he enjoyed the violence because it was meaningless and technically he was correct about the lack of issue with it, morally or ethically it was almost an irrelevance. The problem was only partly with Ivan though and Brian knew this was something he did not fully understand yet.


He did not like watching these people die, over and over even knowing that they would be anomalous and these events would be removed from time, from existence and they would not have really happened. Except for the fact that they did happen and Brian and Michael both watched them happen. The first act of violence, the breaking of the first guards nose, incapacitating him and distraction enough for Ivan to act, was expected. He knew it was going to happen, he had steeled himself for it. The blood and the sound were shocking, yet it had a cinematic drama to it, like a script being acted out in front of him, it was the way it was going to be.


The air around the shots was energised and fraught with tension though, as soon as the trigger was pulled and the staccato refrain from the machine gun was in the air, things changed in that instant. The heist, the scam and the physics of it all was real enough to Brian, he knew it would work, he knew it could happen. This was not his first rodeo on minor crime and getting away with it, like any good experimenter he hypothesised, he planned and he did variations on a theme before he recruited his accomplices. He needed to up the reward exponentially, he needed so much more than just the petty cash he had managed to get, he had a few hundred thousand when what he needed was tens of millions.


The diamonds, they were a good start and he even planned to hit them over and over again to extend the initial investment in his much bigger plan. He could not have walked in and got through the guards, through to the vault and taken on the bank manager to get at the goods on his own. He got in Michael and with him came Ivan, to be the blunt instrument they needed. He was cannier than Brian had surmised when he was introduced, he and Michael devised the details, finding out when the undocumented diamonds would be in play, and got them an inside man.


The whole sub plot to seduce and manipulate Barbara was Ivan's idea, he relished the chance to act a narrative where he would be the dashing anti-hero, getting the girl to do his will. He manipulated her expertly, turning the woman to be his faucet for information. She spilled all the details they needed on the guards, the weaknesses and even how the alarms worked. She thought the bank impregnable and the back up systems of alarms and police response were enough of a deterrent to put any potential robbers off.


The truck that delivered was nondescript and the delivery had little pomp or circumstance with it. It looked to be like any other secure delivery of documents in a bag, but inside this bag was the locked and loaded box of undocumented diamonds. The people they came from were not interested in too much security, these stones were currency and untraceable because they did not want them to be traced. No one in their right mind would steal from them and the bank knew their clients well enough to neither know nor care what was in the bag, just that it was theirs and to be secured for a few days.


Barbara knew who the client was, the whole bank staff did, it was a secret impossible to keep. It also meant that no one was likely to make a mistake and no one was likely to take any chances with it. It was dangerous, dealing with organised criminals, they did not want any attention but it was a thrill knowing that you were part of a front for their money laundering. They were not untouchable of course, but they were careful about how and where they transacted their business. Barbara was there for most deliveries because the guy that drove up with the bag, he requested a dedicate teller to check the bag in and be a witness to the weighing with the managers in tow. They would weigh the box, minus the bag, as it went into the safe deposit box and they would weigh it again on the way out.


No one really 'knew' what was in it, there was plenty of assumptions made about the usual suspects. Drugs, evidence, money and anything that was of value and needed to be secured for short periods of time. Brian knew what was in the box, he knew for a fact what was in there because he had seen it. Michael was told what he was to do and how he was needed for his assistance, but he was never told how it was that Brian came to know what was in the box, what was so valuable and important to these criminals.


As he planned and plotted Mike could see that Brian knew more than he was sharing, and that would be something he would need to keep an eye on for the future. None of the people that he and Ivan were looking into had any concrete information except the set up inside the bank, and that was now clear explanation of why the Brains needed their help to get it.


The delivery truck was driving across the plaza and the time was approaching where they would swing into action.


“Are you ready?” Mike asked his companion.


“As I will ever be.”


“Can you do it? There is another way.” Michael was asking out of politeness only, neither of them really wanted to do it the 'other' way, Ivan's way.


“I can. I can. Don't … I can.” Brian nodded grimly and downed the last of his coffee. He held his hand up in the air and watched it trembling slightly in mid air. He made a fist and let it go, pumping it in and out of that state until he was satisfied he had it under control.



Michaels watch gave off two beeps, he had it on the wrong wrist so he could wear the anomaly device. “Let's go.”

Day 203 - Upside Down - Chapter 37 - (1175 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Upside down, back to front

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 37

After Mr Maxwell seniors funeral Sam and James left his sister and her husband behind at the wake and without a backwards glance disappeared in search of a quiet place to talk and figure things out. They drove in silence for a while and then found a suburban bar, buried in the depths of Mt Eden road where there were only locals and the parking was off street. No Friday night drinking crowd, no serious alcoholic hang outs.
They took a table outside in the beer garden, such as it was. It was not grimy or substandard, it was small and quiet, with a couple of speakers paired up on the wall, the wall that shared the outside of the pub interior. This was extra space, as much as the footprint allowed but was not the feature they wanted it to be, it was more a viable alternative for the few smokers left who still dared to indulge in public.
They had already grabbed a couple of beers and James hungrily, needily sucked in a large portion of the amber fluid, waiting and willing the alcohol to hit his head. A head that was spinning.
Sam on the other hand, raised his glass repeatedly but stopped before drinking each and every time. It was almost comical like he was somehow being prevented from drinking but the answer was much more complex than he had allowed for. He could not let himsef be affected now, and not for the forseeable future. That phone call had come at the right moment.
Where would that have gone? How far would Ivan have taken things?
“You need to stay away from him, and we need to keep that money safe. Break up his portion and lock it away somewhere – bind it in some way. How do we do that? How can we do that without anyone knowing we have it? Jesus what the fuck man.”
James kept drinking, the numbing buzz simply not coming fast enough.
“I thought he was going to seriously hurt me. I mean seriously, seriously.” He gulped a new load of amber, “seroiusly like kill seriously.”
Sam could not and would not argue. He had thought the same thing. He didn’t want to admit it it, but it was a choice between denial and death, death always has the upper hand.
Sam was pretty confident he could have stopped Ivan, on a level playing field and in a simple one on one. He could hold his own, maybe even win. They were evenly matched physically and Sam had discipline and clarity on his side. Ivan had the advantage of foreknowledge though. He knew if and when he would attack, and Sam had not seen it coming. Who’s to say he’ll not see the next one coming, or not be there and then find out later?
Ivan had a lack of clarity, but was fueled by a lack of sanity in the moment.
“Manisha never said.” Sam shook his head, gulpled in the beer at the thought of the risk his sister was now in. He put the beer down on the table and looked at it as if they were alone, he and the glass. He wanted to be drink, to feel no fear. That was not an option opne to him, he edges the glass away with the tip of his finger.
James watahces him and drains his own glass, fluid sliding into his stomach and it’s motion translating to his arm as he smoothly ran the empty to the table top and scooped up Sam’s near full one in a single arcing movement and bringing it to his lips and continuing on.
“Help yourself.”
“Yeah don’t mind if I do. If you’re not going to drink make yourself useful and drunk me up.”
“Drunk you up.”
“Too fucking right. And lets get some food. Have a great time old chap. Tomorrow, death.”
“We are not going to die.”
“Could you sound more convincing? Please?”
“I am convinced, Ivan will not be killing us.”
“It’s not us I am worried about, you are golden. You are family and I am an ant. Waiting to be…” James mimed the movement of anf accompnaying sound to the squashing of a bug. “That’s me, you you are going to be good.”
‘I won’t let him.” I hope.
“What are you going to do to stop him?” Sam held his arms out, his impressive span and size not lost on his friend, but he had missed James’s point entirely. “I mean maybe you can stop him, if you’re there maybe, maybe not. If he wants to kill me then I’ll end up dead. Then what?”
“Then…?” He was at a loss. What would he do.
“Then what? You’ll kill him? You get caught, the money goes away, your sister has no husband and you killed him. Have you thought about that? How is this going to play out with your sister?”
“She’ll … she won’t stand for it.”
“No she won’t and that’s my point. You can’t realistically stop him, I know I can’t and if you do it’s going to ruin your sisters life and yours too.”
“That doesn’t matter. Your life’s worth it.”
“Yeah.” James sighed and looked away. “That’s easy to say. But it’s not true. I’m already dead ad revenge is worthless. Killing anyone else won’t solve things and won’t bring me back. He’s already killed one person. This is over. I can run, I can hide, but then that puts me in the spotlight. That detective doesn’t have a case on me but he suspects something. You’re good, Annie’s good and he has no idea about the money. But he’s got a hard on for me. If I disappear, you can bet dollars to donuts it’ll set alarm bells off in him and then he lookds at the “accident closer.” This only works if he thinks there’s no crime, there’s no evidence of a crime to him – just a hunch.”
“You don’t know that, we havent heard from him for a few days now.”
“He had that look, that look. I’ve been under arrest before, I’ve seen that look. Cops have this look, the ‘you’re mine’ look. He has that look. We can’t give him the slightest clue. I can’t leave, I can’t defend myself and you can’t avenge me.”
James teared up a little at the overwhelming futility.
“I need another drink. Drunk me up bitch.” He laced the profanity with some hope born of being socially unacceptable. It was like being told you had terminal cancer he had thought. There is a terrible finality to it all and also a giant freedom.

Who gives a fuck about consequences when you face none? Only consequences for yourself are off the table though. Your friends and family survivors to your final blast from the past to an certain future.

Day 202 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 4.1 - (1226 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 4.1

Monday 10:30 a.m. April 17^th


The three men blinked away from the machine and came back to existence in the return from the future that was no longer going to happen. Nobody moved at first. Ivan was holding a gun in his hand and started with a huge grin that slowly faded. Michael was impassive the whole way from appearance until her saw where they were, he said nothing but the look on his face, was the one he arrived with, annoyed. Brian was holding a coffee cup and a saucer, branded with the logo of the coffee shop her had sheltered in and then decided to hold up.


“We didn't get the diamonds. Reset!” Ivan finally said and ran to the machine, still brandishing the gun and looking at Brian, not Michael. “Come on Brains!” Ivan put enough stress on that word to make Brian know it was far from a compliment.


“We need to talk first.” Brian started with his hands up, completing the odd picture of Ivan pointing a gun at the inventor while he talked and the man in response surrendering. Anyone looking in on the scene would have read it like a hostage situation or a robbery.


It was neither, yet.


“You can't just keep going on a murderous rampage every time we rest the anomaly and start again.”


“Why not?” The response though came from Michael, not from Ivan.


“What do you mean why not, because you can't. It's not right. It's dangerous. It's insane.” Brian was amazed that Michael had chosen to side with Ivan on this.


“Except right and wrong don't enter into it, do they? This is time travel, there are no rules. Even if there were, who would enforce them? It's not dangerous, it's consequence free.” Michael did not address the last concern at all, he left it hanging.


Brian noticed it was unaddressed, Ivan did not. “See? Let's go, let's go. If it makes you uncomfortable I'll only kill the guards this time, event though it does not matter at all. Come on, come on!” Ivan still had the gun and he waved it at the scientist again, “Come on!”


“Please don't wave that thing at me and please put it down while we are calibrating thank you.” Brian fussed with the controls a little but stopped and stared at the gun in Ivan's hands. Ivan stared back and the men were in a stand off, but the look on Ivan's face showed he was not likely to crack, more likely to take a violent resolution to the confrontation.


Michael thumped the younger, stronger man in the back of the head with a fire extinguisher, he moved so fast and so accurately that neither of the others saw it coming and it caused the aggravated Ivan to drop like a sack of potatoes to the floor, unconsciously twitching from the blow.


Michael picked up the gun and aimed it at Ivan still lying on the floor. “Now, please.” He waited until Brian set the machine and got his own bracelet set as well, Brian had done his first as usual. The odd one out was Ivan on the floor, he was starting to come to after they had set the machine and stood groggily.


“What the fuck man?” he slurred his words and had trouble staying upright, Michael wheeled him a chair and sat him down. He took the seat gratefully and tried clearing his head, but every shake just made the dizziness worse.


“You were going to shoot Brains here. We can't have that Ivan.”


“I wasn't, I wasn't.” He sounded like a little child now, one caught doing bad things.


“Yes, you were we could see it in your eyes, couldn't we Brian?” Michael looked to Brian for back up but all he got was a curt nod and his gaze darting away, not wanting to meet either one of them directly.


“I … I … wasn't.” Ivan was still woozy and when he put his hand to the back of his head, it came away with a few specks of blood on it.


“You went too far mate, you are going bloodthirsty crazy. Killing without consequence is dangerous, for your mental health. This is not a video game, these are real people. It's affecting you Ivan, and not in a good way. We will do the next run on our own, you can sit this one out. Capiche?” Michael was sounding reasonable but he too had the gun in his hand like Ivan had.


“He's no good, he can't help with the robbery.” Ivan was sulking a little, but the concussive effect of the blow to the head meant that he would not likely be of any use in the heist anyway. He would have to stay out of it, and stay back in the real time-line.


“So what, you go an do the robbery and then what, we play this whole scene again? Is that it? Do we erase the me now from existence? Is that it? I'm a prop now? What about when you do need me? Huh?” Ivan had his head in his hands to stop the room from spinning as he yelled at his co-conspirators.


“Just take a rest, we'll reset the machine for you and it'll be after this moment when we come back ok?” Michael patted him on the arm and then stepped away. “Don't touch the equipment when we're gone. You could easily fuck it up and then there's going to be nothing.”


The two of them walked away leaving Ivan sitting there trying to recover. He fell asleep for a few minutes and when he woke up he was on the floor, the world had stopped spinning but he had a thumping headache, he looked at the clock and saw it was almost eleven a.m. now, the others would be at the bank and he did not recall anyone fiddling with his wrist band before they left. What would happen when the rest went off? Would he be back on the floor with a hole in the back of his head? Would he be back twice? No, he was not in range of their bracelets. He needed to be with them for the reset.


“Bank, bank, bank.” He muttered to himself, if he had enough time to get there then he could get in and stay within the range of the anomaly field, and then he would come back. There would be two of him, one on the floor and one with his head in the game and ready to take action to defend himself.


Yes, that was a plan, to put the odds back in his favour. He had to be at the bank before they started the robbery, or just after maybe so there was no time for the police to turn up. Then he could get in and get near Brian. Mike would not risk hurting Brian, and they could either wait out the timer or reset it hard, sending them back in time with the extra Ivan. No, he was the Real Ivan, the extra Ivan would be on the floor and out of it.



Get to the bank, get to the bank.

Day 201 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 4 - (1416 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Repeat offenders

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 4

“Let's do it again” Michael was still coughing but he was ready to go regardless, he could see the window of opportunity closing on a second run at the jewels and the cash that they represented.


“I don't think that's such a good idea.” Came back from Brian, but he coughed a couple of times and snuck a look at the machine, wondering if he truly believed himself.


“Oh come on man, let's just risk it anyway. That's the fucking point of having a time machine. WE CAN RISK IT!” Ivan was hyped up and overexcited, the thrill of the chase, the violence low consequences and the brushes with real danger, the reality of it all. His heart was racing and blood high with adrenalin. It was the rush and the charge that drove him to want to go again, right now and experience the same thing, but with instant knowledge and reactions. The pain in his hands was real and harsh, it throbbed with an insistence that time travellers could get hurt. The same pain though gave another message, that the world of pain and hurt was transient for so many others that they intersected with.


Ivan had a plan for chaos and disorder, but one that reaped the benefit for stealing the gems one more time.


“It's ten thirty in the real world, we still have time to set the clock and go a few more times. Come on we're wasting time. We have all the time but only so many events to take advantage of. Let's go, go, go.” Ivan was at the bank of switches and jittering, ready to throw them into place, to take whatever action was necessary to enact another go.


“We go again.” Michael was looking Brian and not asking.


“We CAN go again, but SHOULD we?”


“YES! YES! YES!”


“Yes we should. We need the investment, the bigger the better. We could use the back up policy.”


Brian looked at the other two men and came to the machine, he reset the clock and adjusted the three devices they all wore on their wrists. He looked unconvinced.


“We have around forty five minutes to get ready. The delivery is at eleven seventeen, and next time let's set the clock immediately gentlemen. We can always can it f we don't need it, but we can avoid the diminishing returns effect but not shaving so much off the window each time. The jewels might be there for longer than we realise, but the upper end for pick up is still unknown, let's not find out the hard way.” Michael was in charge, but they were being pushed along by Ivan's power and boldness.


Monday 011:27 a.m. April 17^th


The three men were in the bank again, but this time around things went very differently from the very first instance. As they walked through the door Ivan, with bandaged hands, fired rounds across the bank at both guards, felling the nearest one in seconds and spraying the second with bullets, hitting him and the people next to him indiscriminately. Screaming happened within seconds of the bodies hitting the floor and the blood beginning to flow from the guards, the manager and Ivan's girlfriend.


“Oh for fuck's sake Ivan!” Michael took the gun from the grinning Ivan who shrugged and pulled a second from his pocket and fired randomly at the line of customers still standing, the sensible ones dropping to the floor and covering their heads with their hands. In the next thirty seconds Ivan had shot seven people, not checking to see if they were alive or dead.


Brian stood near the door, not wanting to walk any further in the carnage and the death that was being dealt inside the bank. He turned and walked out the door, leaving the men to the robbery, he walked calmly to the café where they had earlier, in a different set of instances, watched the delivery before going in and committing the crime. His hands were shaking as he went through his pockets looking for his wallet, ready to pay for a coffee.


“What's that noise Sarah?” The Barista was asking the checkout girl, Sarah by her name tag, as she was leaning over the counter and looking past Brian's shoulder and through the glass doors. She could not directly see the bank from her position, unlike the table that they had sat at before, with a clearer view a little further along the plaza side where the steps lead to the bank.


“I dunno. Is that a backfire?” Sarah shook her head. “It can't be guns? Can it? Did we … was that people yelling? It can't be … screaming? No, right?”


“I … should we call someone? Do you think? I mean it was a lot, yeah?” His brow furrowed, he knew what it sounded like but no one wanted to assume the worst. This was not downtown Baghdad, this was not a war zone, they had no real gang issues and no mass shootings, or not yet anyway.


“It is gun fire. And yes, you should call someone. AFTER my coffee please?” Brian smiled wanly, and got nothing but blank stares, the situation was still too unreal for them to grasp. Brian held up his hands and showed them to the coffee shop staff, shaking feverishly and unable to contain the stress. He wavered on his feet and grabbed the counter for support.


“Are you ok? Are you serious?” The Barista leapt over the counter and shepherded the shaken customer to a seat and looked at him closely, trying to see if he was ok or delusional.


“Fuck!” The coffee man bolted backwards and fell on his ass and he looked up at Brian in horror. There was a spatter of blood on the man's shirt and the ashen look on his face and his words all clicked into place. “Jesus, Sarah! Call the cops! Call the cops, now!. Man, dude, were you in there? Is anyone hurt?” He came back in closer, still staring at the trail of red that had arced across the man's shirt, a red curved, connect the dots of the bullet that taken the closest and slowest guards life.


“Hello? Police! Police! There's guns, shooting at the bank, Aubrey Plaza.” Sarah was wide eyed and yelling into her phone receiver, the handset hanging off the wall behind the cash register. Usually for orders.


Brian followed his gaze to his shirt and saw the same thing. “Look at that. That must be from the guard. They were in front of me, I was behind them.” Brian poked at the stain and it smeared at his touch, leaving a red oval on his fingertip. The blood there was a relief map of his fingerprint, as id the red was a special dye that would identify him in the aftermath, he saw it as a problem.


“I don't know, there's a guy here, he saw it, he's covered in blood. I … I don't know... umm I'll ask him, Sir? Sir?” She was being asked to get information from the known 'witness' but Brian was not listening to her and not looking at the man on his haunches in front of him. Instead he stared, transfixed by the reddened end of his index finger.


“Out damned spot.” He said and then laughed at his own reference. Laughed harder than he should have, laughed like he was going a little crazy.


Gunfire rang out again from across the street. There were a rapid succession of cracks and screams.


“There's more, oh my god they're shooting again hurry! Please hurry!”


Brian wiped the finger on the Barista's apron and looked him straight in the eye. “Trim Latte thanks. No sugar, double large and hot, not tepid thanks.”


“What? I think we should wait for the cops, and you need an ambulance not coffee.” The Barista had made a judgement that the man was somehow impaired and he stood to walk away back to the counter and to get te keys, lock the shop up and send everyone home to somewhere safer.


There was no safety for them though.



“Do I have to repeat my order?” Brian stood as well and pointed a gun, not at the coffee man, but at Sarah who dropped the phone and screamed.

Day 200 - Upside Down - Chapter 36 - (1079 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 36

Intervene back.
Too many things had been randomly reassigned, he had not been clear in his requirements. He had set a faulty expectation of James’s worth when setting the deal. He had allowed James to value himself in the equation instead of being the leader and settingclear guidelines for behavious and rewards.
That was the problem. The force he had been using was not focussed on an outcome.
The method was correct, the delivery lacked directionality.
Restate the objective, underline with the unavoidable reality of the situation.
James had taken the money. He could not keep it, he would not. He would return it and he would get the cut he earned. He would not be allowed to cheat Ivan of his share, or part thereof. This would be equitable, this would be fair. Sam can make his own midn up about how to split that dividend. Half at least was Ivan’s that was in no doubt.
None at all.
Do the math, check the ledger and the balance of things is found there.
That is a fact. Like death and taxes one that it is simply pointless to argue with. So there will be no arguments, there will be facts and a a rewriting of the rules. A resetting of the balance of things.
None of this comes for free of course, there is an element to this that James will have to pay for, and Sam too for letting this happen.
Sam had nothing to worry about though. He as family and family looks for family, all the time. That’s a family that sticks together. James is not a part of that family.
Sam needs to work on the family unit first, shore that up and then help his friends.
We are not selfish after all are we? We have priorities, that’s altruism in it’s most relative sense and not self interest.
Ivan drew a breath and stood over the coffin, the thoughts again parked as he felt the power in his chest dissipate to see what was left of his teacher, mentor and confidante.
This kind of man that stood for his family even when his family abandoned him. Ivan had seen what mother had done to him, the excuses she had made, the ones that his father reaidly admitted to. The things that were external to the family and should not have trumped anything that would have kept them together.
Sam needs to not be Ivan’s mother in this equation.
His head spins, the sense he had made of everything was slipping away.
It had seemed to clear when he had gone over it and now it was elusive as waking from the vivid half slept dream that cannot be grasped no matter how hard and fast you hold on to your misty memory of it.
He had to get outside and clear his head of death, see the thoughts clearly again.
His father had already passed and this was just a formality and a physicality that needed to be dealt with. Space and time, time and space.
Outside there was a lanky teen in an ill fitting wisp of moustache and a jauntily angled cigarette. He gazed at the ground and seemed to have no visual recogintion that there was another person there. He kept his gaze on the ground and then Ivan saw why.
A wire ran to the other ear and in a tiny echo he could hear the radio commentator’s voice rattling about in the cold air outside the funeral home.
Blood boiled in the spaces around his eyes and nose, filling him with pressure. He steeled his body into a clenched fist of a man and took the most deliberate step he had taken in a long, long time. The boy who worked for the home saw him and instantly regretted being caught in this way.
He did not know Ivan, did not recognise the violence in him or the rapid descent to the madness of irrartionality that was spilling his way.
This was a job to him so he got bored and he got restless. He wasted a lot of time and he found ways to engage himself in those downtimes. But he had also been doing this job for a while and it was his father that owned and ran this funeral home. The boy never intentionally set out to offend anyone, just to cure the malaise brought on by the short attention span of being a teenager.
Death and grief bored him, he was used to it. Not so arrogant to think that this was everyones experience. Death was a business, not one he was interested yet one he had trained in since birth, unlike the rest of mankind who get thrown in the deep end he had the advantage of the professional and unwelcome advice of his father.
Don’t piss off the grieving son.
This is a lesson.
Don’t piss on the dead.
This is a lesson.
Getting caught in a boredom trap of his own devising wold embarrass his Dad and certainly hurt his bottom line as an employee at the funeral home. He knows this and he knows that in being caught when he thought he was alone is the thing that the does not want.
The apology never makes it to the air as Ivan’s hand closes around his throat.
One handed, grip of iron resolve.
It hangs there a while and Ivan can see into the boy’s eyes, now watering as he struggles to breathe.
He reads what he sees and sees what he wants to before releasing his grip.
“Are we clear?”

This is a lesson.

Day 199 - Upside Down - Chapter 35 - (1175 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 35

Honestly even if he had the time and the power of god to stop and examine that moment he could not have said if he was going to hit the woman, or just try and show her who he was, what he was capable of. Maybe show her who she was, what she did to him and why she should stop. There were no noble intentions in raising his hand, any more than there were no noble intentions in her actions.
Not all of the possible outcomes were violent, not many of them at all.
Enough though.
His shoulder tensed and a fist formed.
Ivan could see it coming, knew and felt it.
One hand came to the side of the mans head, moving as it did, his body glided sideways to gve him the leverage, the torque to power his flattened palm.
He pressed down hard, as hard as he could and directed the man’s head in an unexpected trajectory and slammed it into the bar. He let it bounce and the man reeled and lost all momentum and sense of gravity. In that free floating moment when the anger and fear were replaced with a world turned inside out, he focussed his eyes on the man he recognises and too late understands there is nothing he can do anymore.
Except get hurt.
The slow motion fist is curling as one hand pulls back and the other punches outwards, moving so very slowly, but with no hesitation. Twisting and pulling synchronously to deliver force, a message without words and connecting with his chest. Air expels and he folds like paper to the floor, banging himself on the ground.
The woman is watching, shocked and still.
This was not what she thought would happen.
Ivan looked at her with contempt she could see plainly, and silenced any words that may have been forming. There would be no thank you, no recrimination and no questions.
Ivan took the glasses to the booth. His business deal was signed and sealed before those drinks arrived, this was just a formality. Their agreement lay on the floor in front of the bar. Ivan put the glasses down and raised a finger to his associate, indicating he needed to wait, as he turned and went back to he man, gasping for breath.
The woman took a few steps back. Involuntarily reacting to the lizard brain that saw a predator.
Ivan looked at the man looking back at him through watering eyes. No tears but a body in stress. Ivan holds out an arm and waits for the man to take it uncertainly.
As he pulls him to his feet and dusts him off, he can pull him towards him and grabs the back of the mans head and yanks forward, twisting it to find his mouth meeting the man’s ear.
“If you want to control your fucking woman.” Angrily violent assetion.
“Control yourself” Calmly assured reason.
Time for that drink.

After

His father was dead.
That was a fact.
One he could not control, one he could not alter and a fact that stuck into him, opening him like a wound. He felt exposed by it, raw and small like when he was left with his mother.
That was it, his father had left again, a fact out of both their control both times around.
This was a lesson, this was somethig to grow from and make you strong.
What was it?
All the plans you make are not going to matter when other people and random events. His mother conspired against his father. That family broke apart from the inside, becaue someone on the inside chipped away at it from the inside. Like an egg hatching, the chick burrows oput and into life.
No wait.
That’s the wrong metaphor.
Ivan is having trouble controlling his thoughts. He is waiting at the funeral parlour, the open casket of his father openly haunting him in broad daylight. He needs to be here, wants to be here but hates the reality of this particular moment.
He sees his father, he sees the body, the reflection of his appearance in the flesh there. Except that it’s not really it’s a relfection that is crumbling down like a decaying building. A once proud castle bowed by time and entropy. Now it’s the husk, the decayed skin of the cicada left to dry in the sun.
Justify as he might it’s still his fatherr there, reminding him of who he was and who his son is.
It’s too fucking unfair.
Thoughts of the money, Sam and James and even his impending child are out of his mind for now. He cannot concentrate and he would not want to even if that had occurred to him.
Am I an orphan now? Is that what you call it when you lose your parents? What if you are in your thirties already, are you still an orphan? Not an orphan like Manisha was, she was a teenager, still a child and able to process it in a different way than I have to. I mean she barely knew her parents, it was a dependancy, I knew them as adults, understood and accepted them.
He never had accepted his mother, he had understood her as far as he was concerned. He had that knowledge, reconnecting with his father had brought that alignment of his viewpoint. He had righted him again.
He owed so much to this man here. Who he was, how life works and where the lines are? That was all on him.
They both had coloured their lives outside of those lines, but they had that quality, that leadership that set them apart from the masses. Someone drew the lines for the masses, the laws, the accepted norms. There were alwayd people outside of the convention.
The mad, insane and unacceptable edge cases of humanity.
And the exceptional ones.
Exceptional people were rare, and he had felt them when he was around them. They were so hard to come by but instantly recogisable in their power and ability to rewrite the rules of life for themselves.
Not selfishly, but sensibly.
Was that what he needed to do? Rewrite the rules? Start again and reset the counters?
You can’t depend on anything in life, it can end at any point.
This is a lesson.
You cannot control other people, you can only control yourself.
This is a lesson.
You get others to give you what you need before you take.
This is a lesson.
You set the rules, you take what you need when you need to.
This is a lesson.
Life is short.
This is…
Ivan knew what he had to do. Or more rightly he knew what james had to do. James was the key and the problem. He had seen this early on and had not planned accordingly. Random elements crept in and changed the rules. Ivan needed to rewrite the rules.
Just because fate had intervened for James’s benefit, that meant nothing.

Day 198 - Upside Down - Chapter 34 - (1276 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 34

Don’t let others choose fights for you.
He was at the bar and took up his usual spot. They knew him here ad gace him a respectful distance that friends can get. Especially friends you know have a life beyond the normal social parameters. People knew very little about him, but they knew about his abilities, his capabilities.
So when he sat in the same place long enough, it became his. It was quiet enough to be availble most of the time, that’s how he sat there with some regularity. He never insisted on his spot being free, but the bar manager knew his fondness for it and saw to it that people knew it was his, no one had ever been asked to leave it, but few had chosen it or occupied it in the times that he was here. He had times that he conducted meetings here, chosen for the time of day when few were round.
Reputation, regularity and reliability. These three things ensured his spot was his. He never worfked for it, never earned it, but still felt that he made it happen and that he deserved it. He had brought his Dad here more than once to see him work. It was this work that had made his Dad proud of him.
It took him a while to come out about his other jobs to his father, never really sure how he would take it. Theye saw each other in themselves. They hid parts of their lives until they brough them out in the open and saw that they were the same. The same person, the same path.
The advantage of a generation of experience was the gift of father to son.
One day son? More than this will be yours. We can get you ready, you can take the prize.
The work he did here was less beating and more molding. Molding people took finesse and skill that few people had. You could do it obviously and violenetly, but fear and respect were not always the same thing. Some times they were, but not exclusively.
Today he was alone with his thoughts longer than ususal. He had planned on thinking through his options with James, but the spectre of his fathers path through the next months, hopefully years, was a pressing concern. Pressing in harder than he wanted or needed.
After an hour or so his meeting arrived and they got to business. Ivan was clear with his needs and this associate was querying the how and they why of it all, seeing of there was an opportunity.
Ivan expects this, he is after all following the best path, find your advantage and take your advantage. There was no opening here for anyone else though. He laid out his needs, his requirements. Bullet points of requirements, what he wants, when he wants, were he wants.
No more.
As they haggle on price, Ivan is careful to keep the need low and the timeframe intact so that he can see he’s not to be messed with, but that the job is not worth too much. That drives the price up and opens the door for a partnership he does not want. Cannot accept.
They have sorted the deal. How the person stops the traffic in that time and place is not Ivan’s problem. The assurance is born of a long standing work relationshop that thrived on delivery, not making problems or excuses.
They are to drink on the deal, so Ivan goes to the bar to get the contractual obligation filling two glasses.
At the bar is a red faced man and an angry woman.
Ivan can see that his is a pot boiling over. The man is bubbling with nervous energy, giving off a heat that anyone can see except the woman who is either oblivious or uncaring.
Should he intervene? Not directly of course, but he could say hi to the man, be friendly and divert that energy away from the couple to a new external area. He was not frightened or threatened, and who cared if this guy was angry at him. Angry people who cannot think straight are not a threat when you can see them coming. Unexpected violence is much harder to deal with and much harder to dish out. You want to win, then you pick and choose the terms of the fight, you pick the location, you pick the time. That man had none of these to his name.
Alternately he could defuse the situation and the anger could evaporate in the light of exposure. That would make the problem go away.
Ivan did not think that would work.
The bar manager did not think that would work, he also did not want the fight that option one may bring. He could man up and deal with the problem, but he did not want to and the outcome was less than desirable.
A quiet evening please.
Ivan held up two fingers silently and the man knew what he wanted. He did business here and the terms were well known and set with people who knew him.
“Don’t fucking tell me what to fucking do.”
The bartender stopped between the glasse of whiskey, one full the other in limbo.
The couple were in a world of their own and neither cared what or where they were to others. The problems were insular, but their arena public.
“Jesus, would you watch your language?” She was less concerned for the location and intending to reign him in, letting him know that he was not acceptable to her in this way. This was a fight for control.
She had it.
He wanted it.
Badly.
“Are you fucking telling me not to fucking swear woman?” His neck, the back part with a slight fur from being overdue for a haircut was reddening beneath his rage.
“That’s enough, this will stop.” She eyeballed him and fired the salvo intended to take him down.
“Really?” It was a challenge, one she did expect but before she can deliver what she thinks will calm him down the bar manaer speaks up.
“Hey, whatever this is – take it somewhere else please. We’re trying to have a quiet afternoon thanks.” It’s placating, it’s not blaming and it’s designed to ease out of the problem. He pours the second drink and hands the two glasses to Ivan who nods at the counter. He puts them down and Ivan makes no move to pick them up, instead waiting to see what happens, feeling the gratitude and camaraderie across the bar of a man in the trenches with him.
The angry man notices him and wheels about.
“What?” He challenges, but in that one syllable is a surrender. He was going to ask “What the fuck are you waiting for?” the look he saw cut him off at one breath and told him to go no further, he recognised the man. He knew of him, but did not know him.
Don’t let others pick your fights.
Now it was too late, he was angry and he felt fear and shame at the fear in front of his woman, one he could not control. One he could not wrest control from.
“You stupid man, you stupid, stupid… child.How many more people are you going to piss off today huh?” The words were noise filling the silence but the match that was struck was the light push to his nearest shoulder. It was not strong, it was unexpected.
It caught him off balance, off guard and it lit him up.

Day 197 - Upside Down - Chapter 33 - (1195 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 33

Before

Ivan looked at the whiteboard and his plan, it was solid. It was dependable and it was foolproof.
It had to be with his less than professional partners. Sam was solid too, and he was family. James was a little flaky and that may need some extra thought. He was necessary to the plan for now, but a plan B or C may need to be in effect.
It didn’t matter which way it came out for the result, only the dividend was affected. James could be sorted with ease and he would not case trouble, the honourable Samir Patel though? That was another story. He may cuse trouble if James did not get his fair share.
Fair, that was the word of the day. The question of the hour, the line between success and failure was often down to what was fair and what was not.
It would take some consideration.
In the meantime he could definitely use a drink and some time to organise some extra resources.
“Dad, I’m going out for a bit can you mind the shop?”
“Sure thing, I’ll keep you in work son.”
Ivan watched his father walk, shuffle really, into the room. It seemed that of late he was getting worse, his health had not been that great in the last few years and there had been a few scares and news of doom ad gloom from the doctors.
His Dad had paid a high price for his failures, the penance he brought on himself was catching up with him.
Overtaking him.
For years he had punished himself and taken the wrong lessons away from his inability to put things in their proper place. The puzzle had interlocking pieces, and he knew with some certainty where they went, but they need a twist or an approach angle that he did not always get. He had paid the price for that and drank a few years off his life before understanding that.
He had ground to make up but it was no longer his race to run, he could coach his son and guide him to success as well. He could have pride and ownership there, he could be the lightning’s guide, find the earth and channel the energy properly.
Ivan was lightning, not captured but not random either. Power, speed and energy in abundance. The family, that grounded him and they could either sap his energy in an undirected and fruitless way if he was not more canny than his father had been.
They saw each other like a mirror, slightly warped for time and mellowed with age on one side, but a true reflection none the less.
The mirror in his father’s eyes though was cloudy and no longer as clear as it once was. They still knew what they knew and they still wanted the same things, but where Ivan was sprinting ready for the starters pistol, his father was seeing the ribbon for the first time.
Ivan could see that too, and it was unfair and unjust to him. There was no one to ask why, it just was. There was no railing against their god, such as it was or was not. There was an unfairness in life that measured a man and put him against those around him who were not his. You need a team on your side, to lead you need followers, to provide you need someone to receive.
Thankfulness and protection, they were the ways in, they were the why and how of life.
Ivan was thankful for his father and his perspective, he had seen the man fly too close to the sun and fall from grace to the dangerous waters. He had climbed once more, flown again but without the unlimited aspects that free flight had once offered him.
Lessons were learned, a new generation took from this and flew further, climbed higher and risked less with that knowledge. How could he not be thankful for that?
There was no protection for him any more though. The enemy of life was time, and time had no defence against it. You can’t be angry with time, that is a pointless exercise. You have the opportunity of living and you need to take advantage of that. When his father brought home the fatalistic news, it seemed like all hope was lost at first.
It wasn’t.
It was a new lesson, it was looking forward and learning from the past. Dad had the legacy, the future was assured and on the way. The advantage was definitely his, and he willed it to his son and his family that he would carry with him.
Dad needs to see us cross the start line. He needs to know that we are uphloding his legacy his line and his lessons.
He needs to make it. How short time is, and how long it stretches at times.
These morose thoughts were a waste of time. Take the advantage Ivan, take the advantage. Put your effort into finding it, taking it. It’s your job to do that, it is others to find their own and take their own. His father had spent years competing for the chance, playing the game and taking when he thought he had it locked in.
Take the chance, the chance was the problem.
Leave nothing to chance, and leave nothing to honour, there is no such thing.
Find what you need, find the knowledge you need, find the advantage you can take.
Life will happen the way it happens, but luck and honour have no effect on the outcome, they are merely the words we use to excuse our inability to deal with our own problems or create our own opportunity.
His father’s words were ringing in his ears for years. They drowned out the doubt, the doubt he put away with the luck and honour. This was logic, skill and leadership.
He looks so tired and so small, despite the size of the man inside. He had that look on his face, the one that mirrored the concern showing on his own. The one that said to say nothing, do nothing and stop the look on his face from being seen. That’s helping no one, it’s fighting a war when there is not one. Don’t start a fight you cannot, win.
Don’t start a fight you don’t have to.
Don’t fight, take control and choose the outcome.
He had to leave, had to get out of sight to think and not be read. Dad needed rest and watching the office and booking any jobs was the way to go. Time to leave, he had a meeting in an hour or two that he could hang out and wait for.
Good processing time.

It was a short walk to the bar. He wa not so arrogant to believe that drink and cars mixed well. He had beaten out so many drunken dents, dents of cars, immovable objects and occasionally dents of tragic loss. That was not control or skill at work, that was letting it be someone elses fault because you choose to cede control to the bottle.

Day 196 - Upside Down - Chapter 32 - (2473 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 32

Before.

“You lied to her.”
“What do you mean?” Sam knew that James knew, but no one had to admit that. If they had then things would not be said that could not be unthought. Play the game until that point of no return.
“You just bare faced lied to your sister about Alison. What the fuck man?”
“No, I just, well it was easier this way.”
“You also lied to me man, you said she was against her being white and how you needed a proper Indian wife. That’s not what you just told Manisha is it?”
“No one wants their racism pointed out to them do they? Of course she’s not going to say it, she’s not a racist you know. She just wanted better for me, but she can’t say that can she?”
“Don’t fucking lie to me Sam, I know when you’re lying.”
“Oh do you really?”
“Yes, do you know how I know?”
“Enlighten me oh white wizard.” Sam mocked him and James wondered if it was Sam who had the race problem, though he had never seen evidence of it before.
“Because you have never lied to me before.”
“Well that’s not true…” Sam thought hard but it actually was true. There was never a need to lie, not between them. Nothing was sacred, no lines were ever crossed because there were none. Had he never lied to James before?
Well they were partners in the lie now, they’d have to stick it out. That would not be hard.
“Look it’s done, and it doesn’t matter now ok, just leave it.”
“Did you? Oh fuck you did.”
Sam had to hand it to him, he was attuned to very little but there was a bond between them of trust and intimacy that he could not fathom. Why on earth did this guy stick with him like this, it was a two way street but where had this come from? It kind of crept up on the both of them, but now they were brothers.
Brothers weren’t this close, lovers weren’t this close.
“Dude, we can back out of this.”
“No, no you need this.”
“I need this? Oh for fucks sake man, you are happy with her and you gace it away to help me, and Ivan and your sister, Fuck us man. Fuck us all. I can’t go through life with that on my conscience! I can’t owe you like that. That’s a debt man, that’s a debt no one can repay.”
“It’s too late now, we may as well and as you say the risk…”
“It’s not too late, lets go see Ivan. We’ll pull the pin, like we always said we would if it got dangerous.”
“But it’s not dangerous is it.”
“You can’t see it, you can’t see what you’re giving up for me, and them.”
Sam thought maybe there was some truth to this, maybe a glimmer. It was hard to say, maybe he had burned his bridges already. His sister needed extra money for the kids, there’s be more than one. And Greg was going to fire them it was a matter of time before that was a fact. Ivan, well his business problems were his own, until he married Sam’s sister.
Alison. Maybe they could still?
Who knows? Stranger things had happened.

Before

Ivan had a whiteboard in the living room.
Where did he get a whiteboard from? Wasn’t he a mechanic? I mean he seemed a lot smarter than the average mechanic, I mean he seemed a bit well read that is. James did not know how well read most mechanics were or not. It seemed that Ivan was different though. A whiteboard though?
He was detailing the plan. Times, locations and tasks assigned to individuals. James, driving and checking the route to the drop off point. Sam was sourcing the extra tyre, the one that provided the alibi for the missing ten minutes when they were at the drop off point.
James checked the map laid out on the table, the route was marked in red as a suggested best path. There were a couple of alternate routes based on pressure points in traffic flow. James had to check some webcams and monitor traffic reports for the day, easy enough when in the cab. They did that anyway. It seemed straight forward, and there was pelnty of redundancy to deal with delays or problems in getting to and from the staging area, the drop off point.
Ivan would swap the money out into bags, they were stacking neatly next to the whiteboard, Ivan had already laid them out. He said he could get the cash boxes and fill them with paper, he could get them no questions asked and they would burn down to slag as easy as the real thing, leaving a paper traik of ash for investigators to follow.
If they looked.
The way he was talking it seemed like that may not even happen. Ivan was so confident and assured, it almost seemed too easy.
“So you’ve thought about this a lot then yeah?” James was impressed at how much he had come up with in such a short time.
“You have to have a plan, you have to be prepared. And you don’t get anywhere unless you have it under control.”
“It’s just that, we’ve not really committed to this yet. Have we?” He looked to Sam who was studying the whiteboard and the work that Ivan had already put in.
Who was this guy? This is his brother in law, and he just seems too capable in an extreme situation. Who sits around with two blokes he barely knows and plans a robbery, a crime.
It did look easy though. Could they pull this off? It didn’t seem like a hard job to do and the chances of getting caught were so low. He knew all about the issues they had with Greg, knew that there were problems with the trucks, knew that the opportunity was limited and that this was free money.
“No one gets hurt.”
“Exactly, no crime, no harm, no foul. Free money.”
“It was an observation.” Sam rubbed his head in thought.
Before he looked away a flash of something passed through Ivan’s face. Anger? Frustration? Annoyance? Something was there, but it was gone too fast.
Ivan saw the hope in James’s eyes but also picked the fear from Sam’s. Time to step it up a notch.
“Gentlemen, we are not at the point of no return, we can stop any time if you don’t want to do this.” He knew that James did, but that he was relying on Sam to be the sensible one. “If we don’t do this, it’s not like anyone else will. This is out of the box, no one else will be thinking like this and no one will think it can be done, or should be done. That’s what makes it perfect.” Ivan looked at the board and then looked sideways at Sam in full sight of his friend. He subtly shrugged his shoulders and then looked at James as if to say “What can you do?” and then sat down. “It’s totally up to you guys.”
But it was not though. This was going to happen, one way or another. If they didn’t go along with the plan then it would be harder, and there would be collateral damage of course.
That was plan B.
Sam did not need to look at his friend to know what he was thinking, hoping would happen. They could always pull out, always. They could do it and it would set them apart from the rest of the people stuck in dead end jobs for maniac bosses. It would be good for James, what other options does he have? It would be good for Ivan, and he knows what he’s doing. It’ll be good for Manisha and the baby, provided nothing goes wrong.
But what could go wrong? Barring the massive middle finger he was mentally giving to fate by even asking that question, he struggled to think of things that could go wrong. Worst case scenario is that Greg comes for a ride to see his mate at the pick up. Greg had never seen a ride through before though, why would he now? He’d never delay or interfere with a job, he’s too proud of the reputation he’d built on service. He could trample over the staff, the equipment, cut corners and generally be a miserable bastard, but it would never ever affect the customer.
That was what he was selling, not the price or the security of the service provided. He was selling himself and the personal attention you got. He could not compete with the big boys on the block, it was impossible to match the expertise, the process or the economy of scale.
He didn’t compete on that stage. He was a business owner talking to business owners, he was not a sales man or a business development manager. He was Greg Nixon, his name was on the side of the vans and he came lock, stock and beers down the pub with any business you did with him.
That’s why this would work, that tyre change would seal the deal, no one would blink twice at them making up time, not one question would be asked or load would be checked. He’d push and scream and threaten and then that load would sail out the door as fast as humanly possible.
Then it was all down to one route. One bottleneck. Too hard to get to in a hurry, but close enough to be in plain sight by the people who would be trying to stop it. He had to admit this was a brilliant plan. Stall the truck on the viaduct, away from the onramp, away from the exit and away from the ground, too far to get to with hose or to get to it easily. Then the fire, the perfect excuse and a history of problems. It felt poetic, Nixon was so keen to save money that the literally will burn it awy on this job. He did nothing for Dave, he deserved this. He may lose the contract, he may not. After all it looked like an accident and smelled like an accident.
It was an accident. No one would look twice, except for the cause of the fire. They’d want to know how and why. Sam, James and Dave could all provide context, and Ivan swore he could make it look like the exact same fire as before.
He knew what he was doing. They could see that.
He admitted to being a criminal, a succesful uncaught one. The best kind? Or the worst? You can learn from your mistakes, and it can make you better at what you do and make you a better person. If you don’t make mistakes? Then what, does arrogance and attitude creep in?
Can he be trusted though?
An admitted criminal, someone willing to commit a crime for money and then admit to that.
“Just like me.” Sam said that aloud and it got no response, the other side of this train of thought tunnelled in his mind alone.
“We’re in.” Sam accepted his fate.
“Good, good. That’s good.” The easy way then, thinks Ivan. Plan B is still an option, there’s still time for this idiot to fuck it up. Sam looked like a thinker and a reasoner. James though, he was the weakest link. He didn’t really deserve a third of the money, the reward. He was carrying so little of the burden and the responsibility and getting a full third share.
Early days yet. Lets get to the job and when these bags are full? There must be more equitable wasy to split the money. Ones that reflected his leadership role in this endevaour. Sam was in the inside man and the reasonable one, the one that would be the check and balance for the probablility of things going wrong. Ivan was the brains, the subject matter expert and the man with the plan. The man who could make this work, not just take the money but make it look like it was not a crime, but an accident. Perhaps he should charge for the service. He was already leading the charge for success, the was already providing the plan, he was at least fifty percent of the take.
At least.
A four way split. 25% to each of them, the Planner, the Arsonist, the Inside Man and the Driver. Did it really matter who took on the roles, if he did two of them? If he could wangle achance to drive that day? Then James would be superfluous. He could not quite swing that though, that would be too coincedental, too suspicious and too much to handle for the watching eyes. Slight of hand required a distraction.
James was that distraction, he just did not realise it yet.
His Dad had always been right, if you lead people will follow. He had told Ivan from a very young age that if you wanted something you took it. People who wanted it badly enough could take it from you. If you wanted to keep something, keep something for good then you lead people to where you wanted them to go. Things given to you freely are much harder to lose and it was a skill that not many men had.
Leaders were born and not made. The conventional wisdom was the reverse, and he would be told that too many times in his life, but his father had made it clear. You are who your are because of where you came from. Even when life had screwed him, Ivan’s dad laid the blame clearly at his own feet. Learn from your mistakes son.
Learn. Lead people to where they need to go, even if you have to push a little harder, pull a little stronger or guide firmly. It didn’t matter, you wanted and needed people to get where you need them and a good leader does that without thought.
If they need a push, push them. If they need more, push harder.
Push harder.
James needed no pushing, he was a follower. He was a child playing at being a grown up. Sam on the other hand? Maybe the push was not the right thing to do, not obviously anyway. He needed a reason and Ivan needed a distraction.
The twenty five percent paid for that distraction.

The amount is flexible, negotiable even.