Day 232 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 10 - (1022 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 10

Harold Prime was unlocking the safety deposit box for the eleventh time, and he was yawning as he did so. The lock was being difficult this time around, but as it was physically the exact same lock under identical conditions, then the probably was logically with him, he was getting tired.


Brian and Michael had worked out the pattern and this time they stuck to it religiously and never deviated even with all the 'fat' built into the time frame. They had a two hour window each run, which allowed them ample time to mark themselves ad anomalous again, secure the haul from the previous run, get to the bank and got through it all once more. Each time they made it in time to intersect with the security guard Seth whom they had met on the first run.


This way they were positively identified on the say so of a security employee and with the two hour clearance, they needed less than half an hour to actually get in and out of the bank with the diamonds. Each run through Harold would stop and have the same chat with the guard and set themselves up for uninterrupted access to the site. Then they would go in, take their time and make their way to the vault, clear out the deposit box and when all were set and ready to go, the reset button would be pressed and they would be back in the warehouse again, ready to go with the device.


Harold was alone in the vault for the third or fourth time since they started the operation and he had taken the opportunity to try and leave himself a message this time around. He knew that they were travelling in time, he had seen the evidence again and again with his own eyes and it was incontrovertibly true. Yet underneath all that hard fact he still wondered, about his sanity and the nature of reality itself. How could it be that they simply reproduced the same things over and over again, changing things every time and yet still managing to reset perfectly? That felt wrong despite all evidence to the contrary. The time when he first consciously chose to reset with the little gang he had joined, he had seen the fingers off of his own hand slice cleanly away in the air, falling to the ground. The sympathy he felt for the hand that had lost the fingers, that man that was him but wasn't really, and was gone now like he never existed.


Except the disturbing contents of a jar in the freezer, where Ivan had snaffled the fingertips up and put them on ice. It must have been out of habit, that he had done this before, possibly more than once. That was as disturbing as the idea that his DNA was occupying some fleshy stubs grey with the cold in the lower half of the kitchen refrigerator. He kept wiggling his fingers, to check if they were still there and to ensure they were not fading away 'back to the future' style. No matter how many times he felt the beginnings of pins and needles, the death of sensation was always in his mind, an illusion.


On the surface of it all it was insane and Harold Prime kept waiting for the penny to drop, the hammer to fall and plenty of other metaphors in his overtaxed imagination. He even fancied that the fortuitous arrival of the fingers on the floor, the blood scooped up and secreted away with the flesh, would conspire against him. DNA evidence to be planted against his interest, the ultimate patsy for the ultimate crime.


Of course that made no sense, there was no crime, eleven times over there was no crime. No crime and no recriminations to be had, so at the very worst he was potentially a back up plan. Though his arrival was not planned, the severed fingers of Harold Two was not planned, and the placing of the flesh on ice was really just opportunistic readiness or a simple twist of fate.


Harold Prime looked into the locked box next to the one emptied of jewels. In there were the original contents, a Manila envelope with photos inside, ones far too embarrassing to someone and never intended to be seen in the light of day. Harold had taken those and turned them upside down, written a message on the reverse for himself, the fingerless or not fingerless version of himself or the police that would search the vault next. The message explained the situation succinctly and honestly, the belief that the action was pointless gave him the brevity he needed.


He looked at the picture, neither man nor woman shown in flattering light, and the act they were engaged in was spied upon from some distance through an open window, but with mesh curtains blurring but not obscuring the detail totally. Harold did not know if the box belonged to the woman in the photo, the man she was clearly fucking or perhaps one of the spouses of the spied upon coupling. He turned it over and there was nothing there, the indelible ink marks left by his last minute attempt to reassert himself over the bizarre and uncontrolled aspects of his life, was futile.

“Done!” he shouted as he exited the vault, finding the three men who were with him engaged in the act of delicately sipping tea, all three of them standing with tea cups and saucers, purloined from the office kitchen. It was not the first time they had stopped to load up on caffeine, and the staff room was out of coffee, so the men all went for tea. This was the third or fourth cup they had swilled to keep up their flagging eyelids.


The absurdity of the image made Harold Prime chuckle, sniggering his reaction to the ridiculous sight of three men in suits, looking so very out of place in a bankers suit and tie, standing and sipping tea.



All with their pinkies extended like it made all the difference.