The Night is Friendly
Tommy Keys pulled the black knit sailor’s cap over his ears and eyebrows, checking himself in the mirror. Frigid glacier blue eyes stared stonily from above a neatly trimmed mustache. Lucy was in bed in a lacy bra and panties, painting her toenails with toilet paper stuck between each toe. Her chosen color matched her barely concealed cherry red nipples. Tommy checked her out and whistled, she was a well-constructed woman. Except when she got a case of the ass, then it was like pissing on a wasp’s nest.
“Did Joey get a hold of you?” she asked.
“Yea,” he replied, checking his toolkit. Tempered surgical steel lockpicks, shims, a prybar, alligator clipped wires, a miniature electronic circuit interrupter, minuscule listening devises, and all the gadgets of a master thief. Everything fit on his belt, that could be gotten rid at the touch of a quick release button.
From a black case, Tommy took out his nine-millimeter semi-automatic. He took it apart, cleaned, and reassembled it. He cleaned the clip and each bullet, slipping it into a holster. He pushed the red button to safety, showing the cannon to Lucy.
“You never work with guns.”
“It’s for you, baby. Just in case something heavy goes down,” Tommy replied. “I’ve got some cash for you to take care of.” He slid open the bottom two drawers of his dresser. Hundred-dollar bundles filled both drawers to the top.
Tommy covered the pistol with a towel. “Just push the red button and start blasting. But only if you feel threatened. You are worth much more than any amount of money.”
“You’re scaring me Tommy. Where did you get all the money? Why are you talking crazy, about something maybe going wrong?”
“Remember that call from Joey?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we had this caper going down that went sweet then sour. You know I usually work alone, but I felt sorry for him. Joey, being almost family and all. He hasn’t been able to put anything together since doing that nickel in Folsom. Hell, Joey didn’t even get to enjoy the fruits of his labor. The cops were on him, like stink on shit.”
“Since when is the ex-old man of your wayward slut cousin, family? Besides anyone dumb enough to hijack a semi-truck of disposable diapers, with no one lined up to buy them, deserves jail. Just because all babies shit, does not mean, sales are immediate and guaranteed. Then he stops off at a café for a plate of spaghetti, with cops on his trail. Then he stiffs the waiter on the bill and tries to trade him diapers for his food and tip, as the cops surround him in the parking lot.”
“Anybody can have a run of bad luck. Babies deserve clean bottoms. What goes in, must come out.”
“So what’s happening now?” Lucy asked.
“Something I heard Apache Nick and some dudes at the snooker hall discussing. You know I usually go for jobs with finesse and I rely only on myself. I needed a partner on the job I heard about. Even Joey can handle this job and he’ll get a fat slice of the pie. There isn’t much risk, we had to steal a big sedan and a truck with a hydraulic lift gate and stash it until the gig. We mounted police scanners in both vehicles. Then we followed armored cars to get their routes and times, when they filled ATM machines. We figured twenty thousand in each.”
“The night of the job everything seemed quiet. I sat in a Buick at the edge of a parking lot, monitoring all the police frequencies. I give Joey the signal and he put the truck in reverse with the tailgate lowered to just above ground level. You should’ve seen it, it worked beautifully. Plate glass flying all over. The tailgate slices the ATM’s foor bolts and shears all the wires clean. Joey jumps from the truck cab, wearing a ski mask and gloves. He has the entire machine on the gate, raises it into the truck, latches the gate hook, and is driving out, all in forty-two seconds. Smoother than vanilla ice cream.”
“That’s when the shit hit the fan. Up drives Apache Nick with two cronies in a truck almost identical to ours and it has an ATM machine loaded in the back. It seems we grabbed the cheese right out of the rat’s mouth. I gunned the Buick and speared and bent their right front wheel out of commission. Apache pulls a hog leg and starts blasting. Shotgun pellets peppering the back of the sedan. Joey is long gone in the clear. Sirens are screaming big time, as I dodge bullets and cops and burn rubber out of there. I lost Joey. I headed to our garage hideout. I waited for a few hours, getting more worried by the minute. I finally decided to call you and blow town. Guess what happened?”
“You know I hate guessing games, Tommy.”
“Joey decided the frst caper went so easy and as long as he had the truck, he’d knock over a few more machines. Joey listened to the police radio, about the big bust of Apache Nick. He fgured most of the heat was on them.”
“Damn, it seems we underestimated Joey,” Lucy said.
“Yes, he could tell where the cops were and where they were not. Luckily it paid off big. I cracked open all fve ATM’s like Houdini with dime store handcuffs. Joey and I under calculated the payout on each machine. We scored almost eight hundred thousand.”
“Let’s take that vacation, we always talked about Tommy. Head south of the border, drink lots of tequila, and smoke sticky buds, and watch dudes dive off high cliffs into the ocean. Why are you wearing your work clothes? With a score that big, why tempt fate? Let’s go now, please.”
“Remember the saying, there’s no honor among thieves? It’s not true. I have to help Apache Nick and his crew with an early release. I might be the only thief to break in instead of out of jail. Get us all packed up, pretty woman.”
“As soon as my nails dry, my love.”
Tommy winked and said, “The night is friendly.” He opened the door and melted into the darkness.
***
Horror Sleaze Trash 