Nightwork, page 14
“Thanks, but I’ve got a heavy load to lift tonight.” Because he knew they’d appreciate it, he continued. “I have to read a poem about soap in French, and analyze it.”
“About soap?” Papa Pete let out a hoot. “Boy, you’re making that up for sure.”
“God’s truth. I’m getting that one over with first thing.”
“I like soap; it slips and slides. When you’re dirty, it’ll clean your hide.”
Laughing, he gave Mac a final rub. “Miz Opal, I think you’re twice the poet this French guy was.” With a wave, he went into the house.
He found the poem more interesting and clever than he’d figured on, and actually enjoyed the challenge of composing his analysis in French. He started on the paper for his Shakespeare class, which made him think of the redhead, so he broke to fix something to eat and clear his mind.
He appreciated the structure. Work on assignments, make some dinner, deal with the dishes, more assignments. Chill out with a little TV or music while he researched areas of his nightwork.
About one, he changed, checked and rechecked the tools selected for the job. He loved his quiet neighborhood, but the downside of quiet meant someone might hear him turn over the engine in his car.
He had a story ready for that—when he couldn’t clear his head and sleep, he took a drive. But he didn’t like the idea of needing the story, so he coasted silently down the block before starting the car.
The target house, eleven point two miles away, would be empty. He knew this, as the occupants, Jack and Elaine Springer, posted photos—heavy on the food—of their trip to Italy daily.
You had to love social media.
While morning spread over Rome’s Spanish Steps—Jack and Elaine had a fine view of them from their hotel—he parked half a mile from what he thought of as their McMansion.
It was a big if uninspired Colonial with a decent, and easily circumvented, security system. Since the goal was stamps, something Jack posted about—and discussed on several message boards dedicated to collecting—Booth considered the job a sort of return to his roots.
Nearly ten years of experience had him inside the house a lot faster than his younger self, but once in, he revisited that sense of wonder, the slow, spreading thrill.
He’d never been inside, of course, but he brought the blueprints he’d accessed into his mind. He went straight to Jack’s first-floor study/office, where the philatelist kept his collection in leather binders in a display cabinet. Inside one lived an 1840 Penny Black—the world’s first adhesive postage stamp. Not mint, according to Jack’s windy discussions, but with four clear margins.
He’d decide that for himself once he got a look at it. If Jack, like many on social media, exaggerated, he could make other choices.
He found it easily enough, as Jack proved to be an organized collector. Definitely not mint, Booth decided as he studied it with his magnifier. And while three of the four margins were very clean, the fourth was questionable.
And that lowered the value—and his payday—considerably.
Still, not crap, he thought. He started to take down another album, search for his second choice, when he stopped to look closer at the painting over the small gas fireplace.
He didn’t like the art—all hard colors and shapes—but when he played his light over the frame, he spotted the hinges.
“A classic.”
He swung the painting out, and smiled at the small safe with its four-number digital lock.
“I mean, I’m standing right here. It would be wrong not to take a look.”
He reached into his tool bag. He’d never been a Boy Scout, but he valued their motto. He came prepared. He took out the magnet housed in a good gym sock. He had other methods, but this one left no trace, and when it worked, it usually took under a minute.
Or, in this case, eighteen seconds of running the covered magnet over the safe door.
A lot of papers inside, but the ones that interested him were all green. Ten neat stacks of banded fifty-dollar bills. A thousand dollars a stack.
He considered the possibility of pulling in twice that for the stamp—or stamps—against the bird in the hand.
He could take both—cash and stamps—but that broke the greed rule. He made a new rule on the spot.
“Always take the cash.”
He put the money in his bag, closed the safe, swung the ugly painting back in place. He said goodbye to the Penny Black, replaced the intact album.
In under an hour since he’d coasted down the block, he locked ten grand in his basement safe.
When he climbed into bed, he thought about the best ways to disburse his take. Then he thought about the paper he’d started to write on Henry V, and the political comparisons to today’s world.
He thought he had a handle on the angles he wanted to explore, and let them play through his mind as he started to drift.
And ended up dreaming of the redhead.
* * *
He should’ve known she’d be in another one of his lit classes. He’d chosen the school not only for that pull he’d felt but because of its size.
And there she sat in his contemporary lit class, with that hair in a fancy braid, and this time just close enough that he could see her eyes—sea green with a dark ring around the iris that made them impossible to ignore.
Or nearly, as he concentrated on doing just that. He’d come to learn, to discuss books, to go inside them. Not to obsess over another student.
Then she turned her head and looked at him. He thought maybe his focus on ignoring her had flipped some internal switch, but she turned, looked directly at him for ten painful seconds.
Smiled, just a little, just enough to make his heart twist, before she shifted away again.
The rest of the class was a blank for him. He’d have to rely on his recorder, replay the whole damn thing. Though he made sure to avoid her at the end of class, he didn’t relax again until he settled into his class on stage makeup—also applicable for film, television … and nightwork.
He finished up his day with a dance class. Also applicable for nightwork. It took grace and nimble feet to deal with motion sensors. And he’d come up against them, no doubt, if he expanded to bigger jobs.
Other than the redhead—and he’d get over it—Booth rated his first week at UNC the best he’d ever experienced.
He gave himself a break Friday night, hung out with R.J., Zed, and a few more of the theater gang.
On Saturday, he mowed his lawn, cleaned his house—lifelong habit. He threw a Frisbee for Mac awhile, then rescued his other neighbor from his attempt to hang the porch swing he’d bought for his wife for their anniversary.
Honestly, the guy was not just pathetic but dangerous with tools.
Booth found a rhythm in those first few weeks, balancing the demands of higher education with easy friendships and the simple fun they offered. With the challenges and timing of what he genuinely considered his job.
He spread that work out, toggling between writing papers, completing assigned reading, and doing the research and prep work necessary for a successful career in thievery.
He decided on no more than a single job per month—two if something just fell into his lap.
And looking ahead, as the cards read—he started researching plans for spring break.
Not to the beach with a bunch of other college students, but Italy, with Mags. Maybe he’d been inspired by Jack and Elaine—or that easy ten-thousand-dollar night—but he wanted to see Florence, and he wanted Mags to see it.
Since he hadn’t read about or heard on his scans of the local news stations so much as a peep about the missing cash, he wondered if maybe Jack hadn’t accumulated that ten grand by strictly legal means.
Either way, the bulk of it was now carefully invested, and would go a long way toward covering a couple of first-class airfares and a two-bedroom suite in a first-class hotel.
He’d see how well his Italian held up on its native ground, see all that art, eat that amazing food. And wouldn’t it be a kick to try a little nightwork in a place where English wasn’t the primary language?
Something to think about.
Months off though, and he had to concentrate on the now.
He planned to slide out of the Shakespeare Club—especially when he learned that the first meeting would take place at Professor Emerson’s home.
She’d be there, most likely, and it wouldn’t be as easy to avoid her as he’d managed to date.
But R.J. and Zed ganged up on him.
“No way, bro, you gotta go.” R.J. waved the last half of his panini as his flop of hair fell back into his face. “You’re getting it all—insight, camaraderie, and prime eats. The prof always has prime eats.”
“And if you signed up—you did,” Zed reminded him, “then don’t show? He’s going to ask you about it.”
“Why would he care?”
“The man does,” Zed assured him.
“I’ve got a really heavy class load, and I’ve got a paper to finish on King’s The Stand. Plus I’ve got one to do on another dead French poet. Tell me why the hell I took that class?”
“Didn’t you say you aced the last one of those? The soap guy.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Balance your life. Zed says you gotta zen.” He swiped a fry through a pool of mustard—a departure from norm Booth couldn’t get behind. “Scared of the prof’s daughter?”
“Who? What? Why would I be?”
“Dude. You don’t look at her so hard you might as well go up and nibble on her neck.”
“Come on, man, that’s bogus.”
“Truth.” R.J. polished off his panini. “You can pick us up at the dorm, since you’ve got the best car. We’ll pool it and protect you from Legs Emerson.”
“Legs?”
“You’ve been not looking hard enough to see she’s got ’em up to her eyeballs,” Zed pointed out. “Zip on by about six, and that makes you the DD for the night.”
Not drinking wasn’t a problem, but not looking hard enough to be noticed was. Time to fix that.
“Fine. But if I tank that French paper, I know who to blame.”
PART TWO
THE THIEF
All men love to appropriate the belongings of others. It is the universal desire; only the manner of doing it differs.
—Alain René Lesage
I must become a borrower of the night.
For a dark hour or twain.
—William Shakespeare
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The redhead—he tried really hard not to think of her actual name—wasn’t just there. She answered the door. She answered it wearing one of those breezy summer dresses—the sort where most guys didn’t really notice the dress itself but just the fact it was thin and breezy and showed off a lot of legs and arms.
No braid tonight, so that sunset hair just fell all loose and wavy past her shoulders. Almost bare shoulders.
Those sea-green eyes smiled; the wide, naked mouth curved.
“Hi. It’s R.J. and Zed—I remember you from last year.”
God, she had a voice. He’d heard it a couple of times in class, and once on campus, but this was different. This was intimate, and right in front of him.
And as they had that one time in class, those eyes shifted to his.
“And who’s your friend?”
“This is Booth Harrison. Transfer student. Lit major, theater minor.” R.J. gave Booth a companionable pat on the shoulder.
“Welcome, Booth. Miranda.”
When she held out a hand, he thought: Oh Jesus, now I have to touch her.
He made it quick, though he managed the single, firm shake well enough. “Nice to meet you.”
“We have some other classes together, I think. Anyway, come on in. Most of us are here.”
He tried to concentrate on the house and not the way she moved through it. Fluid, like her voice.
He’d already pegged it as both dignified and arty, and given the neighborhood—lake view—the size, the careful maintenance, decided the professor had some family money somewhere.
It wasn’t like Jack and Elaine’s—not a McMansion—but an old, gorgeous, quirky Victorian.
He crossed it off any potential list for his nightwork. It might have been just the sort of place a man in his line found a nice treasure or two, but he didn’t hit on his teachers.
Just rude.
He noted the art—classy, interesting—and the furnishings from the foyer and into the living area ran to antiques. Heirloom stuff.
At least a dozen people already mingled in the living room. A large space that made him think a couple of parlors had been opened into one room somewhere along the way.
But they’d preserved the really excellent woodwork and ceiling medallions. They’d whitewashed an old fireplace, flanked it with floor-to-ceiling cabinets full of books, photos, trinkets.
“You like old houses?” she asked him.
“What? Ah, yeah, actually.”
“Me, too. I’m the fourth generation of Emersons to live here. So, y’all remember where the kitchen is? Drinks and snacks are set up in there. We’ve got a few more coming, so take your time.”
Even as she said it, the bell rang again. And she turned and went to answer.
He fell for the house. They hadn’t opened it all up, but left that Victorian warren of rooms. Until you hit the kitchen, where it opened up again with walls the color of toast, wide glass doors leading to a patio and the lawn and gardens, then the lake behind it.
A huge galvanized tub sat on a table and held drinks—beer, wine, water, sodas—in a bed of ice.
Pizza and all sorts of easy food spread out on a big center island.
R.J. grabbed a plate. “Prime eats. Did I lie?”
Booth settled on a Coke. He didn’t like the feeling of a nervous stomach—he never got nervous. But since he felt it, he didn’t want to put much into it.
He knew some of the others from classes, recognized a handful by sight. He reminded himself of the purpose for joining.
To learn, have a little fun. And to make some casual connections.
Lone wolves didn’t blend.
The redhead sat on the floor talking to the jock-looking guy he’d seen her with on campus and the girl who’d saved her a seat that first day. Definitely a trio, he concluded. When the redhead laughed and gave the jock guy a friendly elbow bump, he wondered if they were a thing.
The possibility should’ve relieved him. Instead he felt a quick, nasty twinge he thought must be jealousy.
Another new sensation he didn’t like.
He saw the professor, who’d perched himself on the arm of a sofa. Even in jeans and a T-shirt—no jacket—and gesturing with a bottle of Amstel Light, he looked like a college professor.
Booth spotted a handful of folding chairs set up on the other side of the room, and headed there. It made him part of the group, but just a little apart. And suited him.
The chatter didn’t end when the professor pushed to his feet, but it died to murmurs.
“Welcome to our first meeting of the year. Some of you are here because you’re Shakespeare fans, some are hoping to improve your grade, and some because you heard about free food. Valid choices all. I see some familiar faces and some new ones. I don’t know all your names as yet, but I will.
“The rules of the road are few. Keep your area clean, recycle all bottles and cans, if you break it, you bought it. Otherwise, all opinions and interpretations are, again, valid. They may be disputed. Those disputes are also valid. And lively discussions don’t have to cross over into rude.”
He sat again, gestured again. “Discussions this term will focus on the romance in Shakespeare’s work, the humor and conflict in them, the wit and words, and how those relationships depict the era in which they were written, how they resound with or jar against today’s sensibilities. To start us off, tonight we’ll take a look at Beatrice and Benedick, potentially contrasting them with Hero and Claudio.”
He paused a beat. “And if you don’t recognize those names, haven’t read Much Ado, you need to brush up your Shakespeare.”
“Brush up your Shakespeare,” R.J. sang in a surprisingly strong voice. “Start quoting him now.”
Ben laughed, waved a hand. “And if you don’t recognize that, rent the movie. Though when we get to Petruchio and Kate, we’ll open the windows to clear the smoke pumping out of Miranda’s ears. If the Bard lived today, she’d have many, many choice words for him over Shrew.”
“Sexist bully violently and psychologically tortures a strong woman until he crushes her into a compliant doormat.”
“And other words to that effect,” Ben finished with a grin for his daughter. “But another time for that. Let’s start with Beatrice, another strong woman—smart, shrewd, acerbic, with a gimlet eye toward the male of the species—and that we see from her lines.”
“‘I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.’”
“And how’s that not sexist?” the jock guy objected.
And, Booth noted, they were off and running.
A lot of cross talk, points, counterpoints. The group tossed quotes around like confetti, in big, colorful bunches.
He didn’t intend to say much, if anything, this first round. It paid, in his opinion, to know who’s who and what’s what before wading in. You learned more, he thought, by listening, observing.
The redhead had a lot of opinions, and wasn’t shy about expressing them. He also determined, in about two minutes, she was scary smart—at least in this area.
Zed had squeezed into a chair with a girl named Jen—black-framed glasses, no-nonsense straight black bob deal. The jock guy—Phil—took on all comers, but in a low-key sort of style. The third of the trio—Hayley—had to be on the debate team, as she’d take either side of a point and argue it out for the sake of it.
The professor didn’t insert himself often, but let the conversations roll. Booth decided it was the sign of a good teacher, and a confident leader.
R.J. went out and came back with another bowl of chips, and handed Booth another Coke.
