Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror (20 page)

Ray-Ray, on the other hand, never got pushed at all. He came home, he did his homework, he went to chess club or whatever, and nobody gave a crap that he couldn't open a safe to save his life. What a spoiled little brat. It was enough to make Marlon puke.

“How long?” Marlon whispered. The gauge on the scope hadn't budged.

“Two forty-five,” Irving said tensely.

“Do the Tisdale,” Marlon said.

“Huh?”

“The Tisdale! Do the Tisdale! It might give me another two minutes.”

“Or it might make them suspicious.”

“Just do it! This is my frickin' tuition in here.”

“Your what?”

“College! It's my college tuition!”

Irving stared at him liked he'd just fallen out of the sky. “College? What are you talking about, college?”

“I'm going to college. Princeton. What's so frickin' bizarre about that?”

“You make me sad, kid. What's Princeton gonna do for you? Teach you to be some kind of stuck-up jerk in a gray suit, is what.” He looked at the stopwatch. “Twooh-five.”

“Make the call! God!”

Irving pulled out his phone, hit the speed dial button. “Yes, hi, security?” he said, doing a perfect imitation of a woman's voice. A very sexy woman. “I'm a little embarrassed. This is Miss Tisdale in accounting. I worked late today, and gosh, I'm just terrified of the parking garage at this time of the evening. I swear the other day there was a man lurking down there. Lurking! Yes, lurking.” Irving nodded his head, getting into his little act. “Could you? Oh, I just hate to trouble you. But it would really . . . yes . . . yes. You're
so
sweet. I know. I know. You're
so
sweet. I'll meet you at the elevator on the first floor in two minutes. Byyyyeeeee!”

“Scary,” Marlon said. “You're way too good at that.”

“At least I'm not going to Princeton. Jesus H.—couldn't you at least go to Pitt, Ohio State, Michigan, someplace with a football team?”

“Princeton has a football team!”

“Pffff!” Irving said, waving his hand dismissively. “Forty-eight seconds.”

Marlon kept working the dial. If the Tisdale had worked and both the security guys went to the elevator on one, it would buy them five or ten minutes. If not . . .

He knew he was close. In the end safecracking came down to mathematics. You turned the dial at a certain rate, you had to hit the number after a certain amount of time.

Marlon had a sinking feeling. Maybe he was just never going to get this safe open. He should have been at Olive Garden opening presents.

It used to be that every birthday his mom and dad would tell the story about the day he was born. They'd go back and forth, interrupting each other in their enthusiasm for the story—all about how it had been a beautiful fall day, the crisp air, the leaves turning, all this junk, and how her water broke in the middle of a job and how she and Dad had to go racing to the hospital with all the loot in the trunk of the car. He was doing ninety right through the middle of town when a cop had pulled them over for speeding. But then, when Marlon's dad had told the cop that his wife was having a baby, the cop put on his siren and led them right to the hospital. If the guy had only known they had a hundred and ten thousand bucks' worth of stolen antique silver in the trunk! They'd gotten to the hospital at 9:03 on the dot, Marlon's hairy little head popping out right there in the lobby of the hospital.

Well, apparently the story wasn't interesting to Mom and Dad anymore.

They had totally, totally forgotten. Not only was there no story—there was no card, no Olive Garden, no present at the breakfast table. Nada. Bubkes.

It sucked.

“Fifteen seconds,” Irving said. “I'm clearing out of here.”

“I'm almost there. I can feel it.”

“Hey, kid, you can afford to get popped. You'll just go to juvie. Me, this is my third strike.”

Marlon looked at his watch. “Five more minutes and I'm legal,” he said.

“Huh?” Irving's eyebrows went up. “Hold on, you saying today's your—”

“Yeah, today's my—”

He glanced up. It was the sound of the elevator reaching their floor.

Dammit! His college tuition! It was right there. A normal life was right there on the other side of that safe, not six inches from his fingers. He was so
close
! He was sure he'd have it in seconds.

He hesitated. His heart was banging away in his chest and his limbs were trembling. His finger twitched.

And that tiny tremor was enough.

The little gauge on the scope flickered. The last tumbler had dropped!

Marlon grinned. “Got it!” he said triumphantly.

As he grabbed the handle to pull open the safe, he could hear the sound of the elevator doors opening. Frantically, he yanked at the handle. The door must have weighed three hundred pounds. It moved slowly, slowly on its oiled hinges.

The elevators were about fifty yards from the executive offices. There was still a distant chance they could get away.

“Light!” Marlon hissed.

Irving hesitated, then flicked on his flashlight, directing it at the safe. Marlon kept pulling on the handle, the door yawning slowly open.

The footsteps were growing closer and closer and closer.

He could almost taste it now. Inside the safe was a stack of very specialized computer chips, each one of them worth twenty-four thousand bucks on the black market. His cut of the take would pay for four years of Princeton. He wouldn't have to crack another safe, cut another fence, nitro another lock—nothing.

And then he could have a normal life. Be an accountant or a salesman or a middle manager at a life insurance company. He could be anything!

The door swung all the way open.

The footsteps halted. Keys jingled. He glanced over, saw the shadow underneath the door.

He looked back at the safe.

And a wave of sadness and horror swept through him. Except for a manila folder that lay at the bottom like some neglected piece of trash, it was utterly and completely empty.

All this for nothing!

Outside, the key slid into the lock. Marlon shook his head. It was all over.

He glanced at his watch.

He was seventeen now. He had been eligible to serve hard time in the Big House for one minute and thirty-eight seconds.

He wanted to cry.

Irving's light flicked off as the door began to open. Marlon couldn't even move. He knelt there, staring into the black empty safe. All his hopes and dreams, gone. Normal life, gone. Princeton, gone.

“Surprise!”

The lights flicked on.

Marlon whipped around.

Suddenly people were coming from everywhere, crowding out of the closets and the cabinets and the executive bathroom.

“Happy birthday!”

Marlon fell to his knees.

His father, grinning like a Cheshire cat, was walking into the room, followed by his mother, who carried a cake with seventeen candles on it.

Ray-Ray was walking out of the bathroom.

His friends Jerry and Justin and several members of his father's crew—they were appearing from everywhere.

Marlon put his hands over his face. “God, you guys!” he said. “You scared the crap out of me! I can't believe it. I thought you forgot my birthday.”

Marlon's father laughed loudly and gave him a hug.

“Come on,” his mother said. “You think we'd forget
this
day?”

“I don't know,” Marlon said.

“I can remember the day you were born like it was yesterday,” she said.

“We were on a job . . .” his father said.

“It was a crisp fall day . . .”

“. . . and the leaves were turning . . .”

Marlon gratefully let them tell the same old story. The cop who pulled them over, the antique silver in the trunk, the siren, the lobby of the hospital . . . A wave of relief and comfort swept through him.

“So this was all a setup, huh?” Marlon said. “I opened that safe and it was stone empty. I about had a heart attack.”

“Empty?” his father said.

Marlon squinted at him. “Yeah. Nothing there.”

His father walked over to the safe, reached in, pulled out the folder lying in the bottom. “No, son. It's not empty.”

Marlon looked curiously at his father's face. He was smiling broadly

“Son, I've been saving for years.” His smile faded a little. “You know for a while it made me sad to see that your heart wasn't in this business. You have such
talent
! And it hurt me a little to think that you were going to squander it all. You could have been one of the great ones.” He sighed. “But you know what? You don't go into crime for the money. You do it because you love it. It's a calling.” Marlon's father spread his hands. “Son, I just want you to be happy.”

He handed Marlon the manila folder he'd just taken out of the safe.

Marlon looked at it blankly.

“Open it, son.”

Marlon opened the folder. Inside was a slim document It said:

“Four years, kid,” Marlon's father said. “Paid in full.”

Marlon's jaw dropped. “You mean this . . .” He made a gesture with his hands, taking in the whole office, the Mosler 37B, the folder, the circle of friends and family.

“All a setup. Last night when I said I was going down to watch the ponies? I broke in here and planted this document.” He clapped Marlon on the shoulder. “This is it, kid. You're done. Last job. You're a citizen now.”

His father looked at his watch, clapped his hands sharply. “All right, guys, we've had our fun. It's nine fifteen. The security guards will be back in seven minutes. We gotta get out of here.”

Marlon was beaming. “I can't believe it. This was so perfect. The safe. The locks. The security guards in the hallway. I bought the whole thing.”

His father looked at him quizzically. “Security guards? What security guards?”

“That wasn't you? In the hallway? Pretending to be security guards?”

Everyone in the room went silent.

The footsteps in the hallway and the sirens in the parking lot outside went off at the exact same moment that the burglar alarm began to blare.

Within seconds the room was full of police officers, screaming and pointing guns. “Everybody down on the ground! Down on the ground, now!”

It was over in seconds.

Marlon lay on his stomach, a wave of darkness washing over him as the policeman put a knee in his back and cuffed him.

“What's your name, kid?”

Marlon said nothing.

The cop pulled out his wallet, looked at his driver's license. “Hey, look at this!” the cop said. “Scumbag here just turned seventeen.”

Marlon lay motionless. The Princeton University financial aid document lay on the floor near his face. A second cop walked by, laughing. His black boot trampling on the financial aid document, ripping the pages apart, and leaving a black shoe print on the torn paper.

“Happy birthday, kid!” the cop said, hoisting him to his feet. “Happy birthday!”

▼ JAMES ROLLINS ▼

 

 

 

 

 

W
ith a practiced flip of her wrist, Soo-ling Choi shook the spray can and applied the final trail of red paint against the cement wall of the dark alley. Finished, she took a step back to examine her handiwork, careful not to get any paint on her black silk dress.

She wasn't entirely happy with the result. She'd done better. It was the Chinese symbol known as
fu
, her signature mark. Only sixteen, she continued to be highly critical of herself. She knew she was talented. She'd even been accepted for early enrollment at the L.A. Academy of Design. But this was more important than any scholarship.

She checked her watch. Auntie Loo would already be at the theater. She scowled at the mark.

Reaching out, she touched the center of the Chinese glyph. As usual, she felt the familiar tingling that made her joints burn. The warmth spread up her arm and enveloped her in a dizzying wash. The glyph glowed for a breath, pushing back the dark shadows of the alley.

Before she could break contact with the symbol, an icy-cold pain tore at her wrist like talons. It seared deep, down to the bone. With a gasp, she ripped her arm away and stumbled back.