The Heist (3 page)

“You two go. If they catch me, I’ll tell them I was working alone. They won’t be looking for you.”

Thelma put her fists on her hips. “It’s time to go, Martin. We did our very best, but we came up short. There’s no shame in that.”

Marty shook his head. “I want this too much.” He squinted at the ball in the tank, the thing that had what he wanted. He wondered what
it
wanted. Surely everything wants something. He held out his hand to Thelma. “Give me your phone.” Thelma set the cool rectangle in his palm.

He typed, What do you want? and then punched the translation into the keypad.

The reply scrolled across the board.
World peace. Wait, I’ve changed my mind. I want you to go away.

Everyone was a comedian, even living machines made by aliens, if that’s what the thing was. Marty typed frantically: Surely you want something. What would make you happy?

He knew he was fishing. Even if there was something it wanted, how could Marty possibly get it in the next…he checked his watch…sixteen minutes?

“Mom, please. I don’t want to go to the dentist.” Bill was still there, and he was, in Frank’s words, in la-la land.

“Bill, go. Get out of here. If they catch you, tell them you shit your pants and you can’t find your wife.”

Bill looked around, clearly confused about where he was.

Something scrolled on the board. Marty captured it with the phone, hit Translate.

I want to get out of here.

Marty tried to imagine the three of them trying to smuggle this thing and its tank out of the casino. He typed:
Give us each a thousand years, and we’ll smuggle you out and set you free.
What the hell, maybe it was gullible.

Marty wondered if it could even survive on its own; maybe it wasn’t capable of living free.

Smuggle me out; then I’ll give you each ten thousand years.

Marty grunted a laugh. Evidently it wasn’t gullible. He looked over at Bill, who was muttering to himself, all but gone. Thelma was silently following Marty’s conversation. When he met her eyes, she nodded for him to continue. An optimist to the last.

What more was there for Marty to say? The thing had called his bluff. He typed:
If you have any ideas about how to get you out of here, I’m listening.

 
You breached the outer wall. I assume you cut it with a sharp object?

Yes, Marty replied.

Can you swim?

“Can I swim? What the hell—” Was it back to its comedian routine?

Then Marty got it, like a jolt of electricity shooting through his old bones. The casino stuck out over the ocean on pilings. The Atlantic was right under their feet. He turned to Thelma. “Can you swim?”

Thelma shrugged. “Three-time girl’s champion of PS-51. It’s been a while, but I imagine I can if my life depends on it.”

Marty checked the time: eight minutes. “Looks like we’re taking on another partner.” He typed out another message as fast as he could: “I can swim. Tell me what to do.”

The reply came immediately.
Cut the floor. Break the glass. Lift me out and carry me. Jump into the water.

“Bill, give me the razor cutter.” Bill was still in la-la land. Marty pulled the instrument pouch out of Bill’s back pocket and rummaged through it.

The cutter wasn’t there.

“Oh no. Did I leave it outside?” he asked.

“You must have,” Thelma said. She canted her head, considered for a moment. “You did. I remember seeing it.”

Marty ran. He hadn’t run in fifteen years, didn’t know his eighty-one-year-old legs were capable of it, but he ran. Dropping on hands and knees, he poked his head through the hole he’d cut, spotted the cutter, and snatched it up.

From down the hall, he heard faint voices. Procyoni voices, speaking their bizarre whistling, growling language. He backed out of the breach, lurched to his feet, nearly fell, then ran again.

With Thelma standing over him, he cut the floor. “As soon as I’ve got it open, get Bill through the hole, then go yourself. I’m right behind you.” He was so breathless from running, and from the adrenaline running through him, he could barely get the words out. The blade sliced through the third side; he pushed down on the flap of bloody skin and meat. It collapsed. In the darkness below, he could hear the roar of the surf.

Before he was even on his feet, Thelma had Bill on the edge of the hole. She gave him a brisk shove. Bill shouted in surprise. Marty didn’t wait to hear if he was swimming or drowning; he rushed into the hut and stopped short.

What could he use to break the glass? He still had the cutter, but it wasn’t going to shatter the glass in that tank. He clapped his hands over his pockets. They were empty except for Thelma’s phone, which was no help either. He had nothing but his hard head, his pathetic geriatric fists.

“No.” He wasn’t going to come this close only to leave empty-handed. Turning his back on the tank, he elbowed the glass. The glass made a thunking sound; pain lanced through his elbow. That was all.

Ignoring the pain, he did it again harder.

The glass cracked.

“Now you’re messing with a son of a bitch.” Marty put all of his weight behind it, drove his elbow into the glass. A spiderweb of cracks appeared. He hit it again. Water squirted, soaking his elbow, sending a cold spray across his shirtsleeve.

One more and the glass gave way; water washed over his shoes. Marty reached in and grabbed the creature with both hands. It was heavier than it looked, firm and slippery like a dolphin.

The Procyoni voices were just outside the room when Marty stepped off the edge and dropped through the hole. He plunged into ice-cold water, losing his grip on the creature.

He came up sputtering. It was February—the water was frigid. What had he been thinking?

“Marty?” Bill called.

“Martin? We’re over here.”

It was dark, but not pitch-black. The swell of a wave swept over him, filling his eyes and nose with icy salt water. As his vision adjusted to the dimness, he was able to see the waves approaching and could rise over them.

He’d dropped the creature. He felt around in the water, then ducked under, waving his hands, hoping to find it by touch. When he couldn’t hold his breath any longer he came up, wiped water out of his eyes, strained to catch some glimpse of the thing near the surface. It was no use. It was gone.

“Oh, damn it.” He was going to cry. In his whole adult life he’d only cried once, when he lost his Susie, but he felt it coming now on a wave of despair and frustration.

“What’s the matter?” Thelma called.

“I lost it. I had it in my hands, all of our dreams right there in my hands, and I lost it.” His teeth were chattering uncontrollably, his body aching from the cold.

“No one could have held on. Don’t blame yourself.”

He’d had it in his hands. Now he had nothing; now he was just a drowning old man, with nothing to offer his family but boring stories of the old times.

The mournful sound of sirens rose in the distance, probably reinforcements coming to join what must already be a traffic jam of red-and-white emergency vehicles in front of the casino. They’d never slip past it, not soaking wet.

Shadows flickered through the hole he’d cut in the aliens’ floor. There were figures moving, probably trying to see down under the pier, but the surf had pushed Marty and the others a good forty feet from the hole.

“Marty?” Thelma said, sounding incredibly composed and patient given the situation. “We have to get out of here.”

“We’ll have to swim for it, get as far down the coast as we can. A quarter of a mile, if we can manage it.” Who was he kidding? His hands and feet were numb, and he was ten years younger than Thelma. They’d be lucky if they could swim a hundred feet.

Keeping his negative thoughts to himself, sunk in a black despair, Marty paddled out from under the casino into bright sunlight. The casino’s parking lot was frantic with activity. Hundreds of evacuees stood behind yellow police tape as emergency personnel raced around. A smaller group of aliens, tall and wiry, with long, curved necks and horselike noses, stood apart from the rest of the crowd.

No one noticed three old coots in the water, probably because they were so cold and weak they could barely keep their heads above the surface. Marty sputtered and coughed. He’d already swallowed a gallon of salt water. His nose and throat burned. They weren’t really swimming; they were fighting not to drown while the current carried them down the beach.

By the time they made it a few hundred yards, Marty’s arms and legs were moving like he was swimming in glue. No matter how hard he willed them to move faster, they kept slowing. The others weren’t doing much better.

“Let’s head—” That was all Marty managed. Crippling pain shot from his chest, down his arms. His teeth clamped down on the pain and he let out a gargling growl.

“Martin?” Thelma called. She sounded very far away, getting farther. “Bill, help me—something’s wrong with him.”

Marty felt hands on his back, tugging, straining to pull him toward land. His arms were clamped across his chest and wouldn’t move. He’d never felt such pain.

Thelma’s head went under. She still clutched his shirt, still struggled to push him toward shore. Bill was on the other side of him, half pushing, half clinging to Marty to keep from going under himself. They weren’t going to make it. Marty tried to tell them to save themselves, but could only let out a choking squeal.

New fingers gripped his wrist and ankle. Only they weren’t fingers—they felt like threads, like slender fishing lines. Suddenly Marty was gliding toward the beach. His face went under, his cheek dragging the sandy bottom for a moment. He broke the surface in shallow water, among gentle whitecaps rolling in toward the beach.

The black sphere was a foot from his face, moving on a hundred fine tentacles, dragging him, Thelma, and Bill into the sand.

Then it was gone, back into the water.

Thelma lifted herself to a sitting position and reached for Marty’s pocket. “Hang on, Martin. I’m calling 911. I think you had a heart attack.”

From the searing pain he’d felt in his chest, Marty thought Thelma might be right. But it was gone; it had morphed into a tightness, like a pulled muscle.

“Hang on.” He struggled, managed to sit up. “I think I’m all right.” He rotated his shoulder. “In fact, I’m sure I am. I feel—” He couldn’t put his finger on how he felt.

Bill struggled to his hands and knees, then stood in one smooth motion.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

“I don’t think it’s Jesus, Mary, or Joseph.” Marty’s voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. His heart was thumping wildly. Marty had read enough about life force to know it couldn’t turn back the clock. It didn’t make you young, but it made you as alive as an old-timer could be.

Thelma stood, springing up with ease. She let out a cry of surprise.

Marty got to his feet as well. He was shivering uncontrollably, his clothes dripping, his shoes waterlogged. He felt like he could lift an elephant.

Bill grinned at him. Marty grinned back, ecstatic at the thought of having his old friend back in both mind and spirit. Alzheimer’s stood no chance against ten thousand years of life force, if that’s what that wonderful bowling ball had given them.

Then he remembered Frank. “Oh, Frank, I’m so sorry,” he muttered.

“If it wasn’t for Frank…,” Bill said.

They stood with their heads bowed, silent and motionless.

“We’d better get out of here,” Marty finally said.

They headed down the beach at a brisk walk, away from the flashing lights and the casino. They hadn’t gone a quarter mile when Marty heard a sharp whistle. He looked up at the boardwalk. Frank was standing at the railing, holding a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee.

Head down, Marty headed for the stairs. He felt like shit. He hadn’t asked Frank to take the bullet for the rest of them, but he had, and now he was on the outside looking in, and that made Marty feel like a big pile of shit.

“Tell me you did it,” Frank said. “Tell me this wasn’t all for nothing.”

Marty struggled to meet Frank’s eye. “We did it. I’m so sorry, Frank.”

Frank shushed him harshly. “Don’t say that. Let me be happy for you, for the part I played in it.”

“If it wasn’t for you, we’d be in jail right now,” Thelma said. “Thank you. I hope I can return the favor some day.”

“Me, too,” Bill chimed in. “I won’t forget.”

Marty lunged, gripped his friend in a bear hug.

“Come on,” Frank said, eyeing their wet clothes. “Let’s get you guys home. We’re outside the roadblock they set up around the casino, so it should be clear sailing from here. We’re just four old-timers out for a walk.”

“The coffee’s a nice touch,” Marty said, gesturing at Frank’s cup. “What sort of thieves stop for coffee?”

Frank handed the cup to Marty. “I’m guessing you can use it more than me. Come on.”

They followed Frank down the boardwalk. Marty tried to act like an eighty-one-year-old—frail, and slightly bewildered to be so frail. But inside, his bones and joints were singing.

He looked out at the ocean, thought he spotted a black sheen in one of the breakers, but then it vanished.

What in the hell was that creature going to do, swimming around in the ocean for just shy of eternity? Marty guessed it was better than being cooped up in a fish tank for eternity. And who knew what a thing like that needed or didn’t need? It didn’t resemble the Procyoni in any way; either they’d made it, or it was some other species entirely, and the Procyoni had enslaved it. The Procyoni seemed arrogant and greedy enough to dabble in slavery, although in truth, Marty really didn’t know shit about the Procyoni. Nobody knew shit about the Procyoni. They were secretive as hell.

There was a T-shirt shop up ahead; Marty wondered if they should duck in and buy some dry clothes, assuming the place had a dressing room. It would take time, but their wet clothes were a big, fat red light if they ran into any—

Police. Marty’s pulse jumped into overdrive as a uniformed officer stepped out of the T-shirt shop and headed their way.