Thick As Thieves

In the middle of the night one Hallowe’en, Fingers Malloy and Barney Felchett crept silently along the back alley between the tall, murky tenements in a south London suburb. High above them, laundry on washing lines flapped in a gentle breeze, and clouds passed intermittently over a full, bright moon that seemed to peer down at them, scrutinizing every move.

Suddenly a cat, disturbed from its foraging in a dust-can by the two dark figures, leapt from the lid with a squeal and knocked over an empty glass bottle that skittered along the alley floor.

Fingers and Barney froze.

"What was that?" whispered Barney.

"Just a cat," Fingers said.

"What?"

"It was just a cat, I said." He made to go on, but Barney placed a fingerless-gloved hand on his arm.

"A cat?" he said, his eyes wide and frightened in the moonlight. "Was it a black cat? You don't think -"

Fingers stared at him. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, and looked round at the darkened windows, rubbing his beard. "Now which one is it?"

But Barney hadn't moved. He could have been made of plaster of paris. "I 'eard 'the Nutcracker' spent a bit of time with witch doctors in the Congo,"

"Witch doctors?" said Fingers.

"The dangerous ones," said Barney quietly, eyes scanning the gloom. "They say 'e learned to cast curses on people 'e don't like."

"Bollocks," Fingers grunted. "Frank 'The Nutcracker' Groyle hasn't been further’n Milton Keynes. Probably started them rumors ‘imself just to give people the willies.” He sniffed. “You know why people call him that, don’t you?

Barney swallowed loudly in the darkness.

Fingers looked around carefully, gripped his partner’s coat and put his mouth up close to his ear. "Ferrero Rocher," he whispered. "Can't stop eating the stuff." He patted Barney on the cheek and pushed him along the alley.

Barney was the younger of the two burglars. He was lightly rounded, in his early forties, had shoulder-length black hair and a permanent three days’ stubble on his jowls. Fingers, on the other hand, was in his fifties, of slight build, and approaching normal retirement age for the profession. Although he was going a bit thin on top he cultivated a nice goatee on his chin, graying at the edges, to compensate. Barney towered over Fingers by a good foot and a half.

On they crept through the narrow back-street, dried leaves crunching loudly underfoot, skirting around garbage and crouching beneath windows. A woman’s scream from some classic horror film drifted down through an open window several stories up and made Barney flinch.

"Why do we have to rob the Nutcracker's bookies anyway?" Barney whispered, suppressing a shiver and training the penlight back on the map. "There's a lot easier jobs we could do."

"I already told you," Fingers murmured. "Because the Grand National was this afternoon, odds are Frank's safe will be bursting with takings until the banks open on Monday."

"Who'd you bet on?"

Fingers gave an exasperated shake of his head. "Some damn three-legged nag."

"She win?"

Fingers stared. "No."

"No wonder, with a name like that."

The two men studied each other in silence.

“ … some damn three-legged …” Fingers mumbled to himself. “You mean you think that was the horse’s name?”

“Yes. No.” Barney’s gaze roamed restlessly from Finger’s face to the map, to a nearby window, and back again. “What?”

"Look, gimme the map," Fingers said, reaching for it.

"Get off it, Fingers," said Barney, drawing back. "I said I can do it, and I will."

"I just don't want any slip ups, that's all." Fingers' beard bristled in the moonlight. "Not tonight."

Barney turned back and tapped the penlight on Fingers' chest. "You know what your trouble is, Fingers? You got no faith in people."

A flicker of hurt touched the older man’s face. He recalled a time when his son had said almost the same thing. A time many years ago, when they had still talked. When he had still been welcome in his son’s life.

"All right," He nodded at last. "Let's get on with it."

The two men pushed on, Fingers glancing behind them every so often, his bag of tools clanking against his hip, as Barney looked at the map from different angles and counted the narrow gaps between buildings leading to the high street.

After a while Barney stopped and said under his breath, "This is it."

"You sure?"

"Positive," whispered Barney. "Now hold me bag while I go an' attend to business."

Fingers did so, and tried to peer into one of the windows while holding up his free hand to block out his own reflection. He could see a desk in the murk, and perhaps a sink, but not much else.

A grunt of effort followed by a breath of relief came from Barney's direction.

Fingers rolled his eyes in the darkness. "Barney, come on. Every single time."

"Can't help it," Barney muttered over his shoulder. "It's the excitement."

A foul odour that could have emanated from the very depths of Hell itself casually drifted down the alley.

"'Eaven's sake, Barney," Fingers crossed himself and looked pleadingly up at the sky. "You could at least have gone downwind."

Barney came back with a faint smile of contentment on his face. "Right then, let’s get started."

With an exasperated grunt, Fingers put the penlight in his mouth and examined the window frame. He followed the wires until he came to two sensors straddling the gap between frame and window. He removed his wallet, opened a flap, and took out a razor blade pre-prepared with a strip of double-sided tape. He peeled off the layer of plastic and let it flutter away, turning his attention back to the sensors. Holding his breath, and very, very slowly, he began slipping the razor blade in-between the two white plastic cuboids. No alarm sounded. He continued until it was all the way in, every second prepared for the piercing howl of a klaxon smashing the silence to smithereens. But at last the blade was positioned correctly and he pressed it to the wooden frame with the tape to hold it in place.

Fingers let out his breath. Looked like they'd gotten over the first hurdle. But suddenly he was sure Barney was in the process of swinging something heavy at the glass. He spun around to see Barney standing quietly watching.

"Finished?" Barney said.

Fingers took a deep breath and let it out slow. "Yes," he murmured. Just jittery, he thought. "Yes, all set."

"Let's get it bleedin' done then."

"Actually," Fingers mumbled, stroking his beard, "I'm a little surprised at how basic his security is. Perhaps there's some other form of entry detection device we don't know about. Floor sensors. Infrared beams. Things like that."

Barney eyes moved from the window frame, to Fingers' face and back again.

"Well," shrugged Fingers. "We'll see." He removed a long narrow sliver of metal from inside his coat and worked it in between the window and frame at the latch. With a twist, he had it open. Then he crouched down and picked up a handful of gravel from the alley floor.

"You gonna chuck that in there?" Barney asked.

"Better we know about the sensors out here than if we're in there."

Barney shrugged.

They both peered into the gloom.

"Get ready," said Fingers. After a deep breath, he tossed the handful of gravel into the darkness.

The two men got ready to bolt.

But nothing happened. The only sound was of the gravel bouncing off the floor inside.

They looked at each other. "So far so good," said Fingers.

"Famous last words."

"Masks on. Probably cameras inside."

Fingers pulled his ski-mask over his head, held the penlight between his teeth and eased a leg, his head and an arm through the window. Once inside, he swept the room with the light to reveal some kind of kitchenette area, with a door leading off to what was probably the main office next to the sink. It was open, with darkness beyond. A kettle, dirty cups, a sugar bowl and some tea-spoons lay on the table nearby, and a small fridge hummed quietly in the corner.

Fingers' senses were 100% alert. He could hear and smell Barney follow him in through the window behind him. Every fibre of his being was strained to its limit as adrenalin did its stuff. Careful not to let the metal surface of the penlight touch his fillings, he angled his head slightly to throw the light's reach beyond the doorway into the other room.

"What's wrong with the light?" came Barney's hoarse voice.

"Nothing," said Fingers, without turning round. "It's working fine. What do you mean?"

Barney gasped suddenly. "You mean it's on?" There was a rustling sound.

"Course it's on," said Fingers, gritted teeth still clamped around the penlight. He could almost see through the doorway. His heart took a sudden leap in his chest as the shard of light revealed what seemed to be the edge and top corner of that which he loved and lived for most.

A very large safe.

"OH MY GOD!" Barney suddenly shouted from behind him, causing Fingers to jump into the air, the hairs of his beard standing on end. "I CAN'T SEE! MY EYES! HE'S CURSED MY EYES!"

Fingers spun round, shining the light directly onto Barney's face.

And recoiled with an involuntary spasm.

What stood before Fingers was not Barney as he knew him, but a hideous apparition that burned its image forever onto his mind. Greasy black seaweed squirmed from Barney's eye-sockets, rippling and shifting over itself! The stuff was vomiting from his nose and mouth in long, hideous rivulets, reaching out for him like the tentacles of a deadly poisonous sea creature!

"Jesus!" Fingers shouted, the penlight falling from his mouth and hitting the floor with a clatter, leaving them in darkness. Fingers tried to scream, but he couldn't. No sound came. He bit instead on his fist and crouched down with his back to the fridge, whimpering.

"I'M BLIND!" Barney shrieked in a muffled voice around the black oily tentacles. Or as if ... Fingers stopped wimpering and removed his fist from his mouth, comprehension beginning to dawn.

As if ...

Fingers took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he reached around for the torch, found it, and gave it a twist, but the light wouldn't come on. The bulb had shattered.

"MY EYES! I'M CURSED!"

"Oh, shut up, Barney," Fingers muttered as he clambered to his feet in the darkness. "For God's sake." He grabbed Barney by the shoulders and spun him round. "You've just got your ski-mask on backwards."

"I -" stuttered Barney, "I do?"

"Ye-es."

There was the sound of cloth moving over long, black greasy hair, followed by the noise of a middle-aged burglar suddenly comprehending. Barney cleared his throat. "Could happen to anyone," he said.

“Indeed,” replied Fingers. “Should probably have instructions printed on the label.” He rolled his eyes in disbelief. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he thought. What have I let myself in for?

"I've got a bad feeling about this one," said Barney, his ski-mask now on the right way round. "First the cat, then the suspiciously light security, next my ski-mask, and now the penlight's busted.” There was the sound of nervous scratching. “And it’s quiet … too quiet."

"Barney," groaned Fingers, chewing on the section of beard beneath his lower lip. "All of those are either nothing, good things, or your fault."

"My fault? You're the one broke the light! And if I'm not mistaken, you're the one what wanted to break into the Nutcracker's bookies, not me! I'm pretty sure I was against it right from the start!"

"All right, be quiet will you? Look, we're in now. Yes, the pen-light's busted, but it's a full moon and we can still see a little by the moonlight. And they don't call me 'Fingers' for nothing."

Barney tutted. "Is it because you're a butter-fingers?"

Fingers' beard bristled through his mask. He turned away from his partner towards the doorway leading to the office.

"Or is it because you eat a lot of," Barney's mind was in top gear, "fish-fingers?"

Fingers crept towards the doorway, his hands splayed out in front of him.

"Or, wait," said Barney, pointing at the ceiling in the gloom. "P'raps it's because you like to smell your fingers. You know, after -"

Fingers spun round and in an instant had bunches of Barney's lapels in his fists. He pulled him so close their noses touched. "Barney, shut up or I swear to God, I will ram your head into that little fridge down there and leave you for the Nutcracker to 'ave 'is evil way with."

Barney was silent. The only sounds were of Fingers' heavy, angry breathing. And the humming of the fridge, which suddenly shivered to a halt as if it knew it was being threatened.

"All right, all right," said Barney. "I went over the line. I apologize. Now let's just get the job done and get out of here, eh?"

Fingers held the grip a second or two longer and then released his, he had just decided, soon-to-be-ex partner.

He turned back to the safe in the other room, still just barely visible in the moonlight, and crouched down in front. It looked like a standard X76 OP1 Mach 3 Mega Chunk Titanium three-lock safe, in metallic grey, with rounded corners and no doubt a red velvet interior.

Behind him, Barney flattened down his ruffled jacket with a mildly offended air and began looking around the gloom.

"Don't touch anything," said Fingers, without looking up. "And keep quiet. Do you think you can manage that?"

"I don't take orders from you," said Barney.

"Yes, you do," said Fingers, removing his gloves and cracking his knuckles. "If you want any of what's inside this safe, you do."

Barney snorted.

Leaving prints was not very good. But Fingers believed that cracking a safe was like taking off a woman's bra. And vice versa. Best done au naturel. He needed to feel the surface of the safe beneath his skin, to understand every contour, every grain in the steel, especially in the dark.

He welcomed the old familiar glow in the pit of his stomach, the warmth in his hands, the flutter in his heart. Then he leant his head forward and went to work.

"Opening safes isn't that hard, you know," Barney said sotto voce in the darkness.

Fingers ignored him. He loved the sound of the dial as it clicked around its casing. A sweeter symphony was never heard. It was the safe speaking to him, singing, telling him all her secrets.

In another world outside this enrapture, Fingers could hear Barney mumbling to himself. The sound of something falling to the floor. A thud, followed by "Ouch." But none of it mattered. Fingers was encompassed in a bubble of light all of his own. A mythical golden cloud often discussed, but rarely experienced, in the sacred Buddhist shrines in the mountains of Tibet.

Suddenly there was a click as the last of the tumblers dropped into place. Something inside Fingers blossomed and he closed his eyes and touched his forehead to the door of the safe. Then he pulled on his gloves, wiped down the dial, and laid a hand on the heavy handle.

"We in?" Barney called from the room’s murky depths.

"Sure are," murmured Fingers with a hairy grin, and put all his weight on the handle. "Prepare to see a very large amount of cash indeed." With that, he pushed down and heaved open the door.

The safe door swung open with a faint squeak.

It was empty!

He felt right to the back and all around inside the safe, but apart from the velvet interior, the only thing inside was air.

"What?" said Fingers, "No, it can't be. I don't understand."

Barney stepped over. "What is it?"

Fingers looked up at his shadowy form. "It's empty."

"Oh, great," said Barney. "That's just vunderbar, Fingers."

Fingers scratched at his head beneath his ski-mask. "I don't get it. It should be bursting with cash."

"Guess you're not so smart after all, eh Fingers?" Barney chuckled to himself. "Perhaps you should change your name to Thumbs."

"Unless..." Fingers was thinking again. "Unless there's a back-up safe, hidden somewhere. And this one's just for petty cash."

"What makes you think there's another safe in here, Thumbs?"

"Call it instinct, Barnes. Intuition. Knowing the unknowable."

Barney made a reference to his own genitalia.

"Come on," Fingers murmured. "Let's look around. It'll probably be behind a picture or set in the floor or something."

The two of them began to explore the room, looking for another safe.

Suddenly there was a chuckle.

"What's so funny?" said Fingers.

"What?" said Barney.

"What were you laughing at?"

"I didn't laugh," said Barney. "Your hearing-aid's on the blink, Thumbs."

Son of a bitch, thought Fingers. I'll get him for this. If he wasn't my wife's brother, I'd let him flounder around with that stupid porn megastore business idea of his. What was he going to call it again ... Clit R Us? Ridiculous!

They resumed their search. Fingers looked under a rug, in bookshelves, behind paintings, and anywhere else he could think of. But the near-darkness made it tough going.

At last Barney called out from the other side of the room, "Found it!"

"Shh!" said Fingers, hurrying over. "Not so loud. Where is it?"

"Right in the wall here. Just as you said." Barney placed Fingers' hands on what felt like a picture frame on a hinge, behind which, set into the wall, was none other than a model JAX 5000 Smithsonite Invisi-Safe Type Gama, with vacuum-sealed door and fireproof surface.

"Well, I’ll be," whispered Fingers with some admiration. "This is top of the range. The man spares no expense when it comes to security. Even a direct hit with a five megaton nuclear missile wouldn't destroy the contents of this beauty."

"You mean you can't open it?"

Fingers chuckled. "Oh I can open it, all right." He removed his gloves, rubbed his hands together and blew on the tips of his fingers. "You mark my words, Barney."

As Fingers began searching in his tool bag for the right equipment for the task at hand, he heard a rustling coming from Barney's direction.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking me ski-mask off. Me ‘ead's too hot, and I'm sweating like a bitch in heat in this get up. Besides. I reckon any cameras won't be able to see our mugs clearly in the dark."

"Hmm," said Fingers, his hands paused in mid rummage. "Good point." He pulled off his own ski mask and put it in his tool bag.

At last he found what he was searching for - an electronic device kitted out with two electro-magnets on sticky pads. This safe was the keypad type, with a 6 digit entry code. It meant the password would be one in several billion permutations. Much easier to circumnavigate the electronics and just override the signals controlling the locks by using electro-magnets.

"Opening safes is easy. Anyone with the right gadgetry can do it," Barney opined from his position in the dark. "The hard part is locating the safe in the first place." He was leaning against a desk-like object with his arms folded.

Fingers paid him no attention. He removed the plastic from the sticky surfaces of the magnetic pads and affixed one on either side of the keypad, securing them firmly to the safe's surface. Then he switched on the device, read the backlit screen that cast an eerie glow on his bearded face, and adjusted the controls. It wasn't just about having the right equipment, he knew. Even after you've attached the pads in the right places, working the gain too high or low could overload the magnets and set off an anti-tamper alarm inside the safe.

A faint snoring sound came from Barney.

Fingers concentrated on the red and blue LEDs on the device's display, until finally ...

Buzz. Whirr. Click.

"Bingo," Fingers said under his breath.

The safe door unlocked and swung slowly open.

"Whassut?" said Barney.

"It's payday, Barnes," said the safe-cracker, as he reached his arm in to the black space. His fingers stretched out to grab the bales of cash that ... were not ... actually there. His hand felt nothing but the upper and lower metal grills that served as shelves in that particular type of safe.

"No," Fingers hissed. "No, no, no, Damn it!"

"What is it this time?" Barney murmured groggily. "Don't tell me -"

"It's empty."

"Not possible."

"Aargh, I don't believe this." Fingers ran his fingers almost hysterically through his hair, leaving it sticking up in alarming tufts. "It doesn't make any sense. I mean even if there was no money, there still should be documents, insurance policies, brown envelopes or something inside."

"Containing photos of important people in compromising positions, you mean?"

"For example, yes."

"And both safes were empty?"

"Completely."

"You're sure."

"Absolutely."

"No hidden compartments?"

"Unlikely."

"You know," said Barney, "Sherlock Holmes once said that after you eliminate all other possibilities, the only remaining possibility, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

"And what is that remaining possibility?"

"We're not very good at this."

"Now that is improbable. I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but I've been opening safes since before you were potty-trained, Barney m'lad. I've worked with the best of them. Slasher McFee and I did that bank job together back in '68. Donald Allibaster and I pulled off the famous jewellery store burglary of '74. I'm proud to say that I was there when Willy Macanally and his band of merry burglars broke into the Customs and Excise holding house in '87 and liberated several tonnes of duty free. None of these crimes have been solved, Barney old son. None of them. They were perfect each and every one, and all of those legendary men are now where they belong, on the beaches of Ibiza, Bermuda, and Torre Melenos respectively, because they're not criminals Barney, they're artists, artists, and they are reaping what they have sowed. The good life."

"All right, all right. 'Blimey Fingers, that's the most I've heard you say in one breath. I've obviously touched a nerve there."

"Just stop going on about how easy it is to open safes, all right?"

"I'm not going on about it."

"You were."

"I wasn't," said Barney.

The two men looked roughly in the other's direction as Fingers tried to recover his breath.

"Look," said Barney, "let's just get out of here and go 'ome, all right? I’ll buy us a vindaloo."

Fingers pulled his electromagnetic device crudely from the safe door and dropped it into his tool bag. "All right," he said quietly. He picked up his bag and the two men made their way back the way they had come.

There would be other days. Other triumphs.

Fingers was almost at the door to the kitchenette when he heard Barney curse.

"What is it, now?" he said.

"I don't believe it," said Barney.

"What," Fingers said, turning round.

"I think I've just found another safe."

Fingers' ears pricked up. He walked over to where he could see Barney's outline standing. "I hit my ankle off it earlier," Barney said. "Thought it was just a small filing cabinet. But it's got one of them dials on the front."

"Hmm," said Fingers, crouching down. It was a mini Triple X Trojan 500. "This one's unlikely to have anything in it if the JAX 5000 was empty. But still, as we're here. Never look a gift horse in the mouth ... not even a Trojan one." Fingers began removing his gloves again, but paused.

"What is it?" said Barney.

"Well, it's just what you were saying earlier..."

"What was that?"

"About how opening safes wasn't all that difficult to do. That anyone could do it."

"Mm hmm."

"Why don't you have a crack at this one, Barney? The Triple X Trojan 500 isn't so tricky. Why not give her a whirl, see how she handles?"

"Er, you know, I don't think -"

"Oh, come on, Barney? Don't be shy."

"Well … it can't be that difficult," Barney said, crouching down and taking off his own gloves.

"That's the spirit," chuckled Fingers. He'll never get this open in a million years.

"Right then," muttered Barney, putting his ear to the safe door. "A twiddle to the left ... a twiddle to the right ..."

Fingers grinned in the darkness. Teach you to mock me you … you amateur. Twiddle all you like, there's no way you're good enough to crack that on your first try.

"Listen for the click ..." said Barney quietly, " ... aaand, there you have it." He pressed down on the handle, which gave with a thunk, and the door swung smoothly open.

Fingers' jaw almost hit the floor.

"What did I tell you? Nothing to it." Fingers could see Barney's huge grinning smile reflecting in the moonlight like a Cheshire cat. "Don't know why you go on about like it's some big thing all the time."

Fingers was stunned to the core. "How ... You ... What ..." He opened and closed his mouth like a stranded fish. At last he managed, "Well is there anything inside?"

"Ah hah, well if you want any of what's in this safe, you'll have to take some orders from me from now on, Fingers, me old son, “Barney said, crouching down and reaching his hand inside.

Just as he did so, all the lights went on.

Fingers was blinded and could discern nothing at all behind the sudden glare on his already wide-open pupils. "What the -" he said.

"Woah," cried Barney, trying to cover his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Party's over, gentlemen," said a strange new voice. "If you'd be good enough to place any weapons you may have on the floor and step over here with your hands in the air, we would be most grateful."

As the blindness began to dissipate, Fingers could make out a large group of policemen standing near a door, and that the room they were in was filled with several silvery cuboid shapes.

"I'm blind," Barney said sheepishly.

"You have the right to remain silent," said the strange new voice. "Anything you do say, can and will be taken down and used in evidence against you. You have the right to a lawyer. If you cannot afford a lawyer ..."

"Damn," said Fingers, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "We've been rumbled. What was it, the alarm in the JAX 5000?"

"No," said the voice, belonging to a tall, mustachioed detective inspector, emerging from the glare with the name Garrett on his chest.

"The window?"

"Not even that," said the detective inspector.

"Then how?"

"Mr Jones heard a cat knock a bottle over, looked out his window ready to throw a shoe, and saw you two creeping about. Being a good law abiding citizen, and discerning that you two were up to no good, he made the right choice and called us."

Fingers, his eyesight finally clearing, saw that a couple of policemen had night vision goggles, and another had a long-distance mike. A sinking feeling began to open up in his stomach.

"We've been standing out there for the past thirty minutes enjoying the show," continued the copper, "waiting to see exactly what you were up to."

That's when Fingers looked around and realized that they were not in a bookies. The silver cuboids in the large room, to his great chagrin, were all safes. About thirty of them. Some open, some closed, all of them brand new.

"Although why you would want to break into Mr Jones' safe shop is still beyond our comprehension." Detective Inspector Garrett fought back a grin.

Fingers and Barney looked at each other.

"We thought you were going to do the bookies next door."

A couple of the policemen chuckled.

"But we certainly appreciate your generously supplied information about Slasher McFee, Donald Allibaster and Willy Macanally. That was very good of you." The detective inspector said to one of his men, “Get on the blower will you, Sergeant?”

“Right away, sir,” the man said and strode to the front door.

Fingers’ face was beginning to change to a very deep red colour.

“Now if you’d be so good as to offer your wrists and receive her Majesty’s cuff-links…” the detective inspector suggested.

Fingers turned to Barney. "I knew," he said, "I knew I shouldn't have let you read the map."

"You know your trouble, Fingers," said Barney, as a policeman placed handcuffs on him, "You got no faith in people."

The safe-cracker made to pluck a delicate concept from the air before his eyes, handcuffs sparkling in the bright fluorescent light, and said with a squint of frustration:

“Sometimes there's a reason…."