The Glass Harmonica (6 page)

But Wally and his friends had tried the scheme once too often and been spotted by security, because guys in their twenties just weren't flying every week. While all of Wally's friends had gotten away, he'd been tackled by a wiry old commissionaire as he tried to get to the car, and was pinned on the rain-wet pavement out next to the crosswalks until the police arrived. The commissionaire's glasses had been broken in the struggle, so the police tagged Wally with an assault charge too.

“Guy thought he was back in World War Two or somethin', 'stead of stoppin' someone stealin' fuckin' suitcases,” Wally said matter-of-factly, like it was a hockey game they'd all been talking about, a sloppy outlet pass or bad penalty killing. “Like he was catchin' a bank robber or sump-thin.”

When they finished their interviews and got ready to leave, the police stopped for a moment in the lunchroom to tell Wally in front of everyone else that they would be keeping an eye on him. And Wally shrugged, a big, slow, over-exaggerated shrug that telegraphed “Who gives a shit?” as clearly as if he had said it out loud, right there and then.

As soon as the police left, Wally told the guys that they'd taken the suitcases more as a game than anything else, because “most of the time it was just old clothes 'n shit, 'n half the time we'd just flick 'em out the door onto the highway anyway. Big old suitcases, spinning off into the ditch. Burstin' open. Ya should've seen it.” But he didn't seem to regret any of it, not even the idea that the police were now looking at him as a suspect. “You make a choice and jest go from there,” he said, and went to get more coffee.

Tony sat with his drink at the bar and stared across at where Helen was sitting, and it seemed to him that he was suddenly aware that he was hearing something urgent being spoken in a different language, a language that he didn't fully understand but that he needed to hear.

He was sure that everything important was happening right there in front of him, right then, if only he could figure out what all the various pieces meant, and how they all fit together. Like a chain with one important link missing. He looked around the room, trying to see if there was a secret code written on the walls or hovering over any of the five people up at the bar, huddled close together as if they were freezing cold. Looking for the switch that was just waiting to be thrown.

And Helen's purse was open, the lights from the lottery machine playing across the front of her blouse again so that it seemed as if her clothes were magically changing colours, flicking from one shade to another.

With her hands barely moving, she was threading twenties into the thin slot in the front of the machine, over and over again without even looking, a motion so practised that it seemed to take no effort whatsoever, that it seemed to take neither aim nor concentration. It looked for all the world as if she was just holding her hand in front of the machine while the money magically disappeared from her grasp, and she didn't even look away from Tony as the money simply vanished.

He noticed the expression in her eyes didn't change when she turned to look at him—in fact, her eyes didn't move at all, her gaze holding his in one simple and straight line. And the whole time, he could feel her eyes on his face, staring straight across at him, and when he looked up and back at her, she smiled that familiar smile, her eyes widening just enough. And Tony fell hard, just like he always did.

He fell, but he also knew.

Two days later, he got the keys for a city backhoe from the sign-out locker and two hard men from downtown did all the rest without him, driving the piece of heavy equipment straight out through a chain-link fence without stopping and onto a low-rider flatbed already parked just outside on the street. And even though it must have taken them more than a few minutes to chain the backhoe down, no one admitted to seeing anything. And there was money in a plain white envelope in the mailbox when he got home, his name on the front in pencil in block letters, as if it could just as easily be erased and replaced by someone else's.

That same week, he managed a mitre saw and a set of air chisels, and that was despite the fact the city had hired a private firm to beef up security, and there were strange new serious faces in the lunchroom and strolling through the equipment yard at odd times.

Once they caught him with the plywood, Tony was pretty sure that they would want to blame him for everything. Would want to play the familiar old “one bad apple” game and declare the problem solved, even if there was city equipment in garages and basements all over the place. They just didn't have enough proof—so Tony knew they'd go to the wall for ten sheets of plywood instead.

Wally Norman took him aside and quietly said he understood, and by way of condolence admitted that he had four of the city's five-ton hydraulic screw jacks in his own garage if anyone ever took it into their heads to come looking. “Ya haven't done nothing that anyone else here hasn't done,” Wally said, smacking a hand down between Tony's shoulder blades, but Tony didn't get any particular comfort from the admission.

“I still can't believe it, Tony,” Helen said quietly while they were sitting together in the small, overheated courtroom, waiting for his case to come up. It had already been a month without pay, a month when, “suspended pending,” he hadn't driven a truck or been up early enough in the day to see the wonder of the darkness fading into blue. He wasn't even allowed on city property, and at home, the money had dried up completely, bills now lying unopened on the counter because they were questions that Tony and Helen couldn't begin to answer.

“I just can't believe it, that you were stealing. What were you thinking, anyway? And what do you think my father would have said about this?” Helen said. “You always said you wanted him to think well of you.” And something about that whole speech rang funny, even though Tony couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was.

And she'd been saying that for a month, saying it ever since the court date had been set. He didn't feel like starting what would have become unstoppable finger pointing, hadn't once mentioned the gambling machines, didn't even bother putting words together into something that might seem like an explanation.

What was he thinking? Her words stuck in his head and nagged at him like a splinter until the moment when he figured it out. When Tony suddenly realized that none of it was about thinking, really. That it was actually a whole bunch of different things, layered in on top of one another. That it was about reacting, about watching and picking up unspoken cues. And he thought that, perhaps, if he'd laid it all out for his father-in-law, Mike Mirren might have understood completely, and smiled, and talked to him for a few minutes about all the things it turns out you really don't have any choice in after all. And he would have gone back to being dead then, still smiling faintly.

Eventually, it was Tony's turn, the whole courtroom waiting and quiet, and there really wasn't much left to say. And the prosecution lawyer stood up and said they wanted to add extra charges, that since his arrest they'd found the backhoe and the compressor too, and they had three witnesses they wanted to bring forward, and they were talking about charging him as “a career criminal.” Tony smiled a bit when he heard the words, hearing them differently and deciding that it was exactly true, that a career was what had been stolen after all.

So Tony stood up, leaning over for a moment so his lips were by Helen's ear, and over her shoulder he could see Ted Greenaway taking important notes in a small notebook for the city's disciplinary hearing, his arms resting across his large stomach as he wrote, face carefully pulled into a frown.

“I love you, Helen.” Tony said it simply, like that should explain everything. As if those few words made sense of all the rest.

Then, when he was asked by the judge, Tony found three more simple words. And they explained everything, and yet only a tiny part, too.

“Guilty, your honour.”

It was simple, just like that, and Tony knew exquisitely, exactly, what was slipping away right then, knowing the words Greenaway would be writing so carefully in his notebook.

That nights and snowplows and wonder were gone, like a chapter slapped closed in a book for good.

Guilty, Tony thought, guilty like everyone. And stuffed full of things he knew and didn't dare let out.

32
McKay Street

BART DOLIMONT

JANUARY 3, 1991

F
OURTEEN YEARS
before Tony's sentencing and there was another thief on McKay Street:

I could write the book on this stuff, Bart Dolimont thinks.
How to Steal and Get Away With It
. It would be a bestseller, too—not bad for a nineteen-year-old with no high school, he says to himself.

He is outside on the sidewalk, walking towards the O'Reilly house, steps away from the short walk to the front door, taking in every piece of information he can from the dark windows.

Don't stop and stare at the house, he thinks. Don't look around to see if anyone's watching. If they are, if they aren't, I'm back-on to them, and they'll know little more than my height. Looking around will just draw attention. People don't look at you if you're confident, if you look like you belong. It turns you into the expected instead of the unexpected, and their eyes wash over you and go on to something else, catching on nothing.

You go straight up to the front door like you belong there, arm straight out, palm the doorknob and give it a steady, even turn. If the door's locked, relax your hand enough to let it slide around the doorknob. Turn around, walk away.

There are plenty of houses in the neighbourhood where people don't lock their doors, or forget to lock them some nights. Or just don't push them all the way closed before they go to bed. Plenty of places where a ground-floor window's open, and all you have to do is cut away the screen and climb in, look around, take the first few things that are worth grabbing and head out on your way.

Doors are easier, though. If it's unlocked, walk straight in. If there's someone there, you can always say you were coming in to tell them their door was open and you were wondering if they were all right. If you hear something, just leave. If you can lock the door behind you as you go, even better. Walk away down the street. Don't run, even if they start yelling.

Inside the O'Reillys', and Bart stopping to listen. No dog—knew that already, he thinks. That's a good thing.

I can hear Mister snoring away in the back like a freight train, he thinks. He's fifty if he's a day, but works down to the dockyard, so he might be tougher than he looks, ready to mix it up if he wakes up.

Let your eyes adjust to the light—no rushing. It's all about nerve. Wait for the walls to slowly swim into view from the darkness, wait until you can see the shapes of the picture frames against the lighter walls, even if you can't make out the pictures themselves. Take your time, don't rush into unfamiliar geography. Always take your time.

No pushing into chairs or knocking over lights. Slow, hands and feet in short arcs. Hit the high-percentage places. Purse on the counter. Wallet in the pants pocket in the bedroom. Move slow but deliberate.

Best thing is to take stuff that won't be missed right away. Little things. Don't get greedy, eventually there's always lots, even if it's not here tonight. Find a purse with eighty dollars, take forty. Chances are they'll be too busy blaming each other to even think there's been a break-in.

Sometimes, with big stuff like cameras, stuff you can carry that's valuable, you just take the whole lot of it and hope you can wait out the heat. Or else have someone who's interested ahead of time.

Old coins? See fifty, take ten. Make it so it's hard for anyone to put their finger on when something went missing—that can be important later, when someone like a cop is asking you questions.

Bart moving down the hall, setting his feet down gently, wary of creaks in the floor.

People are creatures of habit, yes they are, he thinks.

Sock drawers: there's stuff in there that no one's even thinking of—at least, they don't look for it every day. A few days' grace before anyone notices anything, and when it's gone, they start by looking for someone familiar to blame. Interesting treasures in there sometimes. Old watches, sometimes old bills—but don't even think of trying to unload them right away at a coin shop or something; this is just too small a town. Wait for the buyers who come in once or twice a year, the guys who set up at the hotel and buy the full-page ads in the paper. They'll rip you off on price, thinking you're some small-town rube who doesn't know what you've got in your own hands, but it doesn't matter that they're always shorting you—they don't know that you got it for free, and they'll be moving out of town long before anyone says, “Hey, wait a minute.” They're not in a big rush to have the cops around their inventory either.