4

April 2018

Alex, Vickey, Leon, Maxim, Greg

They sat round the table in silence. They understood that at the end of this conversation the lives of each and every one of them could be irreparably changed.
They were very different. But they shared a common trait. They were united by the fact that none of them had any illusions about this world. Each of them needed freedom, their own kind of freedom, and they were ready to risk everything to change their lives.
Leon, who went by the nickname of Fatty, was the most nervous. He’d been invited to come along by Max, who owned the apartment and was sitting next to him. Leon was a tubby young man, twenty-five years of age, average height, with a receding hairline and little grey eyes that flittered about because of his chronic lack of confidence.
He earned his living as a so-called “white hat hacker”: he would find loopholes on various commercial sites and send this “info” on faults to their owners, requesting payments for his professional “diagnoses.” As a rule, he didn’t ask for much and the business owners found it easier to transfer the required amounts to Leon, rather than take the risk of him publishing his “technical revelations” on the Net.
Max, Leon’s cousin, was his total opposite. Tall, fair-haired, confident. A former policeman.
He’d started working in the Metropolitan police force at the beginning of the noughties when people began to work out that the enforcement of law and order in Britain’s capital wasn’t nearly as squeaky clean as people liked to think and when no-go areas began to appear across the city. Perhaps no worse than any other capital city, but any decent guidebook to London warned foreigners to be careful about which neighborhoods they walked through on the way back to their hotels. You could still get clubbed over the head or knifed in the very center of the city for the sake of your wallet or your mobile.
It wasn’t ideological considerations that led Max to join the force. After school, which he barely graduated from, he simply had nowhere else to go. And the police were taking anyone they could get back then – there was a manpower shortage. He worked there until 2015, when he quit over a row with his superiors.
He’d worked at several different private security agencies since then. Then he’d been a driver, exhausting himself at the wheel of a cab for chump change, but that was the best that fate was offering him. Until his old pal Greg phoned him.
Although it was a stretch for Max to call Greg a colleague. Max had caught Greg in 2007 when he was burgling an apartment in Kentish Town. He’d caught him and let him go. Shit happened.
That day there’d been a phone call to the police station from a pensioner, from a woman on Islip Street. Through the spyhole onto her apartment’s landing, she’d seen a man trying to crowbar the neighbor’s door open. Max and another officer were sent to check it out. When they arrived, Max’s partner went in from the street side, so that the burglar couldn’t escape over the balcony. Max went in through the main entrance, and came face to face with Greg.
Max instantly realized what was going on, but he couldn’t get to his holster in time – Greg’s powerful, muscled hand was already on his wrist, and Max froze. Neither of them needed to give any explanations.
“Don’t, chief.”
Greg spoke as if giving a command, there was an authority in his voice that couldn’t be faked. “Don’t,” he repeated.
Max froze up.
They stood there, looking one another in the eye. According to the procedural rule book, Max was supposed to cuff Greg and march him back to the station, but who cared about the rules if you were risking your life to enforce them? And for what? For some pensioner’s belongings?
“I haven’t got a shooter,” Greg added, just as quietly, with the same authority.
Max understood what he meant.
Greg carried on looking him straight in the eye. “With my left hand, I’m going to take some dough out, chief.”
Greg, very slowly, reached into his pocket, and with two fingers pulled out a small wad of pound notes, tied up with a rubber band.
“Are we done here, chief?” asked Greg, weighting his words, and raising up the cash.
Max, still looking into Greg’s eyes, nodded.
“Good,” said Greg.
Greg slowly handed the greens to Max, and then just as slowly took his hand off him.
“We cool, chief?” Greg asked with confidence, grinning. “Quits?”
Max gave another nod.
The door creaked behind Greg, and he disappeared. Max breathed out the fear hard. His arms and legs were shaking. He knew that, instead of the money, he could’ve got shanked under the ribs with a knife.
Greg reappeared in Max’s life a few months later. Just as unexpectedly. Max was eating in a small café on the high street in Kentish Town. He was just finishing his three pieces of fried chicken when Greg, all of a sudden, sat down in the chair directly opposite him.
“No objections, chief?” asked Greg.
Max recognized him immediately. He realized that Greg wouldn’t have found it hard to track him down, knowing which police station he was assigned to.
“No objections,” Max replied dryly.
That day they spoke calmly about a lot, and specifically about Max covering up Greg’s shadier “escapades.” In exchange, Max was promised a cut from the takings. Greg would also give him tips on collaring some petty thieves, usually those coming in from the provinces, so that Max would have a good record at the station and get promoted. They went into business and would meet fairly often, as a rule away from the center of town, at shabby cafes out past the ring road.
Greg hadn’t pulled off any major jobs, but it was all enough for them to get by. Right up until Greg came up against a hefty security guard when he was trying to clean out a corner store on Prince of Wales Road. Greg had to use the knife he carried for such eventualities. After that, Greg had gone under the radar, and he’d only reappeared in Max’s life half a year ago.
Alex and Vickey sat opposite Max. Alex was holding Vickey’s hand under the table. He knew why he’d taken her on this risky job. He knew, but he hadn’t really told Vickey the whole truth yet. Just as he hadn’t told her the whole truth about the weight on his soul. He’d just told her that he needed this really badly, and that without her he couldn’t do it.
They sat their waiting for Greg to speak.
“Go on, Greg,” Max said, impatient.
Greg slowly drummed his fingers on the table. Then abruptly stopped tapping and asked, “So, guys, what would you say if you were to get one mil each without even having to work up a sweat?”
Max, just as he had the first time he met Greg, froze, taking in every word. He knew that Greg didn’t talk about stuff like this without there being something to it.
In the circles that Alex, Vickey and Leon hung out in, they didn’t talk in the slang of London’s criminal underworld. But like many in Britain, they understood it. Old films and TV shows about cops and robbers were packed with it.
Max was the link between Greg and the others in that room – Max had grown up on the same street as Alex. They’d gone to kindergarten together. Then they’d been in the same class at school. They were best friends, joined at the hip.
At the end of the day, Max was Alex’s only friend. They’d got into trouble together so many times, protecting each other: Max, older and stronger, didn’t let the older kids and the local gang touch Alex, and Alex, in turn, helped his friend to avoid trouble with his teachers and the cops.
Then they’d gone their different ways, but their childhood memories bound them tight.
“A million,” Leon muttered to himself.
“Let’s get acquainted to start with,” said Greg. “Everyone knows Max. I’m Greg. I’ve done a few scams. Max will vouch for me. I’ve never been done for theft. I worked as a guard.”
“I’m Alex. A journalist.”
“Victoria. I’m out of work right now. I used to work in marketing.”
“I’m Leon…” He could barely be heard, and he had no idea what he should add beyond his name in a conversation like this.
“One million?” Alex asked, checking he’d heard right.
“Yes,” replied Greg.
“What makes you so certain?” asked Alex.
“If I say a million, that means I know,” Greg answered dryly.
Greg looked over them all pointedly, weight in his words, and continued:
“We’re talking about a bank where I worked. As a guard. I know the place inside out. It’s ready for the taking. They don’t even have glass between the bank tellers and the clients.”
Alex looked at Max. He gave him a subtle nod.
“So that you can understand what I’m talking about, we’ll send in Fatty,” said Greg, nodding at Leon. “He’ll open an account at the bank. They won’t suspect anything. Leon will confirm the basic information about the bank. I’ll also take a look round there. I know how to do that on the low down. But we’ll get to that later.”
Alex turned and looked at Vickey, who was listening attentively to every word.
“On a certain day there’s about six million in there,” Greg continued. “There are five of us, and a driver who’ll give us cover if the situation gets out of control.”
“What do you mean by, ‘situation gets out of control’?” Vickey asked, interrupting.
“I mean,” Greg replied, with a hint of mockery in his tone, “that they might start shooting.”
It was clear that Greg didn’t like a girl butting into the conversation. The words “sexism” and “equality of the sexes” simply didn’t exist in the environment that he inhabited, and all of his friends knew that guys were more important than girls, and that women should keep their traps shut when men are talking. Greg looked at Vickey with irritation, and then at Max.
A pause hung in the air. Max wanted to say something, but Alex got there first.
“I want to say right from the go,” Alex began. When he saw that Greg was listening attentively, he stretched out the pause before continuing. “Until we know the whole plan, Vickey and I aren’t agreeing to anything.” Alex turned to Greg. “So, if there are any disagreements, we just go our different ways and forget each other.”
Alex hadn’t liked Greg from the jump, he found everything about him irritating: from the dirt under his fingernails to the way he spoke to people, putting them down and scaring them.
Greg looked straight at Alex and kept silent. Alex sensed that he’d taken the initiative. And, of course, he knew that as long as Max was there, there wouldn’t be a fight. It’d been like that since they were kids.
Greg started speaking in a different tone. “I…”
“I’ll just finish,” Alex said in a calm tone, interrupting him again.
Greg fell silent, barely fighting back his discontent.
“If Max brought us all together, that means he’s got his reasons,” Alex continued, rapping out every word with precision. “It means he trusts us. And that means we can discuss everything calmly and make a decision.”
Greg kept his silence.
“I’ve got several questions,” said Alex, staring at Greg. “Is there a real risk that we’ll end up in a gun fight? Who’s this driver? And, finally, and most importantly: Why us?”
After a short silence, Greg, staring at Alex, started talking.
“This is a big job, and it’s a good one. Chances like this come once every ten years. The driver’s someone we can trust; you don’t have to know him. Leave that to me and Max. And Max will be your insurance that you all get your cut.”
“All right,” said Alex. “Let’s assume that’s all true.” He looked at Max again. “But why us?”
Greg looked them all over slowly, and then finally got down to business.
“When we knock the bank over, the cops will be looking for specialists in this kind of job,” Greg began with feeling. “They’ll be looking for safe-crackers, wetworkers and so on. And, of course, anyone who’s already done time for ripping off banks.”
All four of them listened to his every word very carefully.
“As we’ve got a woman here,” Greg continued, “the cops will go through their files of every lady that’s been caught playing in a job like this. The investigators will get lost in that whole mess. They won’t be able to find their way out with a compass and a map,” he smiled, very happy with himself. “And we’ll already be drinking expensive cocktails a long way from the Big Smoke.”
Greg sounded convincing.
“This is a really easy job,” he continued, “so I need ‘passengers’ with a clean record, no rap sheet. People they won’t ever suspect. People who’ve never been linked to crime. That way we’re untouchable.” Greg left a pause, and then continued. “There’s almost no security at this bank,” he said, clearly liking his own idea. “One poor bastard from a security agency.”
Vickey squeezed Alex’s hand hard under the table.
“There’re several getaway routes. If everyone’s in on this, I’ll tell you the plan. But then there’ll be no going back.”
“A million?” whispered Leon ecstatically, looking at Max. “I can move out of my Mom’s apartment?!?”
Greg sneered.
“It’s a clean job,” he said. “And simple.” He looked at Max and added: “I’ve found their weak spot, bro. This will be like the Great Train Robbery – a Great Train Robbery for the 21^st century!”
Silenced reigned in the room.
“You got any questions, Fatty?” Greg asked, suddenly turning round to Leon. “Do you trust Max?”
“I get it so far,” Leon quickly answered. “Yes, I trust him.” He still had a load of questions, of course, but he didn’t want to be the one to start an argument.
“It’s just a lot of information in one go,” Max said calmly, looking round at them all.
Greg looked at Max and nodded.
“Let’s have a little rest, drink some coffee, and continue,” suggested Max.
“That’s a good idea,” said Vickey, letting out a deep breath. Although she knew what they were talking about, and although she thought she was ready to play her part, Greg’s speech had been a bit of a downer. But, for reasons that only she and Alex knew, she wasn’t planning on quitting.
All of them, apart from Alex, headed into the kitchen. Greg cracked some jokes, Max laughed quietly, Leon tactfully laughed along. Vickey, unable to get into their conversation, poured herself and Alex a coffee.
Left alone in the room, Alex leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
When Max had said that he’d need a woman for this job, Alex had immediately thought of Vickey, of course. To be honest, despite their three-year romance, Alex wasn’t “serious” about Vickey. Sure, he liked her, but there were a lot of other people he liked along the way, and he easily forgot about her when he got caught up in some other escapade.
He didn’t want to get too close, and he’d often disappear. She always waited for him. He could tell he was hurting her, and there had been several times when he’d wanted to break off. But every time, Vickey had somehow got their relationship going again. New escapades would come and go, but for some reason Vickey was always there.
And so, right now, Vickey was the only person that Alex could trust, the only person who’d agree to help him start a new life, crossing that invisible line with him, a line that would cut them off, forever stop them going back to their former lives. He understood, of course, that what had happened to Vickey in the recent past, her insane, wild story, was bound to influence her decision to take part in this deal. Just like him, she had nothing to go back to. And, like him, she had nothing to lose.
He recalled their conversation. Her tears, her despair, her pain. He remembered his words, how he’d told her he was tired, that he’d got mixed up, didn’t trust himself or his decisions. That he felt like a boat adrift at sea. That, without her, he wouldn’t take part in this deal, couldn’t bring himself to commit. That he needed her support. He was telling the truth, and was truly grateful that she was with him.
“This is the Rubicon,” he thought, “that invisible line that you cross…”
There was no way his mother would have approved of this meeting, he sneered, and then winced. When he thought of his mother he’d start to shake, and then it would take time for him to calm down. But he would’ve given a lot for his mother to be here at the table, so that she could see his behavior. Independent, criminal and, most importantly, flying in the face of all her values.
Alex felt a wave of anger and bitterness building up in his chest, eating up, devouring everything that was good and kind in its path. He pictured that meeting with Robert, the psychiatrist, which had happened so long ago. He’d gone, even though he was sure that all those doctors were “cranks and conmen.” He’d gone because he understood that he was standing on the brink.