The Job

Ok, what I’m going to post below is a scene, just a single scene, that I was tasked to write for the Fiction Writing class I’m currently taking. There’s no more to this story than what’s below, but I had a bit of fun writing it, and the people in my workshop group loved it. So, I’m sharing it with the world. The title is simply “The Job.”

It all came down to knowledge and trust. If they were going to pull this job off, they needed a great deal of intelligence, and they had to trust each other explicitly. A bank robbery is difficult enough under the best of circumstances, breaking into a bank vault containing sensitive government information was going to be nearly impossible. The plan was to find out what was known, and to go through some exercises to build this raggedy bunch of strangers into a team that might stand a chance of succeeding.

They agreed to meet in an office they rented for a few hundred dollars for a short term. With the bad economy, it was easy enough to find a place for cheap; landlords were just as desparate as the average Joe after all. It was far easier for the eight of them to meet in a rented office suite than it was in someone’s home or an abandoned building. Considering it was the middle of winter, it was probably a hell of a lot more comfortable too. Hardened criminal or not, no one wants to freeze their ass off when they don’t have to.

The office suite wasn’t very large, but it didn’t have to be. The outer office was large enough to have a desk for a receptionist with a few chairs for clients to sit in while waiting for their appointment with the lawyer or accountant that rented the space. Though the walls were painted grey, it was an oddly soothing shade rather than a nondescript or dull color. With mahogany doors and matching trim, it was obvious that someone had poured a great deal of money into the place just before losing it because they couldn’t afford it any more. Beyond the door from the outer office lay a larger space with a small office tucked in the corner almost as an afterthought. What lay in-between could be described as a conference room, since it did sport the requisite mahogany conference table, but it was hardly spacious enough to hold more than a small meeting — say seven or eight men discussing the design of a certain bank.

Currently, there were only six men at the table: Jon “Shorts” Schottenheim, Chris Garver, Chris Baryn, Walter Gomez, John Jones, and Mark “Seldom” Selden. Some of them knew one another if only by reputation. Others hated one another for deeply personal reasons. Still, they were willing to put greed above hatred for the sakes of the two men that invited them to the scheme, and were only just arriving to the office: Jake Harris, and “Sim” McDonald. Besides gender and the late arrivals, the only thing all eight had in common was their field of expertise: theft.

Jake and Sim entered the office stamping their feet to knock loose snow from their boots and carrying boxes. From one box wafted the smell of fresh and hot coffee, while the other exuded the tempting scent of freshly baked donuts. “Gentlemen,” Sim said moving through the door to the conference area. “The coffee has arrived.”

A small cheer went up from the friendlier, fun loving members of the group.  Sim smiled. A small cheer was better than nothing; at least there was some small sign of unity. “There’s plenty of donuts, guys, so don’t be shy.”

Jake put the donuts in the center of the table, grabbed one for himself, then leaned against the wall watching Garver closely. He didn’t particularly like Garver. It was is his incessant chattering. Still, personal distaste was different from distrust, and Jake had worked with Garver enough to know he could be trusted with anything. The rest of the guys, well, Jake wasn’t so sure about. “Hey Garver, how can you eat if you never stop talking?”

Garver smiled. “Like this, Jakey.” A popular myth states that a shark will die if it doesn’t move constantly, the same applied to Garver’s mouth.

“Uh oh, I think he stopped breathing!” Shorts bellowed. Schottenheim was called Shorts for several reasons, not the least of which were his short fuse and memory. He was a man of passions, which translated well into his long term obsession with bank vaults, but his sometimes short attention span was just as likely to get him into trouble as his short memory was to get you out of trouble with him.

Sim watched them all, Jake included, as they ate and drank. While he wasn’t worried about the people he’d chosen for this job, he was concerned about those, like Selden, that didn’t participate in either the conversations or the donuts. Under other circumstances, he wouldn’t trust a man that didn’t eat donuts, especially ones he bought. If a man can’t take an offered donut, as just a courtesy, then he had trust issues, and, for Sim, the feeling was mutual.

“Now that you’ve eaten,” Sim said with a grin, “I have a small confession. When Jake wasn’t looking, I added a little something special to our coffee… “

The table went quiet. No one dared move, or even breathe. Except for Garver. “Seriously? What? What was it?”

“A little something to ensure that we find a way to work together.”

“You’re kidding right? You’re not that crazy, Sim, you know we’d tear you apart.”

“Garv, you know me. You know I am, and in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve had more of this tiny little killer than anyone else here. My life is very much on the line, but you guys should only be sick for a few days.”

A few faces went pale as they realized that Sim was being serious. “Why’d you do that to us?” Jake asked after a few minutes of dead silence.

“Simple. There’s an antidote,” Sim said between bites of a chocolate covered donut. “In order to make the antidote, we’ll have to work as a team to get the ingredients and brew it.”

“If we’re only going to get sick, why should we save your ass?” Selden asked.

“Good question! I did say you’d only get sick, but I didn’t mention that it would be really unpleasant.”

“If you wouldn’t mind, please define ‘unpleasant.’” Jones asked.

“Borrowing a line from the movie Serenity, ‘oh god, oh god, we’re all going to die?’” Suppressing the urge to laugh by finishing his coffee, Sim wondered how long it would take the group to realize he was indeed bluffing. He figured a common goal, and enemy, would unite them, then they could begin to concentrate on their real goal. “The good news is the antidote is pretty simple, but we have to work together to get the ingredients.”

All attention on him, Sim came up with the cure they needed. “I don’t care how you get the stuff we need, just get it. Buy or steal, it’s up to each of you. You’re going out in pairs, and I don’t want to hear any complaints about who you’re paired with. Garver and Shorts, we need a blender, a lot of ice and some salt.”

“What kind of blender?” Garver asked.

“What?”

“What kind of blender? One for drinks, a generic one, the kind for cakes?”

“Doesn’t matter, just get a blender.”

“Ok, it’s  your funeral,” Garver said walking out with Shorts.

“Jones, Gomez… You need to get a big bottle of aspirin, a bottle of vodka, and eight eight ounce glasses. The cure doesn’t react well to plastic once it’s ready, so we need glass.”

“On it,” Gomez said while putting his coat on.

“Selden, Baryn… I’m sorry guys, but you got the one that really sucks,” Sim was really struggling not to laugh. “You need to get a dozen birth control pills, a bottle of multi-vitamins, and a pair of silk stockings.”

Selden screwed up his face. “What the hell? Stockings?”

“Yeah, stockings, not pantyhose. It’s chemistry. Nylon screws with the formula, so it’s gotta be silk stockings.”

“Why us?” Selden shouted angrily.

“Look,” Sim started, “I saved this one for you two because I knew you wouldn’t freak out over something like this. Only you two are tough enough to handle this one.”

Selden shook his head but walked out without another word. Baryn looked at Sim with a smile, and as he walked out simply said “For shits and giggles, I’ll bet.”

Jake suddenly stiffened and stared at Sim. “You didn’t?”

“I might’ve.”

“You did.”

“Indeed,” Sim said while hunched over laughing. “Why don’t you go get some orange juice or gin so we can make some proper drinks when everybody gets back.”