The Everything Box

  “Baroque?” said Susie.

  “Thank you, dear.”

  “Damn, Tommy,” said Jerry. “You bought her a book about how people used to go to the bathroom? That’s just nasty.”

  “No. I bought her a book about history. She’s the one who remembers the shit parts.”

  “Fuck you, Tommy,” said Janet. “At least I can read.”

  Jerry laughed. Tommy sulked. Janet slid away from Tommy and sat with her arms crossed.

  “Settle down, you kids,” said Steve. “No bickering when we go in. Young Lloyd is nervous as a piglet dancing on a chain saw. He sees us arguing and he’s likely to have his own chocolate volcano blow before we even get inside.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Jerry. The others nodded.

  They sat quietly, everyone concentrating on the dock’s side door.

  “Are people coming to the bake sale on Saturday?” said Susie.

  “Are you making your apple pie?” said Jorge.

  “You know I will.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You’re a dear,” Susie said.

  “We’ll all be there. Right?” said Steve. “One last sweet hurrah before the summoning.”

  They waited in the shadow of a twenty-four-hour gym. At ten past ten, Coop said, “Sally. You on the job?”

  “Just starting,” she said. Sally closed her eyes and let her mind go blank. Her shoulders relaxed until they hit that loose sweet spot and her eyes popped open again. “Done,” she said.

  “No one can see us?” said Morty. “You sure?”

  “God. You’re worse than he is,” she said, nodding at Coop.

  A homeless guy pushing a shopping cart loaded with trash bags came around the corner and walked down Fifth Street in their direction. When he got close to the group, Coop took a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket, wadded it up, and tossed it in front of the cart. The homeless man stopped and walked to where the bill had fallen. He stood over it for a minute and looked around. Satisfied he was alone, he picked it up, smoothing it with his thumbs. He stuffed the bill into the pocket of one of the many coats he was wearing and continued down Fifth.

  “Okay?” said Sally.

  “Okay,” said Morty.

  They hurried across Flower Street and around the Blackmoore Building to the employee entrance.

  Coop put his hand on Morty’s shoulder. “You’re up.”

  Morty nodded and took a deep breath. He put one hand on the doorknob and the other over the key pad that controlled the lock. His eyes went blank for a few seconds. The pad beeped and the door clicked open. Morty let out the breath. Coop and Tintin clapped him on the back. They went inside and Coop checked the time. Ten fifteen.

  “Let’s head up to nine. No rush,” he said. They started up the stairs.

  When Eddie and the others had rappelled down to the twelfth floor, Harrison used a pry bar to open the elevator door. He slid it halfway and looked around. No one was there. There wasn’t even a cleaning cart in sight.

  “We good?” said Eddie.

  “Babylon was right. They finish the high floors early,” Harrison said.

  “Good. Let’s go in. This harness is squeezing my balls so high they’re clogging my sinuses.”

  Harrison and Racer X pushed the doors open the rest of the way. They climbed onto the twelfth floor and grabbed Eddie’s arms. Bracing their legs against the wall, they hauled him in like a hairy marlin. That morning, Racer X had asked why, considering Fast Eddie’s epic girth, they were climbing to the job instead of actually riding in the damned elevator.

  Harrison rolled his eyes. “Two hundred pounds ago, Eddie was in the marines. He thinks he still is.”

  “Shouldn’t someone, maybe, say something to him?”

  “Sure. Go ahead. You be the one who calls Eddie a lard-ass to his face.”

  Racer X thought about it. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of person to take constructive criticism well.”

  “You’ll learn all you need to know about Eddie’s attitude by whether he puts you in the shaft head first or feet.”

  “Maybe I’ll wait till after the job to bring it up.”

  “That’s what I’d do. Or never. That’s even better.”

  “Yeah. The more I think about it the better never sounds.”

  Once the brothers had grappled Eddie onto twelve, they lay back on the floor, sweating and breathing hard.

  “You two girls having a spa day?” said Eddie.

  Racer X was too tired and nervous to even contemplate giving him the finger.

  By the time the brothers got on their feet, Eddie was already heading into one of the corner offices. As he watched Eddie enter the office Racer X stepped back.

  “What about the alarms?” he said.

  “The guy who arranged the heist had them turned off,” said Harrison.

  Racer X nodded, growing less sure that any of this was a good idea. He didn’t say anything to his brother, but what made him really nervous wasn’t blowing the safe.

  It was how they were supposed to get Eddie back up the elevator shaft.

  Coop and the others made it to the ninth floor at ten twenty-five.

  “This is the part of the job I hate,” whispered Morty. “The waiting.”

  “I’ll give you seventy-five thousand reasons why it’s a good idea,” said Coop.

  Morty shrugged. “When you put it that way . . .”

  While they waited, Tintin took out a Snickers bar and bit into it. The others stared.

  “I have a low-blood-sugar thing,” he said.

  “Did you bring enough for the whole class?” said Sally.

  Tintitn pulled more bars from his pants pocket. He handed one to Sally and one to Morty. When he offered one to Coop he just shook his head.

  “I’m watching my figure,” Coop said.

  Sally bit into her bar. “You could use a few more pounds on you, Coop. No woman is going to jump your bones when she thinks she’s going to crack your ribs.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” he said. “I don’t want candy. I want a cigarette.”

  “That would be nice,” said Morty through a mouthful of Snickers. “What time is it?”

  “Two minutes after the last time you asked.”

  “I wonder how much longer we have to wait.”

  “Finish your candy. I don’t think it will be long.”

  At ten thirty Lloyd came out of the side entrance by the loading dock. When he saw the van, he waved at it frantically, which made him look like a particularly inept seagull trying to get off the beach before high tide. Steve and the others got out of the van and went around to the door, where Lloyd ushered them inside. Steve and Jorge were first out of the van, eager to get to work. The others unfolded themselves slowly and crawled out of the van, just happy that they could breathe again.

  “Everyone is at dinner. Come with me and, please, please, please, be quiet,” said Lloyd.

  Steve patted him on the back. “We appreciate everything you’re doing. Now take a deep breath and let’s go.”

  Lloyd did as he was told. It didn’t make him feel better. In fact, it made him feel light-headed. He swayed for a step as he led the others through the dock to the stairs. When they reached the elevators Lloyd looked at the overhead numbers.

  In a minute, Steve said, “Are we waiting for something?”

  “What?” said Lloyd.

  “Aren’t you going to push a button?”

  Lloyd looked at him, then at the elevator. “Right. Sorry,” he said, and pushed 1 to bring the elevator down. He smiled tightly when the number lit up, thinking, Please don’t let them kill me and eat me when this is over. That’s what cults do, right? Eat people they don’t like?

  Steve smiled at Lloyd like he was a puppy that had just learned to pee outside. He checked his watch. It was ten thirty-five.

  Lloyd thought, They can’t eat me before this is over, so I still have a chance to run. When he got a glimpse of Steve’s smile, Lloyd was
certain he was sizing him up for a barbecue. He hit the elevator button again, willing it to come down faster.

  On 12, Eddie had finished drilling six holes around a wall safe in the corner office. He got out the Semtex plastic explosive, which he’d already rolled into long Tootsie Roll–shaped minilogs, and began packing it into the holes. When they were all filled, he nodded to Racer X.

  “You’re up, new guy. Hand me those caps one at a time. And don’t drop any,” Eddie said.

  Racer X opened his pack and handed Eddie a blasting cap. He handed him each cap slowly. Too slowly, he realized when Eddie started opening and closing his hand fast in front of Racer X’s face. He was sweating when Eddie took the last cap out of his hand and pushed it into the Semtex. The big man took a timer out of his pocket and attached it to the leads from each cap. He packed heavy soundproofing cloth around the explosives and waved for the others to follow him out.

  The three men lay down behind the reception desk just around the corner from the office.

  Coop checked his watch again. It was ten forty.

  How much longer is that fat fuck going to take?

  The others finished their candy bars and were looking at him anxiously.

  “That’s why you don’t eat candy before a job. It makes you antsy,” he said.

  “Not me. It calms me down,” said Tintin.

  “Well, I’m antsy for you,” said Coop. He checked his watch again. “Any minute now.”

  On the elevator, Steve wanted to check his watch, but he couldn’t move his arms. When he’d made the whole group agree to come with him on the robbery, he hadn’t counted on some of the logistical problems. Like how it would feel to be packed into an elevator with twelve other people, including a nonbeliever who was so scared, he was one hot second from having a stroke. Steve prayed to his malevolent overlord that the elevator move just a little faster so he could get out and breathe some damned air again.

  On the twelfth floor, the Semtex exploded with a satisfying thud, muffled by the heavy cloth. A cloud of dust crept from the office across the lobby like a miniature sandstorm. Eddie and the others got up from behind the desk. Racer X looked at Eddie. When he saw the broad smile on the big man’s face, he relaxed for the first time that night.

  Then what sounded like every alarm in California went off at once.

  “We’re up,” said Coop. He and the others ran through the ninth floor as alarms whined all over the building. “We still invisible, Sally?”

  “As a fat man at a Santa convention.”

  Tintin and Coop moved up to the office. The door was already open, so they stuck their heads inside.

  “You memorized the room?” said Coop.

  “Yes,” Tintin said.

  “Look carefully. Do you see anything that wasn’t on the plans that the buyer gave us?”

  Tintin scanned the space while the sirens wailed.

  “No. Nothing. It’s just like on the map. Mostly wards and a few binding spells around the display case. I don’t see any physical traps. They probably can’t use them in an office with so many people going in and out all the time.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” said Coop. Sally gave him his tool bag and he removed a hammer and a ziplock bag. Coop took one tentative step into the room and felt a cool sizzle in the soles of his feet where he stepped on some kind of curse. He took another step. He felt another slight vibration, this one from the wall. But it didn’t hurt any more than the first. Six more steps and he was across the room like it was nothing.

  “Wait. Don’t touch that chair,” said Tintin. “There’s something new there.”

  Coop looked and saw a wire, as thin as a single hair, extending from one of the hand rests and disappearing under the desk. Whatever was back there, he didn’t want to make it angry. He stepped carefully around the chair, imagining Phil sprinting around in his head looking for a way out. Working with live people is definitely a big step up, he thought.

  When Coop reached the display case, he tugged the handle on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. No surprise there. A case full of valuable antiques? Of course it was locked. But he didn’t need Morty to open it up—this one was simple enough for him to get through on his own.

  He smashed the glass with a hammer.

  After a quick scan for more trip wires, he grabbed the middle box from the top shelf, dropping it into the ziplock bag. When he turned to go back out of the room, he felt his face doing something it hadn’t done in a long time. His lips curled up and suddenly he was smiling. So were the others.

  As he put the box into his tool bag, Coop heard something strange over the steady sound of the siren.

  The ping of an elevator.

  From the moment the alarm started, Steve knew what was coming. Worse, he knew there was nothing he could do about it.

  The second the elevator doors opened, he was crushed against the wall as Lloyd and half of his people bolted from the car and ran around the ninth-floor lobby like a pack of demented chickens looking for a way out. The ones not running around like they’d lost their minds were still in the elevator, pushing buttons at random. When the doors began to close, Steve put his hand between them. As they opened again, he hit the elevator’s emergency stop button, setting off yet another alarm, which, he figured, didn’t matter with all the other goddamn noise going on.

  He walked calmly to the office Lloyd had drawn on his greasy map. But he stopped at the door. Steve didn’t go inside. He didn’t have to. From where he stood he could see the smashed display case and the spot where Caleximus’s box should be.

  “It’s gone,” Steve shouted over the alarm. He noticed the shattered glass on the floor. “Someone’s taken it. And he might still be here.”

  “I found the fire exit!” shouted Jerry from the far end of the floor.

  “Good for you, son. You stay there and keep the door open. The rest of us are going to have a quick look around.”

  “Dad, we have to go.”

  “Not before we look. All of you chickens and slackers, take an office and check inside. The faster you do it, the faster we can get out of here.”

  History has shown us that without very specific directions, it’s not uncommon for panicked groups of people to become even more panicked when trying to carry out orders shouted to them over the sound of a burglar alarm. While Lloyd sprinted to where Jerry waited by the exit, all of the other Caleximus worshippers ran for the same glass-fronted office at the same time.

  Naturally, Steve thought, shaking his head. But then he noticed something: they hit something on the way in.

  Which was strange, because as far as anybody could see, there was nothing there.

  There was nothing Coop or any of the others could do. Pinned against the walls like they were by whoever the hell these people were, he and his crew slid side by side down the lobby, heading for the stairs. That’s when the asshole in charge, a redneck Robin Hood to this band of Merry Morons, shouted for his people to search the place. Good boy. This is our chance to get out, he thought. Only it wasn’t, because all of the dwarves charged directly at the office they were pinned against. Coop, Morty, and Sally got out of the way in time, but Tintin was caught in the crush. And was pushed right through the office’s glass wall.

  “Tintin!” Sally shouted.

  That’s when Coop noticed something even more distressing. All of a sudden, he and the others were visible.

  The two groups stared at each other. Sally grabbed Tintin and pulled him to his feet. Before they got three steps Snow White shouted, “Get them!” And the dwarfs charged.

  Morty grabbed Sally, and Sally hauled Tintin, who was bleeding. Coop looked around. There was nothing else he could do.

  He threw the jar of Jiminys as hard as he could at the floor in front of the dwarfs.

  One of them laughed. “Look—he threw grasshoppers at us!”

  Fast Eddie was living up to his name. When the alarm had gone off and the elevator doors had shut tight, it cut off
the possibility of climbing back to the roof. When he, Harrison, and Racer X found the stairs, they shot down two at a time, Eddie in the lead.

  They made it down as far as the fifth floor when he heard the sound of pounding feet headed up in their direction.

  “Security,” he said to the others. “Back upstairs.” And they started running again. This time, as they climbed, something was different. Eddie saw that the door to the ninth floor was propped open slightly. Knowing that security was headed for 12, where the alarm had gone off, he ran for 9, with the others right behind him.

  The alarm was still screaming, but no one could hear it on 9 because of all the other screaming. The Jiminys had spread out like a mini–biblical plague and scattered the Caleximus worshippers toward the reception area. All except for Jerry and Lloyd, who stood by the fire exit. Coop got on the other side of Tintin and he and Sally fast-walked him in their direction, with Morty in the rear.

  It was too much for Jerry and Lloyd. The noise, the bugs, and now these four hard, scary-looking people—one of them bloody—heading straight for them. Lloyd pushed the stairway door open the rest of the way. And was knocked on his ass by three men running into the lobby, one of them roughly the size and disposition of a bear.

  The bear looked down at Jerry and Lloyd. When he looked up again he took a step back, startled, and said one word: “Coop?”

  “Shit,” said Coop. Then, “Sally!”

  She closed her eyes for a second. Coop shot looks at the dwarfs and at Eddie. When Eddie bared his teeth in their direction, they were invisible again.

  But where the hell are we supposed to go?

  Steve alternated between shouting orders and slapping at the bugs climbing up his legs. The damned things were everywhere. It was difficult to get his bearings. But it hardly mattered. He’d lost control of his congregation. No discipline. Total chaos. They hopped and ran back and forth across the lobby trying to get away from the leaping vermin. He grabbed Susie and Jorge and shoved them toward the elevators, but the doors closed as they reached them, the building’s security system taking them over.

  “There!” shouted Tommy. He pointed to the exit, where Lloyd and Jerry lay sprawled on the floor. At the sight of the open door, animal panic took over and all of Caleximus’s worshippers sprinted for the stairs at once, pushing a clacking wave of Jiminys before them.