Dirty Work: Volume 2

Story Four - The Highest Bidder - 4

We stood there staring, awed by the balls they had just to take the damn things. There was no elaborate setup involved, just paintings in a box and somebody coming to pick them up.

'What do we do now?'

Markro rubbed his arms in the cold. It was bloody freezing in that place. 'We need the evidence.'

'You want more than this?'

'We need proof of them physically trying to nab the things. Just shoving them in a box doesn't mean squat. They could just be re-storing them. And unless you want to take the law into your own hands, which we've been expressly told not to do, we ain't got jack.'

'You want footage of them slicing the painting out of the frame?'

'Oh, wouldn't that be beautiful?'

We heard a rumbling out on the street.

'Did you say that they had someone coming to collect them in twenty minutes?'

'That's what they said.' I looked at the door. It could be anyone, but there was never going to be a guarantee of that. And I knew better than to play the hopeful game.

'It's only been fifteen minutes,' Markro complained, looking at his Halo-Core. 'They're early.'

'Well maybe their time is out. Quick! Get down!'

We ducked behind another stack of crates and peered through the gap. The warehouse door opened up and three young women in delivery uniforms came in from the glare of the street. If I had walked past them in the street, or looked at them sat in the large delivery truck they had idling just behind them, I wouldn't have looked twice. All three of them had their hair up in ponytails, covered by a red cap with SHIFT4U emblazoned in ridiculously large letters across it.

What would have made me look twice were the 58 Alphas they were sweeping around the place, the fine red lines of the lasers chasing each others' tails.

'Anyone here?' one of them asked.

'As if they're going to reply,' said a second. Those two were twins. In the family business, perhaps.

'Moony might be here.'

'You ever actually seen him do any of the work himself? Lend a hand at any point?'

'You make a decent point. There it is, right in front of us.'

As the three of them busied themselves picking up the crate and carrying it, crablike, to the truck, I slunk away from Markro and slipped towards the warehouse door. I couldn't see his face, but I could see that Markro was trying to stop himself going apoplectic, hissing through his teeth for me to get the hell back there. There was no way I was going to do that. It was the audacity of it all that astonished me, and I was fairly sure I had worked out their cover story, as well. Moony was going to blame it on us, the newbies, waltzing in one day, nicking the shit and getting the hell out of there.

That was what pissed me off the most. That they'd actually timed it right.

I was right by the door when they got the crate into the back of the truck. I looked around me and found a small rock, kicked in from the street in years gone by, lying by my foot.

'You see the game last night?'

'Nah, didn't have time. Gare wanted me spread-eagled on the bed and oiled up. And you know how I get when he says it like that.'

'You filthy girl, you should be ashamed of yourself.'

'Only be ashamed if you think its wrong.'

'It is wrong.'

'But it doesn't feel it, and that's the point.'

I tossed the rock into the warehouse. The twins stopped the small talk and all three of them spun, guns trained on the darkness.

'Who's there?' one of the twins called into the gloom. 'Show yourself.'

Not going to happen, sorry. Thankfully, Markro had got my drift. He launched something else into the black.

The three women proceeded into the warehouse. I made good my plan and quickly clambered up into the truck and hid behind the crates they'd loaded up to disguise their cargo. Markro managed to slip out the door after me. He flashed a thumbs up and scampered off down the street.

My heart pounded. If I was discovered, I had no hope in hell of taking all three of them out on my own. And besides, my gun was a piece of crap. It would more likely throw a surrender flag out of the barrel than actually shoot someone.

I put my hand over my mouth to quieten my breathing. The three delivery girls came out from the warehouse.

'It wasn't a rat, I'm telling you.'

'Well, there was nobody there, so it must've been.'

'Not a rat.'

'Shut up, Prissy.'

She did shut up. They took one quick look inside the truck to make sure their loot was still there, which it was, and then closed up. They locked the door with three locks, and I felt a knife go into my chest with each click. I wasn't getting out before they let me.

A few moments later I heard the doors to the cabin open and close. The engine rumbled the palms of my hands. We moved out into the street.