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THE MYSTERIOUS SCHOLAR disappeared as quickly as he appeared to disrupt my existence, leaving a date and coordinates for a place where I was supposed to meet up with my future partners in crime.
The instructions were simple, in theory; pack up all your belongings and leave them in a safety deposit box at the train station so the mystery man can pick it up and bring to the designated location — I had half the mind to suspect that maybe the man simply wanted to rob me, but there was something unexpectedly genuine in the way he acted.
Number one was closely followed by the next step: remove every single trace of your existence from the apartment.
It wouldn't be the first time I had to do it — one of the few things they don't teach you at the Elementary School for Exemplary Thiefs and Delinquents is never to leave anything the police or your adversaries might use against you.
In the very beginning of my career that meant shower-caps and a lot of bleach.
The rectangular monstrosity that resembled a clock chimed uncomfortably, and I was left to ponder over the business offer, and all the zeroes that came with it.
I could get up and smuggle myself out of the country, empty my Swiss vaults and become a hermit — a rich one, mind you — somewhere in the Pacific, or perhaps return to Italy — no. I said my goodbyes to that country the moment he told me to leave his apartment and forget the address. There was nothing to go back to anymore, except the empty shell of a man my former best friend became.
Instead I stared ahead, in the same place as the hour passed, eyes transfixed on the way the falling ash clumped on the scarred surface of the table in neat little clumps.
It was time to disappear.
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TOLEDO COUNTRYSIDE 156 DAYS BEFORE THE HEIST
THE BUILDING WAS OLD, a bit on the crumbly side, but relatively homely in its aged glory. And the rooms were spacious enough to house us comfortably, a person to each, divided across the hallway and sharing one bathroom on the first floor and the other one on the ground floor.
High ceilings that made our steps echo through the house, a dining room that itched to be filled with talk and laughter, a scent of some other time still locked between the walls and their peeling paint. Decades old furniture and paintings covered by white sheets I couldn't wait to rip off and take a peak at what lay beneath. Your historian is showing, I reprimanded myself while we were led up the stairs.
