by Steve Wheeler

I clean the cream from my whiskers with my paw. I sit watching the delicious little birds hop from seed to seed on the dying thistles, in the garden, outside the window. This window seat is made for these lazy autumn afternoons. Red’ll be home soon. I love to watch his change of expression when he approaches the house to greet his latest wife. She’s Lola this year. It was Linda back in those days, Bennie’s sister. It’s getting harder to remember that I used to live with Bennie. 

The boys came up with the idea, in a poker game, at Bennie’s. There was Mutt, Jeff, Bennie and Slocum. I watched from the back of the couch, cleaning my paws with my tongue. There were clouds of smoke, interesting smells, emanating from the table that night. The boys were flying high. Bennie figured his ship had finally come in. The next morning, as we drove to work, Bennie talked about the score. He talked to me, but he was really talking to himself. He was a good provider though, so I went along with it.

Bennie was my owner, a cat worshipper, who also owned Brutus, a watchdog. Bennie took me to work with him, most days. I was an excuse for Bennie to talk to himself, a warm body to have around.

Bennie was the only employee left in Red Smith’s auto parts warehouse. Red didn’t make much, wholesaling used auto parts, but he had a famous safe. The safe made Red a tidy profit. He held payrolls for a lot of companies which didn’t have the facilities to handle large amounts of cash. They couldn’t fit into bank schedules. The safe also held such items as receipts, estates, and some money from questionable sources which Red labelled, ‘Other’. 

On the way to work, the next morning, Bennnie dreamed along with the sports show on the radio.

“With my cut, I could buy an island, like Brando. Down in Tahiti. So what if he’s fat? Women still love him. I’d have a party for the boys, but not for a couple of years. This is Slocum’s chance, too. He can escape from his old lady, finally. The guy’s not well. She’s a bad influence. Don’t you think he’s shrunk and turned grey since he’s been with her?”

I sat in the back seat watching some dogs on the sidewalk. Gross.

Brutus ran out when Bennie opened the front door of the warehouse. There are dogs and there are dirty dogs. Brutus was dirty and aggressive with everyone except Bennie and me. Bennie had trained him, I had shown him my claws, when we first met. He almost lost an eye that time, always respected me since. I wouldn’t turn my back on him, though.

Brutus is big. He’s a big, dirty watchdog who would tear anything apart, just for fun. Unless someone killed Brutus or otherwise incapacitated him, they’d never be able to steal from this warehouse. Unless they had an in and knew how the safe worked, that is. Bennie was counting on this, as part of his plan. He could control Brutus and retirement was approaching. If he ripped the place off, he could sit tight for a few years, let things cool down. If everyone kept their mouths shut and they paid a lawyer Mutt knew, they would all end up rich. Even Red had some kind of insurance for a robbery, Bennie figured, but it wasn’t an urgent consideration. Red could afford it, no doubt.

There would be questions. There would be all kinds of cops. They would insist on a lie detector test, but he didn’t have to take it, they couldn’t use it in court.

Brando never backed down from a role. This was one for which Bennie had been preparing all of his life. That was the way Bennie saw it, anyway. I always thought he was a little crazy, but who could have known? 

The safe only opened once a day. If robbers did get past Brutus and the other alarms, unless they came at exactly the right time, they would have to blow the door off of it. It would take a big explosion to blow the door, neighbouring alarms would go off all over the place. There wasn’t much paper around, but there might be a fire. The other thing, which only Red knew about the safe, but no one else knew, was that it expelled all of the oxygen, slowly, out of itself, after the door closed. Red got it from an art museum when the government closed it down. 

One of the perks of having a foolproof safe was that big companies were advised, by word of mouth, to use Red’s, in emergencies. Red made a pretty penny helping out big companies.

When the boys thought up the plan at the poker game, it was after Bennie had told them all about the “special job” Red was doing that weekend. A big company was moving millions of dollars from city to city. They were leaving it in Red’s safe, overnight, on the weekend. Bennie and the boys planned to rip it off.

I stretched, tasted the fresh cat food Bennie had left in my dish, by the office door. I settled in the comfortable window, watched Bennie strike poses in front of the mirror. Every time I cleaned the outside of my ears, I remembered the ticks. Getting rid of them was a painful process.

Bennie thought he looked like Brando when he practised a sneer. I thought he looked like an overweight Elvis impersonator. There was an inventory to keep, some paperwork to do, but Bennie mostly listened to a redneck on the radio, talked to me, during his work day. When we were at the warehouse, Bennie kept Brutus in his run, outside, in the back.

Red dropped in on Friday afternoon, for a few minutes. He ruffled my fur, scratched my ears. Red was just getting to like me, in those days. He went over the delivery of the money on Saturday morning, told Bennie that he had Sunday off, that he, Red, would be there to make sure of the pick up on Sunday morning. 

Red sat in Bennie’s chair, feet up, smoking a cigar, called Linda. He put Bennie on with his sister, enjoyed their fraternal banter. Red glowed with love for Linda. His face changed when he talked to her on the phone. When he spoke about her with Bennie, the latter thought he was kidding. Bennie looked at Red, quizzically, behind his back, after these conversations about his older sister.

The boys planned to pull into the warehouse as soon as the delivery was made on Saturday morning. They would load the money, take it away. They would leave Bennie in the safe, to be released by Red, the next day. The story would be that the robbers showed up right after the security company delivered the cash, pushed Bennie into the safe, left with the loot and the security film. The key to getting away with it, was for everyone to behave normally. These guys thought they could pull it off. It sounded good, that night, when the boys met for poker at our place. Mutt had all the papers and powers of attorney for them to sign. It would give their lawyer, who wasn’t above a bit of graft himself, the right to move their money around. No one could quit their jobs or do anything out of the ordinary for, at least, two years. They were all thinking about retirement. The boys were closer to old than young. The delivery Saturday morning went smoothly, the security company guards moved the cash into the safe. They had just pulled out of the parking lot when Mutt, Jeff and Slocum pulled up, at the front door, in Slocum’s black van. 

Bennie had already taken the film out of all the security cameras when they walked into the office. They wore gloves, but no masks or disguises. Bennie showed them the millions of dollars they were stealing by opening a package. They got lost in a delirious minute of congratulations while they admired the bills. 

After a short debate, they figured that I should keep Bennie company in the safe. There was nothing soft and warm inside the safe. I never did like it. They threw me in, with Bennie, after they put my dish and some water inside the door. I circled the safe quickly, ran out, just as they slammed the door shut.

They left him some chocolate bars and water, but they couldn’t do anything about the light. There was no light, but Bennie planned to sleep, rehearse his shock and anger until Red arrived, anyway. They didn’t even notice me until it was too late. No one had time to worry about me, so they left.

The three of them giggled as they got into Slocum’s van. In a few years, they would be on easy street. Margaritas all around at Bennie’s place, in Tahiti, one island over from Brando’s. All they had to do now was to drop off the money at the lawyer’s. At the time, I didn’t know, nobody did, except Red, about the slow leak of oxygen from the safe. Bennie must have realized that something was wrong because he made a lot of noise in the safe around the same time that Red arrived, the next morning. 

Red’s Cadillac pulled up beside Bennie’s Celebrity in the empty parking lot. I watched from the front window as Red got out of his car, walked toward the building. He looked back once at Bennie’s car. He was about half way between his parking space and the warehouse, when his cell phone went off. He dug it out of his jacket pocket, answered it. I could tell that he was talking to a woman he loved by the change of expression on his face. It lit up. He stopped, looked at the sky as he talked. He had a big smile on his face when he turned back to the car. He listened to the phone, smiled at his shoes.

Red got back into his Caddy, talking on the phone, his eyes on Bennie’s Celebrity. He was talking to Lola that day. He thought Bennie had his days off mixed up, so that he was taking care of the pick up. He was partially right, Bennie was there, but he was in the safe.

The noises from the safe got fewer and further between, quieter, then, stopped all together. Brutus started howling and whining from the back of the warehouse. Brando’s death scene in The Godfather always was one of Bennie’s favourites, but I think he would rather have played it in a tomato patch.

When the security guys from the pick up company arrived, there was no one around. They called Red. They told him that they could see the cat in the office window and that Bennie’s car was there, but no Bennie.

By this time I was hungry, the litter box was filling up. I knew, from Brutus’s mournful howl, that Bennie had, somehow, died in the safe.

Red drove over from Lola’s the next morning. He took a long time calling long distance, pushing digital codes to open the safe before its’ special time.

Red’s reputation was on the line. The reputation of his service to the big companies. The security company had to have the money.

Red breathed through his nose a lot, walked around the office with a serious expression, followed by the security guards, talking into their cell phones. If they had arrived earlier, if Red hadn’t taken so long to open the safe, they could have seen Bennie gasping for his last breath.

The police were called as soon as Red opened the door, found Bennie dead in the safe, the money gone. Red seemed surprised and a little hurt by the discovery of Bennie’s body. When he saw the cat dishes of water and food, inside the safe door, he adopted me, on the spot. He took me home to his very comfortable estate. It was as if he was protecting me.

He switched from Linda to Lola, just after Bennie’s funeral. Linda accused him of holding out on her, but Red paid her off. It wasn’t the payment she wanted, but she had to settle for it.

The police questioned all of Bennie’s friends. Nobody talked. No one was caught for the theft.

Lola’s a real cat lover so I’m pampered and lazy here. There are no poker games with smoke and interesting smells, but the food is great. Yesterday she got some cat treats and served them to me on a pillow. It gets harder and harder to remember life at Bennie’s.

Red suffered his loss manfully, in public. Bennie’s death was so shocking that Red’s compensation from the insurance company went unnoticed.

Red doesn’t know Mutt or Jeff or Slocum. They don’t move in the same circles. They were all there at Bennie’s funeral, also attended by a large number of undercover cops. I watched from the passenger seat of Red’s Caddy.

When it was over, they filed past the Cadillac, on their way to the cars. Red argued with Linda over Bennie’s grave. Slocum looked me right in the eye, winked as he passed the windshield. He knew that I had seen it all, that Red was a good provider. 

 

First published in Tonto Short Stories

Steve Wheeler The Canadian Authors Association included THE REUNION OF THE OLD OLD FRIENDS in their anthology, Ten Stories High, 2003.