“Binding
Contract”
By Laszlo Belarski
Even before opening his
eyes, Aaron knew he was in a strange place. While in a state of
semi-consciousness, a million clues had tingled his brain. The unfamiliar,
distant noises. The smells: damp walls, old newspapers, and something else he
could not name. A certain quality in the atmosphere. Everything seemed to warn
him, this isn't home.
It was like waking up in a foreign bed. Only, this bed was hard as
rock. Unwelcoming and bitterly cold.
Aaron tried to open his
eyes. A piercing pain exploded in his head. Hangover headache, times ten. It
lasted for a second, then throbbed away in a slow, warm pulse.
He tried again, this time
very slowly.
Pictures started coming in.
Semi-darkness around him. He could see the shapes of walls, bare bricks without
plaster. A low ceiling. Stuff on shelves, indistinct shapes. Staircase leading
up to a closed door.
A basement, he thought.
Aaron paused, blinking in
the half-light.
His brain eventually caught
up with his vision. Hang on a second.
This was no basement he
knew. He felt a chilling sensation in his spine, his pupils widened, suddenly
vigilant. What was he doing in a place he'd never seen before? He couldn't
recall getting here. Come to think of it, he could hardly recall anything at
all.
Aaron breathed deeply,
trying to focus. He was sitting on a cement floor, with legs extended, arms
resting on his thighs, palms down. He had his back against something cold and
metallic. Aaron turned his head to look behind him, but his neck muscles did
not respond. No pain, just... no movement.
Then he tried to move an
arm. He could feel the muscles tensing, he could even see them bulging under
his shirtsleeve. But he couldn't raise his arm an inch!
He started to panic, cold
sweat beads forming on his forehead. Head, arms, fingers, legs. He couldn't
move anything! He looked down, praying to find something, some chain, wire or
rope preventing his movements, but deep inside already knowing the answer.
Nothing was binding him. He was paralyzed, just able to move his eyes around!
He shouted, but his voice
came out muffled, jaws refusing to open, tongue motionless in his mouth.
"H’lp! HLLLP MM!
HLLP!"
* * *
“Piece of cake, I tell
you!” the stocky man was saying.
The other two men sitting
around the table exchanged a sceptical look. One of them was dark skinned, a
patchy beard growing on his chin. He wore a leather jacket and a blue woolly
hat, even indoors.
The other man, the tallest
of the three, had piercing brown eyes and was bald. “I don’t know, Stan,” he
said to the stocky man. “It doesn’t sound good.” His tone was doubtful.
Stan sat nearer the tall
guy, put a hand around his shoulders, sighing. “Charlie, Charlie…” He said,
patiently. He paused, staring intently at the man’s brown eyes. “How long have
we known each other? Fifteen, twenty years? Would I get you into this if I
wasn’t more than sure of what I’m talking about?”
Charlie shuffled his feet,
slightly uneasy at Stan’s proximity. “It’s not that, Stan. It’s just… I don’t
know.” He looked at the other, serious. “Last time was too damn close.”
The bearded man adjusted
his hat. “You can say that again!” were his first words. He looked around,
lowered his voice, leaning closer. “Look, buddy. We’ve been through a lot of
shit together. Made good money, too.”
Stan turned to the bearded
man, his eyes brightened. “That’s right, Jim! Money! That’s exactly what I’m…”
“Shut up, Stan. Let me
finish.” Jim cut him short. He took a sip from his beer, looking around. The
bar was busy around them, and their secluded table didn’t seem to attract much
attention. He wiped some foam from his beard. “I don’t know about you, but I
know when it’s time to quit. Last one was supposed to be an empty house, and
next thing we know there’s a crazy old guy shooting at us in his freakin’
underwear!” Jim’s voice rose from a hush to a half-shout.
“He’s right, Stan.” Charlie
said. He raised his left hand from under the table. “Cost me my damn fingers”
he added grimly. “Only thing that stopped me from crushing his skull was the
cops hearing the shots.”
“Come on, guys! We’ve been
through all this shit already!” Stan stood up, his bulgy stomach pushing the
table slightly. He whispered, gesturing with emphasis. “It was an accident!
Look, the way I figure it, we were just great that night! Didn’t lose our
heads, got the pigs lost, no fuckups. Kept quiet a while, enjoyed the bucks.
What’s the big deal?”
“Two fucking fingers,
that’s the big deal!” Charlie stared at Stan, gravely.
Jim couldn’t help but
snorting a laugh. Charlie broke the long stare, drank some beer.
Stan passed a hand on his
unshaven face. Sat down again. “Listen guys, listen. I worked in the place, for
Christ’s sake. Owed a guy a favour, covered him for a week when he broke his
ankle. Simple stuff, had to finish painting walls in an old woman’s house for
him. I had the chance to look around. The old habit, you know what I’m saying?”
The others smiled, relaxed
a bit.
“Anyway,” Stan carried on,
“old Mrs. Perkins is lonely, she chats a lot. You know the type. And she’s
rich, man. Like, filthy rich. Old paintings, silver cutlery, marble floors, the
works. Huge mansion. It took me fucking forever to paint just one room!” More
sniggering.
He continued. “Woman’s got
no living relatives, and… listen to this,” he grinned to the others, stretched
his neck. “Mrs. Perkins don’t like banks.”
“Just marry the bitch!” Jim
broke in, laughing. Charlie joined in.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever” Stan
continued, glad to see they were getting where he wanted them. “So, I work
away, she brings me coffee and stays to chat. One day she says to me, ‘I don’t
like them bank types, speculating on old people’s savings’. This kind of gets my
interest, if you know what I mean. So I start looking around more carefully. No
alarm system. No sensors, no circuit breakers on doors or windows, no dogs, no
security locks, no nothing.”
He had the others’ full attention now. “Worth breaking in
just for the cutlery, if you ask me. But this is where the story gets
interesting.” He paused to drink from his bottle.
“On the last day, she wants
to tip me. I swear to God, man. I am getting a tip from Mrs. Perkins for
listening to her while she says her money is kept at home.” Stan sneered. The
others were enjoying the story, almost expecting a punch line.
“I pretend embarrassment,
she tells me to wait right there.” Stan paused. “Of course, I don’t.” The
others laughed.
Stan carried on. “I follow
her discretely, the woman moves real slow, but eventually gets there. She opens
a door in the hallway, goes down a staircase. I wait a bit, then peek from the
door.” He stopped for a moment, looking around. “She’s in a cellar, and I see her open this big old Weston
safe, a three-digit model a kid could crack in his sleep! I fucking trained on
the thing when I was thirteen!”
Stan’s eyes were excited;
his voice went down an octave, words coming out slowly. “And inside the safe
there’s a bundle of cash like you only see in movies, guys. Swear to God, there
must be at least a hundred thousand in the damn thing!” Stan looked feverishly
from Charlie to Jim.
After a beat, Charlie
inhaled deeply. “A hundred thousand bucks. A possibility. Marked one by one and
traceable. A certainty.” He affirmed.
“He’s got a point there.”
Jim commented, nodding.
Stan smiled, sat back in
his chair. He stayed there, looking smugly at the others, like some cat who
just ate a couple of birds.
“What?” Jim prompted him,
amused.
Stan’s smile widened into a
grin. He rummaged in his pocket, then threw a banknote on the table.
“That’s the tip she gave
me. I kept the note to pay you guys a drink.”
It was a hundred-dollar
bill.
Stan shone a small
fluorescent penlight on it, turning the bill under the purple light. There were no marks on it.
* * *
“Who’s a good boy?” Mrs.
Perkins stroke Paddy, her pet gerbil, on the head. She was feeding him a salad
leaf through the bars of its cage, talking to it in falsetto, as was her habit.
“Here, my little Paddy. Oooh, somebody’s hungry today!”
The whistle from the kettle
startled her.
“Oh dear!” she chuckled.
“Why, silly old me! Can you believe this, Paddy? I got scared by some boiling
water.”
She turned from the cage by
the window, waddling to the cooker. Her arthritis gave her walk a peculiar
swaying motion. She switched the hob off. “There! Bad kettle! Scaring an old
lady like this…” she chuckled again.
On the kitchen floor, two
bags of groceries awaited sorting. Mrs. Perkins had been a little troubled. The
groceries had not been delivered by young Tim, as usual, but by that awful,
lanky Sammy Connors.
“We don’t like that Sammy
boy, do we Paddy?” she said, pouring some hot water in an open teapot on the
table. “Awful young man, he is. He tried to give me the wrong change, once. And
his smell! I’m sure he hasn’t changed his shirt in weeks!”
She sat down at the kitchen
table, preparing her neatly arranged teacup and tin of biscuits. Her voice
softened. “Not like that lovely Tim. He’s always clean and properly dressed, he
is!” She turned to the cage.
“Have I ever told you what
the late Mr. Perkins -God bless his soul- used to say, Paddy?” She paused,
raised one finger. “’You can tell a lot from a man’s clothing’, he used to say.
‘Tidy clothes are the sign of a Tidy mind!’” She chuckled, shaking her head.
“Bless his soul…” She sighed, then her gaze wondered thoughtfully over the
kitchen table, stopping on a bunch of neatly folded dollar bills.
“Oh!” her voice sounded
like she had come back from a distant place. “I almost forgot,” she said,
reaching for the bills. “These were for lovely Tim’s tip, Paddy.” She stood up
slowly, checked the teapot.
“I’d better put these back,
while we wait for our tea. I won’t be a second, Paddy dear. If that Sammy
Connors boy is expecting a tip from this house, he’s got a long wait to do!”
Mrs. Perkins waddled out of
the kitchen toward the hallway.
“As Mr. Perkins always
said, ‘put your pennies always in the same spot, and you’ll know where they are
when you’ll need them!’ Bless his soul,” she mumbled as she headed for the
basement door.
* * *
Aaron was exhausted.
After hours of trying to move and scream, he still had not managed
to move an inch from the position he had woken up in. And his voice could not
rise above a raucous, muddled half-shout.
He had been on the verge of giving up, the horror of the situation
torturing his brain. But now, physical exhaustion seemed to have soothed his
mind, desperation numbed by sheer fatigue. Dry tears tickled his face.
His panic had gradually receded, leaving room for reasoning. He
was trying hard to find an explanation, to make sense of this nightmare.
He wondered how his pathetic groans could possibly not be loud
enough to attract attention from the house.
Then again, if the people
of the house were responsible for his predicament, maybe it was better not to
be heard. He shivered, thinking how helpless he would be against anyone meaning
him harm. But why would they? Was he being tortured already?
By now he was sure the
house beyond the cellar door was inhabited. He had heard noises, steps, and
once what he thought to be a voice. Maybe they deliberately ignored him.
Or maybe there was no house
at all, beyond that door. After all, all he could see from his position was a
room with stairs going up. There were no windows in sight. True enough, there
was the area behind him, which he could not see. But if there were a window, he
would be able to see some light coming from it.
Instead, the room was still
immersed in a murky semi-darkness. Even hours after waking up (but how could he
be sure it wasn’t minutes?), his eyes were no better accustomed to the dusk.
The shelves were still dark, confused shapes, possibly covered by sheets. He
could barely see a light switch near the door, and a light bulb hanging from a
wire in the center of the ceiling.
He tried to focus on his
state of immobility.
He could only think he must
have been victim of an accident, causing a form of paralysis. Car accident? He
didn’t remember driving. A fall? Nothing. No memories. Blank.
Maybe his paralysis was
artificially induced. Maybe he had been injected with some chemical substance.
But he couldn’t remember anything violent. Nobody hitting him, or kidnapping
him.
Something he ingested? He
didn’t know when was the last time he ate or drank anything. This made him
notice how he wasn’t hungry at all. Nor thirsty.
Surely all the efforts he
made to try to move must have made him thirsty. He had sweated profusely, he
was sure of that. He didn’t even have a dry mouth.
He started, as a whistle
was heard coming from beyond the door.
He held his breath, trying
hard to listen, and faintly caught what sounded like a distant chuckle.
Minutes passed. Doubt held his
brain in a deadly clutch. Unsure whether to try to scream again, all he could
do was hold his breath and concentrate on the noises.
Steps. Yes, steps becoming
louder, their rhythm slow.
Sweat drops tickled Aaron's
temples. Now the steps sounded just outside the door. The handle! It was
moving!
The door opened slowly,
daylight coming through. Soon a figure was revealed. Aaron felt a shiver in his
spine, then noticed that the figure had the shape of an old woman. In the list
of possible torturers, kidnappers or executioners he had imagined, an old woman
was nowhere to be found. It was almost comic.
For the first time he felt
relieved. By now the woman must have surely seen him.
She pressed the light
switch next to the door. The light bulb hanging in the middle of the ceiling
exploded in a painful, yellow light. Aaron's eyes were blinded for a moment. He
moaned.
As he heard footsteps
coming slowly down the steps, he opened his eyes again, squinting. The light
hurt a bit, but after a moment he could take a good look at the woman.
She was just an old lady,
wearing a beige wool dress, a black scarf on her shoulders. Silver hair tied in
a high bun. Her face was reassuringly smiling, but... she wasn't looking at
him.
That was odd. He was
sitting practically at the bottom of the steps, and she was coming straight at
him.
"Hllp mm,
plsss..." he called.
The woman continued down
the stairs. As she approached, he noticed she was holding some dollar bills.
She looked at the last step, slightly higher than the rest.
"There, gently does
it!" she murmured as her feet slowly negotiated the last step.
"Hllp! Hlp mmm
plsss!" Aaron said louder, looking straight at her face. He tried to move
to attract her attention, but his paralysis, whatever it was, didn't allow him.
This is mad, he thought,
she is a few yards from me, and she doesn't see me! He felt desperation
overcoming him once more. It was impossible. There were no obstacles between
him and the woman, and she didn't seem to be blind.
"Fr gdsake, LK
HERE!" now his mumbles were almost a scream. "I'M HERE!"
The woman carried on
ignoring him, walked past him toward the metal object against which he was
sitting. He could have touched her feet, had he been able to break the iron
grip that held him prisoner! She was just behind him, in his blind spot, but
her feet were just visible.
"HLLP! OH PLSS
HLP!" he doubled his efforts, trying with all his strength to move, to be
seen or heard.
She leant toward the metal
thing. "Let's see... Mr. Lockhart told me to keep this simple, so I don't
forget..."
"I'M HERE! I'M HERE!
LK!"
"What was it
again?" the woman was saying to herself. "Oh, my silly head..."
"PLS GOD PLSSSS!"
"Oh, yes, yes...
One... two.... and three," she said, each number accompanied by a metallic
sound. "Keep it simple..." she chuckled, as the sound of a lock was
heard. At the corner of his eye, Aaron could see a metal door opening toward
him. He noticed three dials with digits above them.
A safe! The metal thing
behind him was a safe!
The woman was now humming a
gentle tune.
"MAD’MM! PLSS MAD’MM!!
LK HERE! FR GDSAKE!"
Moments later, still
humming, the woman pushed the safe door closed, moved the dials randomly, then
turned around toward the stairs.
Aaron was petrified seeing
her pass inches from him, not stopping, not noticing him, looking through him
as she reached the steps. She slowly started to climb.
"FR GDSAKE! DN'GO!! OH
GOD NO!"
"’…Always in the same
spot’," the woman was saying "’and you’ll know where they are when
you’ll need them!’ "
She chuckled, at the top of
the stairs. “Bless his soul…” She started to walk out of the door.
As she switched off the
light, Aaron felt his guts turn into ice.
He half-screamed, his voice
broken by desperation.
"NOOO!!"
The door closed behind the
woman. He was alone again.
* * *
“No!” Charlie whispered,
sharply. “Not now!”
He grabbed Stan from one
arm. Stan crouched back down with the other two, behind the thick hedge across
the street from Mrs. Perkins’ House.
Just then, a car’s beams
lit up the street, passing by the three crouching figures. It turned slowly in
a driveway half a block away, then disappeared behind an automated garage door.
“What’s that car doing here
at three AM? I thought the average person living in this street was
eighty-five,” Stan joked, nervously. “You’re way past bedtime, grandpa!” His
stocky figure didn’t look good in the tight wool jumper he was wearing.
“Let’s just wait a moment,
then run to the back.” Charlie let go of Stan’s arm. “You said you made a cast of the back door lock?” he asked.
Stan nodded, lifted up a
brand new-looking key. “Here’s our pass”
Jim checked the straps of
his backpack, adjusted his woolly hat with both hands. “Remember, guys,” he
said. “The stolen van is one block south of here. We break in the house, find
the safe, stuff the money in the backpacks, then meet there. If anything goes wrong, anything at
all, we split in different directions and regroup in two days at Connors’…”
Jim’s eyes were switching
back and forth from Stan to Charlie. He had to keep reminding himself that
during the reconnaissance visits he had not seen any security cameras or motion
detectors around the perimeter of the house, and Stan swore there were none
inside. Alarm systems were Jim’s area of expertise. And this house seemed to be
unprotected. Initially he had thought of some high-tech system with
microsensors. But his scouting tours around the house seemed to confirm Stan’s
theory.
“Now it looks clear. Let’s
do it!” Charlie sprinted across the street, paused in the dark space between
two parked cars, then to the porch of the house. The others looked around, then
followed the tall man. Charlie’s thing was safecracking. That’s how he had met
Stan. The two of them together made a good team. They had gained quite a
reputation.
Hiding low in the shadow of
Mrs. Perkins’ back porch, the three stopped under one of the windows. Stan
produced an earpiece, put it on. He held a flat microphone against the window
glass. He concentrated for a moment.
“The old hag must be
asleep, dead quiet,” he declared, putting the instruments away.
They moved to the back
door, still crouching low.
Jim gestured them to wait.
His trained eyes went all around the door, searching for sensors. He shone a
pen torch in the fissures, squinting his eyes. Once satisfied, he switched the
torch off. He stepped aside, nodding to Stan.
Stan moved closer, tried
his key in the lock. It fitted like a glove. He put on his earpiece once again,
paused to listen through the microphone. He shook his head, grinned at the other
two, then gently unlocked the door and pushed it open, careful not to make any
noise. He had greased the hinges very recently.
In a moment they were
inside.
* * *
Aaron didn’t know how much
time had passed. The old woman’s visit seemed now like a dream, a distant
vision imagined by his fevered brain.
That had been the worst
thing. Seeing the possibility of salvation coming so close and being incapable
of asking for help had unhinged his brain. He had felt an overwhelming sense of
impotence, worse than being immobilized. It was total helplessness and
loneliness, like he had never experienced before. Like nobody had experienced
before.
For a long time he had
cried, fighting against his immobility. He had felt he had to try while he
possessed the will to do so. Nothing else had mattered.
That was many hours, maybe
days ago.
Now he knew he had lost the
fight. Condemned in this petrified state, unheard and unseen by others, he was
beyond help.
He had slipped in a
coma-like stupor, not feeling hunger or thirst, with no memories to cling to.
He knew his name was Aaron.
He knew this paralysis was not his usual condition. He knew this place was not
his usual place. Aside from that, his mind drew a blank.
The door at the top of the
stairs opened for the second time.
Aaron didn’t feel the rush
of hope, doubt and anxiety that had filled him the first time. He forced
himself to open his eyes.
He lazily watched as three men sneaked cautiously into the room. This time there was no daylight behind them. Just more darkness, broken by the men’s torch beams shining around. The trio moved furtively, looking around as if they saw the place for the first time. One of them closed the door behind him.
Aaron indifferently
followed their careful movements. It was like watching a movie. He knew nothing
he could do would reach them.
As if to confirm his
thoughts, the trio walked down the stairs, illuminating the exact spot where he
was sitting, ignoring his existence like the old woman before them. It didn’t
even hurt this time. He didn’t care.
One of the men directed his
torch behind Aaron, to the safe.
“Here’s the baby… Just like
I told you!” Aaron heard him whisper. He kneeled down behind Aaron, where the
old lady had stood.
“Weston SF211… Don’t you
just love her?” the guy laughed softly.
Another guy, the tallest of
the three, reached the safe, knelt by the first man. “It’s her alright,” his
laugh sounded nervous. “I don’t believe this…”
The third guy had a beard, and
his motions were edgy. He was shining his torch all around the safe, running
the light beam along walls and ceiling, looking for something. “Enough school
reunion chat, guys. Let’s get a move,” he urged the others.
They all unstrapped their
backpacks, laying them open on the floor in front of the safe.
Aaron heard the dials of
the safe being touched.
Then all changed.
First came the power.
Aaron felt energy flowing
through his limbs. It was exhilarating. His fingers sprung alive. His arms
opened wide. He could move! Not only that, he felt a strength he didn’t know
was within him. It was immense. He sprang on his feet. To his surprise, he
didn’t feel any pain after the long immobility. Only power, energy, strength.
Next, his perception
changed.
His eyes opened wide. He
could see more. The room was alight, he could see the stairs, the walls, the
shelves and also beyond, through, behind them. He could hear more. He heard the
three men’s heartbeats, the noises made by the chemicals in their bodies, blood
pumped through their arteries, digestive liquids in their stomachs. He could
smell more. What had been an indistinct damp smell up to that moment blossomed
in a myriad of different odours, he could tell the dust from the mould, the
webs from the wood, the insects from the rat droppings.
Then, more powerful of all,
came the hunger.
It was like a hollow space
inside him, a black hole trying to suck living matter in. As if his whole being was a gigantic
mouth ready to be fed. It was overpowering, painful, yet it had an element of
sweet expectation, the certainty that the fulfilment of that ancestral hunger
was within easy reach.
He instinctively turned to
the three men. At first he felt shocked, seeing through their bodies, inside
them. The red, warm blood vessels, muscles, the pale bones. The spheres of
their eyes, the worm-like bowels. He was surprised to be able to smell each of
these organs, fluids, and more. He became aware of their feelings as smells:
tension, puzzlement, fear, terror. He heard the liquid sounds of their bodies,
the booming pulse in their veins accelerating.
He noticed that they had
seen him. He was no longer invisible to them. Their voices were loud, heard
straight from the vocal cords, but at the same time they coexisted in harmony with
all the hundreds of noises, smells and colors coming from their bodies.
“SHIT! WHAT IS THIS?”
“OH, FUCK! WE’RE DEAD MAN!
WE’RE DEAD!”
The three beings backed
away from him, retreating to the far wall, away from the stairs. He took
pleasure in their panic. He liked the smell of their fear. He craved for the
warm, pulsating fluids inside them, for their succulent flesh.
“STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY
AWAY!!”
Aaron grinned, feeling
vigorous, immortal. He could recognize his pathetic, past self in the eyeballs of
the three panicked beings, so fragile, so full of nutrition. He smiled at the
thought that he once was like them.
“I am hungry,” he heard
himself saying, calmly.
In an instant he was over
the three men, driven by the insatiable hunger.
“STAY AWAY! NOOOO!!”
His powerful hands tore
their flimsy limbs apart, his strong jaws closing on flesh, tendons and bones.
Ripping, shredding, crushing everything that came to be under his hungry teeth,
nails, fingers. He revelled in the warmth of their fluids, drinking avidly,
absorbing their screams, inhaling the invigorating smell of their terror.
The fulfilment was
complete. A pleasure unmatched by anything he could have dreamed in his past
sad existence.
It only lasted a few
moments, but it was enough to change forever the being once known as Aaron.
He understood, now. This
place was his new home. He looked
at the remains of the three bodies on the floor, ecstatic.
This was his reason of
being.
He sat slowly against the
safe. He grinned, patiently waiting for the next meal.
* * *
Mrs. Perkins accompanied
Mr. Lockhart and his two employees to the front door. She was still holding
Paddy the gerbil, seeking comfort in his warmth.
“Well Mrs. Perkins,” the
gaunt, pale man was saying, in a courteous tone “I hope you are feeling better
now. As always, we are delighted to have been able to assist you in this little
inconvenience.”
The woman still sounded a
bit agitated. “Oh, Mr. Lockhart, it is very reassuring knowing that you are so
vigilant.”
The man was wearing an
old-fashioned black three-piece suit, and matching leather gloves. He smiled
amiably at the old lady. “It is my duty, Madame, and -if I may say so- my
pleasure, to be of service to such a enchanting Lady” he bowed his head.
“Mr. Lockhart, you are such
a charmer!” she chuckled, blushing.
The man’s tone turned
professional. “Fortunately the intruders were scared off before they could
damage anything, Mrs. Perkins. Our automated safe protection system… summoned
us, as soon as the disruption was detected.”
“And, Mr. Lockhart? Can I
go downstairs safely now?”
“Of course, Madam,” he
said, “everything is in order now.
It is our responsibility to ensure the protected rooms are safe before
allowing customers to enter them. It’s in your Contract, a clause designed to
spare you any unnecessary disruption.”
“But… what were those
terrible screams? They woke us up, didn’t they Paddy?”
Lockhart smiled,
reassuringly. “Oh, those… Most likely a bad dream, Mrs. Perkins. Most likely.”
He leaned to pat Mrs. Perkins’ gerbil gently on the head. “Well, I am sure you
and lovely little Paddy can now sleep peacefully, Mrs. Perkins. Let our
security system take care of everything else.”
He kissed her hand, then
addressed his employees. “All right gentlemen, work to do, places to make safe.
I believe we have… three more new protection systems to prepare,” he smiled,
eyeing the three bundles that his men had carried away from the basement.
“Good day, Mrs. Perkins!”
the men said, getting in their van.
“Thank you ever so much,”
she answered.
She waited for the van to
drive off, then moved back inside the house.
“Lovely man, that Mr. Lockhart, isn’t he, Paddy? A real
gentleman,“ she said as she closed the door.
* * *
Mr. Lockhart, of Pentagram Security,
grinned, as the driver led the vehicle toward their next three jobs.
END
© Copyright Laszlo
Belarski 2005