Disturbed Crooks

by Daniel Guy

Normally when Lennie goes out on a job with the Murphy brothers, he’s the one who stays in the car and keeps a lookout, while Rick and Tom carry out the crimes. But Tom Murphy cracked his toe jumping over a wall three nights ago and his foot is in plaster, so tonight it’s been decided that Tom is staying in the car Lennie will assist his brother Rick with the robbery. Lennie is very unhappy about this and has protested several times. He’s a skinny youth of twenty and just tags along with Rick and Tom to earn some cash for his dope habit. He’s no thief and doesn’t want to do it, but the Murphy brothers are both over six foot and ex-boxers with years of criminal experience, and when they’ve made their minds up, there’s no point arguing with them.

It’s three am and they’re sitting in Tom’s old black Jag, parked in a quiet country lane, keeping an eye on a large old house. It’s raining heavily and Lennie has forgotten to bring his coat. A distant church-bell chimes. Rick pulls a last drag on his cigarette and tosses the butt out of the window. 

‘OK. Let’s go. You take the bag, Lennie.’

They get out of the car and Lennie follows Rick down the dark alley along the side of the house and into the back garden. They crouch in overgrown flowerbeds beside a window. Lennie puts down the large black canvess holdall. Rick opens it up and fetches out a fat roll of silver duct tape and sticks a couple of pieces on the window so that when he smashes the glass there’s hardly a noise. He reaches in, unlocks the catch, pulls the window up and climbs in. Lennie follows. They switch on their torches and begin searching the house, room by room. Rick points to a smart laptop on the dining room table and Lennie slips it into the holdall. In the hallway there’s a small antique gold clock on a shelf and that goes in too. In an upstairs bedroom they find a jewellery box, a couple of gold watches and a wad of cash and soon the holdall is full of booty.  Lennie is hoping that’s it and they can get out, but just as they’re heading out of the last bedroom, Rick’s torchlight falls on a small safe in the corner of the room, and Lennie’s heart sinks. Rick crouches down to study the safe and then starts to look around the room for the key. Lennie’s phone rings. It’s Tom. 

‘Get out. Someone has just rocked up on a bike. She’s locking her bike to the railings outside. I think she’s going into the house.’

Lennie’s heart misses a beat. He’s desperate for nothing to go wrong and for them to get out as quickly as possible, so the ordeal is over.  He repeats the message to Rick. 

‘Fuck.’ says Rick, quietly. 

They switch off their torches and start to make their way downstairs. 

Too late. The front door opens. The light goes on in the hall. 

Rick and Lennie make their way silently back up the stairs to the landing. 

More lights go on downstairs. Lennie stands behind Rick in an upstairs doorway, wishing he’d never agreed to this. Then they they hear the woman talking into her phone.

‘Martin. I’ve just arrived at Dad’s house. I think there’s been a break in. There’s window broken in the lounge and muddy footprints all over the carpet. I was going to call the police but he’s probably got drugs in the house, so I thought I’d call you first… What? OK, erm… I don’t think so, but I’ll check and call you back.’

Rick unzips the holdall, pulls out two thick black woollen face masks and hands one to Lennie. Lennie just wants to get out of the house and he’s very nervous about what Rick is planning.  Tom is the more sensible of the brothers. Rick on the other hand is a loose cannon, unpredictable and with a violent temper. They slip on the masks. The woman puts on more lights and starts to come up the stairs. 

As she reaches the top step Rick leaps out from a doorway and grabs her. He’s wearing black leather gloves and is able to cover her mouth tightly before she can let out a scream.

‘Get the tape and tie her legs.’ 

Lennie freezes for a moment, staring in panic at the woman struggling, with Ricks black leather hand clasped tight over her mouth. 

‘Do it!’ barks Rick.

Lennie is shaking. He reaches into the holdall and fetches out the silver tape. He struggles to find the edge of the tape. Rick shouts at him to hurry up. The woman is about thirty, petite and pretty and she’s wriggling frantically, trying to break free from Rick’s arm gripped tight around her arms and waist. Lennie manages to grab her legs and starts to wrap the tape around her ankles. She’s wearing jeans and white trainers and a black leather jacket. She kicks out at him and lands him a painful blow to the ribs. When Lennie has finished strapping her ankles together, Rick pulls her down onto the floor and onto her belly, his hand still tight around her mouth. 

‘Tie her hands!’ 

Lennie manages to gather together her flapping arms and cross her wrists behind her back. He binds them together with more tape. Rick flips her onto her back. 

‘Now gag her!’ 

Rick takes his hand away, as Lennie lunges at her mouth with with the silver tape. She’s twisting her head and making the job very difficult. 

‘Wrap it round her head!’ 

Lennie wraps several layers right around, covering her mouth and nose, and then Rick snatches the roll of tape from Lennie and finishes the job properly. He pulls the tape down from her nose so she can breathe. She writhes on the floor, panic in her pretty blue eyes. For a moment Lennie and Rick kneel beside her and watch as they recover their breath. 

‘Come on. We gotta get out of here.’ says Lennie still shaking. 

‘Shut the fuck up.  Call my brother and tell him everything is fine. Tell him there’s a safe in the house and I want to see if we can get into it.’ 

As he is speaking, Rick is searching through the pockets of the woman’s jacket. He pulls out her phone and tosses it into the holdall. Lennie cannot take his eyes off the woman writhing on the floor, looking up at him with a mixture of panic and hatred.

‘Forget the safe. We’ve got enough. We should just go!’ says Lennie. His mouth is dry and he can barely get the words out. But Rick is adamant. 

‘Do as I tell you, you stupid fucker.’ 

And with that he heads downstairs. 

Lennie keeps staring at the girl’s face. This is a nightmare, he thinks. He’s almost as frightened as she is. He calls Tom and explains what’s happening. Tom tells him he wants to speak to Rick. Lennie goes downstairs, phone in hand. Rick is emptying out the contents of the woman’s handbag onto the kitchen table. 

‘He wants to talk to you.’

Rick takes the phone but immediately cancels the call and puts the phone in his pocket. 

‘I can handle it. Don’t you worry.’

He pulls out all the notes from her purse and stuffs them into the pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a couple of credit cards and holds them up with a smile. 

‘Bingo! Now I’m going to bring the girl downstairs. You look around the kitchen for a plastic bag big enough to go over her head. Clear ones are the best but if you can’t find one then we’ll use a bin liner.’

‘What!’  cries Lennie in disbelief. The nightmare is getting worse. Lennie is a gentle soul at heart and wouldn’t hurt a flea. 

‘No. Listen. He said we should get out.’

‘I know what I’m doing. Just do what I tell you.’

Lennie goes down to the kitchen and starts to look in the drawers and cupboards and all the time he’s waiting for the sound of police cars and imagining himself in a prison cell, and the looks of shame and disappointment he’ll get from his mum. 

On a top shelf he sees a jam jar packed with small plastic bags of white powder. He fetches it down to get a closer look. It’s not icing sugar. He knows exactly what it is. He puts it onto the kitchen table thinking maybe Rick will be satisfied with that and then they can just leave. He hears thumping on the stairs, turns and sees Rick dragging the woman into the lounge. 

He continues looking around the kitchen and eventually finds a box of large food bags in a drawer. He pulls one out of the bag and guesses it’s probably big enough so he takes the box into the lounge. Rick has lifted the young woman onto an upright wooden chair that he’s placed in the centre of the lounge. Now the lights are on, Lennie sees the room is full of bookshelves crammed with old books and on the walls are watercolours of plants and rural landscapes. 

Rick stands in front of the girl. He takes the box of food bags and pulls one out. 

‘Get the tape. It’s upstairs on the landing.’

Lennie does as he is told. When he comes back, Rick has slipped a plastic bag over the woman’s head and he’s talking to her softly. 

‘If you do what I say you won’t be hurt.’

He holds her credit cards out in front of her face. 

‘First I want the codes for these cards and then I’m going to ask you what’s in the safe upstairs. I’m going to start counting and when I reach the first digit of the code you’re going to nod. Do you understand?’

But her muffled cries are angry and defiant and she’s jerking her head violently from side to side, trying to shake the bag off her head. Rick starts to count, but she’s not paying any attention. She continues to writhe and kick, determined to break free. 

Rick finishes his count to ten and then takes the roll of tape. 

‘OK, if that’s how you want to play it.’ 

She looks out through the clear plastic bag and now there is real fear in her eyes. 

He starts to wrap the tape around her neck, sealing the bag airtight around her head. 

The bag starts to expand and contract with her breathing. Her muffled pleas turn into uncontrollable crying. 

‘Ok. I’ll start again. One, two, three, four…’

After each number, he waits for her to nod, but still she refuses to play along. 

Lennie is gripped by the sight of her tied up and suffocating. The clear plastic bag expanding and contracting around her face, the silver tape tight around her mouth and the desperate writhing movement of her slender body reminds him of a film he watched a few years ago, which had the weird effect fo making him horny.  The woman’s muffled crying changes to barely audible screams as she gets more desperate. She kicks out at him so violently that she loses her balance and falls heavily off the chair and onto the floor. 

‘Get her up. Put her back on the chair.’

‘Rick, I want to get out of here.’

Rick freezes. He turns his head slowly towards Lennie and through the small holes in the black mask, Lennie can see the anger in his eyes. Rick lunges at Lennie and grabs him by his collar. 

‘You stupid prick. Now she knows my name!’ 

He pushes Lennie away aggessively, grabs the woman and hawls her back onto the chair. 

Now she’s really starting to panic. The bag is expanding and contracting at a faster rate as she struggles for air and tries to take in deeper breaths and with each intake the bag contracts till it clings tight to her face. Lennie is transfixed. Rick starts the countdown once again. This time, when he reaches the number six she nods.

‘Ok. First number is six is it?’

She nods again. 

‘Good girl. OK. Second number.  Zero? One? Two? Three?…’

Lennie stands watching. He’s stil shaking. He’s covered in sweat. He wants to take the thick woollen mask off his face but he knows he can’t. 

Rick tells Lennie to find a pen and paper so he can write down the numbers. Lennie looks around the room, finds an envelope and pencil and starts to write down the codes.

Once Rick has obtained the codes he starts to pull the tape away from the girl’s neck and then pulls the bag off.  She drops her head, breathing heavily, lungs heaving. Her long brown hair hangs down over her face. Ricks grabs her hair and pulls her head up so he can see her face. 

‘Good girl. Now tell me what’s in the safe. Is is drugs? I heard you say there was drugs in the house? Is it drugs?’ 

She is still breathless, still defiant, but she just stares up at him with an expression of helpless contempt. 

‘I found a jar of cocaine in the kitchen.’ says Lennie. 

Rick turns. 

‘What?’

‘Yeah, it’s on the kitchen table.’

‘Show me.’

Lennie leaves the room.  When he gets back Rick is talking to the woman softly, asking her over and over again if she knows where her dad keeps the key to the safe. She keeps shaking her head. He’s waving a fresh plastic bag on front of her face. When he sees the jar of cocaine he stops, puts the bag down takes the jar and sits himself down at the table. 

‘We have to get out of here!’ Lennie pleads with Rick. 

Rick says nothing. He’s opening one of the little white bags. He tastes the powder, tips some out onto the table, cuts it into a line with open of her credit cards and then fetches out a twenty pound note from his pocket. Lennie cannot believe what he is seeing. 

‘We haven’t got time for that!’ he says, his voice now more desperate. 

Rick snorts a line of coke. Lennie and the woman watch him silently. Her breathing is still heavy. She exchanges a nervous glance with Lennie. Rick hands both credit cards to Lennie.

‘Give me your phone. Then go with Frank and get the money. Then wait for me outside. I wanna see if I can get into the safe.’

‘Who’s Frank?’ asks Lennie. Then he realises. 

‘Oh, yeah, Frank. Sure. OK.’

Lennie starts to head out to the front door.

‘No, you plonker. Use the window.’

Lennie stops and then heads back to the open window in the lounge. Moments later he’s back in the car and pulling off his woollen mask. Tom is eager to know what’s going on and Lennie tells him everything. Tom’s annoyed with Rick and curses him all the way to the bank. They drive around for twenty minutes because the first few cashpoints they find are out of order.  When they get back they see an old battered multi-coloured 2CV parked outside the house. Tom calls Lennie’s phone and when Rick picks up he says,

‘Where are you? We have the cash. We need to get away….’

He listens to Rick’s reply. Moments later he hangs up and curses. 

‘OK. He wants you to go back in there and help him with the safe.’

Lennie panics.

‘What! No way! He’s fucking mad!’

‘I know he is. Just do it. He’s got someone else tied up in there. Presumably the guy who owns that fucking stupid looking car.’ 

‘Oh Jesus..’ 

‘Just do what he says. Everything is going to be all right. Tell him I’m giving him ten minutes and then I’m driving off.’

Lennie gets out of the car and walks round to the back of the house. He climbs in through the window and sees a young, short, skinny man, aged about thirty, with blond curly hair and a flowery shirt, tied and gagged with silver tape on another wooden chair, facing the girl. Both have been strapped tight to the chairs with the silver tape. They turn and look at Lennie. Both start making muffled cries and writhing furiously. Lennie can hear drilling noises coming from upstairs. He walks between the two tied victims and runs up the stairs. Rick is crouching by the safe trying to drill a hole through the front. He looks up when he sees Lennie and switches off the drill. 

‘Where’s your fucking mask!’

Lennie realises at once his mistake.

‘Fuck. Sorry.’

‘You’re a fucking liability, mate. If they’ve seen you're face now, you’re going to have to snuff em out.’

‘What? No way, Rick. I can’t do that. You gotta be joking.’

‘You have to, Lennie. Otherwise we haven’t got a chance. Go on. Bag them up and sit with them till they’re dead. I reckon I can get this safe open in about twenty minutes. The bloke downstairs has told me it’s full of diamonds. Once we got them we can go.’

Lennie stares at him. 

‘I can’t do it, Rick!’

‘DO IT. Snort a couple of lines. That will give you courage.’ 

‘I can’t! I can’t do it!’ Lennie is almost crying. 

Rick puts down the drill and walks out of the bedroom, pushing Lennie aside. Lennie follows him downstairs. Rick walks into the lounge and the couple turn to look at him. He picks up a plastic bag and walks over to the man. There’s a damp patch around his groin. With the bottom half of his face is wrapped in silver tape, his red sweaty cheeks looks almost comical and his muffled cries sound like he’s crying. He looks up at Rick with eyes pleading for mercy, and when Rick takes a step forward and opens out the clear plastic bag, he shakes his head slowly. Rick slides the bag down over his head. He reaches for the tape and starts to wrap it tight around the man’s neck. He takes a second bag from the box and walks over to the woman. She kicks and twists desperately but is unable to prevent Rick from slipping the clear plastic bag over her head. He wraps the silver tape around her neck and stands for a moment to watch her suffocate. Then he turns to Lennie and says,

‘OK you stay here and keep an eye on them. When they’ve stopped moving come upstairs and help me with the safe.’

With that he walks out and goes upstairs. Lennie stands at the doorway watching the couple writhing about on their chairs. The sound of Rick drilling again drowns out their muffled cries. He sees the cocaine and all he can think of is getting off his head, to try to make this nightmare more bearable. He goes to the table and though he hands are shaking uncontrollably he manages to snort a couple of lines. He goes to the window and stares out at the rain lashing against the window.  At first he can’t bear to see them suffocating, but then after a few moments he turns to watch.  He looks at them both wriggling in their chairs, the shiny plastic bags over their heads expanding and contracting, and at that moment he starts to feel horny. Something about the sight of them struggling turns him on. He has no idea why. Rick’s drilling upstairs is intermittent and when it stops the house is silent but for the gentle crackling of the soft plastic around their heads, the soft whine of their muffled protests and the squeak of the wooden chairs. His cock is so hard he has to slip his hand down his jeans to move it into a different position. He walks over to then and stares incredulously at one and then other. The woman’s hair is now wet with sweat and stuck to her face. He turns to the guy and he’s rocking back and forth to the point where the chair almost tips backwards. Lennie stares at his hot sweaty face through the plastic. The man is looking at him, trying to say something but Lennie has no idea what it is and doesn’t care anymore. He turns back to the woman. She’s getting weaker now, her head is starting to sag, and her movements are less violent. She’s giving up. Lennie cannot understand why the sight of them suffocating is making him so horny. But now he doesn’t care. She raises her head, breathes in slowly, till the plastic clings tight one final time to her face and stares out through the plastic at Lennie. There’s no panic left in her eyes. It’s just a cold vacant stare. He unzips his fly and pulls out his stiff cock. She looks down at it, closes her eyes and slowly lets out her last breath. The bag expands till it's inflated completely. Then her head slowly tips down onto her chest and she is finally still. At that moment Lennie ejaculates. He tries to stop the spunk shooting out of his cock onto the carpet. His hands are covered with spunk so he rubs it all off on his jeans. He turns to the man who is also fading fast now. Lennie watches him take his last few breaths till finally his body sags and his head drops back, lifeless. The two bodies are motionless.

Upstairs Rick is still still drilling. Lennie looks at them both, lifeless and inert. He can’t bear it any longer. He has an idea. He starts to unwind the tape around the man’s neck. He pulls off the bag. 

He turns to the woman and manages to pull away the tape and take off her bag too. Moments later  the man rouses.  Lennie goes to the girl and shakes her and he feels a sense of intense relief when she too regains consciousness. Lennie takes two more bags out from the box. Then he whispers to them both. 

‘Listen, just pretend to be dead, OK?’ 

He slips the fresh bags back on and straps them tight again with the silver tape but this time he tears a small hole in the back of each of the bags.

Both look at him, incredulous. 

‘Just do it!’ 

The drilling stops upstairs and immediately the couple drop their heads and sit perfectly still. 

Lennie zips up his fly and goes back upstairs to the office. 

Rick has managed to open the safe and is cramming a load of small jewellery boxes into the holdall. 

He looks up.

‘They dead?’

Lennie nods soberly. 

‘OK. Switch off all the lights. And don’t forget to take that bag of coke.’ 

Lennie goes back downstairs, switching off all the lights. He goes into the lounge, slips the cocaine bags into his pocket. He looks at the couple sitting motionless in the chairs. He switches off the light. 

As Rick is coming down the stairs, he’s talking to Tom on the phone. 

‘It’s OK. We’re leaving now. Everything is fine.’

Lennie stands by the window. Rick has his torch and as he passes between couple he stops to shine the torchlight on the man’s face. He is perfectly still. Satisfied, Rick turns to the girl. He lifts her plastic covered head and shines his torch into her face. Lennie holds his breath. Her eyes are open wide. Her expression is vacant. She doesn’t blink. Rick lets go and her head flops back down onto her chest. 

Lennie lets out a silent gasp of relief, climbs out of the window and waits for Rick to hand him the holdall, which is now full and very heavy. Together they make their way back through the rain to the car. Tom drives off quickly and for a few minutes not a word is said. 

Lennie sits in the back seat, shivering, his heartbeat still racing. 

And then Tom says,

‘OK so what the fuck happened in there?’

Lennie says nothing. 

Rick takes a breath and says,

‘OK. Well do you want the good news, or the bad news?’ 

Lennie is in the back trying in vain to roll a joint with his fingers still sticky with cum. He’s thankful its all over. He just wants to get stoned to forget everything that happened. In his heart he knows that’s unlikely.

Daniel Guy