Page 50 of Goose

16

Ally

High-income home owners kept their money in the strangest places. Shoe boxes tucked away in the closet was a familiar hiding spot. In a Ziploc bag in the toilet tank was another. In the inside coat pocket of their favorite jacket was a common place to find ten thousand dollars in one hundred-dollar bills.

I wasn’t looking for ten thousand dollars, nor was I in a high-income home owner’s residence. I was on a fact-finding mission in the home of one of SoCal’s wealthy residents. A home I was unfamiliar with.

Protected by the blanket of darkness draped over the city, I walked gingerly through the master bedroom. Despite the night vision’s eerie green glow and limited view, it was easy to see the room was sparsely decorated and meticulously neat. It was an extension of the anal-retentive owner’s personality.

Incapable of cleaning up or controlling his manner of living life, his spotless home became a substitute.

Just as I expected, in the corner of the master closet, a very large safe was neatly situated. Based on experience, I guessed its weight at over a thousand pounds, empty. Moving it would be impossible.

The locking mechanism would need to be manipulated. My ability to do so was one of the many things that separated me from the masses of common thieves. Being cautious not to disrupt anything in the closet, I made note of the manufacturer and the model number of the safe.

I needed a one-hour window to manipulate the lock. If things went well, it’d take fifteen minutes. My crappiest time to manipulate a three-number lock was when I was young—an hour and sixteen minutes.

This was a fact-finding mission. I had roughly an hour before the home owner would return. Attempting to manipulate the lock, clear the contents, and vanish into the night’s darkness would likely get me arrested. I’d have to return at another date.

The anticipation of that day’s arrival would be nearly as pleasurable as walking away with the contents of the safe.

But not near as rewarding as the look on the owner’s face when he found it empty.