Golden Gloom - RICH - Part One

Before the Change

1

 

Jane

Ricky and I scrunched down in our seats when the couple emerged from the front door of their palatial manor house and walked to the BMW parked out front. There was still no way that we could be seen yet – there were fifty yards of drive down to the tall spiked gates – but it paid to be safe.

Husband and wife; the couple exuded wealth and class but they were still too far away for a clear look. Their car had been packed beforehand and they were clearly leaving now finally. The gates opened by remote as the BMW coasted quietly down toward it and they turned left, out and up the road.

I edged even further down into the passenger seat but I risked a little peep, enough to glimpse their faces as they drove away. The husband was portly, his hair receding, but he wore an impeccably cut expensive suit. He was in his mid to late forties or early fifties. The woman wasn’t visible behind him.

As the car pulled off, Ricky shifted higher in the driver’s seat beside me, getting edgier. I glanced across the road. The tall gates weren’t yet closed but they would start to any second.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s do this. You coming?”

“No. Drive after them,” I replied.

“Eh?”

“Drive. Come on. We need to be sure.”

“The gates are open!” he snapped. “It’s gonna be a real bastard to get in there after they close. We should run now!”

“That isn’t the plan. Follow their car.”

“What plan?” he asked, clearly more exasperated and starting to sweat. “When do I get to hear this plan?”

I took his bony wrist. The skin was hot to the touch. “You already know it. Just trust me. We have to do this my way.”

“But the gates…”

“We’ll get in the safe. We’ll get the money,” I said. “Just not right now. We need something off them first and we have to follow them to get it. Alright?”

Ricky looked like he was going to pop a blood vessel in his eye. The tips of his greasy hair were damp, clinging to his skin. His hands were shaking. “Alright.”

He struck the creaky old car into drive and went after them, the engine squealing as it struggled to accelerate quickly enough to catch the other car up.

Behind us the gates of the manor slowly swung closed as I fingered the folded up slip of paper in my pocket, wondering how Ricky would react when he finally found out I was lying.

  2

Jane

We got our first really good look at the rich couple inside the airport.

I had been about right in my first estimation. The man was probably in his early fifties, dressed in a finely tailored three piece suit: grey jacket and trousers; waistcoat, silver chain from his pocket watch tucked into the waistcoat pocket; shiny black shoes. He was well overweight, but the comfortable living and good tailoring made him carry it well. His hair was not yet fully grey but was receding at the front; a semi-circle of hair at the top of his forehead was wispy, showing the pale skin underneath. He looked distinguished and mature. He looked well-bred and very very wealthy.

The comparison to Ricky couldn’t have been more profound. Ricky was wiry and gaunt, his big rough-skinned hands thrust into his pockets, the tattoos visible on his hairy forearms on account of the creased and dirty T-shirt he was wearing. His jeans hung off his bony pelvis as he stood uncomfortably, unable to settle quietly he was so agitated.

And the woman; the wealthy wife; was every bit the contrast to me. I, like Ricky, was in my mid-twenties. I was athletic and trim but conscious of the poor state of myself, my shaggy mane of dirty blond hair, my low cut stretch top, denim cut-offs and sandals, sunglasses slid up like a hair band on top of my head. The rich woman was younger than her husband by about ten years – probably early forties. She had dark hair cut into a perfectly sleek bob, the fringe straight and low, touching the upper curves of her thick glasses. She wasn’t fat but she was rather plump, her neck just a single neat fold of sagging flesh. She wore a sleeveless V-necked sweater and a long skirt that stopped just above her ankles and the fabulously expensive court shoes she was wearing. In her ears were tiny delicate diamond earrings, again contrasting sharply with the gold hoops that I wore herself.

Ricky and I watched them bypass the queues and check in their baggage at the gold standard flyer booth as I continued to play with the folded paper in my pocket.

I wondered what would happen if I took it out and read the odd foreign-looking words here in such a public place. But I had no intention of doing that. All my research told me that calm and quiet were the watchwords with the Golden Gloom. It required intense concentration to work correctly. I had no intention of wrecking it.

“Okay, get ready,” I whispered. “When they circle round to go through the doors. Take them then.”

Ricky grinned, reminding me exactly why I loved him – that delightfully roguish charm – then set off, getting into position as the couple returned holding only their hand luggage now.

It was like witnessing perfection. Ricky’s hands were the cleverest I’d ever known – in many more ways than this one. He was the best pickpocket I’d ever seen. He lifted the keys from the man’s inside pocket with barely a nudge. Neither one of them had any idea the theft had taken place and by the time they did they would be thousands of miles away if Ricky and I were lucky.

Ricky slipped back up to me and dangled the bunch of keys near his ear, grinning from ear to ear. “Fancy a drive in a Beamer?”

  3

Jane

Ricky and I coasted in luxurious comfort up to the gate of the manor house in the stolen BMW and I pushed the button for the gate remote that had been fitted into the dashboard. No fumbling with remote controls for these people. No. They had money coming out of their ears.

We drove up to the front of the manor and popped a second button to open the garage. This was the smart play. It meant that peering neighbours likely wouldn’t get a glimpse of us at all – wouldn’t call the police until after we were home and dry.

As the garage door clunked into place, we grinned at one another. There was nothing to stop us now. Nothing at all.

“Let’s roll this fucking place,” said Ricky, visibly shaking as he got out the car, bashing the door against the wall and not even glancing back at it; like he cared so little about the property of others that it didn’t even register at all.

I looked to the heavens but more because it was a shame to wreck such a beautiful vehicle. I didn’t give a shit about the cost to the owners. They clearly had way more money than they bastard needed.

We let ourselves into the house and started creeping round, checking out the opulence that was everywhere there: crystal chandeliers, polished floors; marble table; priceless antiques on every surface. On the wall in the huge lounge was an oil painting scaled to the life size of the owners.

The woman was sitting down in it, the husband standing beside her. As she’d been at the airport, her overripe arms were bare, hands gathered in her lap. The man’s portly form was dressed in another immaculately tailored suit, his thinning hair showing the shine of bare skin on his extended forehead. It was one more show-off of how rich they were in a house full of signs all saying, “Look at me! I cost thousands! We’re the richest people on earth!”

It made me want to poison them for being such fucking hoarders while I’d grown up with nothing in the seediest back street of Barton. It almost made me angry enough to want to abandon the actual plan and just do that: just fuck them over… maybe steal some shit and then kill them when they got back – do the world a favour.

But I wasn’t going to do that. I was going to stick to the plan.

“These fuckers are worth a mint!” shouted Ricky, coming back through holding what had to be a Ming vase. “Look at this shit!” He hurled it overarm at the dining room table, knocking the candelabra onto the floor and bouncing it into the far wall where it shattered. “I bet that cost more than my dad earned in his whole worthless life!” He laughed, pulling a painting of the Taj Mahal off the wall and ramming it down onto a sculpture of a tree so that a hole got punched through it, then laughed even louder.

I scowled. “Shut up. I have to concentrate. Give me a minute.” I took out the paper from my pocket and unwrapped it.

“Fuck that,” said Ricky. “Let’s go and open the safe!”

“No. Shut it. This is why we’re here.”

Ricky cocked his head, scrutinizing the torn little notebook page over my shoulder. “What is it? The combination?”

“No. Just shut up for a minute.”

On the paper were five words, each one difficult to pronounce, almost gibberish. They weren’t in English or any other language I’d seen on TV but I knew— I hoped that they’d do what they were supposed to do.

“We have to read this out together. At the same time,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because we do. Just do it.”

Ricky glowered at me, his hands wringing into fists down by his hips, and I wondered if I’d already pushed my luck with him too far again. He could be a nasty mother fucker if he wanted to be – a really nasty piece of work.

I softened my tone – becoming more coaxing. “Because if we do this then we won’t be a couple of thieves wanted by the police and living on the run; we’ll actually own all this stuff. This’ll be our house. Legally.”

“Don’t shit me. I hate people shitting me.”

“I’m not shitting you. Just trust me for five seconds. What’s the worst that can happen? It’s just words on a bit of paper.”

I didn’t mention where I’d got them. It didn’t matter. All it would do was confuse him.

“What is this?” said Ricky.

I sighed. “It’s a fucking magic spell, you spastic; alright? Just read the magic fucking words with me when I fucking tell you.”

“This is bollocks.”

I touched his arm. “Then it’s bollocks. Humour me for a minute. Read the words. Then if nothing happens we’ll knock over the safe and get out of here. Okay?”

The idiot’s eyes clouded for a few seconds as what passed for his brain ticked slowly round, then he turned his attention to the paper, all resistance gone apparently. He really was a dipshit when it came right down to it. But I had needed him to get inside and he was the best lay I’d ever had.

I gave him a nod and we both read the weird words out on the paper in a flurry.

I felt queasy right away but nothing else happened. There was just silence… and that weird ragged breathing Ricky always did.

Then a shudder went through the house: not a physical beat or tremor – nothing like that. It was more like a sigh. Like the house sagged; the light dimming a little.

I glanced down at the paper in my hand then away. Then I looked at it again. It was smoldering. Crisping. Burning.

“What the fuck?”

I let go of the notepaper before it could burn my hand but it floated, smoke coming right off it. Then suddenly it popped into flame and burned away.

“What happened?” asked Ricky in a little panic. “What the fuck happened?”

I watched the remaining smoke rise toward the ceiling, the paper now completely gone. Then I turned to him and smiled. “It fucking worked. That’s what happened.”