“The alternative is letting the cops find this thing first.”
“This is a very bad idea,” David continued arguing, but I thought he was starting to contemplate the scenario seriously.
“We could just pretend I never saw that humongously big car and return to our initial afternoon plans,” I said, but even if that was what I wanted to do, I knew that wasn’t the smartest decision.
“Do you even know how to break into a car?” David asked, and I guess he’d reached the same conclusion I had.
“Should we Google it?”
“You Google, I’ll YouTube it,” he said, and we both took our cell phones and approached the task at hand in the most digitally native way possible.
…
Half an hour after having watched an extremely informative video from an online roadside assistance business owner, and after a trip to the hardware store, we were back in the garage with an inflatable pry bar and a reach tool with a flexible tip. Following the instructions from the roadside assistance guru, I introduced the airbag bar between Henry’s car frame and the passenger door and inflated it, prying the door about half an inch open. David then used the reach tool and, after a few failed attempts, managed to pull the door handle and open the car’s passenger door.
The alarm started blasting.
“We should have thought this through a bit better, perhaps?” David asked. The possibility of the car having an alarm system hadn’t even crossed our minds.
“I’d say we have two minutes until George comes snooping around from the tenth floor or someone else gets here.” I pursed my lips.
“Let’s make it count,” David said.
“Has that security camera always been there?” I asked over the alarm noise when I saw the recording device above our heads.
And perhaps I should tell you here that the pry bar and the reach tool weren’t the only things we’d bought, with cash, at the not-necessarily-nearest hardware store. We were also wearing gloves, head masks, and some hilarious-looking hooded white jumpsuits. They brought me memories ofBreaking Bad, but mostly I hoped they would cover our clothes and most of the details that would make me or David recognizable, should someone see us breaking into Henry’s car. That was the only reason we weren’t running away already from the sound of the car alarm.
“I think the security team only had that one installed a few days ago,” David yelled so I could hear him. He was going through the contents of the glove compartment, which were sparse: owner’s manual and car registration. “The car registration says Atticus Mortimer. Are we sure we didn’t break into the wrong car?”
“Stop panicking, that’s his assumed name.” David raised an eyebrow in confusion. “It’s the fake name he used to book appointments or check into hotelsifhe didn’t feel like being bothered.”
Everyone atLA Misconductsknew Henry had an alternative name for certain occasions. David shrugged and kept searching, apparently satisfied with my explanation.
“No food wrappers, no paper cups, not even a used tissue. This guy must get the car detailed every week,” he said, crouching to see if there was something on the floor of the vehicle.
I checked the non-contents of the trunk.
“It’s almost as if he didn’t live in Southern California,” I added. “No beach blanket, no spare jacket for the chilly summer days, no reusable bags for grocery store runs!”
“Yeah, as if he did his own grocery shopping. Should we call it a day and preventively call our lawyer?”
“He wouldn’t want to know about this,” I said. “Plausible deniability and all that.”
David snorted. “Not sure that’s what plausible deniability means.”
“Are we really arguing about wordsnow?” I couldn’t believe I had been thinking about giving us another try and having a more committed and even conventional relationship with him when he could be so insufferably meticulous. “What the fuck is that?” I said, pointing to a cartoon-looking cat hanging from the car’s rearview mirror.
“One of those cutesy car mirror charm thingies?” David asked.
“The hell it is. Henry hadn’t been cute a day in his life. Plus, he hated animals—even cats. Grab that, we’re taking it,” I said decisively. “And we’re leaving.”
…
“I’ll take that shower now, even if it’s without you,” I told David.
We were entering the main vestibule of the Eastern Columbia after having left the garage via its car ramp, shedding our camouflage attire, and dumping it in a trash can three blocks from there.
“I’ll join before you know it,” David said. “But something occurred to me while we were having our undercover adventure at the garage, and I don’t think it can wait.”
