by The Cowl Editor on November 30, 2017
Portfolio
by Jonathan Coppe ’18
“What’s the deal with limp-biscuit over there?” Al scoffed, gesturing toward Logan, who stood rather listlessly some 50 feet off.
“I don’t know,” Jim shrugged back. “I’ve been tired of seeing him moping around the apartment. I thought maybe coming out with us would help, give him an adrenaline rush or something.”
Al gave him a sideways glance.
“He asked to come!” Jim added in defense. “It’s not like I invited him. He asked to come. I wasn’t gonna say no.”
Al rolled his eyes slightly but let the matter drop. The fool was here. Nothing to do about it now.
“Well, tell him to hurry up,” Al said.
“Hey, what’s the hold up, Logo? C’mon, we gotta get in here.”
They were outside a warehouse. Logan had known before he moved in that Jim spent a fair amount of time with shady individuals downtown. He had basically inferred that Jim was involved in crime of some kind. It wasn’t a particular surprise, therefore, when he learned that Jim was a part-time thief. Logan wasn’t, of course, but he and Jim had needed a flatmate at the same time and rent at Jim’s place was cheap. It was better than moving back in with his mom.
The night was muggy, and Logan didn’t feel like hurrying over to brown-toothed Al and getting a point-blank whiff of his malt-beer, dip-spit-scented sweat. But he hurried over. He didn’t want to go back to the apartment, either.
Al and Jim led him over to a padlocked steel door.
“Hold this.” Al handed him a tool bag. He pulled out a pair of bolt-cutters and killed the lock.
“Wait here.”
Jim frowned, “Al, let him come in. He—”
“He waits out here.” Jim looked at Logan to apologize but Logan just shrugged and looked off.
And they went in.
Logan put down the toolbag after about three minutes and started to look around. The warehouse had four steel loading doors big enough each to fit a tractor trailer. The warehouse was on a compound which they had to climb a fence to get into. That probably explained the lackluster security at the warehouse itself. No alarms on the side of the warehouse that he could see.
There was probably a security station or something like that nearby, Logan figured. He hurried away from the warehouse to look.
Back inside: “Al, this one’s got some nice wine in it!”
“We can’t sell that.”
“Give it to your wife! Or I’ll drink it.” Jim laughed.
“How much longer do we have?”
“Don’t worry about it. Security here is the pits.”
Then they heard a siren.
The haul wasn’t big, maybe only a few hundred dollars once they sold everything. Jim had got his bottle of wine. The compound had two or three police cruisers on it now, all full lights blazing. They could hear some shouting.
No worries, though. They had hurried out pretty quickly, no time for cleaning up, but they made it past the fence and Al was careful as a rule. He wore gloves and didn’t leave behind anything of his own. He wasn’t worried about being caught. But then something occurred to him.
“Jim, where are the tools?”
“I gave them to—Oh, shit! Where’s Logan?”
Bang.
“Sounds like he’s still in there. You said he was depressed?”
Bang. Bang. A pained cry echoed from the compound.
“Poor guy.”