‘Right we got seven minutes.’ Sean said as they walked purposefully through the maze of shelves, using the light from their phones to illuminate their path to the counter. They jumped over and entered the office closing the door behind them. On a wooden desk they saw the safe perched precariously on top, a large dial and lock on the front. Sean handed Biola the scrap of paper and put the key in the lock.
‘read out the numbers’
Biola responded.
‘clockwise – 18’
Sean twisted the dial so the number 18 was in line with the red marker at the top of the dial where 12 would be on a clock.
‘Anti-clockwise – 33’
Again Sean twisted the dial, but this time in the opposite direction. ‘clockwise – 46’
The dial make a click as if something had released behind the door, they looked at each other and then Sean turned the key with the red tag in the lock. It ran smoothly, and there was a louder click as the heavy door swung open with its own weight and the angle of the desk the safe was sitting upon.
‘Boooom’ Biola cried as he peered into the safe, there were wads and wads of cash, it seemed like more than they had anticipated, it looked like something out of Ocean’s Eleven, it felt like Ocean’s Eleven, maybe they had more than they were expecting? Maybe they could all go home with 5K Biola thought.
‘Shhhhh’ Sean interrupted. ‘Pass me the bag’ Biola paused
‘The bag’ Sean demanded raising his voice a little.
Biola looked around as if he had dropped the bag, but he knew straight away that he had forgotten it, it wasn’t even in the car, he knew exactly where it was, he knew it was back at the flat on the sofa in Sean’s living room.
‘Sh*t man, sorry..’
Sean looked up at him, ‘you kidding me? You chump. F**k man’
But this was no time to despair, The clock was ticking and they needed a solution. Sean was thinking quickly.
‘Get some X-change bags’
‘From where?’ Biola replied
‘F**k knows, behind the counter.’ Sean guessed
Biola quickly responded walking out of the office to the area behind the counter. He started looking through the cupboards, nothing in the first, then he looked into the second, just a load of random stationary and plastic figures from cartoons and computer games that mostly came as freebees when new games came into the shop to help promote the new releases. Biola opened the third door and there was a stack of plastic bags neatly folded.
‘Yees bruv’ he called out to Sean, ‘How many do we want?’ ‘Bring two’ Sean estimated.
They stuffed all the notes into the plastic bags, the wads mainly in tens, a few twenties and some blocks of fives. The denominations low to reflect the value of the sales that the shop made to its customers.
‘Pikeys’ Sean murmured under his breath as if he was justifying the robbery to himself by creating a Robin Hood type of persona.
‘Right, lets go, check Tyrell is cool.’ Sean indicated as he pushed the safe door shut turned the key and picked up his bag.
Life From the Dirt 