Perfect Crime

by Mark Jacobs

Call me Johno.

You watch enough movies, you come away with the idea that nobody has ever committed the perfect crime. Everybody, even the very smart and the very lucky, makes one mistake, and there’s always a detective with a bad marriage and a substance-abuse problem who doggedly tracks the comitter down.

I’m here to tell you that the movies are wrong. Proof, you say? I’m writing this in a café that I am quite fond of in Saint Augustine, Florida, whose streets I freely walk whenever the spirit of ambulation prompts me. I did the crime but skipped the punishment. Sunshine, that’s what I’m into. I’m into light, and the glories it displays to the discriminating eye.

I want to talk about how it went down, but beware: I’m not writing a how-to manual. There are too many individual particulars in my case that are probably not replicable. Anyway, I haven’t noticed people lining up to consult me on their criminal dreams and desires. So why bother putting my experience down on paper? Beats me, although I’m convinced there’s a reason.

I was working as a security guard for Oxxos. They put me on the night shift, which was fine by me because they paid me a buck-and-a-quarter-per-hour differential. Also, they left me alone. Better still, after midnight you don’t run into many people in a department store. My psychic space belonged to me, and me alone. Believe me, as human habitations go, my psychic space is not congenial to crowds. Which is not to say I don’t crave company in the evil hours. There are some of those in every day. Waking or sleeping, you are assigned your quota and must fulfill it.

This was in Boston, I should say. The location matters. There are a great many cloudy days in Boston and environs. The sun works part-time, and sometimes the slacker fails to show up at all. Even an optimist will get tired of overcast skies.

The downside of working for Oxxos was that they did a background check on me, and registered my fingerprints. In today’s world nobody is invisible, although you can make yourself so thin, digitally speaking, that you’re hard to descry. Or maybe it’s that you make yourself of negligible interest to the watchers, and the ones who want you to buy stuff. Either way, my profile was low. I stayed off social media, and kept my email to a workmanlike minimum. To keep myself mentally active I borrowed books from the library.

Talk about heresy.

Talk about the wealth of words.

Was I thinking about self-improvement opportunities all along, or did I just seize the one that came my way when it did? It’s surprisingly difficult to say. I don’t always know what my mind is up to. Sometimes it’s on what I call willful autopilot. When that happens I’m just a passenger along for the ride, thumbing through the in-flight magazine.

No simple task, then, understanding what happened. However, I’m working steadily at figuring it out. I come to the Café à Plomb about eight a.m., before the morning’s virgin hum is overpowered by the business of day. I write by hand in a notebook. I prefer lined paper, and a mechanical pencil with a .07 mm lead. The .09 draws an ungainly line, and the .05 too often snaps on contact with the paper.

I order a coffee from Florence, whose abruptness masks, I like to think, some of the warmer virtues. She is a large woman with an interesting shape, and awkward standing still. She wears her brown hair long, and when no patrons are watching her lips speak long and complicated sentences no one ever hears. Don’t call me a barista, I once heard her warn the guy in front of me in line. There was steel in her voice. I make coffee. I put it in cups. Just don’t call me a barista. Fair enough. I’m not sure what offended her, but the force of feeling appealed greatly to me. Here’s another thing I like to think: that some of Florence’s unspoken sentences are meant for ears like mine.

Oxxos was pretty strict about the routines it required of the guards they employed. At the department store, which was old and had a venerable history in the venerable city of patriots, I adhered to the same schedule every night. The store had six floors of merchandise, a suite of offices, a massive underground warehouse, plus a loading dock out back that overlooked an alley. It was my duty to police all of those spaces in a predetermined order, and I did so faithfully. My supervisor, whom I almost never saw, had nothing to complain of in my performance. At six months I got the token raise they promised their novitiates.

Was my industriousness part of a plan, or just the way I was raised to give a day’s work for a day’s pay? I only pose the question. Can’t answer it. There is mystery in motive.

Now and then I saw a rat hanging around the loading dock. There was a Dumpster in the alley, and because people are careless sometimes trash spilled out. I hate rats. Nothing unusual about that. It’s probably not unusual, either, that I got into the habit of carrying rocks in my pocket that I could throw at a rat sitting, as they liked to do, on the lip of the dock. Twice, in eighth months, my rock connected with positive effect.

It was the possibility of stoning a rat that drew me to the loading dock. I went there more often than was strictly demanded by the Oxxos protocols. It’s no longer acceptable to chalk up our experiences to fate, or destiny, the way the Greeks once did. I’m sorely tempted to do so anyway. If I hadn’t been near the loading dock I would not have paid much attention to the armored truck.

Always two people, a driver and a runner. They varied their arrival time, and I presume they varied their route. Basic security precautions, these. Certain Shield had its company protocols just as Oxxos did. Once a week or so the truck backed into the dock where the semis unloaded their cargo during business hours. A man with a pistol in a holster on his uniform belt exited from the passenger side, made his way into the building using an ID card with a chip in it, and picked up money from a safe inside the office area. I was not foolish enough to follow him, or to pay obvious attention to the routine, so I don’t know how he got into the safe unless he knew the combination. I suppose it doesn’t matter.

In the course of my time at the store there were two men and one woman who showed up to collect the cash. One of the men was always whistling a Hank Williams tune. “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” I think it was although I am not a fan of the genre. He had a breathy whistle that annoyed me. I tried not to blame him for my sensitivity, which I admit is a bit extreme. One of the drawbacks of spending too much time alone.

Of course the driver never left the truck. He waited with the engine running, and I’m sure he kept the doors locked. The truck had a diesel engine. I have always thought there is something appealing about the quiet clatter of an idling diesel at night, don’t ask me why.

One recent morning, I want to insert here, I was the only customer in the café for a good fifteen minutes. The building faces east, and the plate glass windows captured a static flood of sunlight that monumentalized the objects and items of the coffee-and-sweets establishment where I like to hang out. Cups and saucers, the rounded backs of polished metal chairs, the occasional faint undulation in a crisp tablecloth, a tubby old tabby asleep on a chair. The décor, like the name, is restrainedly French. Black and white predominate, with splashes of primary color popping here and there, and the art on the walls subtly commands your attention. In yesterday’s light you did not have to be Proust to imagine the Café à Plomb on a Paris side street in an arrondisement with a history of blood and tears, collaboration and resistance, treachery and triumph.

Florence, too, was captured in and by the moment. She stood behind the counter holding a white towel, entranced by the light, which held everything, sleeping cat included, in a kind of solar consciousness, the encompassing gaze of a vitalizing imagination. A tableau vivant, I think that’s what I mean to say we were. Because yes, I was part of it. On the margin, at a table along the wall, my shoulders shyly hunched, but I was there. To be in and of the light, I suppose that’s as much as a person can ask for.

“You want a refill?” Florence called over to me, her brusque voice cutting the thick light without doing it injury.

I nodded, and she sauntered in my direction with a steaming pot.

“On the house, this morning,” she said as she poured coffee into my white ceramic cup.

I smelled her scent. I opened my mouth to speak. I wanted to say, Don’t laugh, but I love you. But I had been alone too long. The words strangled themselves in their throaty crib.

“What?” said Florence. “Weren’t you going to say something?”

I shook my head. “Cat got your tongue?” She gestured at the sprawling gray tabby, dead to the human world. “Bessie there couldn’t get a dead man’s tongue.”

She was giving me every opportunity to carry on a conversation. But I was sun- dazzled, lost in the light, and abashed from long isolation. After another minute she went away and took up her station behind the counter.

Let’s go back to Boston, which I am tempted to call a gray area.

It was a rat that finally changed my life. I’ve done some reading. The Norway rat, also known as the brown rat, has followed its rodential bliss making itself at home across the globe. It occupies the same dank stratum in the human imagination that the cockroach does, known everywhere, wanted nowhere.

It was Hank Williams who came for the cash the night of my momentous transformation. I happened to be at the loading dock just before the Certain Shield truck arrived. There happened to be a rat on the iron lip. I happened to hit it with a stone; victim number three. It squealed and fell. Curiosity directed me down the steps on the side of the deck to an overhang. I wondered if the rat was dead or just offended. I had a flashlight. I got down on my knees and shined the light into the vacant space hoping to see a corpse.

Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.

I want to be accurate, describing what happened next, so I will save the interpretation for later, if anybody cares to hear it. I heard the telltale diesel clatter. I switched off my flashlight. I crawled under the overhang on my hands and knees. I heard the brakes make a mild noise of complaint as the driver eased into the bay. Then Hank Williams emerged whistling. I stayed where I was, mostly because I was embarrassed to be there and did not want to be discovered in a compromising position.

That would have been the end of it, but suddenly I heard the driver get out of the truck. He stood on the concrete and called Hank Williams on his phone.

“Come let me in. I got to take a dump.”

He listened for a moment. I had the impression that Hank was telling him to hold it. The engine was still running. All thoughts of rats had fled my consciousness. I felt a great sense of peace. All things must pass, anything can happen.

The long and the short of it is this: Hank came to the door and let the driver in to use the restroom. I slipped on some work gloves. I tried the door of the truck. It was unlocked. I got in behind the wheel. I released the emergency brake and drove. Just one short block, to another alley. I parked. I reached behind me. My hands touched one of those grainy black nylon bags you see everywhere, sturdy and useful. I took it. I walked another block to another Dumpster and tossed in the bag. I went back to work, going into the store through a side door to avoid the Certain Shield employees.

When the cops came by to interview me, half an hour later, I was initialing my visit log in the corridor leading to the C suite. It’s not that difficult to feign surprise. All you have to do is think about something unlikely, such as a person like me stealing what I hoped was a bag of money.

The cops’ questions were perfunctory. They expected little from me, and that’s what they got. No, I had heard nothing, I had seen nothing, I knew nothing. Because I am who I am, every low-key denial I spoke struck them as credible. It’s easy to imagine them making a joke at my expense, driving back to the precinct later on. What a loser. Fucker doesn’t know what day it is.

This was November. It was cold and dark when I finished my shift. Winter was lurking, the way it likes to lurk in Boston in November. The police were long gone. I walked at just the right rate of speed to the Dumpster into which I had tossed the black bag. Sure, it could have been emptied by then. But it hadn’t been. There was nobody around. I retrieved the bag. I took a bus back to my apartment.

You might think it strange, but I got a few hours of much needed sleep before looking into the bag. I think I wanted not to lose control of my emotions. When I woke, I made a pot of jasmine tea, placed the bag on the kitchen table, and opened it. Counted. One hundred and forty two thousand dollars, rounding down.

I had one bad moment that day when a detective in a leather jacket knocked on my door to ask me the same questions the uniformed police had asked me at work. He had a scarred, wise face and was there to assess me. Being such a solitary and inward individual, I am hard to assess.

“You want a cup of tea? It’s jasmine, but I can put in sugar.”

“No thanks.”

I shrugged. Nerves of steel. That might be an unlikely trait in an extreme introvert, but there you have it.

I felt bad for the two Certain Shield guys. I’m sure they got canned. I guess the good thing about being fired from a crummy job is how little there is to lose, when it comes right down to it.

It was easy–ridiculously easy–not to make the obvious mistakes. I did not open a bank account and stuff it with inexplicable cash. I didn’t quit my job, or buy a Camaro. I had been at Oxxos almost nine months. The prudent thing was to finish out a year before giving notice. Three months to go. On the year anniversary of my employment as an Oxxos guard I decided to stay longer. I waited four more months before telling my supervisor I was going back to school. I was getting a student loan so I could concentrate on my studies. He offered to write me a recommendation.

I have no idea why I told him, when he asked, that I was going to study journalism. I can think of few careers at which I would do worse.

I enjoy traveling by bus, the feeling of anonymity in motion. It makes me feel snug and adventurous at the same time. When the day came, I broke the lease on my apartment, donated my possessions to Goodwill, and bought a ticket to Miami. I traveled light, just a backpack with a change of clothes and some toiletries, and the black vinyl bag full of money, which was heavier than you might think.

I had no intention of staying in Miami. After a couple of nights in a budget hotel I took another bus to what had always been my destination of choice. Saint Augustine. Because of the light.

A hundred and forty two thousand dollars is not a fortune, not when you think about the kind of money the financial titans throw around. But it’s enough to give me time to think. I live parsimoniously out of habit. I’ve rented an efficiency apartment. The sofa folds out into a bed. It’s not the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever slept in. I have the leisure of time that I always craved. I can think, at my own pace, about what comes next.

I could not be happier with the city I chose. You probably know that Saint Augustine is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in the continental U.S., not counting those of the Indians who were on the scene when the Europeans showed up in boats.

I go to the café every morning. It’s a pleasant walk from my apartment. Sometimes there are pelicans in the lambent air. They fly with the grace of amateurs.

On two more occasions, after the morning she offered me coffee on the house, Florence tried to engage me in conversation. I wanted very badly to talk with her. I was a fool to shunt her aside. I blame it on the bad habits I developed, being alone. If I ever had any confidence it’s long gone.

Well. Then last week when I walked into the Café à Plomb I knew something was different, something was wrong. No Florence. There was a red-haired guy behind the counter. Green eyes, freckles, muscular forearms with veins that stood out. Clearly he lifted weights. He told me that Florence quit.

“Where did she go?”

He shrugged. Didn’t know, didn’t care. Never met her, never would.

I was dumbstruck. I stood there unable to tell him how I wanted my coffee. There were two people behind me in line. When they became impatient I gave up my place. I went back outside and wandered the streets, cursing my blasted habitual reserve, or whatever it was that had prevented me from talking with Florence like a normal human being.

Eventually I made my way to the beach. The light of late morning was sheer effulgence, filling the sky to bursting with an intimation of joy. The gulls, wheeling in their customary traces, knew what the sun intended. The pelicans on the pilings knew. On the surface of the green deep Atlantic a bronze woman, hand on the tiller of a small boat with a purple sail, knew. Me, too. I knew.

My name is not really Johno, in case you were wondering. Everybody deserves an alias of private significance, no questions asked.

Resolved. I will look for Florence. I don’t know how yet, but I will find her. Somebody at the café will know something. She must have left a trail, however faint. I will be a dogged detective, tracking her down. When I find her, we will talk. We will walk the beach, and look at the light. I have all the time I need to search, I have the freedom. The woman stole my heart. The perfect crime, really. I refuse to let her get away with it.

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