A Thief’s Tale

Gabby moved smoothly along the crowded platform towards her mark. Slowly, casually closing the distance.

She had spent half the morning watching the jewellery store, waiting for the right person to make their purchase and exit. Pine’s Jewellers was a high-end store. She knew she could only dip one of their clients otherwise people start seeing patterns and then it’s three hots and a cot. Now though, this guy was it. She had watched the owner during the transaction, and you could see what a huge price tag this had from his excitement.

Gabby had drifted along in this guy’s wake, keeping her distance, waiting for a crowd. She had learned early never to dip on a mark if there was no one else around who looked more like they might have done it. She hung back and waited.

Eventually, he had taken the stairs down to catch this train. Now was the time. She closed the last few feet and waited another beat. A really sketchy looking guy bumped into the mark, and she made her dip at almost the same moment. Prize in hand, she excused herself around the person the mark would remember later for the police and headed to a different car.

This train would get her home so why waste the fare.

That evening, she was supposed to go out for dinner with her boyfriend. He had gotten reservations at the restaurant where they had gone on their first date. They both really liked it. The food was great and the staff were amazing. He had seemed a little weird and kind of on edge or nervous. Hopefully, she would find out what was going on with him over dinner.

On her way to the restaurant, she stopped by Larry’s place. Officially, he ran a combination corner store and mini arcade. But he also handled all the non-cash items Gabby and a few other “entrepreneurs” brought in. He had connections who paid top dollar and even after his cut it was better than risking any of the local pawn shops.

She had been waiting at the restaurant for over half an hour when she called Tom to ask if everything was okay.

“No.”, he said in a strained voice like he had been crying. “Nothing is all right. Nothing and it never will be.”

Gabby was shocked. She knew he had stress and anxiety issues that could make him really emotional at times, but had never heard him like this. “What happened?”, she asked.

“I had this whole big evening planned out.” His voice was almost a sob and she felt an edge of fear she couldn’t pin down.

“My brothers flew in from out of town. They were going to be in the crowd there. We were going to do this big song and then I was going to get down…” His voice choked off into a series of muffled sobs.

“I was going to get down on one knee pull out the ring… I had the perfect ring…” he sobbed again.

“I had seen this ring, and I saved forever but still didn’t have enough so Andy and Mark made up the difference. Not a loan, they just gave me the money.” He paused again, recovered and continued. “I was hung up at work, so Mark went to pay off the last of it and pick up the ring.”

She could hear him breathing careful, slow breaths to keep the sobbing at bay. “Someone pick-pocketed him on the subway when he was on his way back to my place. They took the ring. They took it and it’s a sign.”

Whatever he said next was lost in a rush of traffic noise.

“Oh my God Tom! I am so sorry!”, she gasped. She felt as if she had just been plunged into ice water.

“No.”, he said. His voice was hoarse with repressed tears.

“I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry I wasted your time. I don’t want to waste any more of it.”

A horn blared over the phone and Gabby realized he had just jay-walked in front of someone.

“Tom!”, she called into the phone which suddenly seemed like the heaviest thing she had ever tried to hold. The weight of it pulled her down and she bent almost double at the waist.

“Tom, I’m still here.” Fear closed her throat and she felt her own hot tears spill down her cheeks. “I’m still here.”

“I know you are.”, he said and she could hear his tears again and the fear became a knife cutting off her breath.

“I know you won’t do the right thing on your own, so I’m going to help you.”

Gabby clutched the wastebin beside her to keep from collapsing completely.

“I can’t let you throw your life away for a loser like me.”

“Tom!”

She heard the clatter and scrape that meant a dropped phone.

A moment later, she heard screaming down the street to her left. Lurching to her feet she sprinted in that direction. She pushed her way through the gathering crowd and saw a woman holding

Tom’s phone.

“What happened?”, she managed to ask still struggling to catch her breath.

Seeing her red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks, the woman replied. “He was talking with someone, then he just dropped this and threw himself over the railing. He didn’t even pause or anything. One second, he was here… then he was just gone.”

She held out the phone, but Gabby ignored her and pushed her way to the railing. She looked down and saw him thirty feet below. He was sprawled awkwardly in the street like child’s discarded toy.

For one wild moment, she thought about joining him. She backed away from the railing. That would be the easy way out and she didn’t feel she deserved easy.

When the police arrived, she approached one of them and told them the whole story. She used her phone call to tell Andy what had happened. Each of his sobs was another stone in her heart.

Sitting in a urine reeking holding cell, she asked herself how many other easy marks lives she had destroyed.