It had been quite a long day, and my inevitable collapse onto the bed once I got home felt great for the few seconds before I reminded myself I had something else to do before turning in for the night. I sat up, grabbed my villain phone, and pulled up the contact list.

The phone rang once, twice, and…. a half. Twice and a half.

“Yo?” Buridan answered.

“Where the hell are you?” I asked.

“Oh, wait, it’s you. Hey, you’re back? Welcome back, man!”

“Buridan, why aren’t you on call?”

“Sorry man. Thing is, I sorta thought the whole crime thing was tk-tk, kaputerrific, what with you having been made and all.”

“What part of ‘Sam is in charge whenever I’m gone’ did you forget about?”

“Uh, well, mostly all of it I guess,” Buridan said.

“Where are you?”

“Bora Bora, bro. I’m on a spring vake. Didn’t think you were post-prison yet.”

“Vake”? Oh. Vacation. Wait, Bora Bora?

“You… are in Tahiti right now?” I sighed.

“Hey, the finals rush is gonna be hitting soon. Gotta come into that feeling refreshed, you know?”

Buridan — Tony, Anthony Lewis — was a tutor by day. Or by afternoon, mostly. The end of the school year was definitely one of the busier times for him and his coworkers, but….

“Okay, I want to know who fucked the communication up here, because I shouldn’t be blindsided by one of my employees leaving the country when I’m trying to plan a big job.”

“Woah, big job? What kind of big job?” Tony asked.

“I’m going to steal a hard drive from Pishon Industries.”

“Pff. No you’re not.”

“And you know, I was kind of thinking I could use your help, before I found out you were on ‘vake.’”

“My bad, man. Wait. Not my bad, I take it back, I did put in my whole vacation days and all that. Take it up with Di.”

So, either Diana didn’t tell Sam, or Sam didn’t tell me. And Sam would’ve told me. Damn it, Di.

“When are you going to be back?” I asked.

“I’ve got an overnight flight leaving on the 22nd, landing on the 23rd at balls-early A.M.”

“You’re there all week, then,” I said. April 23rd was Sunday.

“Yep. Sorry.”

“And let me guess. You’re booked for a ton of students the week of the 24th?”

“Wouldn’t be right to cancel,” Tony confirmed. “The kids are counting on me, boss. I’ve got a five star rating to uphold here.”

“Whatever. We’ll just do it without you.”

“Hey, good luck. Is Pishon your first crack back at the heist game, now that you’re a free man again?”

“It is.”

Tony whistled. “Not even a warm-up, huh? Gutsy.”

“Yeah, well, things just kind of worked out that way. Enjoy your tropical island, I guess.”

“That’s the plan, man.”

I hung up and sank into my bed. Was talking to my employees as annoying last year? I couldn’t recall.

In any case, sure, Buridan hadn’t been an integral part of the plan, but snags before we had even shipped out to where we could see our target didn’t bode well.

I kept turning over all the facts I knew about Pishon Industries in my head, trying to refine our strategy, until sleep crowded out my thoughts.

♜

The door to the bookstore swung shut behind me. A young man at the desk that served as a check-out station looked up from what he was doing.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Ryan, right?”

“That’s- who’s asking?”

“I’m your boss’s boss,” I said.

I saw the gears turning for a second. “Oh! You’re the landlord? Hello, sir. It’s nice to meet you. Sir.”

About time I got some respect around here, I thought, quietly amused.

“Just wanted to check in on the new hire,” I explained. “Nothing formal, it’s not like I can fire you.”

“Um, but you could suggest to Mr. Kane that he fire me,” Ryan pointed out.

“Now, why would I do that?”

“No reason, sir. Uh, I hope.”

“Alright, relax,” I said, smiling. “You seem like a good kid. What were you working on just before I came in?”

“Yeah. Yes, that.” Ryan turned his attention to the desk. “So, I’ve got- we got a couple of trade-ins yesterday. Old books, sir, really old ones. I’m just giving them a once-over, uhhppraising the wear and tear. We have to balance the price point for the cool factor of the whole dusty old tome aesthetic, versus the actual risk of these things, like, disintegrating.”

“What books are they?”

“Georgette Heyer’s The Black Moth, and this one is Erewhon.”

“By?”

“By… it, uh, it doesn’t say, sir.”

“Huh. Well, I’ll leave you to it, Ryan. Good luck with your books, say hello to Sam for me.”

“Will do.”

“In fact, tell Sam to meet me at three o’clock, if possible. I want to double-check some of the terms of the lease agreement.”

“What? Does that mean-“

“Nothing that’s going to close the shop down, kid. Don’t worry.”

He looked worried. Oh well.

“Right,” Ryan said. “I’ll let him know, then. Bye, sir.”

“See you.”

Obviously, I could just call Sam and tell him myself, but I wanted to push the new guy just a little bit, to make sure he could deal with surprises like that. Dealing with surprises was a required skill on Bellow Street, and subtly training up all the employees here was part of my duty of care in exchange for the trouble I put ’em through.

Since we weren’t waiting for Buridan, the idea was to move out as soon as possible. The faster we got to the job, the sooner we could get it over with.

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