Consternation

I

Orion, that’s all he knew.

And he wasn’t even looking at it.

The river Eridanus had in what could only be described as an up-then-down slope a third of the way, where three stars aligned and fooled him for the belt, a familiar sighting on his behind all those years growing up. His mother didn’t read short stories before bed, she would make them, as they followed round the night sky discovering constellations every weekend. Some were real, some she imagined, but she never wanted to take from him what was real or not. His father on the other hand was the Orion. A soldier who came home after a medical discharge and angry about the way the state had treated him. Long queues, incorrect forms, the unending bureaucracy that made welfare as fast as a theme park line. Sadly for Tom, some of that anger manifested in the belt and sandals.

The wind blew through his jacket and chilled in his bones. The clattering teeth gave way to the old Mazda that jumped with every stone on the road. A shrill nasal tone threw the celestial hypnosis off him.

“Tom, could you not hear me?” said the driver.

“Wha-?” he mumbled out of a semi-daze.

“We’re close.”

Tom threw a nod, but he didn’t care if Ronald noticed. He grumbled at the wake-up call, it was the first time he thought about his parents for weeks. Mum was gone and he wasn’t talking to his dad since the stint, so the thoughts kept his only treasured memory of them around. He didn’t have any heirlooms and no sibling to count on the luxury of family photos. Memories, to paraphrase a psychiatrist, are what he had instead of a glossy eight-by-ten view.

“We’re close” he repeated.

That was his cue. Tom unbuckled and slid to the back. He removed his jacket and slipped on a black turtleneck with nylon straps and black boots. On the straps were two holsters and two pairs of cartridge holders for easy-reload. Strapped to the leg was a hunting knife, and strapped to his head was a ski mask.

Truth be told?

He didn’t want this.

But the rent. And Ron knew how to push the right buttons. For all those shitty dead-end jobs it shouldn’t have surprised Tom when he found himself in this position. Six months’ worth of pay checks in one night, who would refuse?

It was no bank, Ron wasn’t as reckless as his 25-to-life cousin, but there were two shipments of cash running in and out every Tuesday and Thursday. Thursdays was the best bet, the town’s police department tended to be slower round the weekends and it could give them a head start in laying low.

Two gates covered the building. The back had no camera, at least when Ron looked over the blueprints. But he wasn’t taking any chances since-

“Ron?”

“What?”

“Dropping me off at the back?”

“No, the side, you got to climb over to the back. Got the key lock and phone?”

Tom tapped his breast pocket.

“Good, I’ll be out front, keeping watch, you leave everything else alone inside, I don’t care if there’s diamonds.”

Tom gave a nod. He stepped out of the car, only two hundred feet from the site and walked around. The wires at the perimeter reflected off the lamppost and Tom didn’t need much searching to cut through them and head in the grounds. The night loomed in and save for the Gemini twins the only illuminating feature around him were the lampposts. The inside gardens was pitch black, but the Moon sighting at the middle pond gave Tom a position to circle the pavement. The second floor entrance was in close sight when the motion lights switched on and the inevitable dog bark ensued. Tom let a gasp out, but had the foresight to remain behind the canopy and in the shadows. Two men came out on deck and shone a torch in the middle. Aside from the pond the gardens were bare, save for the canopy covering the walkway and the trees around the perimeter.

Tom held his breath and kept still. He crouched at a snail’s pace as they surveyed the area with their eyes. He peeked up to take a look. Nobody else came out. With handguns and blue uniforms, they would be easy targets, but Ron said no bodies. Any trail of evidence left could undermine the whole operation and he would rather wait the whole night until they finish their search before popping them off in broad moonlight.

“Probably a cat,” he overheard and watched Starsky and Hutch go back in.

So that makes two, probably for the entire place.

Still, best to be stealth and infiltrate without leaving a trace, but if he had to choose between two middle-aged guys with families and children in school and a life sentence, there was no question. Their job came with risks. The only thing he regretted was trampling onto the lavender as he came out of hiding. Instinct brought his head up, back at the wrong Orion. Her favourite was Cancer, her sign, and all that came with it. At the back of a local paper the journalist must have had a slow news day, because the length of the signs were as long as front page columns that week. For Cancer, growth and a nurturing personality were attributed to her, and Tom’s Ma felt a sudden calling to gardening, vine leaves, bluebells and parsley for starters. But what kept her proud in her patches were the lavender. Pressing between her fingers, she would give it to Tom to hold it in his palm, letting the scent take him someplace he wouldn’t want to leave.

A place of solace. A place of refuge.

What she desperately needed in her last remaining years on the outside. He didn’t know as a kid, but he saw the visits to the medicine cabinet, the strangers who would come in, sit in the makeshift living room and write notes, and the men in white tunics who stormed in one day and took her in. At first he thought she didn’t belong there, sharp as a cue-ball with memory to match, even raising Tom through Tom’s dad, keeping a mental checklist of his school events, extra-curricular activities and meals. But when Tom reached his twenties he saw it clear in his eyes. The muddled cloud infected her head as her memory lapsed and the condition, or conditions he couldn’t remember, kick in. In her final years he would send her lavender when he would visit, being the only thing she remembered about her son.

He had lied to himself, and to Ron about the rent. Sure he needed it, but it wasn’t worth the big score he could be killed for tonight. Funerals are expensive but he could only see the only way befitting Ma in her final send-off, and the remaining caretaker bills had to be taken care of.

Truth be told?

He didn’t want this.

But he had a job to finish and there was no time looking for Cancer. He took his gun out, readily cocking it back just in case and sneaked up close to the building and looked up. The railing was too smooth, the wooden scaffold leading the wisteria looked too flimsy, but the brick extension was just right. A wooden shed occupied the side and if he could get a ledge on that he could make the jump and end up where the guards stood less than a minute ago. Minus a few joint problems Tom still had it. The last leap caused a small sound, but no light switched on and the dog kept quiet. As he threw his leg over on the deck he made an unexpected jerk to untangle from the railing post. Both hands grabbed onto the railing to stop him from making a thud, but in doing so the gun dropped from his hand, landed on the bushes with a rattling discharge.

Shit, he muttered.

Ron perked up in his car and shot a glance straight at the building.

Shit, he muttered.

The barking was louder this time and the entire decking on both floors lit up, almost blinding Tom as he stumbled behind the wall by the door. He looked away and heard the doors open but when he looked back he saw no guard. He heard huffing and puffing below and realised one of the guards had run out to the ground floor deck. He eased up, breathing a sigh of relief when all of a sudden he jumped after the doors beside him swung open. Both of the guards were on each floor, scouting for the origin of the sound. The guard was at the edge, torch out, although at this point he didn’t need it, and yelled down to confirm the other one was out.

Tom let out a small sigh when he noticed he was leaning on the wide-opened doors. Looking back at the guard, he tip-toed around and snuck into the building. The barking ensued, but it was with the guard below. Tom walked far enough to hide behind a large chair and when the guard gave the all clear, he huffed back inside and locked the door. Tom heard him run out of the room and steps on a wooden staircase echoed in the lobby. Now he was alone on this floor and Tom took a moment to breathe.

It wasn’t the way he planned it but it was good enough. He was in and there was no turning back now.

Filled with mahogany shelves and a giant oak desk, he took great liberty in walking along the marble of the grand room, making his way past the desk with its accompanying giant globe and set his torch on into the adjacent room. He glanced over to see a cashmere cloth draped over the couch and grabbed it. He remembered what Ron said, but he wasn’t in with him. Besides, he had a plan in case.

There wasn’t a peep apart from the creaks downstairs and Tom followed the map in his head until he came to a locked door. He was now at the front of the building and surprised at the eerie lack of guards in this wing of the building. In his belt was a pick, attached to a small set of screwdrivers, and he took it out to work the door. The room inside was underwhelming, smaller than the other rooms and with its modern glass table and metal trim against four painted white walls, the brightly-lit chamber was out of place with the rest of the first floor. It was also out of place for another reason.

There, in the centre, in all its glory, was it. What he and Ron came for. What he came for. Suspended by a glass stand, it would fetch a hefty price to what Ron would call his ‘art’ dealer. And Tom could fit it in his collapsible bag. All he needed to do was to put it in, come out from the back again, drop down the garden and make his way round the canopy-covered pavement and slip through the cut fence. He grabbed it gently, and put it in the bag, wrapping it around in the cashmere drape like perfumed bottles on a flight.

He drew the bag tight and threw it on his back. He got up, listening to a soft creak when his eye caught the front window. Looking out, Ron’s car was at a distance and it was there and then that Tom decided something unplanned. He got out the torch, dimmed the lights in the room, and shone it straight to the car. He waved his hands in a short flurry of movements in front of the flashlight and Ron in a split moment shone a single light back.

He got the message.

As he switched off the torch he was ready to leave when he noticed the bright sky. With no torch and dimmed lights, he could see the stars clear through the window without glare. He caught along Gemini when he finally realised that the Orion he was looking at the entire night was the wrong one. After tilting his head, a trick his Ma taught him, he followed the route of the river and correctly assumed the position of the belt. He stuck his thumb out, another trick, and visualised the soldier around it. It was a little smaller than when he put his seven-year-old thumb out on the garden all those years ago, but there was no mistake this time. it was him.

It was Orion.

But as he backed out from the window, he would catch a reflection on the glass. A reflection in the shape of a gun and a slither of a head through the door.

II

Tom shut his eyes and threw himself. A bullet hit the glass where he was standing and he reached for his gun while crouched behind a white chair. He aimed through the hole in the chair and heard a thud, followed by a scream.

“He got my arm!”

Another arm from the other side of the door popped out and pulled the trigger. Several bullets flew by all through the glass. Tom let out some cover fire as he ran for cover under another chair closer to the door.

Ron saw flashes of light in the room and heard a faint bang. Seconds later he heard a ricochet off a nearby lamppost. He was about to lose this heist. He took out a gun from the compartment and jumped out of the car. Despite some distance from the building, he crouched down and ran toward the main entrance, hoping that all of the firepower would be upstairs while praying Tom was alright.

“God damnit Tom!” He whispered to himself. He flashed a light toward the front and saw nobody manning the two ends, so he ran around to find the light from the cut wire fence gleaming at his flashlight and went in. Rather than the back however, he went to the front and openly stood out in front of the shattered window above.

“Tom!”

A hail of bullets went by.

“Tom!”

Another hail.

Then a short silence.

“Yeah?”

Ron let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh thank God. Thank God. Listen Tom, I’m going to need you to come out and drop it in my hands.”

“No way. It stays with me.”

“Tom, it’ll be easier that way. You run round the back. I’ll cover for you there.”

Another hail and a grunt. It wasn’t Tom.

“I’ll throw it out.”

“No! Don’t it’ll break!”

“Relax, I got it all covered, it’ll be alright.”

“You sure Tom?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright then, throw it down and I’ll come round to cover for you.”

Tom was still behind that chair. One guy was hit, twice, but the other was relentless in his pursuit of emptying shells at him. Tom opened fire again for cover while he shuffled the bag off his shoulders. He took one last look at it as he fired his pistol and gave the object a kiss before he threw it hard out the window.

“Got it!” came the reply.

Tom was relieved. With Ron as cover he could make his escape and run straight through the garden to the cut fence to victory. He pressed on, chipping the wooden door frame with a flurry of bullets until he heard nothing back.

Did he hit him?

Tom peered over and crept up to the edge to find the body. It was the first one, with his arms and now head blown off. But the other was nowhere to be found. He heard a bullet round the back.

Thank you Ron.

He charged over back to the marbled room where the door to the deck remained open and crept out, peering over the corners behind the doors and below the deck. As he reached down and headed over to the garden, he saw a figure by the fence and smiled at Ron.

When he shone the light at him he stopped in his tracks and was shocked to discover it was the other guard, a tinge of red blood on his blue uniform, was clutching his shoulder.

“Ron?”

No response.

“Your friend ran away.”

“It seems so.”

But the guard didn’t let him finish. He jerked his hand to reveal a gun from the shadows and fired it off.

Tom felt a searing burn through his abdomen, followed by a sense of disbelief as the back of his head slammed against the grass. He clutched his stomach, gasping for air as his heart went into tachycardia and looked up. There she was, Cancer in all her splendour, just like his Ma, followed by the real Orion. He drew in another breath and heard his Ma's voice.

“Orion, Cancer, Gemini-“

A silhouette loomed over to his right and blocked his view of Pegasus.

“Leo, Major, Sirius-”

Sirius was shining especially bright tonight, he thought.

The gun cocked back.

“Pisces, Lynx.”

“For what you did to my friend,” came the voice standing above.

“Perseus, Lynx.”

And black.

End