Numbers Game by Jacob Long (the giving tree read aloud TXT) 📕

New York City
1988

The sheets were a hot, dead, prison. Reed always got nervous before he had to break into someone’s house and the hours that he had to lie awake in bed and pretend to be asleep were always hell. A heat wave was passing through New York and Reed was already nervous so he practically drowned in his own sweat that night. The digital clock that shone so obnoxiously in his face read 10:57.
Reed muttered, “Close enough,” and slid out of bed.
The clothes he was wearing earlier were already in a messy pile next to his bed. He pulled his jeans on first, then his Pink Floyd t-shirt, and finished up with his sneakers; dressing entirely in the dark. His trademark black hoodie was sitting on his dresser on the opposite side of the room from his bed. To finish the look he slipped it on.
Reed had a stained-wood nightstand with three drawers down the length of it. He knelt down in front of it and pulled out the bottom drawer. It was filled with about a dozen inconsequential miscellaneous items. Reed groped around on the bottom of the drawer until his delicate finger nerves were graced by a small string lying along the left vertice. Reed took the string into his hand and pulled on it. The bottom of the drawer came loose from its bindings revealing a secret compartment. This compartment was filled with a black strap-on ankle scabbard, switchblade, and a lock-picking kit. Reed strapped the scabbard to his right ankle and slid the switchblade inside. The lock-picking kit was placed in the hoodie’s front pocket.
The whole process took less than two minutes; soon Reed had replaced the cover and was on his way. He quietly opened his bedroom door and stepped out, barely making a sound. He crept, so silently past Angela’s room and his mother’s. The stairs were usually creaky during the daytime, but for some reason always remained silent when they needed to be. Reed liked to think of it as providence. He was meant to sneak out and steal from the rich so his family could be happy.
Reed passed through the kitchen and eased the front door open, careful not to make any sort of noise that would disturb the women in the house. Opening the door was tense but closing it was worse. For the most part doors can be closed slowly, but then it gets to that point where you have to exert extra pressure to get it into the door frame. Once the door is in the frame all of that extra force comes back to haunt you as the door’s bolt skirts uncontrollably along the frame’s many angles. At night, when you’re sneaking out of a house and your nerves are on end these noises seem even more pronounced. Reed grimaced even though he’d experienced it a dozen times without incident.
The first challenge was over. Reed was outside. Step two was to acquire transportation. The only people worth robbing are rich and rich people didn’t live within walking distance of Reed’s house. What Reed really needed was to get his own damn car, but if he could afford a car he wouldn’t be robbing people in the first place.
Reed stepped onto the sidewalk and moseyed down the street. People have the ugly habit of parking their cars on the curb all night, which make them easy to steal. Reed supposed that they really didn’t have anywhere else to put them though. Every time Reed went out he would have to steal a different car to get where he was going. Tonight the victim turned out to be a 1969 Chevrolet Caprice. Reed loved old cars, no matter how beat up, and this one was beat up indeed. The body was missing large patches of its dilapidated red paint and the lock on the driver’s side door was missing entirely. Reed had to reach inside the void left in its wake and depress the release lever to open the door.
Inside, Reed eased into the driver’s seat. It really used to be a nice car with genuine leather seating. Only now the seats have large holes in them where the leather and cushioning is torn away. It was actually kind of sad.
Reed swallowed down his disgust at the car’s mistreatment and ducked under the dashboard. The car’s wiring was already bare. Reed pulled up his pant leg and unsheathed his switch blade. Flicking it out, Reed severed two of the red wires and stripped a good deal of the insulation off of the ends. The newly exposed wires inside were twisted around each other and left hanging. Next Reed severed a brown wire and touched one of the ends to the two newly connected red wires. The car roared to life and settled into an unpleasant chugging sound. Reed revved the engine a couple of times with the gas pedal to ensure that the engine didn’t stall on him and sat back in the seat.
Challenge two was passed. Reed had transportation. He would need it too. This new mark was all the way up in the hills of White Plains; a twenty-five-mile-walk from Harlem. The Moltini’s were notoriously reclusive. Only two members of the family actually lived in the house; a father and his only daughter. The security in and around the house is supposed to be legendarily tight but the amount of expensive valuables rumored to be contained inside make it worth the risk. Reed had convinced himself. He shifted the car into the proper gear and pulled away from the curb, driving off into the night.
Reed loved classic rock music and would normally listen to some whenever he was in a car, but not at night. Not when he was driving to rob another person’s home. Reed felt tense and basked in the tranquility of the city. Only the sound of the distressed engine filled the void.
The city passed by uneventfully. Reed was only on the streets for a few minutes before he hit the New York State Thruway and was moving at high speeds toward his destination. At the checkpoints Reed respectfully paid the required tolls and drove by without any of the guards knowing the car was stolen. Who would want to steal a car like that anyway?
About a half hour passed and Reed was gazing upon the rolling hills of White Plains, New York, black against the starry night sky. The city’s lights seemed to be the sky’s equal and opposite; a reflection on a lake that couldn’t be ignored, but Reed didn’t have the time to stare. Usually he would sit, stare, and think, but not now. Now Reed turned off the thruway and dove into the hills; the headlights on the Caprice slicing a path through the dark.
All at once Moltini Manor appeared to him, its outline poking out from the hills surrounding it. Reed decided to pull the car over and shut the engine off a ways away from the grounds proper so he could sneak in. He got out of the car and walked the rest of the way.
Moltini Manor was surrounded by a brick wall ten feet high. The front gate could easily be climbed but that would be the first point the guards would expect an intruder to enter. Reed decided instead to scrabble up the walls themselves. He found a portion of the wall hidden from the extensive driveway and started trying to enter.
First Reed was just trying to jump straight up and catch the lip of the wall. He couldn’t even reach it, almost, but no prize. Reed took a second to think and catch his breath. After that he tried running up the wall, jumping, kicking the wall, and grabbing the ledge. The first try Reed snagged the ledge, but couldn’t hang on and fell back to the ground. On the way down Reed’s palms scraped against the unforgiving brick and left a nasty burning sensation. Reed shoved his hands under his armpits and danced around for a while, breathing through his teeth.
Serious time was being wasted. It was almost midnight and Reed knew the most important thing with home invasion robberies was that you had to get in and get out, as quickly as possible. He gathered himself and tried again, jumping up and clinging to the edge of the wall as hard as he could. This time Reed’s fingers held. He was hanging from the wall just as planned.
Reed was a pretty light kid, and definitely strong enough to handle his own weight, so he began to slowly pull himself up. It put a lot of strain on his muscles and an almost undetectable groan escaped his lips but soon his head was peeking over the lip of the wall.
The courtyard was filled with lone standing trees dotted about. It was the kind of night where Reed couldn’t see any shapes milling about the courtyard, but if he couldn’t see them, they probably couldn’t see him either.
Reed swung his right arm over the wall and grabbed the other edge on the far side. Next he swung his right leg up and landed it on top of the wall. He used both appendages to pull himself up.
Reed wondered if that was challenge three. He made it on top of the wall but he wasn’t technically in the house yet.
He sighed and lie prostrate, trying to blend into the wall. Reed turned his head slightly and gazed into the courtyard to double check if there were any guards. There still appeared to be none, so Reed rolled over as hard as he could and threw himself off the wall, landing in a crouch. Quickly, Reed glanced to the right and left, then sprinted to the nearest tree. The trees in the courtyard were hardly thick enough to hide anyone but Reed figured his shadow could blend into the shadow of the tree.
Reed continued toward the house and approached one of the windows. He probed the pane with his fingers and found out that they were the old-fashioned kind that doesn’t open whatsoever. Reed sighed, figuring he might have to pick one of the locks on the doors. That took time and he felt he had already been there too long.
With reluctance, Reed moved around to one of the side doors. He placed his hand gently on the handle and slowly depressed it. To his surprise the door was unlocked. For a place with such a reputation, it actually had horrible security.
Reed tentatively pushed the door open. It made a horrible creaking noise as it moved that seemed to explode in Reed’s ears. He stopped short, waiting for some enormous guard to bound down the hall on the other side and take him by his hoodie. No such event occurred. Reed waited a few more seconds, then shoved the door open as fast as he could, clinging to the doorknob and stopping it before it smacked into the wall. The door squeaked once and was quiet. Reed eased inside the house and closed the door as quickly as he had opened it. It made an audible click as it locked into the door frame that seemed to echo throughout the whole house. Reed once again squeezed his eyes shut and waited. No guards, no alarms, nothing came to oppose him.
Reed’s heart rate was unbelievably high. His breathing had become erratic and the shakes had set in. It was becoming extremely dangerous in his mind. He really hadn’t done anything yet. It was too easy. Where are all the guards? Where are you hiding? Just come out!