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Saturday evening, Rick Dubois's place.
Jack didn't know no Rick Dubois, but he'd gotten the invite anyway. It'd not been addressed to him under his real name, of course, but he was quite used to people addressing him by the name of Paul Barker by now. Newest name he'd affected since the law's noose got a little too tight around the neck of Ernie Boon.
Although he didn't know the man personally, ever since he'd shown up on the scene this Rick fella had been making one Hell of a splash in high society circles. Charming, handsome, with that slicked back blonde hair and killer moustache. And he had a fine taste in cigars too, judging by the complementary piece that Jack had been offered when he'd walked in the front door.
It was a big place, a real schwanky one. Guys and dolls mulling about, chatting and gyrating in their little dances and laughing at fake jokes. Jack didn't have time for most of it; he was leaning against the fireplace, watching the rest of the suits around him like a photographer eyeing up a herd of wildebeest. He watched a short little man shaped like a plumb walking about with a drop dead gorgeous woman several heads taller than him trying to talk to people about his butterfly collection, whilst an overworked butler hustled about and tried to keep the chaos perfectly organised.
Rick would have liked to live in a fancy house like this one day, but his larceny career had hit a bumpy spot. A few too many run-ins with guard dogs and too many near misses with the cops. He'd have not been interested at all in this shindig if it hadn't been for the tagline; "Come see the first ever public display of my newest acquisition, the Silver Mermaid!"
The Silver Mermaid. The most whispered about piece in the world. Said to have been the last gasp of a famous sculptor high off his tits and running out of money before he died, a piece of artwork so gorgeous that one look and you were mesmerised. It was estimated to be worth enough to buy a small country, and even if it was too good to be true Jack wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to grab it for himself.
He caught the eye of a nice looking dame with a red ensemble and vivid blue eyes under her black bangs who was chatting away with some other talky broads. He smirked at her as he lit his cigar and breathed out a puff of smoke, but as it dissipated she'd vanished back into the crowd. No matter; he wasn't here to cruise. He flanked over to one end of the room, where a square of velvet curtains hid the Mermaid from sight. It was like the Tabernacle enshrouding the Holy of Holies, kept unveiled from the eyes of mere mortals.
Jack glanced about; wasn't like most people in here were paying much attention to him anyway. He could be pretty plain when he wanted to, just another tall, dark and handsome stranger in a room full of them. He made his way along one side of the room towards the curtains, pretending to be investigating the titles of the books on obscure geographies that lined the bookshelves built into the walls, then slipped behind a bushy potted fern and when he was definitely sure no eyes in the room were on him, he lifted up one edge of the nearest curtain and slipped under it and out of everyone's sight. Now it was just him in the strange little four-sided tent, and the Mermaid sitting on a raised podium.
Jack had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
She certainly was a mermaid, a real god damn siren if he'd ever seen one, thirty inches tall and cast out of pure silver the same colour of the rock she sat on. She was sculpted to be a real pretty dame, her long locks of hair covering her massive tits, her figure looking like what Hans Christian Andersen might have intended if he'd had a weird thing for fish legs. Jack raised his cigar to his lips and took a long draw. The way the light in the room reflected off her silvery metal surface was mesmerising.
It was only in staring at his reflection that he saw someone else standing behind him, a figure in a red dress pulling a derringer out from her bosom and pointing it at the back of his head. Jack heard the click and froze where he stood.
"You were always too easily distracted by a pretty face, Jack," she whispered, the barrel of the gun a few inches from his head. A few beads of sweat dripped down Jack's brow as he recognised the subtle change in Vanessa's voice and the shifting of her accent into a southern drawl.
"Clementine Allen. I might have known," said Jack, risking turning his head a little to look her in the eyes. She responded by pressing the gun right up against the side of his head. He remained perfectly still as more sweat dripped down the back of his neck. "You here to steal the fishy dame?"
"Aren't you?" Clementine was looking amused as she tilted her head to the side, her finger lightly tapping the tripper with a slender finger in a way that made his heart stop each time. She had always been able to disappear into a character; even now, as he looked her in the eyes, under the clever makeup and wig she managed to look like a totally different person. "Would make a difference from trying to steal hearts, Jacky boy."
"Clem…"
"You don't get to call me that," she hissed, pressing the gun barrel harder against his skin, "If it weren't for all those overbred dimwits out there who might be willin' to testify against me, I'd blow your brains out right now an' take that statue with me."
Jack swallowed. "No chance that we might split it fifty-fifty, like the good old days?"
Clementine looked like she was about ready to pull the trigger when the curtains parted slightly on the other side and the small little man with the round spectacles and his tall wife entered. They froze when they saw Jack with Clementine's gun jammed against his head. Clementine froze too, then she whipped her gun around to point at them as they reached into their pockets and pulled out a pair of guns of their own.
"So," said the little man in a thick German accent, "It seems we're not ze only ones here engaging in a little larceny, hmm?" He took a step forward , waving his pistol from her to Jack. "Or were the two of you hoping to have a little bit of ze hanky-panky under the curtains and hope nobody would notice, hmmm?"
"Put the gun down, darling," said his wife, if she was even that, "You're two against one."
"Not for long." Clementine snatched a glance at Jack, then back at the couple. "Jack, get out your gun!"
"I don't carry a gun anymore, Clem. I swore off violence." Jack lifted his cigar back to his lips and pulled slowly before breathing out smoke. "Unless you mean something else entirely, and this is hardly an appropriate circumstance."
"Unbelievable…"
Jack ignored her, waving his cigar as he took a step towards the man and woman, who pivoted their guns towards him. He paused, but had on his face a warm, friendly demeanour.
"I know who the pair of you are," he said, looking at the woman first, "You're Emilia De Bootz, the woman who robbed the museums of Berlin blind, and in broad daylight. And you-" he gestured with his cigar towards the short man, "-are most certainly not the Count Manstein, but rather Otto Weber, Germany's most feared cat burglar. Am I correct?"
"Partly," replied the little man, "My companion here is the infamous De Bootz. But I am not Otto Weber, for you have the honour of standing here in the presence of my true identity, Max Achterburg, master of disguise!"
Emlia De Bootz frowned. "Wait, I thought Max was the persona you came up with for that bank job in Frankfurt? Otto is your real name, you were just pretending to be Max!"
Otto looked confused. "No, no, Max is my real name… I think…"
Clementine looked up at Jack then back to Otto. "I always heard that Otto Weber was just the name that Heinrich Schneider used after he faked his death on the Rhine. You know, after that boat heist gone wrong."
Otto lowered his gun, looking lost. "Mein Gott, who am I?"
Before anyone could answer, the curtains parted again a little and the butler entered, adjusting his tie. His eyes went wide at the sight of the four people already occupying the small space around the mermaid before his hands went inside his coat jacket and he pulled out two revolvers, one pointed at each pair. "What the fuck are you all doing here?" he hissed, "I'm the one who's stealing that fucking statue tonight!"
Jack took another puff from his cigar. "Hi, Steve. Fancy meeting you here."
Steve shrugged. "Good to see you too Jack, long time no see. Now will you all please kindly back away from the metal broad-"
He was cut off by someone clearing his throat from behind him, and Steve jumped as Rick Debois himself entered the tent and looked around at them all with a bemused expression.
"Sorry, I kept noticing people sneaking off under the curtain, presumably to try and pilfer my statue. Hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Just a little confusion over who exactly was going to get to walk out of here with your property. I was here first so I thought by all rights it was me, but it seems everyone else had other ideas." Jack took another nonchalant puff whilst Rick ignored the various guns waving around and moved over towards the mermaid, five pairs of eyes watching him closely.
"Well, I'm sorry to tell you all this, but none of you were ever going to be able to walk out of here with the Silver Mermaid." Before anyone could stop him he lifted the statue up off of its dias and turned it so they could see from the bottom that it was in fact hollow, and appeared to be made of plaster. "It is, you see, a fake."
The thieves just stared at him, gobsmacked. "But why would you invite us all here to look at a fake statue?" said De Bootz.
Rick smirked. "Why, to keep you all away from the real one, of course! Right now it is being sold off at a very private auction in Switzerland. So I decided I would create a little diversion and invite the world's greatest thieves to keep them from going after the real thing."
There was a resounding groan from his audience, Steve swearing as he stuffed his guns back in his jacket and turned to leave. "All that fucking butlering for nothing!"
Emelia grabbed Otto by the arm. "Come, Otto. Let us cease wasting our time here."
"Okay," he said weakly, "Only I think my name's not Otto. It's Gottfried…"
After they left Jack and Clementine were left alone with Rick, Clementine staring at him in disbelief as she tucked her gun away whilst Jack dropped the remains of his cigar to the ground and crushed it under his shoe.
"One thing I don't understand," he said, "I'd never even heard of a Rick Dubois before I got my invitation. Who the Hell are you, really?"
Rick chuckled. "Ah, Jack. You're living up to your reputation as the man who sees through everything." He plucked the side of his moustache and ripped the whole thing off.
Clementine's jaw dropped as recognition came over her face. "You're Simon Wellbeluff, the greatest thief of all time! But you're dead!"
Simon smiled. "Faked it, quite convincingly. I hope to sell the Mermaid and retire quietly off the funds, maybe buy a nice villa in Monte Carlo."
There was a scream from outside the curtains and the three of them wasted no time in pulling it aside and rushing out to see where it had come from. The front door to the mansion was lying wide open, and standing there was a bald man and his wife both wearing heavy fur coats.
"Who the blazes are all of you, and what are you doing in our house!" shouted the man, red-faced.
Jack looked at Simon. "This isn't your house?"
Simon glared at him like he was a dimwit. "No, of course it's not my house, Jack." He raised his hands and clapped them together.
"Okay, sorry everybody, the party's over! Everyone grab what you want before the cops show up!"
The house became a sudden flurry of activity, every thief, robber and cat burglar in the room dropping their disguises and pretense to high society as they all smashed, grabbed, looted anything they could before absconding out through the windows, sometimes not bothering to open them first. Jack paused to offer Clementine his hand to help her out through a window, but she merely pushed him aside and climbed out herself, leaving him to sigh in resignation before following her. In the span of less than a minute the entire house was emptied of people, and most of the paintings and valuable decor as well.
"Harold…" whispered the woman, "They've cleaned us out…"
Harold shrugged. "Most of it was forgeries anyway."
Jack didn't know no Rick Dubois, but he'd gotten the invite anyway. It'd not been addressed to him under his real name, of course, but he was quite used to people addressing him by the name of Paul Barker by now. Newest name he'd affected since the law's noose got a little too tight around the neck of Ernie Boon.
Although he didn't know the man personally, ever since he'd shown up on the scene this Rick fella had been making one Hell of a splash in high society circles. Charming, handsome, with that slicked back blonde hair and killer moustache. And he had a fine taste in cigars too, judging by the complementary piece that Jack had been offered when he'd walked in the front door.
It was a big place, a real schwanky one. Guys and dolls mulling about, chatting and gyrating in their little dances and laughing at fake jokes. Jack didn't have time for most of it; he was leaning against the fireplace, watching the rest of the suits around him like a photographer eyeing up a herd of wildebeest. He watched a short little man shaped like a plumb walking about with a drop dead gorgeous woman several heads taller than him trying to talk to people about his butterfly collection, whilst an overworked butler hustled about and tried to keep the chaos perfectly organised.
Rick would have liked to live in a fancy house like this one day, but his larceny career had hit a bumpy spot. A few too many run-ins with guard dogs and too many near misses with the cops. He'd have not been interested at all in this shindig if it hadn't been for the tagline; "Come see the first ever public display of my newest acquisition, the Silver Mermaid!"
The Silver Mermaid. The most whispered about piece in the world. Said to have been the last gasp of a famous sculptor high off his tits and running out of money before he died, a piece of artwork so gorgeous that one look and you were mesmerised. It was estimated to be worth enough to buy a small country, and even if it was too good to be true Jack wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to grab it for himself.
He caught the eye of a nice looking dame with a red ensemble and vivid blue eyes under her black bangs who was chatting away with some other talky broads. He smirked at her as he lit his cigar and breathed out a puff of smoke, but as it dissipated she'd vanished back into the crowd. No matter; he wasn't here to cruise. He flanked over to one end of the room, where a square of velvet curtains hid the Mermaid from sight. It was like the Tabernacle enshrouding the Holy of Holies, kept unveiled from the eyes of mere mortals.
Jack glanced about; wasn't like most people in here were paying much attention to him anyway. He could be pretty plain when he wanted to, just another tall, dark and handsome stranger in a room full of them. He made his way along one side of the room towards the curtains, pretending to be investigating the titles of the books on obscure geographies that lined the bookshelves built into the walls, then slipped behind a bushy potted fern and when he was definitely sure no eyes in the room were on him, he lifted up one edge of the nearest curtain and slipped under it and out of everyone's sight. Now it was just him in the strange little four-sided tent, and the Mermaid sitting on a raised podium.
Jack had never seen anything more beautiful in his life.
She certainly was a mermaid, a real god damn siren if he'd ever seen one, thirty inches tall and cast out of pure silver the same colour of the rock she sat on. She was sculpted to be a real pretty dame, her long locks of hair covering her massive tits, her figure looking like what Hans Christian Andersen might have intended if he'd had a weird thing for fish legs. Jack raised his cigar to his lips and took a long draw. The way the light in the room reflected off her silvery metal surface was mesmerising.
It was only in staring at his reflection that he saw someone else standing behind him, a figure in a red dress pulling a derringer out from her bosom and pointing it at the back of his head. Jack heard the click and froze where he stood.
"You were always too easily distracted by a pretty face, Jack," she whispered, the barrel of the gun a few inches from his head. A few beads of sweat dripped down Jack's brow as he recognised the subtle change in Vanessa's voice and the shifting of her accent into a southern drawl.
"Clementine Allen. I might have known," said Jack, risking turning his head a little to look her in the eyes. She responded by pressing the gun right up against the side of his head. He remained perfectly still as more sweat dripped down the back of his neck. "You here to steal the fishy dame?"
"Aren't you?" Clementine was looking amused as she tilted her head to the side, her finger lightly tapping the tripper with a slender finger in a way that made his heart stop each time. She had always been able to disappear into a character; even now, as he looked her in the eyes, under the clever makeup and wig she managed to look like a totally different person. "Would make a difference from trying to steal hearts, Jacky boy."
"Clem…"
"You don't get to call me that," she hissed, pressing the gun barrel harder against his skin, "If it weren't for all those overbred dimwits out there who might be willin' to testify against me, I'd blow your brains out right now an' take that statue with me."
Jack swallowed. "No chance that we might split it fifty-fifty, like the good old days?"
Clementine looked like she was about ready to pull the trigger when the curtains parted slightly on the other side and the small little man with the round spectacles and his tall wife entered. They froze when they saw Jack with Clementine's gun jammed against his head. Clementine froze too, then she whipped her gun around to point at them as they reached into their pockets and pulled out a pair of guns of their own.
"So," said the little man in a thick German accent, "It seems we're not ze only ones here engaging in a little larceny, hmm?" He took a step forward , waving his pistol from her to Jack. "Or were the two of you hoping to have a little bit of ze hanky-panky under the curtains and hope nobody would notice, hmmm?"
"Put the gun down, darling," said his wife, if she was even that, "You're two against one."
"Not for long." Clementine snatched a glance at Jack, then back at the couple. "Jack, get out your gun!"
"I don't carry a gun anymore, Clem. I swore off violence." Jack lifted his cigar back to his lips and pulled slowly before breathing out smoke. "Unless you mean something else entirely, and this is hardly an appropriate circumstance."
"Unbelievable…"
Jack ignored her, waving his cigar as he took a step towards the man and woman, who pivoted their guns towards him. He paused, but had on his face a warm, friendly demeanour.
"I know who the pair of you are," he said, looking at the woman first, "You're Emilia De Bootz, the woman who robbed the museums of Berlin blind, and in broad daylight. And you-" he gestured with his cigar towards the short man, "-are most certainly not the Count Manstein, but rather Otto Weber, Germany's most feared cat burglar. Am I correct?"
"Partly," replied the little man, "My companion here is the infamous De Bootz. But I am not Otto Weber, for you have the honour of standing here in the presence of my true identity, Max Achterburg, master of disguise!"
Emlia De Bootz frowned. "Wait, I thought Max was the persona you came up with for that bank job in Frankfurt? Otto is your real name, you were just pretending to be Max!"
Otto looked confused. "No, no, Max is my real name… I think…"
Clementine looked up at Jack then back to Otto. "I always heard that Otto Weber was just the name that Heinrich Schneider used after he faked his death on the Rhine. You know, after that boat heist gone wrong."
Otto lowered his gun, looking lost. "Mein Gott, who am I?"
Before anyone could answer, the curtains parted again a little and the butler entered, adjusting his tie. His eyes went wide at the sight of the four people already occupying the small space around the mermaid before his hands went inside his coat jacket and he pulled out two revolvers, one pointed at each pair. "What the fuck are you all doing here?" he hissed, "I'm the one who's stealing that fucking statue tonight!"
Jack took another puff from his cigar. "Hi, Steve. Fancy meeting you here."
Steve shrugged. "Good to see you too Jack, long time no see. Now will you all please kindly back away from the metal broad-"
He was cut off by someone clearing his throat from behind him, and Steve jumped as Rick Debois himself entered the tent and looked around at them all with a bemused expression.
"Sorry, I kept noticing people sneaking off under the curtain, presumably to try and pilfer my statue. Hope I'm not interrupting anything."
"Just a little confusion over who exactly was going to get to walk out of here with your property. I was here first so I thought by all rights it was me, but it seems everyone else had other ideas." Jack took another nonchalant puff whilst Rick ignored the various guns waving around and moved over towards the mermaid, five pairs of eyes watching him closely.
"Well, I'm sorry to tell you all this, but none of you were ever going to be able to walk out of here with the Silver Mermaid." Before anyone could stop him he lifted the statue up off of its dias and turned it so they could see from the bottom that it was in fact hollow, and appeared to be made of plaster. "It is, you see, a fake."
The thieves just stared at him, gobsmacked. "But why would you invite us all here to look at a fake statue?" said De Bootz.
Rick smirked. "Why, to keep you all away from the real one, of course! Right now it is being sold off at a very private auction in Switzerland. So I decided I would create a little diversion and invite the world's greatest thieves to keep them from going after the real thing."
There was a resounding groan from his audience, Steve swearing as he stuffed his guns back in his jacket and turned to leave. "All that fucking butlering for nothing!"
Emelia grabbed Otto by the arm. "Come, Otto. Let us cease wasting our time here."
"Okay," he said weakly, "Only I think my name's not Otto. It's Gottfried…"
After they left Jack and Clementine were left alone with Rick, Clementine staring at him in disbelief as she tucked her gun away whilst Jack dropped the remains of his cigar to the ground and crushed it under his shoe.
"One thing I don't understand," he said, "I'd never even heard of a Rick Dubois before I got my invitation. Who the Hell are you, really?"
Rick chuckled. "Ah, Jack. You're living up to your reputation as the man who sees through everything." He plucked the side of his moustache and ripped the whole thing off.
Clementine's jaw dropped as recognition came over her face. "You're Simon Wellbeluff, the greatest thief of all time! But you're dead!"
Simon smiled. "Faked it, quite convincingly. I hope to sell the Mermaid and retire quietly off the funds, maybe buy a nice villa in Monte Carlo."
There was a scream from outside the curtains and the three of them wasted no time in pulling it aside and rushing out to see where it had come from. The front door to the mansion was lying wide open, and standing there was a bald man and his wife both wearing heavy fur coats.
"Who the blazes are all of you, and what are you doing in our house!" shouted the man, red-faced.
Jack looked at Simon. "This isn't your house?"
Simon glared at him like he was a dimwit. "No, of course it's not my house, Jack." He raised his hands and clapped them together.
"Okay, sorry everybody, the party's over! Everyone grab what you want before the cops show up!"
The house became a sudden flurry of activity, every thief, robber and cat burglar in the room dropping their disguises and pretense to high society as they all smashed, grabbed, looted anything they could before absconding out through the windows, sometimes not bothering to open them first. Jack paused to offer Clementine his hand to help her out through a window, but she merely pushed him aside and climbed out herself, leaving him to sigh in resignation before following her. In the span of less than a minute the entire house was emptied of people, and most of the paintings and valuable decor as well.
"Harold…" whispered the woman, "They've cleaned us out…"
Harold shrugged. "Most of it was forgeries anyway."
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