Chapter Three
Her communications earpiece crackled to life. The voice on the other end – Beaupre's voice – reported that he was inside the house, that there were no anomalies so far. As to reconnaissance, he tersely requested a status update.
"North of Washington Street. Clear. Moving east. Hold," Alice responded, speaking through the radio device in her glove as she jogged.
A week had nearly finished since they'd set up base in the neighborhood. Breaking into homes, one after another, they should've been closer to finding the chip by now, but Alice comprehended this to imply that they'd wasted five long days on the field without gathering any real results. There was nothing to report back to their client, nothing to brag about. It pissed her off.
So far, Alice counted twelve houses cleared of suspicion. That left two houses to search, two houses they should've broken into much earlier if not for their unbelievable streak of bad luck. The old lady, a certain Greta Hess, clearly didn't have the toy car. They found the emptied Parisian bag in her closet but that was that. In the first place, what use could a senile hag without any living relatives or grandchildren have for a remote control truck? Even for a brand new toy, none whatsoever. Therefore, she must have given it to some kid within the vicinity. At such a juncture, Alice deduced, the most logical course of action would be to hit the house with the most children: Alcotts or Pruitts, five runts or three. Alice didn't need Jernigan to do the math. Today, they'd woken early to strike the Alcott house.
To complicate things, however, Alice couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. Twice they'd had to withdraw on account of the cops blaring onto the scene; twice they'd narrowly avoided capture. No alarms had been tripped. It made no sense to attribute it to chance. If indeed some overzealous citizen was observing their movements, she needed extra precautions. For that purpose, she'd brought a baby stroller on the morning surveillance along with a doll wrapped snugly in blankets as if a real child. None would suspect a "mother" out for a walk with her "baby" of anything criminal. The prop made for an excellent disguise. Moreover, she traded in her usual ensemble for a slinky black Lycra jogging suit, combat boots, and a red nylon vest – not the kind of outfit people would associate with a burglar. By all accounts, she was prepared. Such were her thoughts as she made to cross a road, nearly getting herself run over by a speeding Ford Taurus.
The car screeched to a sudden stop. Alice felt her heart beating fast. In her mind, she cursed the driver, readied herself to give another imbecile an earful. When the windowpane lowered however, revealing an attractive auburn-haired woman in her late 30s, Alice's frown developed into a gleeful smile. She hadn't been this close to another beautiful woman in a long time. It excited her, turned on all the right switches. She immediately wished she could whisk this stranger away to a five-star hotel, unclothe her, bed her. Men never interested Alice anyway. She exclusively craved the feminine touch.
"I am so sorry. I am clearly not awake," the woman apologized. Her voice sounded like a blessing.
"That's alright," Alice replied, taking on a flirtatious tone. She leaned forward close enough to smell the other woman's perfume, rested her hand on the windowsill as if to caress it, and batted her eyelashes. From that angle, she could view the slightest bit of cleavage. Her smile widened. She already wanted to strip down to her panties. "Have a nice day."
"I'll try," the woman said cheerfully. Soon, the car was out of sight.
Alice couldn't help but feel disappointed. Here was her only chance to blow off some steam, and she'd been forced to pass it up because of the missing chip. She wasn't sure how much longer her libido could hold out. She tried to recall the last time she'd slept with anyone. It must have been over a year ago.
Truth be told, Alice (despite her many sexual conquests) was a virgin – a fact she'd neither dare speak aloud nor acknowledge. Her every relationship ended in disaster. No man had ever seen her naked, and every woman who had didn't last more than a month. It was one of those many situations she intended to rectify once the job was done. No more late nights alone in bed, rubbing herself furiously, biting the sheets, hoping against hope that nobody would hear. She couldn't keep on like that; it was too pathetic, especially for a woman her age. And she dreaded the very notion that she'd one day become some sort of chronic masturbator. She had to stave off the habit before it became irreversible.
Then without warning, her earphone crackled once more to life. "I have the toy car in my sights. It's… videotaping me?!"
Alice didn't think she heard Beaupre correctly. "Come back on that last message?"
But there was no reply. On her side of the transmission, only the sound of a struggle registered, as if furniture were being overturned. Beaupre likely needed more back-up. Who knew what kind of trouble the man could've encountered. More importantly, he'd found the toy car. That by itself had to count for something. They might just be able to wrap up operations this very morning.
She decided to race to the Alcott house.
Her stroller bounced wildly with every frantic stride. Many number of times, she'd almost lost control of the stroller, almost slid on the ice-covered ground, but she managed to preserve her balance. Things were looking up. When she reached the Alcotts' backyard, Unger and Jernigan were already present, huddled together around Beaupre's dark figure. It seemed to her that the worst was over, that she'd just missed all the action – nothing worth complaining about really. She hastily abandoned the stroller, which slammed right into the Alcotts' garage, and converged upon the three men.
"What happened?" Alice enquired out of breath.
Beaupre held the toy car in his hands. He turned to her, passing her the object of their search. It had an 8mm video camera crudely attached to it with duct tape – undoubtedly the work of their anonymous watcher. It didn't matter now though. This watcher of theirs had just failed. They'd re-acquired the toy car and with it the ten million dollar chip. Alice heaved a great sigh of relief. A sly, satisfied smile crept over her face. She pulled out the cassette from the camera then crushed it under her boot, delighting in the crunch of broken plastic. "What now?" she continued.
"Get the chip out of the car," Beaupre said. "There's a woman inside the house. I'll go back in and deal with her." At that the older man screwed a silencer onto his gun and disappeared into the Alcott home.
Alice, for her part, began to peel the duct tape off the camera. She pressed the toy car against her chest, fidgeted with the stubborn adhesives. A garden of forbidden pleasures awaited her, she mused. She could hardly wait to invite all the rich, naïve, and buxom girls of her dreams to her soon-to-be villa, to have her way with them, to dominate them indiscriminately like a queen. Retirement was going to be sweet. Money and women, she wanted it all.
It was just too bad that retirement was neither an option for the toy car nor the watcher behind it.
While Unger and Jernigan were picking their noses and while Alice busied herself over her latest directive, the toy car revived. Its rubber tires spun against Alice's shiny nylon vest, propelling the little vehicle up with a powerful jolt. Before Alice could react, the car hit her squarely in the jaw and shattered her fantasies. The impact was so strong that it pushed her backwards, reeling into the snow. She gasped for air, lay down there a few seconds to absorb the fact that the chip had eluded her yet again.
The toy car itself landed on all fours then maneuvered away from the three thieves.
Unger, disguised as an old man, ran after the toy car as it burst through a hole in the fence and entered the adjoining back alley. Jernigan jumped into his van to likewise give chase.
In the meantime, Alice pulled herself up. She produced a compact mirror from her vest pocket and examined her complexion. She almost fainted as she noticed the little parting gift the toy car had left her – a pair of dirty skid marks right on her delicate white chin! The nerve of it all! Horror transformed into fury. Deep down, she couldn't imagine a more unforgivable affront. Already, she knew the first thing she'd do upon catching that car; she'd take the chip out of its stinking carcass and toss the damned toy into a furnace! She wanted nothing more than to watch it burn for marring her perfect, pretty features.
Massaging her lower jaw, she made a dash for the neighboring backyard. They had to spread out, block all possible exits, if they didn't want to lose the chip a third time. On top of that, all hands had to be out on the field. She had no choice but to inform Beaupre of this little setback. She brought her forearm up to her lips and spoke into the communicator hidden therein. "Mr. Beaupre, we have a problem."
"I'll be with you shortly. What is it?"
She hesitated. She couldn't bring herself to admit the incident as her blunder. "The… the car got away," she said, speaking in the most general terms.
"What?!" There was no mistaking the sheer rage which erupted from the other end of her receiver. Beaupre started shouting in some incomprehensible foreign language and banging his fist. It was obvious to Alice, though, that the man was cursing. The sounds of rushing footsteps and a door being loudly shut followed. "I'll deal with you later. What's your position?"
"Third house to the alley."
"Well, don't just stand there! Move!" Beaupre's words whipped her onwards. She didn't even want to think of how he'd reprimand her come day's end.
Heavy shrubbery littered the way into the next house however, and Alice was forced to trudge through the tangle. She could feel the coarse undergrowth prodding her soft but firm ass like a hundred teasing fingers. She wriggled to get free, to get to the other side, but the vegetation resisted her. Whenever she pushed, the shrubs pushed back. After a minute, she was dead center of this organic prison, but the way only proved more unpliable than when she first entered. She gnashed her teeth in annoyance. She couldn't take much more of it. A sexy, sophisticated woman like her, she thought, shouldn't even be in this mess. None of her previous jobs, stealing diamonds in form-fitting catsuits or robbing museums of their precious artifacts, had exasperated her so. In the midst of her irritation, she kicked a particularly stubborn branch, expecting it to break in half. The branch simply swung to the side, though, and rebounded with a vengeance, whacking her pussy hard.
Instinctively, Alice grabbed her throbbing crotch with both hands. Her face contorted in shock and pain. Everything from her waist down became numb. With quivering, slightly bent knees, she backed away, spun around, and reclined her thrust out booty against the trunk of the nearest shrub.
Unbeknownst to her, fungal rot had made this particular shrub frail. The additional weight of Alice's large rump pushed it beyond its limits, and it promptly snapped, causing the high-profile thief to lurch backwards. Hands still grasping her pussy, Alice spread her shaking legs wide open in an impromptu sitting position, only she was sitting on air in a bid to keep her balance. She looked as if she were teetering on the edge of an abyss. Only by greatly straining her perfectly fit body did she manage to stay standing. It was a totally wasted effort nonetheless, for the snow dislodged from the fallen shrub shortly rained down on her without mercy. Globs of snow pelted her in the face, showered slush over her chest and shoulders. Her concentration was ruined. She tumbled over into the next backyard, falling flat on her ass on a pile of pine cones.
"Yuaarghh!" Alice gave out an angry, agonized yell. Her face further twisted into an utterly moronic expression of wordless suffering, a far cry from her normal appearance of coldly composed yet dangerously seductive aloofness. The femme fatale went cross-eyed. Spit dribbled listlessly from one side of her mouth. This time, her whole body felt like an insensate mass of trembling jelly. Forgetting the ache in her pussy, she moved her hands to clutch at her shapely ass, shaking off the pine cones that'd stuck there. The pain didn't subside, however, and she was mortified to discover that one of the cones had wedged itself securely between her butt cheeks.
With a groan, she staggered onto her feet. Alice never knew such pain existed before. Indeed, it was the first she'd ever been penetrated from the rear. The invading object poked her unwilling sphincter and stretched the naughty crinkle of her anus to maximum capacity. She tried to assume a squatting position to extract the pine cone. Her ass twitched and her thighs quaked, overcome with spasms. Clumsily, the voluptuous thief spread her butt cheeks. She reached back with dainty and unsteady fingers, groping as if blind until finally she pinched the protruding tip of the cone. It was buried in deep, but ultimately she dug out this most embarrassing of intruders.
"Guh! Shi–! Ooo… Ah!"
The feat left her panting. The world around her seemed to be spinning. She felt drained of all her energy. She leaned her body along the nearby fence and cursed the whole affair. So, this was what it was like to get fucked rough in the backside! She was just grateful nobody had seen her, least of all her three cohorts; she wouldn't have been able to live it down otherwise. She rubbed a gloved hand over her bottom. Luckily, though her skin-tight pants were now giving her the wedgie of a lifetime, the spandex was fully intact. Alice swore that she'd payback their invisible watcher in kind. Whoever it was, she'd make them wish they were never born.
Sadly, her situation didn't afford her much time to think up of how, for then and there, a familiar whirring buzzed into her ear. Alice's eyes widened.
"Oh no!"
Into the same backyard, the toy car entered. The timing couldn't be worse. Paying the woman no attention, it zipped through the frozen ground, and – from its trajectory – Alice surmised that it meant to escape into the adjacent back alley yet again. Like hell! She refused to let this game of cat and mouse continue. Although her every muscle protested, although her vision blurred and her legs threatened to trip over themselves, she charged across the yard.
This'll soon be over, she thought. The toy car exited through the hedge boundary. Putting all her strength into the leap, Alice vaulted the same hedge. "I got it!" she cried triumphantly.
Unfortunately, the woman of beauty and brains didn't land in the back alley according to plan. Rather, as she sailed mid-air above the hedge, she came face-to-face with Petr Beaupre who happened to make a similar jump, except from the opposite direction. The car had tricked them into running for the same spot! But it was too late. Mouths agape, the two villains collided straight into each other. The momentum knocked them both back, their bodies sprawling helplessly on the cold earth. The crash had Alice seeing stars. It would take a few minutes before she regained full control of her senses, but by then she knew she was too exhausted. Beaupre likewise shared the same sentiments.
The older man contacted Unger and Jernigan with his communicator. They'd been battered and bruised on their side as well. Indeed, the chase was over. Beaupre needed only to confirm this. "We're out of time. Give it up."
[…]
Nightfall arrived without solace. Everything that could go wrong had gone terribly wrong.
The four crooks sat in the living room of their rented ranch house, surrounded by all their gadgets, licking their wounds and eating Chinese take-out. Save for the occasional moan or cough, no one said a word. The memory of their shared failure lingered too vividly, and frankly, none of them wanted to address the ugly elephant in the room, least of all Alice who still winced from the literal pain in her ass.
The lady thief put an ice pack to her forehead. She wished she could simply sit on it, but she promised herself she wouldn't give Unger the satisfaction of seeing her in such a humiliating pose. She preferred to keep the details of that morning to herself. Besides, the idiot would only crack some senseless joke at her expense. Come what may, she felt convinced that these testosterone-addled blockheads had dragged her down, had cost her the chip. That wasn't the only thing she'd been convinced of, however. The classy cat burglar may have had her pride wounded and the battle lost, but the war was still to be waged and she had one ace up her sleeve – an interesting bit of information she gleaned from putting two and two together. She turned the idea over in her mind like a kitten clawing a ball of string. If her theory proved true, then she could redeem herself no sweat.
"I can't tell you how much I appreciate you hitting me with a van," Unger grumbled at Jernigan, breaking the extended silence. Black and blue splotches covered the large, muscular man. Moreover, he'd chipped a tooth from the aforementioned accident.
Jernigan looked at Unger without sympathy and stuffed a dumpling into his mouth. Compared to the rest of them, he retreated from the chase relatively unscathed. "Never let your emotions get the best of you. You weren't paying attention. You should have been more vigilant."
"And you should have taken driver's ed."
Alice struck her chopsticks on the table. She was fed up with all these childish squabbles. The woman decided it was time to lay her cards on the table. "It's a kid. It has to be a kid."
"Speak for yourself! I'm going to have bad knees when I grow old and I'll have Burton Jernigan to thank!"
Alice ignored Unger's tirade. "The crude construction of the car and camera is a dead giveaway."
"I'm listening," Beaupre finally spoke.
"So, the cops come twice. They don't believe the kid. He takes matters into his own hands. It can't be anything else." Eureka! Alice couldn't help but grin smugly at her own brilliance. It was just so simple! Why didn't they see it before?! Their watcher was nothing but a stupid kid crying wolf! It'd be no problem at all removing him from the picture and retaking the chip. They only needed to know where he lived, and she had a very good idea of that too.
"The argument is very sound," Beaupre replied, nodding his head in assent.
"If that's the case, I say take no chances," Unger rudely interjected, snatching Alice's ice pack from her hand and smothering it across his hairy knees to her disgust. "Tomorrow whack every kid on the block! Burn 'em all! Then look for that damned car."
Alice sighed at the absurdity. Truly, she believed herself to be working with incompetents.
Beaupre attempted to restore order. "One last house remains…." His voice trailed off, though, as his cellphone rang. His normally indifferent countenance showed cracks of apprehension. The older man answered the call, and the entire room suddenly seemed suspended in a vacuum.
Alice watched him from where she sat, feeling goose pimples rising on the back of her neck. Only one other person had Beaupre's number. Immediately, she understood what the caller wanted.
As soon as the conversation ended, Beaupre made known the bad news: their employer issued them only twenty-four hours to retrieve the chip. They had to be on a plane for Hong Kong by tomorrow afternoon. "As I was saying, there is a house within the 200-yard operating radius of the toy car. It's also on the sight lines to all the houses I've been in." The older man turned to the map of Washington Street and stuck a pin on one of the squares. "This is our target. Alice, whose house is it?"
The woman answered at the ready. "It belongs to the Pruitt family."
