Micah Jennings

2.5.05 Saturday [ideas]

I decided not to tell Reginald about the close call with Seigel. I don’t want to give him any reason to stop writing the checks that are steadily easing my stained conscience. So I told him that the delivery went without incident.

As I suspected, Jed didn’t report the money to the media, so there were no follow-up stories to the “prodigal thief” piece that’s been running for a few days now. Tonight, for filler material, they consulted a “criminal expert” who bumbled his way through an explanation of my actions.

“I think it’s reasonable to assume that we’re dealing with a split-personality entity here,” he said surely, adjusting his glasses. “They’re rather common in my field, and highly predictable. The best tactic is to plan ahead, to get inside their minds before they cause the most damage…”
“But wouldn’t you agree,” the interviewer refuted, “that the thief isn’t exactly causing damage?”
“Perhaps, but that’s where these cases become tricky—you can never label two criminals with the same stamp—is he just building reputation for something bigger? We don’t really know…”

And with that blatant contradiction, the interview ended. Reginald leaned over and handed me an envelope. Inside was a check for five thousand dollars.

“I didn’t take this much until months later…this is too much,” I said.
“It should cover the next two jobs, I reckon.”
“You’re combining checks?”
“Boy, if yew keep depostitin’ checks for the same amount that is later reported on the news that evenin’, how long yew really think it’s gon take them bankers to figure it out?”
”I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Also, yew gonna hafta find out how to keep them jurors from hollerin’ to the news people. A few more faces on TV and they’ll start recognizin’ each other. Yew were lucky before, when you robbed ‘em, that they didn’t mention their names or show their pictures. But this time, yew gotta use that noggin’.” I thought about it for a second and wanted to give him an idea, but I couldn’t think of anything.
“I’ll figure something out,” I assured him.
”I know.”

But I have no idea where to go from here! I can’t just leave the money with them anymore…

-M.J.

posted by Mr. Linty @ 1:48 AM