Reel Three

The next morning Sydney checked out the news feed on his computer. The story about the gunfight in the railway station was prominent. The word was that a couple of armed transit guards had seen a couple of guys trying to rob a lad who had just opened a locker. When approached they had drawn guns and so a short fusillade had erupted, the two men now dead and both guards only wounded thanks to their bullet-proof vests. The CCTV showed the lad leaving an envelope and taking a bag before disappearing into the crowd.

He was glad the lad got away and was sure that any money he had found would be carefully spent. The gangsters were, as yet, unidentified, as they had nothing on them and all fingerprint searches had been in vain. It was thought that they may have been brought in from overseas and the police were awaiting the results of DNA tests. The envelope was a real oddball, having nothing but blank sheets in it. Further searching through the news came up with a story about police receiving a tip-off about a murder and, when breaking into the address, found a guy tied to his bed, obviously having been in a sexual encounter as he had dried semen on his stomach. He had thanked the police for freeing him but gave no explanation as to how he had found himself in this predicament.

Sydney sat and thought long and hard about the chain of events. The so-called murder was only a way of getting him searched for and the money was a way to getting him found. Obviously whoever was behind this would have given the police the details of the ‘stolen’ cash and a link to the ‘murderer’. The deal with the lockers seemed to be a separate situation but may have just been a quick way to get him. Someone was playing hard with this and he still had no idea of who or why. The idea about why rattled around in his brain for a while. If it wasn’t revenge then it must be for some gain. Was someone after his business? Either way, he had thwarted them this time.

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Across the other side of town, Antonio Gonzales stood angrily from his desk and threw his wine glass at the wall, shattering it into a hundred pieces. He was sure that he had seen the woman shoot the set-up, as planned, and had also taken the money. Surely the police would have found a body and launch a full investigation? It had all gone so wrong and that part of the plan had brought him no nearer to wiping out the person he thought of as opposition. Even a simple snatch job at the station had gone to shit and he was now down two hoods that had cost a fortune to bring into the country.

In another fit of rage he picked up the wine bottle and smashed it down on the computer monitor, which sparked wildly before going black in a wisp of smoke. Several times he had been sure that he would have got a recovery job and several times he had been told that the job had already been completed on his second virtual meeting. As the bastard son of a bastard son, there was no way he was able to resurrect the proud Galimbarro Family but had never thought of doing anything legal. With the dope, the girls and the casino already well and truly catered for, he had decided that the recovery business would provide the pathway to riches. The only problem was that it was not easy creating a trustworthy credential when you are not actually trustworthy, and he was far too single minded to see it.

He went through to his lounge room after taking a few of his favourite chocolate treats from the bowl on his desk, popping them into his mouth to soothe his nerves. He had a time of thinking and decided that he may try to track his money as the cash in the safe and the cash in the locker had now gone. All of his other outlay had been lost with the death of the imported failures.

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Sydney spent the rest of his day researching the Galimbarro history. As far as he could see there were none of the Family left and the use of that seal was puzzling. He did note that old man Galimbarro was known as a ladies man so there may still be descendants out there, probably not knowing their family heritage. It was pretty much a dead end without further input and the next step, he knew, would be either through that smear or the money. If the owner of the money had already reported it missing he may be able to get more information from the few contacts he had built up. That would, unfortunately, take a little while as most of the police he knew only knew him as an on-again off-again girlfriend who gave good head.

The smear was another thing, though. He knew one film buff that worked as a forensic scientist and was such a good customer Sydney knew he could ask a favour. He rang his friend and told him that he had an original copy of one of the old films that had been damaged by somebody handling it with dirty hands. He said that he did not want to try to clean it before he knew what the substance was. His friend said they could meet at his laboratory the next day.

The last thing that Sydney did was to take a bundle of the money out of its bag and peel off a number of notes with the tweezers, putting them in a new envelope, putting the bundle back into bag and back into the safe. These would be helpful if it came to tracing their original owner. He had found that a lot of people did not truly think through the details when they were trying to do evil, being too taken up with the end point of their plans instead of taking it slowly and carefully. That was something you could not say about Sydney, he took very small steps and looked at each step in a number of ways. He stripped off his latex gloves and left his workroom to cook himself a good dinner.

He had a routine when he cooked himself a Sunday night meal. Up in his bedroom he stripped, showered, shaved and dressed carefully. The person that went down to the kitchen looked like one of the cast of ‘The Stepford Wives’. Not the latest one, of course; Sydney was now a good representation of Paula Prentiss, who was in the 1975 film, one of the few modern movies that Sydney bothered with, having so many different dresses and styles to study. So it was Bobbie Markowe who cooked a lamb roast with a range of vegetables, laid the table with the silver and poured a glass of claret from a decanter.

As she ate she considered her future. Bobbie was one of the girls who had past dealings with gay policemen and she knew one who was in the drug squad and may be in a position to pass on snippets of information. She would have to check her locker in the basement and reactivate her phone. Every different character had a locker with a range of clothes for undercover work only as well as false ID’s, phones and all the little things that mark one out as an individual. Each one also had an individual email address over a range of providers with the accounts paid for from an untraceable offshore account.

After eating her meal and drinking a couple of glasses of claret, Bobbie washed and dried the dishes, tidied up and watched, what else; an old movie on video before going to bed. She stayed in character and wore a satin nightie to bed, pleasuring herself with a cock-shaped, condom covered vibrating dildo while wearing a condom herself. As a Stepford wife she would never put up with that nasty sticky stuff. After she had satisfied her needs she went into the bathroom and cleaned herself, putting the two condoms into toilet paper and flushing them away. Back in bed she slept like a baby.

Monday morning Sydney was the person eating breakfast. He picked up the smear sample in its bag and put it into his coat pocket, leaving his home by the front door. He only used this entrance dressed as Sydney to maintain his cover. When he arrived at the laboratory he had a chat with his friend and passed the bag over, along with some money to pay for the testing. He was told that he would be emailed the results in a day or so.

Back at home he made himself a light lunch and then went up to his bedroom and stripped, putting on a robe to go downstairs to the basement. It was a somewhat short version of Lee Gentry that left the basement apartment in the other street. Lee, as was played by Claude Rains in the 1934 film ‘Crime without Passion’. This was a favourite film and he had already created the characters Carmen Brown as played by the actress Margo; and Katy Costello as played by Whitney Bourne. He was glad that most of the thirties films featured girls that seemed to have come from similar moulds. His male characters were normally chubbier men as he left his normally thin facial features for the female characters. This was why he had never recreated Sam Spade as acted by Bogart in the 1941 version of the Maltese Falcon, much to his disappointment.

Lee made a leisurely stroll to the shop where he bought a VHS copy of ‘Gone with the Wind’ from his manager and paid for it with the notes that he pulled from his pocket with a gloved hand. His manager did not recognise him and treated him as he would any customer – somewhat off-hand. Sydney was happy at that as it added to the atmosphere that old film buffs liked. In most of the old films the assistants behind counters were surly or off-hand, unless they were destined to be the hero when they were usually friendly and chatty.

With his purchase in a ‘Greenstreet’ bag he then took the underground across town to a pawnbroker where he bought three golden chains with more of the ‘hot’ money and then took a roundabout route back to the basement apartment. He transformed himself back into Sydney and spent the rest of the day reading his latest book purchase ‘Films of the Thirties’ by Jerry Vermilye. He opted for a onesie that night and slept, once again, like a baby.

The following day Sydney went to his shop and the lad gave him the bag containing the cash takings, along with the register strip. He had a few posters with him and replaced some that were on display. When he put up the ‘Crime without Passion’ poster the lad said “Hey, I had a guy in here the other day that was the spitting image of that one there.” Sydney laughed and said “If he was it would be a miracle, that guy has been dead over fifty years.” When he left the shop he knew that if the police were tracing the notes they would end up at his shop and Lee Gentry would be the one on the wanted poster. He wondered if Claude was up there laughing, knowing that any publicity was good publicity. The takings were taken to the bank and deposited.

Marianne G © 2021