Tom Hitchen's Blog - Posts Tagged "hitchen"

After launching my first ebook, Thrown Together: A Short Story Collection, I have begun penning a novel/novelette entitled The Opportunists.

I have pretty much fleshed out the characters and plot in my mind and would love to share with you a taste of what I have so far:

The front door to the house had a Yale lock, meaning the door bolted the second it was shut properly and required a key to get back in. Required a key, that is, unless you had someone like Cara with you. She had become so adept at picking locks that to a passerby she would merely look like someone fumbling with their keys and a stubborn lock.
In less than ten seconds the door was open and myself and Dan were hurriedly ferrying the loot inside. We had managed not only to empty the register but also the safe in the back. There had been an unsuspecting patron in there too, so I had taken his wallet for good measure. Cara sat on the living room floor and spread the money around her. We left her to count it, our attempts to help only slowed the process.
I flicked on the TV and flopped myself down on the couch. Dan joined me while Jess scuttled off to the bathroom upstairs. The game was on tonight. Thank the lord for mister and missus Redford’s full subscription satellite TV package. There was always someone kicking, hitting or throwing some kind of ball on at least one of the many sports channels. Dan and I delved in to the game while Cara counted. Jess sat on the arm and watched, happy to be part of boy time with her boy.
“Oh, that’s a foul!” Dan threw up his right hand, open palm, in a gesture of dissent that the player on the screen mimicked.
“Nah, come off it, ref.” I complained, disagreeing with the decision. I hated that sportsmen moaned to officials until they got their way. If I were a referee I wouldn’t be such a pushover. You’re in charge, act like it.
It was just before half time when Cara straightened and looked at us for the first time.
“Four hundred and eighty three.” She announced simply, grinning. That was a good haul for us. A very good haul. We could feed ourselves comfortably for a few weeks and maybe afford some frivolous purchases too, “I’ll keep hold of the four hundred for food and petrol and the like, but I was thinking we could spend the eighty three on a little liquid refreshment. What do you reckon?”
After a reaction that screamed affirmative and a change of clothes each, I was driving with Dan toward a nearby off licence. Not one we’d held up, that would be lunacy. Wherever we chose to squat we always left the nearest shops well enough alone. Don’t poop where you eat and all that.
“What shall we get then?” Dan mused. “We can probably get four or five crates with this, near enough a hundred beers,” I chose not to point out that five crates was exactly one hundred beers, “or maybe a few bottles of something stronger and a coke or three to mix with. What you feeling?”
“Bit of both, to be honest.” I shrugged. “A crate or two and a bottle or two. Should see us plenty merry.”
It was well past one in the morning when we got to the all night off license. Patrons were no longer allowed inside and were served through a hatch. The clerk appeared to be dozing as we made our way over to his window and I wondered why we hadn’t robbed the place if he was prone to such naps. Then I saw the two foot long shotgun on his lap and remembered.
In the end we opted for three crates of lager, as they were on offer, and a bottle each of vodka, apple sours and white rum with some coke and lemonade to wash it down. The crates had been too big to fit through the hatch so the clerk had come to unlock the door so we could get them. He’d left the overlarge weapon on his seat. I was wrong, this place would be a doddle to hold up.
“You can’t help it, can you?” Dan grinned at me once we were back in the car.
“What?” I asked as I slipped in to first and set off.
“Casing the joint.” Dan laughed. “I saw you in there, eyeing his gun and the hatch he uses to serve. The way you grinned when he left his gun behind. You even looked like you were planning a route to get between him and it.”
I laughed and smiled at my usually idiotic friend. This was an unprecedented level of awareness from him to spot such little things. Perhaps he just knew me too well. I told him that.
“You know me too well.”
“Poor me, right?” He laughed.
“Right.” I agreed.

Let me know what you think.

I think I may be struggling a bit. I plan to sit in a quiet, phoneless room and do nothing but write this novel for the next two hours. Perhaps the odd bathroom break will be allowed.

Here's the last page I wrote, help welcome:

The Plan

“I still think we should move again first.” Dan said from the sofa as myself, Jess and Cara sat around the circular dining table in our latest borrowed house. There was no dining room in this one, it was smaller with a reasonable kitchen at the back of the house behind a tight hallway with a long living room running parallel to both. “Go to a major city and rob a bank with some gold bullion in it.”

“What would that achieve?” I challenged him. He seemed proud of knowing the word ‘bullion’.

“It’s gold.” He said as if that settled the matter.

“What, exactly would we do with this gold?” Cara asked, patience in her tone.

“Are you lot thick, or something?” Dan looked at us with incredulity. “It’s gold.” He repeated.

“I’m aware of what gold is, Dan.” Cara said, patience waning. “But we can’t go to the shops with a great big bar of gold. We need cash.”

“We can sell them for cash.” He shrugged.

“Two problems with that, Danny boy.” I began. “Firstly, who would we sell all this gold to? Second, if we’re just going to sell it for cash, why not just steal cash?”

“Firstly,” He mimicked my tone. “Some kind of rogue nation’s government. Second, because we can carry more money’s worth of gold than cash.”

“I’ll concede that second point, but I’m afraid there are huge holes in your first.”

“Like what?”

Cara, Jess and I all laughed, half through humour, half exasperation. Jess wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but she often saw the obvious that we overlook. Dan, on the other hand, was useless.

“I didn’t know you had contacts in rogue nations. Off to have a word with your boy down at the Ugandan embassy?” Cara mocked.

“There’ll be guys that want to buy it, surely?” Dan was on the defensive, probably seeing the holes in his idea for the first time.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll set you up a stall at the west African Sunday market.” I said with a smile at my dumb chum. “We can trade the gold for laundered cash and blood diamonds.”

Dan remained sullenly, and mercifully, silent throughout the remainder of the brainstorming session. Jess didn’t contribute much either and after a while drifted away to the kitchen. The faint smell of sizzling sausages soon drifted the other way. I did love that woman.

Cara and I eventually decided to move one last time. We didn’t want to hit a major job like this anywhere near where we’d lived and stole before. We decided that the best course of action would be to pack up all our belongings, few as they were, and spend a night and day putting distance between the area we’d haunted for years and our soon to be very hot behinds. We thought it best to attempt this job where nobody would possibly know us.

Who am I trying to fool saying we? Cara decided, I nodded along.