He turned the wheel abruptly when the truck hit the road, turning toward south Anchorage and sending Deano sliding across the vinyl bench seat. He flipped the gear lever into drive and floored the gas, spitting gravel from beneath the tires as he shot down the road.
“We’ll see who’s stupid.”
The truck bounced over a rut, making Deano’s head bob as if nodding in agreement.
“You’re my only real friend, boy.” He reached over and rubbed the dog’s head. “Jimmy don’t know I’ve got a big score coming, and he’s not going to be part of it.”
Deano rested his head on the seat by Sammy’s leg, looking up at him with watery brown eyes. As they rounded a bend, Deano slid closer, his head landing on Sammy’s lap. Sammy reached down and massaged the dog’s neck.
“Homes got a moral barrier around them. Churches, too, ‘cuz you don’t wanna mess with God’s house. I’m pretty sure I ain’t going to make it to heaven, but I don’t want to totally blow whatever chance I got by burglarizing God’s house. My folks are Messianic Jews.” The dog had heard the story before. His eyelids fluttered, then slid back shut. “I was both Bar-Mitzvah’d and baptized, so there’s a chance in there somewhere.” He slowed to make a turn and came into view of the Hillside Nazarene Church’s steeple, its cross highlighted against the crystal-blue sky. “Now cars is different, of course, if some idiot leaves it unlocked, or not locked enough.” He laughed at his own joke. “Cars and mosques.”
A new Muslim Retreat Center and Mosque now stood on the rural south side of Anchorage, away from prying eyes, and far from regular police patrols. The previous week’s news said it’d been built because of a split with the congregation from the only other mosque in Anchorage. One group was called “Sunny” or “Soomee” or something. The name of the other group was easy to remember. They were Shiites. His friend Martin had made a joke about the name. He raised his foot, looked at the bottom of his shoe, curled up his nose, and said, “Aww, man! I just stepped in some Shiite!”
Sammy laughed so hard when he heard that, he could never forget the name. He had no idea which group owned this mosque, nor did he care. The only thing that mattered to him was that the mosque was out of the way and in a very quiet location on the south end of the city just beyond the edge of the wealthy neighborhoods. It was perfect. Sammy had seen pictures of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. If they had enough money to build a mosque with the whole roof covered in gold, they had more than enough to spare.
“All of it stolen from Jews and Christians, no doubt,” he said as he drove down Skyline Drive toward the retreat center. “Well, I’m just going to take back what belongs to my people anyway, right? Like Jimmy said, it’s like being Robin Hood.”
Sammy smiled in the mirror as he imagined being the famous English bandit stealing back what belonged to the rightful owners of the land. But unlike Robin Hood, Sammy had no intention of sharing the stolen booty with anyone else. He needed to pay a couple of debts, and maybe he could get himself a better set of wheels with the imagined piles of gold and other untold treasures within the mosque.
With single-minded determination fueled by utter greed, Sammy pulled his truck to the side of the road near the entrance to the mosque. The gate at the end of the long driveway stood open. He looked up into the dusty dirt parking lot and saw no cars. He rolled down the window, cranking the stiff handle and swearing his next vehicle would have power windows and locks.
Birds chirped in the trees outside his truck window. A bee flew into the cab and buzzed around Deano's head. The dog watched it, ears raised, alert and ready to snap at the tiny creature. The bee seemed to sense the animal's intention and zipped away, leaving a heavier silence in its absence. A squirrel chattered in a tree a few yards away, and a blue jay landed on a perch across the shallow ditch alongside the road. Sammy felt the peaceful sights and sounds were a message from God. He thought about a show he had seen on CNN about the Taliban and how they made little girls wear sacks over their bodies to hide themselves from dirty old men who married twelve-year-olds.
“These dirty bastards deserve what they got coming to them,” he muttered as his truck rolled up the long drive into the parking lot. A low cloud of yellow dust settled back to the ground behind him as Sammy shut off the engine and opened the door to get out. The dog glanced over at him with pleading eyes.
“All right boy, you can go, but come right back and wait here. We may have to leave fast.”
The dog hopped out and trotted into the woods while Sammy approached the building. A recent rain shower had washed the air. Even though the bright twenty-four-hour sun had instantly dried the ground to a fine dust, the air itself still smelled fresh and clean. He moved with caution, ears straining to detect the tell-tale sound of people. On the off chance that someone was there, and if they caught him snooping, he would say that he owned a landscape and building maintenance company and was just checking to see if they'd like to hire his services. He even had business cards and a pad of invoices complete with a logo, address, phone numbers, and website to verify the claim. Those, of course, along with a laptop computer and a nice, new metal coffee thermos, had been stolen from a legitimate contractor who had been so kind as to leave his truck unlocked.
Sammy went to the front door of the mosque. The door itself made his heart leap with excitement at the potential treasures inside. It was an intricately carved and highly complicated series of geometric shapes and patterns with Arabic script overlaying portions of it. He touched the wood and whistled lightly, then leaned close and listened through to the other side. All was silent. He grasped the door handle and twisted it. The latch gave way with a soft click and he pushed it open. No alarms sounded, so he stepped into the building. Just inside the door was a long rack for shoes. It was empty.
Looks like nobody’s home.
The inside of the mosque was just as elegantly decorated as he had expected. Round pillars lined the entry and the hall that ran perpendicular to it. Large ceramic tiles of turquoise, midnight blue, sea green, and scarlet reds on the floor and smaller tiles covering the walls combined to form complex geometric patterns that forced him to blink repeatedly to adjust to the visual confusion. Gold leaf sparkled along the joining edges of each tile, randomly illuminated by soft light shining through arched stained-glass windows set high in the ceiling. A summer spent panning for gold with his cousins as a teen had taught him what real gold looked like. This was the real thing. A smile of wonder spread across his face, awed by the amount of the yellow metal in the walls.
Sammy’s footsteps echoed in the hall. As he walked through the building, his initial excitement started to abate, and then slowly evaporated. For all its beauty, there were no visible treasures he could carry away. No golden objects like one might find in a church or cathedral or even a synagogue. No crosses or menorahs or silver-plated scroll handles. No offering plates or communion cups or bottles of kosher wine. No statues. Not even any paintings. Just walls and floors decorated with thin strips of gold leaf, not exactly an easy thing to steal.
The treasure must be further inside. They’ve gotta have something.
He made his way down the hall until he found the opening into the main worship area. The large open space, about fifty feet in diameter, consisted of more of the same type of wall decorations with neither pews nor chairs. It was empty except for a covering of Persian rugs. On a raised platform opposite the entrance stood a small podium, barely two feet tall. He crossed the center of the room. He looked under the podium, only to find it empty.