“Good point.” he just said.
“All I need to do now is to turn the cameras back on at exactly four-thirty and place the prepared videos in the cloud storage. Whoever checks those tomorrow would see the owner emptying the safe himself. I don’t think he even knows about this cloud storage, he has his videos on a network drive in that building. So, I’ll also place the videos on there and delete them again.”
“Why delete them?” Bill asked, curious. His slightly amused tone gave me the impression he had way too much fun.
“If the people whose money we just took look into it, they’ll find the video of him taking the money in their cloud storage despite him claiming the money was stolen. If he really doesn’t know about the cloud storage, he’ll look into his network drive, telling them the camera was turned off by the thieves. But, if those guys have someone even slightly more capable than this dude, they’ll find the deleted video of him cleaning them out as soon as they take more than just a fleeting glance at his drive. It’ll make it look like he deleted them himself to support his lie.”
“Don’t take this as a compliment, but you do have a talent for this. Though, I’m not sure that’s enough. Your story’s lacking something important.”
“What’s that?” I asked nervously.
“Motive, Kid. Why did he suddenly decide to steal from people who are that dangerous? Typically, stuff like that happens either because they’ve had enough and want out, or because they need the money for something.”
“Well ... What if we don’t plant all the Bricks on him? Making it look like he had to use a sizable chunk of it? But if you think that isn’t enough, I can use his credit card to book a one-way ticket to Switzerland or something. He does actually steal from them. Just apparently not so much that it would raise any eyebrows. I know he stashes it in a garage he’s renting.” I explained.
“Garage? As in a rented storage unit?” he asked and I nodded. “Just to be sure ... how are you planning on dealing with that garage’s surveillance?”
I hadn’t thought about that, and just stared at him blinking.
“So much for your talent for this. These storage facilities are also equipped with camera surveillance. And you can bet your ass, if these guys want to access those, they can. Besides, how were you planning to point those guys to the garage? Anyone telling them about where to find the money would naturally be suspected of having taken it themselves, instead of the guy we’re trying to frame here.”
“Oh...” I just said, not knowing how to continue.
“All right, let’s find an IHOP or something and get some breakfast. You got their home addresses?”
“Yeah, why?”
“We’ll wait till they leave, then go into their apartments and stash some of the bricks in there. It’s the first place anyone suspecting them of stealing will look. Though ... maybe, just to be sure ... go ahead and book the flight with his credit card for Saturday.” He explained as he started the car and found us a diner.
At Six in the morning, the camera system switched files, and I could combine the real feeds with the manipulated video, erasing every trace of the camera system ever being turned off for the real owners of the money. Meanwhile I left the videos on the owner’s drive in parts, to make it look like he himself deleted the part showing him emptying the safe.
Another three hours later, the work overalls proved extremely helpful, as I noticed people not even giving us a second look when we walked into the buildings. We placed two Bricks in the goon’s apartment and five Bricks in the owner’s apartment another hour later. Then we made our way back home.
When we arrived at the office building, the first thing we did was go into Bill’s office and empty the duffle bag.
“Holy fuck.” I said.
“Indeed.” Bill confirmed calmly. “I didn’t expect it to be that much. At least this could count as another motive. It’s a very tempting amount for anyone to get their hands on.”
On his table were twenty-three Bricks of cash, most of them containing hundred-dollar-notes, amounting to exactly a shitload of US-Dollars.
“What the hell are we going to do with it? I can’t take it home. What if one of them comes looking for clues and finds it?” I asked.
“We? I’m not touching that money, Kid. But I’m warning you now, you can’t put it in your bank account either. A deposit of more than ten-thousand dollars in cash gets reported to the IRS by the bank. Even if you deposit it in smaller increments, ‘cause that ten grand threshold is also per year. Same goes for big purchases. So, at ten grand per year, this would take you a lifetime to deposit.”
“Deposit box is also out of the question. Still a minor and all that. So...?” I asked Bill, hoping for some guidance.
“How about you burn it?” he asked, matter of fact, to which I just looked at him shocked, grabbed a few bricks, and theatrically held them against my chest like I was protecting a new born child. “Just put it in the safe in your office for now. It should be big enough. You only use it for the backup drives anyway. But since we’re already on the topic of money, take this.” he said, presenting me with a business mastercard. “I got the idea when you went to Walmart for my adapter. It made me remember that you also went to Home Depot for the missing parts for the shelves in your office. In the future you could use this to pay for stuff like that. Would spare you the hassle of bringing the slips into accounting to get your money back.”
“Oh, convenient! Thanks.” I said.
“Though, after ... It’s a prepaid card holding a thousand bucks right now. If you want, I can tell accounting to open it up for personal use. You could use it for whatever, and they’d top it off each month from your pay if you used it for non-work related purchases.” He paused, and got the same thoughtful look he had during the meet with the family. “Like, if you ever need a motel room or something. If I had known what was really going on, I wouldn’t ‘ve told your folks where to find your apartment, Kid. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” I replied in a subdued voice.
I shoved the card into my wallet, and was just packing the Bricks back into the bag when he stopped what he was doing, turned to look at me for a moment, and then spoke again.
“Kid, how did you get that guy’s credit card information to book the flight with?”
I didn’t answer. Truth was, I had simply watched him enter it a few days ago to pay for an OnlyFans subscription, so no fancy hacking on that part. But why admit that?
“Tim?” he asked after mulling the past few hours over in his head. “We’re friends, right? I won’t need to cancel my cards, right?”
I replied with my best impression of Palpatine’s laugh while I made my way downstairs to stash the money away. Then we met back up in the parking lot, got out of the overalls, and he gave me a lift back to the house.
I checked my phone and noticed a whopping fourteen missed calls from Claire, Aaron and even Uncle John. That was new, if those were attempts to check in on me. But I still had one more thing to do before I could call it mission accomplished. I had to call Logan. My first attempt went to voicemail after it rang just three times. Cursing under my breath, I immediately tried again, and he finally picked up.
“What!?” I heard his annoyed voice.
“Good day to you too, Golden Boy.” I answered, audibly annoyed.
“Oh ... it’s you.” His voice was now clearly tense.
“Yes, It’s me. How’s everything at your end?”
“Fine. I got here a few hours ago.”
“Where’s ‘here’?” I asked confused.
“With the others. Mom and Granny insisted since I got hurt.” he said with an audible grin, telling me he was enjoying this greatly. The reason for his good mood became clear when I heard Claire’s afar voice.