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Newton's Comeuppance,
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I'm a thief.
Call me Robin, like that twelfth century thief with the bow and arrow and green tights. But I don't work a forest, as my worthy predecessor did. I work a beach. In fact, before I became a thief, I was a legitimate beach comber, and I practiced my profession on the rain-soaked Oregon coast. While I've never had a band of Merry Men, I do have a partner, a hundred-pound golden retriever. Call him Newton, like that seventeenth century genius who came up with the theory of universal gravitation.
Although I consider myself the brains of our beach combing partnership, it's Newton who has a real nose for the business. So, of course, it was Newton who found the briefcase.
We had been on the beach since dawn. The weather was still dirty, a three day storm finally blowing itself out. Newton ran circles around something tumbling in the surf, barking until I slogged into the froth and hauled it up the beach. It was one of those silver briefcases with combination locks. It was a bit dented and the handle was missing, but the metal showed no corrosion; it couldn't have been in the water long.
"Probably nothing in it but wet papers, Newton. Leveraged buy outs, initial public offerings, corporate espionage. Much ado about nothing."
Newton growled. He's the optimist of the partnership.
"I'm only being realistic, Newt. A professional should be prepared for disappointment. Could be bags full of cocaine."
I pried my knife into one of the locks. The lid opened a little and Newton pressed close, sniffing like a Frenchman outside a four star bistro. This was not necessarily promising, as more than once I have found my partner in a state of intoxication, blissfully rolling himself on the carcass of a dead skunk or raccoon.
I popped the second lock and pulled up the lid.
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This story will appear in Velocity Nine Stories of People In Motion Autumn 2008 Published by Green Flash Publishing |