Christina’s editor slapped a copy of tomorrow’s Park City Times down on her desk. The front page shouted up at her a headline she had written earlier that night, “Casino Runs out of Luck: Park Palace Dealt $3.5 Million Robbery.” Christina was overcome with pride. She had always known she was capable of breaking a front-page story, but actually seeing it in print left her racking her brain for words, unsure how to verbalize the feeling.
“I’m... thanks… wow,” she strung together. Good enough. Almost a complete sentence. Usually every time she spoke to her editor she was defending herself. Accepting praise was a foreign concept.
“I don’t know how you did it. This story hasn’t broken anywhere yet. It’s almost like you knew the story before the casino did! Really great work. Keep it up,” the editor was complimenting Christina for the first time in the 10 years she had worked for the Times. She could certainly get used to this positive sentiment. She just had to keep breaking front page stories to earn it.
Scooping up the paper with trembling hands, Christina was able to construct a comprehensible sentence in response, “Thank you, I’ll try. Can… I keep this?” Her editor nodded, smiled, gathered his coat, and left.
Christina beamed as she glanced at her watch, which read 12:17AM. In three hours her story would begin to be distributed throughout the city on the front page of the newspaper. She clutched the paper to her chest and floated out the door, knowing full well she was not going to get a wink of sleep tonight.
. . .
Ray shuffled through the side door of the Park Palace, a thermos of burnt black coffee in one hand, and a folded copy of the Park City Times tucked under his arm. He pulled his time card from the slat on the left and fed it through the punch clock. When it spit out the other side it read “4:19.” Eleven minutes early, same as always. Seemingly on autopilot, Ray made his way to the swiveling desk chair which sat in front of a wall full of surveillance screens. Ray leaned back in his chair and unfolded the paper without so much as glancing at the surveillance screens. The 11 minutes before his shift started was the only source of variety in his life, as the contents of the morning paper changed daily. Other than that, he was the ultimate creature of habit. Today, however, served to be unlike any other day before it.
Ray nearly fell out of his chair when his eyes fell upon the headline on the front page of the Park City Times. He reread the headline multiple times, hoping his eyes had yet to fully wake up, and failed to relay the correct information to his brain. However, this was not the case. His casino had been robbed the night before. He rushed over to the copy of the schedule posted on the bulletin board to find who had been on staff the previous night. Burke and Caldwell had both been on post… they were typically the two most reliable and stalwart security guards. How could this have happened?
As the initial shock wore off, Ray began to think about the situation with more clarity. The gears began to turn in Ray’s brain. He realized this could actually work out in his favor. Ray knew the ins and outs of the security system of this casino better than anyone in the world. He was immediately confident he could figure out who robbed the casino, and if he did, they would absolutely let him back on the Park City Police force. Not a day went by when Ray didn’t long for his old position on the squad.
Returning to his seat in front of the wall of screens, Ray opened the security laptop and began rewinding the tape. He was going to get to the bottom of this.
. . .
Tyler rolled over on his dorm room mattress. It was even lumpier and more uncomfortable than usual this morning. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he spilled out of bed and shuffled to his desk, kicking aside crumpled papers with crimson “A’s” scrawled atop them. Leaning over his desk chair, Tyler flipped his laptop open and glanced over his left shoulder before punching his long, elaborate, complicated password into the keyboard. The 6-foot-nothing, lanky, 19 year old with shaggy blond hair and a clean-shaven face closed out a the tabs he had left open the day before. The three tabs were a specs page of high-grade security cameras and their back-end wiring, a YouTube video outlining the algorithms at play in 3-card poker, and a Poetry Foundation website, bookmarked to a Charles Bukowski poem, with a single line highlighted. The line read, “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
As Tyler closed the third tab, the home screen of his computer was revealed. The picture on his background featured his face, two years younger, smiling back at the camera, one arm holding his diploma, the other around his high school principal. The picture had been taken a mere 20 minutes after he had delivered his valedictorian speech, and received his “Most Likely to Succeed” award at high school graduation. The rest of his classmates were posing with their best friends, laughing with cigars hanging out of their mouths, but not Tyler. He had thanked the teachers who helped him succeed, and hugged the principal, who allowed him to graduate after nearly kicking him out of the school several times.
He stared deep into the proud and passionate eyes staring back at him from his former self for so long that the screen went black, and he was now staring at his own reflection on the screen. Tyler was shocked to see the eyes so lifeless and devoid of heart, that he shook the mouse frantically, illuminating the screen and masking the harrowing reflection of himself. Tyler opened a new tab and typed in the website for the Park City Times. He clicked the link on the first story on the homepage. His eyes darted side to side as he read the entirety of the article in seconds, but they remained hovering over a single sentence. Toward the end of the article, the journalist had written “the police have indicated no suspects in the case of grand larceny, but confirmed sources have indicated that they suspect a short man aged 45-50 with short dark hair and a thick graying beard.” Tyler grinned and thought, nice work Christina, as he closed his laptop.
Walking back toward bed, Tyler lifted his mattress a few inches, and peered down upon the rows of neatly stacked piles of $100 bills. Reading 11:22AM on the clock, Tyler climbed back into bed to get a few extra hours of sleep. His heart pounded with the rush of adrenaline he used to get after receiving an A on a test in high school. Laying down and closing his eyes, Tyler tried, and failed, to remember the last time he had smiled. The act felt alien and uncomfortable on his face. He allowed his grimace to fade, and his face to soften, and he drifted back to sleep.
. . .
“So you break one front page story and you think you’re too good to show up on time the next day?” Christina’s editor was standing above her, hands planted firmly on her desk. Her hands froze on the keyboard, and she turned her head slowly to find her editor’s chin inches from her face. Pushing the chair back to give herself some space, she sighed.
“I’m sorry, Tom. I was so excited about breaking a story that I couldn’t get myself to sleep until an hour before I had to be up. I did my best to get here on time. I really am sorry.” Ah, this was the groveling she was so familiar with. Of course her good favor with Tom would last less than 24 hours.
“Well, that’s beside the point. What I really want is for you to fess up about your source on the Park Palace story. None of the security guards knew what had happened. The casino hadn’t released an official statement. I’m beginning to think you stole the money yourself!” Tom let little bits of spittle fly from his mouth as he reached the crescendo at the end of his accusation. Of course, he could not have possibly thought that Christina was capable of stealing millions of dollars from a casino, but he was suspicious that she had violated journalistic integrity to break the story. Tom was searching for any genuine reason to get her fired while avoiding a gender discrimination lawsuit. He could not afford to have another one of those on his plate.
Christina broke into a nervous grin. “My sources will be revealed in good time, Tom. I’m flattered you think I would be capable of such an impressive heist, though. You know these things are tricky with the legal ramifications. Saying too much now is the worst thing we could do. The last thing this paper needs is to get sued by Park Palace for libel.”
Yeah, Tom thought, that’s the lawsuit I want to avoid. He left her at her desk and shuffled back to his office, feeling unsatisfied with their interaction. He was used to getting the upper hand in these situations, but he felt as though he had lost this one.
Christina’s phone buzzed on her desk. Her eyes darted quickly to the left and right to make sure the coast was clear. She unlocked her phone and read a text message from a number she did not recognize. The message read: “Article looks good. Your half is safe. What’s the latest on the security guard? - T.”
. . .
Ray’s eyes bulged as the security footage playing in front of him skipped and went black. It appeared as though the entire system had shut down for a full three minutes during the previous night. He was shocked, since their security software was the most impenetrable available on the market, but was exhilarated that he had a lead. Clearly, the heist must have occurred during this three minute period. The system had gone down at 11:50 PM and came back on at 11:53 PM. He jotted this information down on the notepad in front of him. He had been keeping notes for all relevant information he had learned in the past two hours while working the case. He tucked the old yellow legal pad under the keyboard of his computer, and went to the break room to grab his ham and cheese sandwich, and pour a fresh cup of coffee.
He was running the possible scenarios through his brain as he walked, and still could not figure out how both Burke and Caldwell could have missed the blackout in the system. What could they have been doing for the full three minutes? He returned to the security office to find two members of the Park City Police force standing over his desk.
“Ross, Jimmy! I haven’t seen you guys since my time on the force. Are you here to gather intel on the case?” Ray asked, as bits of ham and cheese fell from his mouth. He swallowed hard, and rinsed his mouth out with a sip of black coffee.
“No, Ray, we’re here to arrest you,” said one of the officers, producing a pair of handcuffs. The other officer was holding Ray’s notepad, which contained all the information he had learned about the case.
“Well, hold on now,” began Ray, “I know the security here better than anyone. I can help you guys solve this thing. You can’t really think I did it! Look at that notepad, I’ve already started working the case!”
“Ray, you don’t work cases. You aren’t a police officer anymore. This notepad contains your precise plans for stealing the casino’s money from within. Sorry, buddy, but we gotta take you in.” The officer cuffed Ray’s hands behind his back, and pushed his short, aging body through the back doors and into a police car. As the cruiser door was shut, Ray caught a glimpse of his own reflection. He whimpered as he looked at his wrinkled face, his short black hair, and his thick beard streaked with gray.
. . .
Tyler stared at the messaging form on his computer, waiting eagerly for a response. He had messaged Christina nearly thirty minutes ago, and she had yet to get back to him. She never took this long to respond. He slammed his laptop shut in frustration and began pacing across his dorm room. He muttered to himself manically and began to yank at the roots of his hair. Scrambling to calm himself, he grabbed at a stack of books hanging halfway off the corner of his desk. The book he happened to produce was Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. He flipped open to where his bookmark lay, and began devouring entire pages in seconds. His eyes fell upon one line, and he dropped the book and collapsed into bed.
Tyler pressed his palms into his eyes, but it was no use. Hemingway’s words were being shouted through his mind, “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” Tyler snapped out of his fit. He gathered himself and opened his laptop. Christina was typing. After an agonizing 20 seconds, her response appeared in the chat. She wrote: “Called the Park City Post with an anonymous tip. The description matched the one from my story. Security guard was likely arrested hours ago. See you tonight.” Tyler released a breath he had drawn in nearly a minute ago. He had done it. Ice rushed through his veins as he felt more alive than he had felt in years. He had devised the perfect plan, and executed it flawlessly. He collapsed into his bed, and as the adrenaline faded, so did his demeanor. The high of pulling off the theft gave way to a terrifying low in a matter of seconds. Tyler felt like he was drowning in his own thoughts. He reached to his desk, grabbed his cell phone, and dialed a number.
The voice on the other end of the receiver sounded like it was miles away as it answered, “Park City Police Department, what is your emergency?”
“Hi, I’m Tyler Morris,” words spilled out of him with no control, “and I’d like to turn myself in.”