2
EZRA
I was a thief, and I was good at it.
I stood in the baggage claim of the airport, slouching to pretend I was bored while holding a cardboard sign with "Joziah" written on it in black sharpee. That's Joziah with a Z. I'd learned always to use some weird spelling to keep passengers from approaching me, thinking I was there for them.
People didn't care who came and went in a baggage claim. It was downright normal in airports, a constant flux of bodies passing through and meeting relatives and having their own little mini-reunions in front of the world. I could walk up and take a suitcase from the carousel if I wanted. Hell, I could plant a bomb! I always wondered why you didn't see that happen more often: all a terrorist had to do was double-park, walk inside, and add their bomb-bag to the others on the belt. Nobody would be able to stop them before they were gone. There were too many people, too many bags, too much chaos.
But anyways. Stealing bags off the carousel was a good way to get caught. That shit would get picked up by the cameras, and as soon as someone filed a missing bag report my crime would be discovered and my description plastered across every security desk in every airport in the midwest.
Not only that, but what was usually in suitcases? Clothes. Good for a hundred bucks at the thrift shop, especially if I pinched one with expensive suits inside, but still a lot of middle-men for a payday. It was sometimes worth doing as my last pinch before heading to a new city, if I spotted one that was especially juicy.
But I'd only just arrived in Denver, and I had giant gold dollar signs in my eyes.
"Joziah?" I called out, looking around as if trying to find my fare. A few people glanced over, but none approached.
Nobody was coming out of the security doors, and I was getting impatient, so I meandered over to the baggage carousel to my right. People were idiots, you know? They had the entire damn loop to stand around and wait for their bag, but everyone crowded and crammed around the part where the bags come out. Nobody could wait the ten fucking seconds for their bag to make its way around the loop. Which was good for me, and bad for them.
A pink hardcover suitcase slid down the ramp.
"Oh, excuse me!" I said, squeezing through the crowd. I snipped the wallet out of the dress pants of the guy in the back, who never even looked over. I turned myself sideways as I jockeyed for position, sliding an iPhone out of another man's coat pocket. Leaning forward to grab the tag of the suitcase, I shook my head in a show of disappointment and pushed away from the crowd.
When I was a safe distance away, I moved my loot to the matrix of pockets I'd sewn into the inner lining of my heavy coat, each pocket spaced out so as not to appear too bulky to anyone looking at me.
Two pockets out of ten filled within the first few minutes. Not bad.
The security doors opened, and a trickle of newly-landed passengers made their way into the area. I walked back to where the other drivers stood and held up my sign again.
Jackpot. This looked like the flight I'd been waiting for: the direct from Las Vegas, faces exhausted and eyes still bloodshot from the casino. Vegas flights were the whales of the airport thief industry: lots of people carrying cash, who hadn't had a chance to stop by a Las Vegas bank before catching the early flight out of the city. And nobody trusted thick bundles of cash to their checked bag, or even a carry-on. That shit needed to stay at your hip, where it was warm and safe.
Vegas took more than they gave, but they still gave a lot. I watched the crowd stream through, looking for a mark.
Most of them walked straight toward the exit; very few made their way to the carousel on the left to get a bag. That was disappointing; it was harder to pinch a wallet from someone who was moving. Hard, but not impossible.
Fortunately, I liked a good challenge. It made the payday all that more satisfying.
And then I saw him. One guy with dirty blond hair and his phone to his ear, not paying any attention. He had a leather bag slung over his shoulder, and wore khaki shorts and a T-shirt, which showed off an intricate tattoo sleeve on his arm.
And his right pocket held a bulge that was thicker than any normal wallet.
I strode forward with malicious purpose, stretching on my tip-toes to pretend like I was identifying someone farther back. My mark walked to the right, and I set a diagonal path that would intercept him before he reached the door.
"Joziah?" I called, looking in a different direction than the one I was walking.
Twenty feet. Ten. The mark's loot was in the pocket facing me, and he was so engrossed with his phone call that he wasn't paying attention to anything around him, brushing through people without so much as a second glance.
I darted forward, still not looking in his direction, and bumped into him from the side.
My fingers slid in, closed around the prize, and came out smoothly.
"Sorry," I muttered, already moving past him and beyond with my momentum. I didn't look back, but I could tell the idiot barely noticed.
But my elation at a successful pinch faded as I ran my fingers over the object in my pocket. It wasn't cash, or a wallet. It was cold and heavy, like stone, with bumps all over it. I fondled it as I held my sign in the other hand, keeping up the facade while I returned to my original stakeout place.
I turned away from the crowd to move the object from one pocket to another, and couldn't help but steal a glance.
It was a stone carving, about four inches long. Some bird-cat thing, with wings poking off the back and feathers etched into the stone. My heart sank; all that effort for some trinket from a gift shop.
Until I turned it over.
I knew gems. You had to in my business: being able to identify gemstones at-a-glance was critical, especially whether they were real or fake.
The sapphire set into this stone carving was round cut, and larger than one of my fingernails. 12 carats, my brain estimated. Give or take.
And it was real. As real as real could get.
Fake sapphires were brighter than this, a more satisfying shade of blue. This one was dark, and I could see imperfections deep within the stone. I didn't have time to perform a breath test--fogging up the gem and seeing how long it would take to clear--but I didn't need to.
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.
I wanted to stare at it longer, but I made myself tuck it into one of the hidden pockets inside my coat. Stick with the plan, Ezra. Thieves got caught by being stupid.
As I turned back around with my sign, looking for a new mark, I tried to calculate the value of such a gem. The largest sapphire I'd seen a thief nab was Jamie's 5.7 carat stone, back in Argentina. She'd gotten it appraised for close to $50,000, though she ended up fencing it for half that.
And if the value rose exponentially with gem size...
My palms were sweating, and my mouth was dry. Holy fuck. Calm down, Ezra. Be cool.
Suddenly, it didn't feel safe to stay here. I was hyper-aware of the carving in my pocket, like it was pulling on me with unnatural gravity. I had a winning lotto ticket in my pocket, and I was sticking around to grab maybe a few hundred bucks? Doing that was stupid.
And I hadn't survived this long as a thief by being stupid.
It was time to leave.
But as I turned to go, I caught sight of the mark across the room. He stood near the exit door, looking above the crowd.
Looking directly at me.
Fuck.
I whirled in the opposite direction and tossed my cardboard sign in the trash.