The next morning, Alistair woke to a surprise. At first, everything seemed normal, the light shined through the shutters, the heat filtered in, but at Jack’s Jems didn’t feel quite right. As soon as he walked up the steps, he saw it. Someone had broken in and stolen his prized lion statue. The statue was over 500 years old. The thief had done their work well. An average person may never have noticed, but Alistair was not an average person. Yes, the statue was gone. He mumbled something to himself, and got ready for his morning walk.
Today, he felt like a change of pace. “I’ll go down through the middle of town”, he thought. As he turned on Poplar, he heard in the distance the iconic croaking of Bob Dylan. “Who would blast music this early?” He pondered. As the clinic approached, he realized that the music was coming from a boom box sitting beside a homeless man on the side of the road. Being a normally out of work private detective, Alistair had a soft spot for the homeless. As he walked by, he tossed a bit of spare change that he had in the pocket of his overcoat into the homeless man’s dented money bowl. Had he turned his head, he would have noticed that the homeless man was blind, but he was occupied thinking about today’s dilemma. He kept walking. Alistair had all but forgotten about the man when he heard a voice behind him say, “What will come will come. Even if I shroud it all in silence." Alistair turned around, but the man was asleep. “That’s it!,” Alistair thought, “I have a plan!” He ran back to his shop shouting thanks at the sleeping blind man all the way there.
Alistair spent the entire rest of the day devising his plan, and setting up the shop. He cleared out the middle of the shop and set up a table with a piece of paper, a pen, and a lamp. He was ready. Alistair turned off all the lights except the lamp at the table. He remembered what the old man had said. “What will come will come.” He hoped it was true. After hours of standing till in the dark, there was a creak at the window. A man in black climbed through slowly. The intruder stared at the illuminated table, and approached it slowly. He stared at the words on the page for a good five minutes. He picked up the pen, scribbled something, and left swiftly the way he came. Once it was safe to come out, Alistair looked down at the paper. It read
“Judging by the skill with witch you stole my lion statue last night, it appears that you have practiced the art of stealing in a disciplined manner. It is this that leads me to believe that we are somewhat similar men. We both have too much time on our hands, and a passion that the world of today is not letting us fulfill. Essentially we are both out of work. I’d be interested in meeting with you face to face to discuss a job offer. If your interested, sign you name here, and meet me in the alley behind Casa D’ Waffles tomorrow night at 12:00 am.”
Sincerely,
Alistair Stratford Oxley, “The Detective”
Beneath which was only a scrawled signature reading, “Syrius Hawkins. I accept.”
