Buster Edwards, a thief, had been casing Nick Lightbearer’s house for a week. It was now Friday and Nick still had not left. You’d think a rockstar would have events to be at, but Nick had spent the last five days lounging around his home in various states of lucidity and undress.
Buster came back from a long postponed piss break to see a tall, skinny someone up in the scaffolds, crouched in his spot and reading his notes.
“Fuck,” Buster whispered to himself as he ducked out of sight. He watched this interloper scurry across the scaffolding around the building and slip into Nick’s house through the third floor window entry point detailed in Buster’s notes. That lanky shit was gonna knick all of Nick’s knick-knacks!
Buster climbed back up into the scaffolds and waited. A while later, Nick finally emerged from the back door. Or… no, it was that stringbean fuck dressed as Nick. You could tell because he was about six inches too tall for the outfit. The pants were unfashionably high up the ankle and his jacket was too short on the waist. He had the wig on straight at least. Buster spied on him as he tore off down the street, pointing at passerby and greeting them with knock-off Nick-isms.
The real Nick was still yet to emerge. Buster chanced a few circuits around the scaffolding to peek into his windows but didn’t see him anywhere. Unless he had a secret basement or he was Harry fucking Houdini though, Nick had to still be in the house.
Buster resolved to just go for it that evening, Nick or not. If that heist help-himselfer could just walk right in and out without a problem, maybe Nick was too shitfaced to notice all his nicest things getting lifted.
A little after seven o’clock, just as he was about to head down from the scaffolds to change out of his boiler suit and into his burglary clothes, Buster saw Sally Boyle let herself into Nick’s house through the backdoor. It was good thing he saw her go in before he chanced it himself, but he had to wait for her to leave now too.
About half an hour later, Sally came out the way she entered, an old record in hand. Just as Buster thought he could finally make his move, voices carried up from the alleyway.
“Look, lads. It’s our lucky day!” A trio of Ploughboys were walking up the alley to pick a fight with Sally.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Now Buster had to wait for this altercation to settle itself too. At this rate, he was going to miss Uncle Jack’s bedtime story.
The Ploughboys advanced on Sally, but she had a purple perfume bottle at the ready and spritzed it in the leader’s face. She hopped a few steps back so as not to inhale any of the mist herself. The Ploughboy immediately turned to the left and took a swing at his gangmate, who punched back in self-defense. The remaining Ploughboy tried to pull the other two apart, and got a fist in the jaw for his trouble. As they fought in the mist of Sally’s perfume bottle, they all grew more violent with each other. Buster looked down upon the brawl and watched Sally take advantage of the distraction to hide in some overgrown flowers. It took them a while, but eventually all but one Ploughboy had been knocked out by the others. Sally crept up behind him and finished him off with a syringe to the neck. She then traipsed down the alleyway and along the painted road, heels clicking a jaunty stride on the pavement, as if that fight had been nothing but a puddle to step around.
Buster waited a moment longer, just to make sure no one else wanted in or out of Nick’s house before he finally took his turn at it. He descended the scaffolding, changed his clothes, and double-checked his stock of shortspikes, electro-lock shockers, disposable safe crackers, and Sunshine in his kit. Finally, he stepped in between and over the unconscious Ploughboys to approach Nick’s house.
Sally left the door open so he just waltzed right into the kitchen.
It was a mess; no surprise there. There was rotting food sitting on the counters, attracting flies. When he turned the corner into the living room, the compost smell from the kitchen was compounded by an oppressive floral smoke undercut with the unmistakable scent of alcoholic vomit. Buster felt bile rising in his throat and made a mad dash for the bathroom.
The bathroom added the stench of sweaty, unwashed clothes to the mix. That did it; Buster threw himself before the toilet and threw up his lunch. He stayed there, knelt in front of a rockstar’s toilet, until he felt confident that he was only dry heaving anymore. He flushed the toilet. As he turned to pull himself up to stand before the sink, he saw Nick hanging half out of the bathtub, fully clothed.
Buster scuttled backwards, startled by Nick’s presence. He sat there frozen on the floor, halfway under the sink, waiting for Nick to move or say something.
Nick never did.
At first, Buster thought Nick was sleeping or passed out in a drunken stupor. As the shock wore off, though, he noticed Nick wasn’t breathing. Buster peeled one of his gloves off and reached out slowly to touch Nick’s dangling hand. Cold. Cold.
Oh no. Oh nooooo. He needed to leave. Screw Nick’s gold records. He needed to not be here.
Buster scrambled to his feet and made a beeline for the back door, his glove clenched in his naked fist. Once he was back on the street, he slowed down, but only just enough not to draw attention. It was past curfew and the bobbies were patrolling. He hurriedly sneaked around and between them, until he felt he was far enough away from the scene to collect himself.
Ducking into the alley behind a house, Buster spotted a bistro set and let himself drop into one of its chairs. He caught his breath, pulled his glove back on, and assessed the situation.
Nick Lightbearer was dead and Buster was the only witness. He had to have seen Nick’s killer, the tall man or Sally. One of them killed him! He had to tell someone!
But he couldn’t tell anyone. He was a thief. He wasn’t supposed to be there. There was no reason why he should know anything about this.
And why did anyone else need to know, actually? It wasn’t like he was on the side of justice himself. He didn’t actually have any obligation to come forth with what he knew. The smart thing to do would be to keep this knowledge to himself and stay out of it. They’d find Nick eventually and rule his death a suicide and that would be the end of it.
There was no good reason for him to get involved with this.
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