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get lunch, she took the keys from the drawer in the kitchen and went to a locksmith. She found out she couldn’t copy the keys to the front door because they were some kind of special locks they couldn’t copy without some kind of card.
She thought that was it, her papi would die, but then the locksmith told her she could copy the keys to the back door. This was okay, maybe even better, because it was darker in the back of the house and nobody would be watching.
Everything was looking good, but not for long. When she got back to the Blooms’ she remembered that Carlos still had the paper with the code on it. She’d been so busy talking to Carlos and thinking about the keys that she forgot to ask for the paper back.
When Mrs. Bloom went out to do something, Gabriela called Carlos and asked him to bring the paper to her apartment later on.
“Too late,” Carlos said. “Threw it out.”
“Why’d you do that?” Gabriela said. “I have to put it back in the drawer.”
Again Gabriela felt like the whole plan wouldn’t work. They wouldn’t be able to rob the house, and her papi would die.
“I thought the paper was yours,” Carlos said. “I thought you copied the shit down. I thought that’s why you gave it to me.”
Gabriela, starting to cry, said, “Why’d you have to throw it away, Carlos? Why’d you have to do that?”
“I didn’t wanna be walking around with the code to the alarm of the house I’m gonna rob in my pocket. So I just memorized it, got it all up here now.”
He touched his head with his finger.
“Where’d you throw it out?” Gabriela said. “Maybe it’s still there.”
“I don’t remember,” he said, “near the subway or whatever. Garbage man probably picked it up already.”
“That’s it,” Gabriela said, crying. “We’re going to have to forget the whole thing now.”
Carlos laughed and said, “Damn, you gotta stop all your worrying ’bout everything and shit. Let me do all the worrying, all right, baby?”
“But if they see the paper is gone they’ll know I took it.”
“Why they gonna know that? Use your head, baby. You know how many people they probably got coming into their house? Big house like that, they probably got people coming and going all day.”
This was true, Gabriela thought. Men were painting the downstairs bathroom and were in the house all day long, and sometimes the plumber and the electrician were in the house, too, and what about all of Marissa Bloom’s friends? Why would the Blooms think she took the code when she’d been working for them for so many years and they had so much trust in her? Maybe not putting back the paper was even good because maybe they’d think for sure that some stranger must’ve taken it.
She didn’t know if this really made sense or she just wanted it to make sense, but it made her feel better anyway.
That night she and Carlos talked about the rest of the plan. The Blooms were going to be leaving for Florida next Tuesday, all three of them, so it would be a good time to rob the house. Gabriela knew where the Blooms kept all their expensive things, their rings and jewelry. After Carlos stole everything he was going to sell it to somebody called a fence.
“Is the fence okay?” she asked.
“Hell yeah,” Carlos said. “My man’s Freddy’s cool, know him forever, gonna give us a good price, too. Third what the shit’s worth.”
“And then you’re gonna give me half the money, right?”
“Nah, we’re gonna split it three ways,” Carlos said.
“Three?” Gabriela didn’t know what he was talking about. “How does it make three? Me and you’s two, not three.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Carlos said. “I ain’t gonna rob the place alone. That’s the way you get caught, wind up back upstate and shit. I ain’t goin’ in there without no backup.”
Gabriela didn’t like the way this sounded at all. She’d already been feeling very bad, stealing from the Blooms who’d been so good to her. But it seemed more okay when it was just her and Carlos because she knew Carlos, and even though he’d gotten her