The Muse

After about an hour the boys finally showed up at Cecilia's door. There were three of them and they were big boys. Just right for moving Wendell. She was so grateful to them for their help that she offered to send them home with the cake that she had made that morning. They told her they were headed into town so they would stop by later and pick it up.

After the boys left Cecelia tried to make Wendell comfortable. She took off his shoes and tried to decide if she should undress him. She had never seen Wendell without his clothes. He always bathed while she was in her room sleeping or doing something in the kitchen. She found herself feeling very self-conscious.

She decided that he was not going to be out much longer so she did not need to undress him. He would wake up in time to play the piano for her while she read. She was going to miss his help with the laundry though.

Cecelia decided to get started on rewashing the sheets that she had washed earlier that morning. The dust had settled and the sun was blazing so hopefully they would dry quickly.

As she worked she tried to occupy her mind with the mundane chores of the day. After she finished the laundry she really needed to make lunch for her and Wendell. Oh Wendell, surely he would be up by lunch time right?

She hung the clothes on the line for the second time that day and decided to go and check on Wendell. She had decided to make his favorite lunch instead of sandwiches. She felt so bad about him falling. It was her fault after all. She should have picked up those pieces of glass. She looked down at her hand as she thought of picking up the glass. Picking up small things was just so hard with only four fingers. She tried not to dwell on her problems. No reason to dwell, right?

She opened the front door and started to walk back to Wendell's room and heard his heavy footfall. Thank goodness, he was alive, and awake.

"Wendell, where are you?" Cecilia called.

"Cece, I am in the back of the house. I will be up there in a minute."

Cecilia walked into the kitchen and began cutting up the chicken she had been saving for the dinner on Sunday. She decided to fry it up for lunch. Wendell loved fried chicken. She also found a few potatoes and decided to make a potato salad instead of mashed because Wendell loved her potato salad so much. She had some beans left over from the night before and put those on the stove to heat them up as well. Wendell would be so pleased.

The Heist

Les walked over to the table where the schematics had been laid out. Frank followed, but at a distance. Les could feel his eyes boring into him again. He knew that he was going to have to confront Frank and it was not going to be pretty. Frank had a temper and when it got out of control no one was safe from his wrath.

"Frank, could you help me take a look at these schematics? We need to start deciding our best route in and out. I also want to make sure none of the tunnels have been blocked off. We haven't looked at these for at least a year now," Les said as he continued to walk toward the table.

"Sure." Frank said coldly.

Les knew this was going to be a problem. But he hadn't realized how much of a problem it was. Frank was clearly skeptical of the whole job. He had to put his mind at ease and quick.

As they both got to the table Les shot Frank a knowing glance. "Hey, Frank, what if Gary could see us now? I really wish he was here to help us with this job. Indigo called me this morning and I demanded to know the specifics. We really need to talk about her motives, I am a little skeptical of all this."

Frank looked at Les and took in everything about his face. He could tell Les was lying, but about what he was not entirely certain. Frank was pretty sure that Les wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit him in the ass, but he could usually tell what he was lying about, and he didn't often lie to Frank.

Frank forced his voice to soften. "Yeah me too. Gary would have loved this. You know this was what he really wanted us to do when we took on that computer scam. I wonder if things would have been different if we could have figured out a way to get inside then."

"Man, I know. I think about it everyday. What do you think our first move is on this job?"

"I think that I need to go down and walk the tunnels. The only way we are going to know if everything is still open is to actually walk them. I can also track the traffic patterns down there. I am pretty sure that no one uses them anymore, but you never know. There could be some kids down there squatting or something," Frank said.

"Yeah, I think that is a good idea, why don't you head out now. I can handle everything here. We only have about ten minutes left before the bank opens and it will be quiet until this evening anyway," Les replied.

Frank nodded and started to walk out the door. He stopped to talk to Carlos on his way out. Les watched him until the door swung closed. He wondered how he was going to handle all this. He had made a plan long ago, but things weren't going quite as he had expected. Les had been counting on Frank losing his temper. When anger was clouding his judgement it was much easier to control Frank.