Masquerade

Twenty-two

Jaron Rose

They chased him through brambles,

They chased him through the fields,

They’d chased him forever,

But the fox would not yield.

—‘End of the Game’ by Sting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqxn5POG0GI

I walk the night clad in black. Unknown. Unseen. Unchallenged. A shadow among shadows. Rooftops to me are a home away from home. Like smoke I drift along them, slip into the most well-guarded keyholes, work around ultrasonic motion detectors, and drop a leg onto a smooth, rain-slicked ledge, so narrow it is more an architectural flourish than a shelf broad enough to house the dimensions of a human foot.

Let me tell you, when all you have are your hands and back flat against the wall and your shoes stick out over the edge of a twenty-one floor fall—one sneeze or one truly malevolent gust of wind and it’s all over—it is an indescribable adrenalin high.

This is the thief’s world: a life of compulsion, great passion, skill and danger. It is a fantasy world where it is a risk to disturb the grime on a windowpane. A glamorous world of priceless objects and a space where seconds can be more precious than hours or days in the ordinary world. It is an intoxicating, overwhelming, and addictive business. But it is not for the faint-hearted. It’s all about challenge.

Sweat always breaks out on my brow when I pull on my black gloves, and fear, that old friend of mine, takes a stroll across my stage. At that moment I always smile, a grim smile of welcome. Only when you welcome the fear can you master it. Fear is useful—it alerts the senses, but only the intellect allows control.

After this initial surge of fear I become ice cold.

Normal people will find the long shadows caused by the low-level, non-invasive red service lights that virtually all galleries in the world employ murky and oppressive. Not me. I revel in them. They turn soaring vaulted ceilings into low, black voids of mystery. The arid tang of de-ionized air expelled by coal-filter dehumidifiers in museums: it’s perfume to me. And those security cameras mounted high on their walls that frighten you into not touching anything, well, let me tell you, they are not real. Real video would be too expensive to run. Most museums rely on containment technology. Take an Italian masterpiece off a wall and the gallery immediately seals itself with you inside it.

When I think of myself I see myself silently weaving my way over a roof, or crouching on my haunches, or balanced on a parapet scanning for sighters on the street. It is what I was born to do. Even as a child I could shimmy up a tree like a koala bear.

But sometimes I think of myself falling seventy feet below onto a line of spiked protective railings. The spikes impale my thighs in two places. I have never forgotten the pain of pulling my flesh off of the unforgiving metal, leaving behind blood, bits of flesh and gore. I wake up sometimes haunted by that fall. In my nightmare the spikes enter my heart. Even so, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d do it all again.

Even the fall.

You see, real life, the one led by most people, is excruciatingly dull. Too dull for me. I’d rather be a persistent sinner. And I am that.

I didn’t tell Billie the whole truth!

I wanted to, but I didn’t.

I told her I was a jewel thief and I gave her the impression that I do it for the danger. The high of knowing that this could be the last time and going ahead anyway. That my greatest passion comes from creeping on a roof, making a tunnel in a wall, avoiding the latest in security to get that loot. That is only true up to a point.

I was that. I walked around with an empty rugby bag to fill with spoils, but that was only until that day when, while sorting through a jumble of gems and glitter, ordinary pieces of diamond, out of someone’s safe, I realized I had landed a rare and magnificent 40.63 carat, heart-shaped Burmese ruby mounted on a 155 carat diamond necklace.

I held it up in the shine of my heavy-duty torch and a stimulus came from it. It was not sexual like the act of stealing. It was far more potent than that. It was love at first sight. It provided me with more satisfaction than any woman had ever provided.

I was captivated—mesmerized actually. I suddenly understood why people kill for these shiny objects. For me it was like standing on the deck of the sinking Titanic and debating if we would not have hit the iceberg if we had gone a little bit slower or steered the ship a little more to the north. The deed was done. The ship was sinking.

The compulsion to steal more of these beautiful stones is incredible, undeniable. The high is unobtainable by any other means. I have tried everything. Kinky sex in strange nightclubs, places where nothing is taboo, but nothing compares to stealing and collecting these beautiful objects.

Why didn’t I tell Billie that?

Because telling her that would reveal something else. Something she will not like. My mobile rings. I look at it. It is Ebony calling. Something that involves Ebony. Something unfinished.