The Last Minute Heist

Chapter 1: The Mark

Rain hammers the window of a small Pune flat. Inside, ⟨Character 3⟩, 68, stirs dal at the stove and sings a Tamil song under her breath while a leak drips into a bucket by her feet.

⟨Character 3⟩: Rohan, kanna, the ball has rolled under the fridge again. My glasses are somewhere on the shelf, I think, but I can’t see them without my glasses. It’s a cruel joke, no? The dal needs salt. Or does it? I already put salt. Did I?

⟨Character 2⟩: You put salt twice last time, so I’m not telling you. Just let me get this ball. It’s my lucky one. Two sixes off it already. If I can just hook it out from under here without waking ⟨Character 4⟩, who is currently using my foot as a pillow, by the way, I’ll be a legend.

Mr. Deshpande: Iyer! Three months! Three months I have been patient! Tomorrow morning I file the papers. Eviction! You hear me? And tell that dog to stop howling every time my bell rings!

⟨Character 1⟩: The thunder is louder than him. That’s saying something. I’m not covering my ears because I’m scared, I’m covering them because he’s noisy. There’s a difference. Look at this leaflet from the museum. They found old cash in a wall and they put it on display. Label says ‘Cash found in old museum’. Our cash. I drew a rocket on it. Gran, what if we just took it back? It’s ours.

⟨Character 3⟩: Aanya, that is stealing. I was a teacher for forty years. I know stealing. But that money was ours, and Deshpande is a snake. There is a coal chute in that museum. I remember it from a school trip. It leads to the basement. And I have a key from when I helped clean the display cases. Somewhere. I think. We will get it back. Tonight.

Midnight. The museum basement smells of coal dust and damp stone. Kamala crawls out of the chute first, then Aanya, then Rohan, with ⟨Character 4⟩ squirming under his arm.

⟨Character 3⟩: This way. I’m sure it’s this way. The glass door key was on a ledge near the boiler. But the boiler was red, and this one is green. We are lost. Wait. There’s a ledge. My hand is on a key. Is it the key? It’s a key. Aanya, don’t touch that alarm. Rohan, where’s ⟨Character 4⟩?

⟨Character 2⟩: He bolted when a doorbell rang next door. I’ll get him. There’s a night guard. Wait, he’s coming this way. I’ll distract him with my ball. Make it look like a stray. Then we run.

Guard: Hey! Who’s down there? Oh, just a cricket ball. Nice one. I’ll keep it. Thanks, kid, whoever you are. Now scram.

⟨Character 2⟩: He kept it. My lucky ball. And now ⟨Character 4⟩’s howling behind that sarcophagus. I’m tackling him. That’s it. We’re all going to jail for a beagle. Aanya, you’re the one who said we’d be in and out like ghosts. ⟨Character 4⟩ is not a ghost. ⟨Character 4⟩ is a howling alarm bell with legs.

⟨Character 3⟩: The display case is right here. The glass dome. The coins. And there’s the cash box, just like the leaflet. But my key. I had it in my hand. I put it in my pocket. Which pocket? This one? No. This one? No. Aanya, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t find the key.

⟨Character 1⟩: Gran. It’s okay. Look, the glass has a swivel hinge. We can lift it without the key. But we have to do it now, before the guard comes back. And before the thunder gets louder. Rohan, stop laughing at ⟨Character 4⟩ and help me. We’re stealing our own money back. It’s not wrong. It’s ours.

Chapter 2: The Last Minute

The glass dome lifts on its swivel hinge with a soft squeak. Under it, a brass tray holds two gold coins in velvet slots and, beside them, a fat manila envelope stamped with the museum's red seal. The clock on the gallery wall reads eleven fifty-nine.

⟨Character 2⟩: Okay. The envelope is right here and it's heavy. You lift the tray for the coins, I'll slide this out. You know, if this works I'm going to put it in my diary. Big entry. Bold letters. Me, the hero of the great Iyer heist. I'm also going to stop telling you what to do, Aanya, because look at us. We're a team.

⟨Character 3⟩: Wait. Rohan, wait. The flap is sealed and it has a code printed across it, a little strip of numbers. The museum put a code on the cash box. I remember now, they wrote it in the newspaper, the cash was catalogued. A code means a password. I can't read the strip, my glasses are at home. Try the year on the coins. No, try the museum's name backwards. My head is full of songs, not numbers.

The front entrance of the museum opens. A doorbell chimes once across the marble floor. ⟨Character 4⟩ stiffens, throws back his head, and howls.

⟨Character 2⟩: ⟨Character 4⟩! No, no, no, shh, good boy, quiet! My diary, oh no, my diary slipped right out of my jacket, it's open on the floor next to the case, and there's a red light on the wall that's blinking and it is not a nice red, it's a very angry red, it's a fire door red, Aanya, the alarm bulb!

The alarm begins to blare. A strip of red light sweeps across the gallery. At the far end, the security principal bursts through a door and shouts into a radio, then looks straight at them.

Security Principal: Stay where you are. All of you. The exits are locked. You are thirteen metres from the basement stairs. They are locked too. Do not move.

⟨Character 1⟩: The envelope, I've got it! It doesn't feel like money. It's thin. It's too flat. I've torn the flap, and it's paper, just white paper with grey smudges. Photocopies. Somebody switched it. There's a note, it says ‘If you are reading this, the money left Mumbai yesterday.’ That was when Deshpande came for the rent.

⟨Character 2⟩: That note was set up for us. He knew. He knew we'd come, that's why he shouted about the papers tomorrow. Aanya, run! Leave the diary, let the guard keep it, just get to the coal chute, we're going, we're going now!

The clock hits midnight. Thunder cracks directly overhead, a hard, flat boom that rattles the display cases, and Aanya freezes.

⟨Character 3⟩: Aanya. My brave girl. We have nothing, the money is gone, the guards are coming up the stairs, and I was wrong about the chute, wrong about the trip, wrong about the whole thing. But the ceiling is not the sky. I am here. Take my hand. We run.

They run. The security principal catches the doorframe, but they are gone down the coal chute. In the empty gallery, a guard named Ramesh picks up the diary, reads the cover, and calls the flat phone at one in the morning.

Chapter 3: All Wrong

Dawn. The three of them sit on the back steps of the museum in a thin grey light. Rohan holds his wrist, which is swelling. A tear runs down the middle of the manila envelope, and the word ‘MUSEUM’ is torn in half. Ramesh, the guard, appears at the emergency door with a small torch and a notebook open in his hand.

Ramesh: Listen. I'm not the police. I'm the night guard, I turn a key twice a night. This is yours, I think. I read a page. You want to be a cricketer, you draw a bat on every page, and you wrote that your sister was brave to walk into the museum. The heist went wrong, didn't it. So let me call your grandmother, not the station. But someone still has to answer for the last minute.

⟨Character 2⟩: It was wrong. All of it. I heard the doorbell and I howled, and I want to say it was the bell, but the truth is I was scared. I'm saying it out loud now, and my wrist hurts, but I'll be honest with you because you've been honest with us.

⟨Character 3⟩: I was the one who said the chute, and I get confused. That's the word. Confused. I forget where I put the key, I forget the salt, but I don't forget that I made you do this. I'm too old for heists. These hands are for dal and songs, Aanya, not for stealing. Ask me for help instead. Ask me, okay?

Mr. Deshpande waits at the gate with his papers. The warden's report stalls him for one week, but the gossip runs ahead of it. The next evening he palms the small gold ring from Kamala's box and opens the flat for a new tenant.

Mr. Deshpande: A week is not enough! The papers come back and I mend the gate. Start packing. Tomorrow, out, the lot of you!

The little flat smells of damp cardboard. Thunder rolls in over Pune not long before the sun comes up.

⟨Character 1⟩: That's the last minute of the storm, I think. I'm not covering my ears. I'm going to stand here until it goes. We tried the heist and it went wrong in the last minute, and the money is gone, and the ring is gone, and we're going, but I'm not scared of a loud noise anymore. I'm not. That's all I've got left.

⟨Character 4⟩ lies still on Rohan's feet and does not make a sound. In the corner, Kamala taps the back of her head.

⟨Character 3⟩: A little box, a little box, where did I put the little box. Not under the stove. Not by the window. Somewhere near the window. Maybe. We'll find it in the morning.

The sun comes up over the roofs. They sit among the half-folded boxes, the torn envelope on the floor between them, with no money and no plan.