WC: By Choice - Part 1.2
White Collar -- Fanfiction
Disclaimer:
All recognizable characters are property of Jeff Eastin and USA Network.
No copyright infringement intended.
Title: By Choice - Part 1.2
- Rating: PG-13
- Category: Hurt/Comfort, Drama
- Spoilers: None
Author's notes:
We're told the upcoming season three is about choices. This is my take on a few of those choices. The story is written in two parts. Due to post length restrictions I had to subdivide. A massive thank you to nice_disguise for burning the midnight oil on the beta and for always telling me like it is. All remaining mistakes, factual incorrectness and scarcity of gratuitous shirtlessness are entirely my fault.
This is post 2 of 4.
Summary:
Wrong choices. Impossible choices. Choices made against our better judgment.
BY CHOICE -- Part 1.2
5.
“You’ve truly outdone yourself, Neal.” With one perfectly good eye and one grossly discolored and slightly swollen eye Mozzie takes in every detail of the forgery. Facing the mirror and smoothing the front of his tightly fitted black jersey, Neal grins at his friend’s reflection. Flattery never hurt. It doesn’t do much to calm his nerves tonight.
It is a good kind of nervousness, the kind that keeps his mind, his senses and instincts sharp. It’s the kind that Neal often misses in his new, his legal line of work, the kind that Peter couldn’t comprehend.
“I’d hang it in my living room.” Mozzie continues and ghosts his fingertips over the painting.
“Yeah? Which one?” Neal replies absentmindedly and stares at his own tense smile in the mirror. Focus, Caffrey. He stops tugging his cat burglar outfit into shape and turns to face his friend. “Handicapped access elevator?”
“I’ve been randomly cutting power to it for the past two days. They’ve brought in the service contractors three times to figure out what the problem is. Pending the arrival of an exorcist, I believe they’ve given up on the issue for now,” Mozzie explains. “They shut it off completely this afternoon for fear of trapping an unfortunate visitor in there. It’s locked on the fourth floor. After you crawl in through the ventilation pipe on the ground level, the elevator shaft to the 2nd floor will be clear.”
“Good.” Neal nods. The trick to disabling electric circuits and alarm systems for a heist is to make the disruption appear as just one more instance in a string of randomly timed malfunctions instead of a singularity. Security personnel and maintenance staff will be inclined to turn a blind, if somewhat irritated eye to another outage. “Tools?”
“Phillips head screwdriver to remove the ventilation duct cover. Retractable scalpel to cut the canvas.” Mozzie lays the items out on the table and pauses to study Neal with unhidden concern. “I’m afraid the rest will be up to you. You think you still have it in you? It’s a tight squeeze and a tricky climb.”
“Please,” Neal is marginally offended by Mozzie’s doubts. “Spiderman could take lessons from me. Starting with a much needed lecture on the excessive use of spandex in a gentleman’s wardrobe.”
“I must say,” Mozzie shrugs and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “If anyone could pull off that outfit, it would be you.”
“Thanks. I think.” Neal frowns and shakes his head to return his attention on the serious issues at hand. “Security wire in the frame?”
“Bottom left corner. Be extra careful there.” Mozzie explains. “It’s a shame, really. Those high-tech wires have reduced the art of thievery to an uninspired slash and grab affair. Speaking of. You want to do the honors?” He offers Neal the scalpel.
Neal takes the tool but hesitates.
“Tell me again why we can’t simply pass the forgery off as the real thing without having to steal the original?”
Mozzie groans.
“Because the only way Lorenzo and his buyer won’t take a closer look at your masterpiece is by seeing a report of the stolen original on the front page of the New York Times in the morning.”
Neal exhales regretfully and takes one last proud look at the painting. Then he neatly slices the canvas from its frame with a steady hand. Mozzie carefully rolls up the forgery and slides it into a thick-walled poster tube. Neal retracts the blade and stows the surgery tool and screwdriver in his slim backpack.
“I should get going.” He says and throws on a dark gray sports coat then pops a fedora onto his head. In the dark he will look like just another New York man out on the town on a Saturday night. “You know what to do?”
“As soon as you made it out with the Cézanne and text me the all clear, I will meet Lorenzo and hand over this.” Mozzie raps his knuckles against the poster tube. “Then I’ll hop on the next subway to Brooklyn and meet you at the Suits’, where I’m sure I’ll find you with your tail tucked at that confessional they call a dining room table. You know, Neal, we could just take the painting and-“
“Mozz! No!” Neal shakes his head adamantly. “There’s a right way to do things and a wrong way.” His train of thought stalls. Just when has he started quoting Peter back to Mozzie? Rubbing the back of his neck, he grabs the second, empty poster tube and slips the strap over his shoulder.
“I have to go.” Neal announces. “Wish me luck.”
“No such thing.”
“Spoken like a true winner.” Neal opens the door, ready to head out.
“Neal?” Mozzie’s voice stops him.
“What?”
“Be careful out there. If anything doesn’t look right, we’re aborting the mission. There’s always plan B. I speak Canadian. I’ll be fine.”
Neal just smiles and once more turns to leave.
“Neal?”
“I’ll be careful. Got it!” Neal throws his friend an impatient glare.
“Forgetting something?” With his eyebrows raised, Mozzie inclines his head in the direction of Neal’s left foot. Neal feels an embarrassed blush creep up his cheeks as his fingers fish for the anklet’s key in the back pocket of his pants.
Focus, Caffrey.
6.
He missed this.
Heartbeat thumping in his chest, muscles still tense from the climb, breath a little fast under the ski mask, Neal stands in front of the still life painting in the near darkness of the deserted gallery hall.
Getting in here was easy and familiar because Neal never forgets the logistics, the mechanics and, least of all, the feel of a crime he has committed. It’s been eight years. Neal takes a certain vain satisfaction in the fact that the narrow ventilation duct is still a comfortable fit for his trim body. The two-story climb up the slack elevator cable had been effortless, the natural brawn of his twenties now refined into well-toned efficiency through disciplined workouts. He should be a different man after all these years. Under the cover of night, in his black clothes, he is still the thief he was then. He tells himself that his motives are nobler today than on that night eight years ago, when he came here because his girl had left him and he wanted to prove to himself that he didn’t need her because he could take anything else he wanted. It was the only time Neal had stolen something by reason of self-delusion.
His fingers, under thin leather, drift over the painted canvas. He wishes he could take off the gloves and feel the textured surface, the barely palpable landscape of ridges and grooves the artist’s brush left on a nondescript piece of stretched linen more than a hundred years ago. It is heart-breaking to have to slice it out of the frame that fits it so perfectly. His spine tingles when he feels the tightly woven fibers separate under his scalpel. The blade barely makes a sound.
The same can’t be said for the security guard. The echo of his trudging footsteps and of his whistling carries up the stairwell. A rookie, Mozzie had called him, just a kid out of college and in between jobs. Mozzie had assured him the kid would be updating his Facebook page every fifteen minutes, but do his rounds twice a night, at most. Sometimes even Mozzie is wrong. Neal’s ears hone in on the noise, trying to gauge the distance and speed of the approaching guard. There is no haste in his step, but the kid couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. It’s time to get out. With as much speed as he dares, Neal rolls up the delicate canvas.
Mozzie’s custom-made document tubes are designed to withstand a drop from an airplane, submersion in water, the crushing force of a car tire and, quite possibly, a nuclear detonation at three-foot range. They are also notoriously difficult to open. Cursing silently, Neal pins the tube under his arm and uses his teeth to pull off his right glove. He hooks his fingernails under the lip of the tightly fitted cap. The cover finally yields to his efforts with a hollow pop before sailing through the air in a wide arc and skidding over the marble floor. Neal holds his breath and listens. Nothing. It’s a small comfort that the pitchy whistling from the tone-deaf guard has stopped. It’s also cause for concern. It means the guard is listening, too.
Neal slides the painting into the tube. In sync with the heavy footfalls that are now rushing up the stairwell at the far end of the gallery hall, Neal hurries in the opposite direction. He gathers up the treacherous cap mid run, snaps the tube shut and slips the strap over his head. In front of him, the elevator shaft is still held open by the screwdriver he jammed under the door. He can barely make out the heavy steel cable dangling in the center of the cavernous darkness when he leaps for it. His outstretched hands securely wrap around the cool wire rope, the rough fibers cutting into the palm of his ungloved right.
“Stop!” The flustered kid yells down the hall.
Neal wraps his legs around the cable and descends into the blackness below. He makes it a mere 6 feet before the kid in his ill-fitting uniform materializes in the open door above, his flashlight flitting over the walls of the elevator shaft. Neal blinks in the bright light and rapidly slides another two feet, the rope chafing the inside of his thighs.
“Stop!” The high-pitched voice is shaking as badly as his hand as he fumbles to unhook the radio from his belt. A second later, the arm that extends through the open elevator doors holds a firearm instead.
“Whoa.” Neal freezes instantly. He would raise his hands if they weren’t keeping him from plunging to the concrete some 12 or 15 feet below. He keeps his voice calm, squinting into the light beam, trying to determine if the gun is pointing at him. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”
“Don’t move.” The kid’s voice has lost all authority. The gun trembles in his jittery fist.
The hand holding the flashlight aligns with the gun to steady the weapon’s aim.
“I’m not moving.” Neal replies. “Just put the gun down. I’m unarmed. I’m not a threat.” His voice is muffled by the ski mask covering his mouth. To the overwrought kid he must look like the real-life incarnation of some faceless video game villain.
“Shut up!” The rookie adjusts his stance. For a guy wielding a gun he looks ridiculously unconfident.
“Listen, kid,” Neal implores. “I’m just going to take my mask off and then we’ll talk.” Shifting his weight to his left, Neal slowly raises his right hand to pull the ski mask off his head.
He doesn’t mean to make a sudden unexpected move, but his grip threatens to slip.
The kid doesn’t mean to shoot.
There is a single flash from the gun’s muzzle, a single spectacular crack reverberating in the hollow darkness of the elevator shaft. There is no immediate pain. It’s a cry of surprise that escapes Neal’s lips when the bullet knocks back his left shoulder, then one of panic when he skids on the rope.
And drops.
The overpowering pain that shoots up his leg when his right foot impacts the bottom is the first that registers. The fraction of a second later, the air is knocked from his lungs when the right side of his breakable body meets Mozzie’s indestructible document tube.
Tube. Neal shakes his fuzzy head. Duct. Crawling on all fours, his hands frantically search along the concrete walls. He can’t tell whether it’s the erratic beam of the flashlight from above or his swimming vision that is playing tricks on him. He braces himself on trembling arms. A sudden wave of nausea surges through him and he closes his eyes to will the dizzying world to stop spinning. The overwhelming panic that simultaneously wells up in his chest steals his air and he opens his mouth to take gasping breaths that don’t want to make it past his throat. When they finally do, the stinging agony down his right flank makes Neal wish they hadn’t.
The crackle of the radio some 20 feet above jerks him out of his pain-filled daze. Tube. Duct. Escape. He crawls forward again, keeps searching the only way out. Finally, his hand reaches into the void where the ventilation pipe connects to the elevator shaft. Neal pushes the poster tube into the duct before diving head first after it.
Seconds feel like minutes as he inches through the duct. His left arm refuses to cooperate, the fingers of his right hand claw the smooth metal walls, searching for purchase on welding joints. He feels his nails break as the aluminum surface rubs his fingertips and knuckles raw.
Neal whimpers with relief when the poster tube finally drops to the ground at the loading dock of the museum. With a grunt he tumbles the three feet distance to the wet pavers, letting his right shoulder take the brunt of the fall. He rolls onto his back to blink into the night sky above. The cool night air invigorates his hurting body. He sucks in deep, rapid breaths, ignoring the stabbing pain in his heaving chest. He pulls the ski mask from his face and for a moment welcomes the feel of the drizzling rain that has set in. With his hand shaking, Neal touches his left shoulder. It’s not the rain that is soaking into his shirt.
He swallows the bile rising in his throat, when the throbbing pain of the gunshot wound swells over the widespread ache that has taken over his body. Keeping as much strain off his shoulder as possible, he rolls onto his front and climbs to his feet. He forces himself to take shallow breaths. The pain in his side is bearable this way. The pain in his right ankle is not. He resists the overwhelming urge to crash back to the ground, and slumps heavily against the building wall.
He can’t stay here. There are sirens in the distance.
Neal collects the clothes he has stowed behind the nearby dumpster and stiffly wiggles into his sports coat. Gritting his teeth, he stuffs the ski mask under his shirt to press against his bleeding shoulder. The edge of his vision threatens to close in on him but he wills himself to stay conscious. He pulls out his cell phone, his trembling fingers barely able to text the message Mozzie is anxiously waiting for:
OK.
He pulls his fedora deep into his face to protect himself from the rain and to hide the pain etched into his features from curious passersby. He limps off the lot as police cars pull up in front of the museum.
He doesn’t have to make it far. He doesn’t have to keep it together for long. Just a short walk then a cab ride. It will be okay soon. He just has to stick to the plan. The parts of the plan that haven’t blown up in his face yet.
As he hugs the shadows of the dark storefronts and houses like the thief in the night that he is, Neal tries to recall the last heist gone awry so spectacularly. He was young then. He can’t make that excuse anymore. He had sworn to give up his criminal ways then. The good intentions didn’t stick. The temptations were too great and his memory too selective to remember the broken limbs and crushed pride. It’s funny how people don’t change. Circumstances do. Friendships do.
Neal has somewhere to go today. To someone other than Mozzie, who is loyal to a fault, who would do anything Neal asks of him but who would never question if what Neal asked was right. He needs someone who can make this right, who will yell at him and threaten him with jail time but who will sort this mess out.
Peter.
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