Give As Received

A story, loosely based on Matthew Ten

by Mark Johnson

Ajar ate breakfast out on the deck of his fourth story temporary apartment. In the distance he could hear the tide rushing in and out. He could hear it only at this time of the morning. Soon the Charleston traffic would pick up, and it would phase out the peaceful sound of the Atlantic. This time of day was his favorite. Basically, it was the only peace he had left in his life. He grabbed his guitar and quietly strummed a few chords to pass the time. It was a few verses of Clapton, maybe a little Johnny Cash, all from memory. Between the ocean and his music, it took him back to a simpler time.

He looked down at the nearby bus stop. Today was the day they would meet, after seven years of business. To say they would meet would be deceiving. They had known each other for nearly a decade. They had become very familiar with each other. However they had never had traceable contact. Jake would always send an unsuspecting courier, an encrypted code, or a mysterious sign that would later put a plan of crime into action. What could be so important that he would need to meet face to face after all this time?

Keeping their identities secret, even to each other, is what kept the crime ring going this long. If Jake was the brains of the operation, Ajar was the central nervous system. Coordinating all the details to symphonic perfection was his game. If a heist called for muscle, he found it. If a job was high-tech, he found what they needed. He had all the right shady connections. Whether it was secret information, explosives, or anything else, Ajar always came through.

Over the course of the past few years, the team had been streamlined to Jake, Ajar, and a few others. But the team didn’t know Jake, and Jake didn’t know the team. So when his last instructions said they would be meeting at the bus stop to go over the next plan, it made Ajar a little nervous.

Although Ajar was a perfectionist when it came to his trade, his fascination with Jake was abounding. He considered himself a practical genius in the ways of staying ahead of consequences, no matter how predictable or random they might be. So Jake’s style amazed him. Every job came with two sets of instructions; how to carry out the task and where to go to get the next set of instructions. He didn’t think they would ever get to this point, due to the size of the heists they were pulling off. But the detail in Jake’s plans made it seem easy.

He had come to know some things about Jake’s past that gave him clues to his successful criminal pedigree. After his father’s death, Jake was raised by his grandfather in Western Europe under the protection of the Russian Mafia. It was that “family” that brought him up and sent him to study at American Universities and to travel the world. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, organized crime got so messy that Jake’s grandfather dreamed up a new style of acquiring wealth. With his help, Jake spent the next twenty years perfecting his criminal plans.

That plan had come to include Ajar in the present day pay off. After every task, Ajar had longed to become like Jake someday. But that would all start today with this meeting. Sure enough, just as had been planned for months, a man wearing dark sunglasses carrying a set of Callaway Golf Clubs got off the bus and sat on the bench. Ajar quickly finished his bagel and hurried out the door.

After a few minutes, Ajar confidently swaggered outside and sat beside the man with the golf clubs.

“Mr. Discosuit, I presume.” the man said.

Ajar almost had to bite his lip to keep from chuckling over the anagrammed alias he had given Jake nearly ten years ago.

“Yes, and Jake.”

Ajar wanted to say something equally clever, but he just turned red in the face. If it was funny that Jake still called him by his alias, it was strikingly embarrassing that Ajar didn’t even have a last name for Jake. With almost a billion dollars in a Swiss account, he suddenly was unnerved by the fact that it could all come to an anonymous end. Or that maybe after all they had been through, preserving identities wasn’t for his protection but instead for Jake’s. And that even with all that had been alluded to over the years, he really didn’t know any specifics about “Jake.”

“Well, what’s in a name after all?” Jake said after a brief pause. “Today I have what you will need to get to work on the next job. I will warn you it is the largest we have done to date. Bigger than our Vegas outing, Bigger than the Kansas City shuffle. Bigger than the bank in Sydney.”

Ajar came back to the conversation, suddenly feeling included again as his ego raced back to memories of the last few criminal victories.

“I have two large manila envelopes in my golf bag. Of course one has instructions to the next big thing, and the other tells where we will meet in exactly one year from today. When we are done talking, I will go over to that street vendor and get a coffee. If you are in, grab the envelopes and proceed to the Downtown Hilton, because there will be an accidental fire at your apartment complex this afternoon. If you are out, hop on the next bus, and it has been nice working with you. Your apartment will still catch on fire.”

The proposal seemed strange to Ajar. Why the option to walk away? Although money had driven him for the past forty years, when would enough be enough? And just as he had secretly longed to become like Jake, he also had a place in his desires for the ocean and music.

“So how’s Charleston?” Jake casually asked.

“You don’t get seafood like this everywhere,” Ajar added, thinking back to the humble and secluded places he usually had to hide out in until he got his next round of marching orders.

Jake turned to Ajar before standing to go after his coffee, “One other thing, this job will have a far different outcome than the others.”

“What do you mean?” Ajar cautiously asked.

“The money, you won’t get any of it. Its time to clean up, give back,” Jake stated.

“Oh, really?” said Ajar. “And just how do you propose to do that? Besides, how can I sell that to my team of specialists?”

“We can do this one ourselves. We won’t be able to do much with the money in the States, but other countries won’t be able to trace a thing. We could build hospitals in Africa, schools in war-torn areas, fund Christian missions or underground churches in China.”

“Have you lost your mind? Why would we risk pulling off the biggest stunt to date, moreover do it all ourselves, just to give it away?” Ajar fumed. “It flies in the face of all we have accomplished!”

“We haven’t accomplished anything!” Jake sternly rebutted, “My father was killed in retaliation for something my grandfather had done. He was a great man! He tried to teach me to do the right thing, to give to others as you have received! I never should have been exposed to this vile life, but for some reason God has allowed it to continue. Now is the time. We can’t ever make up for what we have done or who we have hurt. But we can change what we are doing. All you have has been given to you, It’s time to give back, Ajar.”

With that Jake turned his back and made his way to the vendor for a cup of coffee. Ajar didn’t know what to do. His hands were sweating. He saw a bus turning the corner in the distance. What if this was a sting? Had Jake been compromised? The golf bag with the secrets to the largest heist ever known was sitting within inches of his reach. Yet something wasn’t right.

Ajar also had a plan this time, a plan of his own. He turned to make sure Jake was at a safe distance, reached into the golf bag, and took the envelopes. He also looked up to his apartment window and gave a motion, almost as if he were a third base coach telling a runner to steal.

He walked up the block and hailed a cab. He looked back at the scene in front of the street vendor. Through the disarray, he saw Jake lying on the ground. The assassin had hit his mark.

Ajar stepped into the cab

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“Downtown Hilton,” he replied.
 

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A last word:

This is a fictional story from Matthew Chapter 10, verses 8–10. Jesus said to his disciples “Freely you have received, freely give.” This story doesn’t focus on the important work of the disciples, nor are the characters intended to describe the disciples or Jesus. But hopefully it does offer an opinion on how hard we find it to live out this simple principle, given to us by God, for life in a material world.

  
[-] © 2007 by Mark Jounson