Page 30 of Wicked Tricks

Louis did most of the heavy lifting involved, but we paid him handsomely for that. We waited out the front of our building, where Livie was already pulled up in the rented pick up truck. Sierra and Mina both jumped down from the passenger seat and joined Bea.

“Everyone ready?” I asked, and they nodded.

Mina had her blonde hair tied messily atop her head, looking as if she just rolled out of bed. The others had done a great job at dressing up for an ordinary day at the markets with their girlfriends.

“As soon as the truck leaves your sight, meet us at the storage unit. Sierra, you hang back and keep an eye on both the Marchel and Vivielli stands just in case they notice the missing product too quickly. Okay?”

Sierra nodded once.

“Let’s go girls,” Mina shimmied her shoulders excitedly.

I shook my head and hopped into the passenger seat of the truck. The girls would take the tram to the markets in order to blend in even more.

As we drove to the Markets, I pretended not to notice Livie chewing at her nails nervously. Though we had done this many times before, there was always that buzz of nervous energy that we shared before a hit.

We parked the truck in the street behind the market’s unloading shed, where we got a clear view of the dock through the fence where the trailers would be stripped.

All we had to do was wait.

The sun was still rising, and the unload time was getting closer. The nerves only grew as we noticed two Belkin’s trucks pull up one after the other. I used my phone camera to zoom in to read the truck numbers.

“There’s Louis,” I pointed to the truck that was idling next to the dock, waiting for the others to clear so he could back on.

Livie started the truck back up and pulled it to the alleyway next door.

We could hear the reverse signal of the prime movers over the high metal fence that allowed us to hide in plain sight. We opened up the back of the truck and I shrugged on my high-vis vest so as to blend in with the other unloaders and drivers.

It was such a fast paced, busy environment that it was easy to go unnoticed among the dozens of warehouse workers. I put my hat on and pulled it down over my face.

“Keep it running,” I told Livie, and she nodded, hopping back into the driver’s seat. I walked to the back entrance and disappeared into the crowds.

“Too early for this shit, eh?” one of the dock boys mentioned to me as he zoomed past on a forklift.

“Tell me about it,” I rolled my eyes.

I walked down the dock stairs to the bays, and to the side of Louis’s truck. He jumped down with a grunt.

“Morning, ma’am,” Louis tipped his hat at me without getting too close.

He was an older man, a huge, greying teddy bear with a stomach that couldn’t be contained by his shirt.

Louis handed me his paperwork and I smiled at him. I pulled my hat down to avoid being on the security cameras and jumped into the truck. Louis pulled out a pouch of tobacco from his shirt pocket and disappeared into the smoking area. When the dock was free, the warehouse radioed.

“1943, you’re good to go,” a voice crackled through the two-way.

“Copy,” I replied.

I took a deep breath before I reversed the trailer onto the dock.

Louis had spent time teaching me the basics of truck driving. We spent hours together, reversing and unhooking trailers so I wouldn’t look like a complete newbie. I looked in the side mirror, and it was always a bit nerve wracking to see the sheer length of the trailers behind me.

In one go, I managed to get the trailers seamlessly into the unloading bay.

I jumped down out of the truck after the hiss of the engine breaks, and tucked the paperwork under my arm. After climbing the stairs, I handed my paperwork to the dock supervisor.

He signed it without even taking a second look at me.

The boy on the forklift returned, “where’s this going?”

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