Tommy & Florence: The Still Life
A 1960s caper
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You can read more about the story behind Tommy & Florence at the bottom of this post.
There was no one in the cramped museum hallway, and the only sound that pierced the murmur of distant shuffling footsteps and hushed whispers was the quick slice of Tommy’s knife.
Standing in the doorway of the small room, Florence was beginning to sweat under her minidress, though the gray chill outside permeated the drafty old building.
You’re just a girl out visiting a museum with a boy. She took a breath, willing her jaw to unclench. You’re not a lookout. Just a pretty girl out with a boy.
This part, she was learning, wasn’t her forte. The high-stakes moments when a slight surprise or deviation from the plan could ruin everything – they grated on her nerves, made her anxious. It was during the quiet planning in a comfortable room, with a cup of tea on the desk beside her, that she did her best work. Without her, they never would have made it this far. Had the planning been up to Tommy, he would have strolled into the little manor-house-turned-museum, bumbled around looking for the correct painting, loitered and hoped and waited until he was alone with it, and then tried to cut it from its frame. But Tommy wasn’t in charge of planning. She was.
So they knew that there was only one stocky security guard, and they had memorized the meandering route he usually took on his shift. They knew where and when he ate his lunch. They knew that Monday mornings were the museum’s least busy time. They knew in which room the painting was kept, and, because they had its precise measurements, they knew it would fit under a coat.
With Florence at the helm, there was no bumbling around hoping for an opportunity. There were contingency plans and escape routes.
But Tommy was useful for moments like this. Anxiety didn’t cloud Tommy’s mind. He had an infuriating habit of finding a new contingency plan, a different escape route, in a moment of panic when Florence’s plans had failed. He was the perfect partner for someone like her. Danger and broken plans excited him, and when he was nervous his only tell was an inane chuckle. It drove Florence to distraction, but even with his irritating, worried giggle, Tommy was a good partner, a worthy partner.
From behind Florence came a muffled crinkling. “Got it.”
Florence glanced over her shoulder at Tommy. His left arm was slightly stiff at his side, where he held the rolled-up painting under his jacket.
“Escape route B,” Florence murmured. “The guard is in the lobby.”
Florence hooked her arm in Tommy’s as they swept from the room, and a bloom of pink spread up Tommy’s neck and into his face. Swallowing an irritated groan, Florence kept a demure, not-a-thief-at-all smile pinned like a billboard across her face. They’d talked about this. They were business partners; they weren’t going to let their professional relationship get messy.
They knew precious little about the Buyer, but he was willing to pay a tidy lump of money for this painting. Florence wasn’t about to jeopardize that for a quick rush of teenage hormones.
The lobby was empty but for the clerk and the guard, who leaned against a pillar while gnawing his nails. But as Tommy and Florence brushed past, eyes averted and faces stiff with nonchalance, his gaze hooked onto them.
Florence sensed the heat of his eyes like a condemnation on the back of her neck. As she and Tommy pushed through the museum’s front door, she hazarded a quick glance back and glimpsed the guard’s dark blue jacket disappearing around the corner from which the two of them had just come. Despite the cool rush of late-winter chill, a bead of sweat rolled down Florence’s back, and she nudged Tommy to walk faster.
Through the gardens to the parking lot. It was easy. Tommy and Florence hurried, arm in arm, down the paths of the sleeping rosebushes and leafless trees.
Just a little bit further, and they’d be out and free and significantly richer. Or, at least, they’d each have a few months’ worth of rent and enough money for food and some new clothes. No more scrounging every night for a musty couch in a different dubious friend’s flat.
The old manor house’s gardens, supposedly themselves worth the price of admission in the warmer months, were dead, brown, crunchy, hibernating.
Almost there. Through the grasping skeleton branches of the trees, they could see their purloined car, an inconspicuous four-door sedan Tommy had hotwired yesterday. Almost there.
Tommy’s arm stiffened, and a chuckle popped from his throat. “Mayday, mayday.”
Florence leaned to glance around him. Over the tops of the winter-green hedges, she caught sight of the museum guard. He walked in the grass, keeping pace with them, his hands shoved into the pockets of his coat.
“Okay, new plan,” Tommy hissed in her ear. “We separate, go the long way round, lose him, meet back at the car in ten minutes.”
Tommy started to break off from her, but Florence snatched his arm, making him keep step with her for a few paces more. “Let me carry it.”
“What?”
“Let me carry it. He’s the only guard, and ten to one says he’ll chase you if we separate.”
They passed behind a tall hedge that blocked them for a moment from the guard’s view, and without another word Tommy slipped the rolled-up painting from his jacket.
Florence tucked it under her coat. “Ten minutes.”
Staying still behind the hedge, Florence peeked through the thorns at the guard. Tommy pushed off, walking faster, and the guard quickened his step.
“Hey!” The gruff voice cut through the frosty air. “Hey, kid! Hang on a minute. I need to talk to you.”
Tommy kept moving, head down, hands in his pockets.
The guard broke into a jog.
Florence turned and hurried back down the garden path toward the house.
A quick lap around through the gardens, then back to the car. Ten minutes.
Easy.
There was an empty police car in the staff parking lot.
Why would there be a police car? They’d never seen a policeman on the premises before. One guard. That’s what they’d prepared for. Was there a policeman milling about the museum, today of all days? Why did coincidences never work in her favor?
Her nerves raw and alight with new worries, Florence hurried her loop around the back of the house. Why would anyone, the Buyer or the museum, for that matter, care so much about a boring little painting? It wasn’t even a portrait or a landscape; why would anyone give two hoots about an old painting of some peaches and apples in a bowl?
Around the side of the old brick manor house, Florence cut through the orchard and made her way toward the main parking lot. She kept to the shady spots as far as possible from the house and path, and yet still the thud-thump thud-thump of her heart seemed to reverberate through the air around her.
The trees, it seemed, had once grown in orderly lines, but now they leaned and twisted and snaked their roots through the prim lawn, wilding the quiet garden. At last she reached the end of the old orchard. Finding a thin spot in the hedge that hemmed the property, Florence crept forward to squeeze through, when a sudden yell froze the sweat beneath her coat.
A thud, a yelp – no, no, not Tommy – a series of varied grunts, raised voices.
Florence slipped behind a gnarled tree and pressed her back against it, willing her heartbeat to quiet so she could hear what the voices were saying.
Praying that her fast, quick breaths and pounding heart wouldn’t betray her, she leaned around the tree trunk.
Across the orchard, a policeman held Tommy pinned to the ground as the museum guard, red-faced and panting, trotted up alongside. Tommy’s face was spattered with blood that streamed from his nose.
He lay still, unresisting, as the policeman reached for the handcuffs at his belt. Then, quick as breath, Tommy kicked out from under the policeman’s knee and shot to his feet, already primed to run. For a moment, the briefest flash, he found Florence’s face, and his eyes widened with something like hope.
But the two bulky men were faster than they looked, throwing themselves on top of Tommy and knocking him back to the ground, their fists flying more freely now.
Florence’s face was hot, her hands freezing, and the rolled-up painting crinkled beneath her coat. Tommy’s panicked gaze flew back toward her, pinning her in place.
But what was she supposed to do? Distract them?
Florence stared back at Tommy, her thudding heart deafening her, her skin cold. His eyes were wide, a bright blue that pricked at something inside her. Why did he have to look at her like that?
They’d had a plan, layered with contingencies. That plan was now shot to pieces, but she could still finish this. She could do nothing for Tommy.
Florence pressed her lips together, pulled her coat tighter around the expensive oil-covered canvas, and turned her eyes away from Tommy’s pleading face.
Without another glance, Florence slipped through the gap in the hedges and sprinted through the parking lot, realizing too late that it was Tommy who knew how to start the car, not her. Stupid, stupid – why hadn’t she dragged Tommy out to the car yesterday to teach her? Always, a flaw in her contingency plans.
Oh, well. Florence slowed her run to a casual, unobtrusive stroll. Just a young girl out for a bracing cold-weather walk, hands tucked into the pockets of her oversized coat.
On the prison sign-in sheet, Florence had identified herself as a friend, but there was no vestige of friendship in Tommy’s face when he walked through the door to the noisy visitation room and saw her sitting at an empty table. For a moment, a cold shock of shamefaced fear rolled through her, and she thought he might turn right around and stalk back to his cell. But, with slow, heavy steps, he made his way to the table and lowered himself into a seat.
The blue jumpsuit didn’t look terrible on Tommy. The shade complemented his skin and even brightened his eyes, just a bit –
But Florence wasn’t thinking about that. They were business partners. Yes, she’d been worrying about him, but only in the way that one would worry about a business partner. That was all.
Tommy crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair. He clearly had no intention of breaking the frosty silence.
Florence sighed, then took another quick breath. “I’ve split the money in half and put your portion in a safe deposit box at a little bank about three hours from here. We can go pick it up when you get out.”
“Yeah, in eighteen months.”
“Your lawyer said you’ll be out in six. Probably.”
“Why were you talking to him? Stay away from my lawyer.”
“He’s a public defender. He barely remembered you when I said your name. I talked to him because you’re my business partner, and I wanted to know how long you’d really be here."
Tommy scoffed. “Business partner.”
The familiar little grain of irritation needled beneath Florence’s skin. So he was angry; fine. But he didn’t have to be such a baby about it. She lowered her voice to a tense whisper. “There was nothing I could have done. If I’d intervened, I would have just gotten myself arrested too. I had the painting; I could finish the job and get us the money. You said yourself that you don’t think the Buyer is the forgiving type. Did you ever stop to think, in all the months you’ve been stewing about what a terrible person I am, what might have happened to us if we hadn’t gotten the Buyer his painting? We probably both would have wound up with broken kneecaps, or worse.”
Tommy’s arms stayed crossed over his chest, but his glower faltered.
“We had a job to do, and I finished it,” Florence said. “If the roles had been reversed, I would have been furious if you hadn’t gotten it to the Buyer. Now, when you get out, you’ll be able to get on your feet again without having to wander around homeless and looking for odd jobs.” Florence tented her fingers under her chin. “Speaking of work, there’s a –”
“Who said I’m doing any more work with you?”
Florence raised one eyebrow. “You can sulk for about five more seconds, but my patience is wearing thin.”
His eyes narrowed, Tommy stared hard at Florence. Then, reluctantly, he unclasped his folded arms and leaned his elbows on the table.
That’s better. Florence leaned forward, mirroring his posture, and kept her voice to a low murmur. “The Buyer was impressed. And now he has another little job for us.”
I recently participated in a short story competition in which I was assigned to write a crime caper. This is not that story.
BUT
This is that story’s prequel, an incident that was vaguely referenced and pivotal to the development of Tommy and Florence in that later story. In a few months, when I’m allowed to, I will publish Tommy & Florence: The MacGuffin Caper1 here on Substack, and I may even share some additional short story capers of their cat burglar exploits as they delve further into a life of crime and get themselves into progressively more trouble. You haven’t seen the last of Tommy and Florence!
When I received my assignment for a crime caper and sat down to brainstorm some ideas, there were two beloved caper movies that stuck in my head: The Italian Job (1969)2 and How to Steal a Million (1966)3. So naturally, my caper had to take place in the 1960s.
It was a fun exercise to write characters I wanted the reader to root for without necessarily condoning their or softening their illegal actions. That’s one of the more subtle aspects of caper stories that I find interesting, so it was great practice to try my hand at writing one (now two)!
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more Tommy & Florence short stories!
I was pressed for time and couldn’t think of a title, so this is what I turned in. There is a MacGuffin, and it is a caper, so at least the title is accurate, if not particularly imaginative.
I have never seen the 2003 version, and I doubt I ever will. I have such fun childhood memories of watching the original with my family, and, come on, it has Michael Cain.
Audrey Hepburn. It’s an Audrey Hepburn caper in an art museum. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and go watch it!
WHERES THE REST???
This was so fun! I want more!