That night, they gathered in Irene’s seedy little apartment again, this time with dozens of Chinese food containers, playing a game of imagining all the ways they would kill the jeweler.
“I always wondered,” Irene said as she reached for a fry. “How much do you think he made from our haul?”
“Thousands,” Edie said with a sigh.
“You know what else I wonder? What the Pahlavi brooch is worth today.”
Attention turned toward Edie. She shrugged a little. “Millions.”
“Why did you keep it?” Irene demanded.
Edie put down what was left of her burger and carefully wiped her fingers on a napkin. “I liked it and I wasn’t ready to let it go. It’s beautiful. But I was going to tell you.”
“Yeah, right,” Irene scoffed. “Where is it now?”
Edie laughed wryly. “Simon keeps it in a safe. I’ve been trying to get it for years. I came damn close once—I cracked the safe. But it set off an alarm.” She shrugged.
“And then what?”
“And then he changed the safe to a digital lock. And for the last twenty years, every week, he changes the code. Every week, I try and crack it.”
Everyone was silent for a long moment, their expressions baffled.
“I know,” Edie said to their silent questions and accusations. “It’s a weird game we play. But the bottom line is, I can’t crack a digital safe.”
“Wait a minute,” Joan said. “You can’t break that safe?” She looked around at the rest of them. “Are we kidding ourselves? If Edie can’t break a safe, and she can’t be the decoy anymore because she’s too old—”
“Hey,” Edie said.
“Oh my God,” Irene said. “Are we crazy? Is this insane? I mean, sure, it’s insane, but what are we doing here?”
“We are still bat-shit crazy,” Edie said. “But this is different. The casino safe is a wheel-lock safe. Not digital.”
Frances looked around at the expressions of panic, of doubt, of worry. She could feel a headache coming on and needed to take some medicine. “We’re not crazy,” she said firmly. “Sure, we may need more bathroom breaks and we can’t get down on the floor without a little help. But we are still clever, diabolical women. Age is just a number, you guys. We can do whatever we put our hearts and minds to doing.”
Irene looked at Joan.
Joan shrugged. “I’m here, aren’t I? I just handed out several fake IDs to you broads. And I can get up off the floor. I’m fit. So, I’m in. And if we all agree we’re in, I don’t want anyone questioning it. We need positive vibes going forward.”
“Well,” Irene said carefully, “despite my terrible misgivings, I’m in, too. I don’t have that much to live for anyway.”
“Don’t say that,” Joan said. “You have us.”
“I’m the one who got us altogether, so I am definitely in,” Frances said, folding her arms across her middle.
“Here we go,” Joan said. “Frances has the idea and wants all the credit.”
“I’ve been coming up with ideas since we first met.”
“Excuse me, I don’t think it was your idea to go after your mother’s emerald box after your dad died. That was all me,” Edie said. She rolled onto her hands and knees, then stood up.
“I was in mourning!” Frances insisted. “But none of you can deny that I am responsible for us meeting. I had the house, I had the booze, I had the pot.”
“This is why I’m in,” Edie said, pointing at Frances. “Someone has to keep you in check. And I may not be the bombshell I once was, but I can still crack a safe. I’m almost seventy percent sure of it.”
“There’s a real confidence builder,” Irene said.
“Speaking of having the pot,” Joan said, and reached into her granny gown pocket and withdrew a joint.
