Page 86 of The Circle

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

LONG TIME AGO.

“I’m not thrilled about it,” Danny says.

“About what, man?”

“About Christine being alone inside the fucking house.”

“She’s good, bru. She moves better alone.”

“Why are we doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Stealing shit you already own?”

“I don’t own it. My father owns it. And my father is a cock. So that’s why.”

My parents are out for the evening. Some gala to celebrate my father for all the work he’s done in “restoring the community” or some such kak. Isn’t it funny how the worst fokken criminal alive can be forgiven and even lionized when they have something you want? Money. Power. Opportunity.

So it seems only fitting that I would seize on this opportunity to diminish just a bit of my father’s money and thereby diminish a bit of his power.

There is a better than average chance he won’t even miss it. Seven carats is substantial, of course, but he has traded so many thousands of carats over the course of his life—maybe even hundreds of thousands—that I can’t imagine the loss of this one will make that much difference. The only thing it might do is cause the Russians to whom he has promised this glistening rock to become miffed. But it might do my father some good to know what it feels like to have someone miffed at you and not just kneeling down as low as they can to kiss your whole ass.

There was once a little boy whose father slapped him hard across the face and told him to believe that the world was his. Well, if the world is really his, then all the things in it are his as well. And that includes the great fokken seven-carat diamond that his father has tucked in his safe upstairs.

“Why don’t we just waltz in and take it ourselves, then? It’s your fucking house, dude.”

“Where’s the fun in that, Danny? Besides, it’s not just in a safe. It’s in a safe that’s protected by about fifteen different stopgaps and alarm devices. Neither you nor I are well equipped enough to pull it off. And, honestly, I think that since meeting Eliza last year, Christine’s gotten much more keen to work on her acrobatics skills.”

“More keen?”

“Yes. What?”

“Is that supposed to be a play on words? Keene? Like she’s more herself than she used to be or something?”

I stare at him, half in amusement and half-impressed. “No. But I like where your head is at. That’s dead clever. Keep thinking like that and you’ll risk turning into some kind of beefy, murderously deranged Oscar Wilde.”

He glares at me like he wants to punch me in the ear. But before he can…

“What are you doing?” Lars’ voice calls out as he emerges from around the side of the house. He draws a toke from a joint as he wanders toward us.

“What are you doing, man?” I ask him. “You shouldn’t be out here. It’s late.”

He takes another draw from the joint and wanders his already-nearly-my-height-even-though-he’s-only-twelve-years-old-frame right up to me and Danny. “What’s going on?” he asks, blowing his weed smoke all over the two of us.

“You shouldn’t be smoking that shit, bru. It’ll rot your brain,” I tell him.

“Will it? What’s your excuse?”

He says it cheekily but I know there’s a hint of sincerity behind it. When he was younger, he looked up to me. I know he did. Followed me about like a koala cub clings to its mother. But after having met Christine and Danny a couple of years ago, I haven’t been around nearly as much for him to cling to. I can tell he resents it. Resentment spilling forth from a near-adolescent mouth is impossible not to detect.

He offers the spliff to Danny, who shakes his head in refusal and returns his gaze to the house. It’s mostly dark. There is a light on somewhere near the back where one of the house staff remains awake, waiting dutifully for Mother and Father to return home should they require anything. But otherwise, all is quiet.

I’ve never completely grasped why my father doesn’t maintain guards around the perimeter of the property. All of our neighbors do. But ours has always been uniquely devoid of any heavy artillery. Of firepower.

I have to assume it’s almost a dare. A challenge to the world that says, Give it your best try. This is the van den Berg home. You know who we are.