A robber family has the same family values as anybody’s else family. Gerry Can was respected by his colleagues, friends and the authorities. Third generation of full time robbers. He had been looking all his life for « le coup du siècle » but didn’t manage to join the club of the selected. However, Gerry did was able to work and live until his 80th birthday, having spent only 10 years in jail all together, and having provided a decent living for his family, his wife Suzy and their only son Gaffy.
Suzy had been shot by a policeman the year before – at the age of 82 - while delivering croissants to Gerry’s hiding place.She was herself from a professional criminal family so she knew about the risks involved.
From then on Gerry suffered from a broken heart. . He invited his son for tea at the Astoria and over the petits fours (he couldn’t even bear the sight of any croissanterie) he spoke straight forwardly :
« Gaffy my son, I can’t live anymore without your Mum. . Before you’ll know it I’ll be gone for good. The sooner the better. Don’t protest. Please don’t say anything you’ll just rub it in. I have mad up my mind and arranged everything.
Now listen : you do know how it is in our line of work. You can’t save up large amounts in bank accounts because you can’t reveal where the money is coming from. You don’t like to keep a lot of cash around for fear of being robbed. So you spend everything as you go along, hoping for the best. What I mean is – after I am gone you have only the house. »
Gaffy was still living in the family home. At 52 he was one of those bachelors who couldn’t face the prospect of settling with one particular woman. After 12 months with the same girl-friend boredom set in .Gerry, by then having drunk one pint of tea and eaten one dozen petits fours, continued, « but you remember Max ? »
« Your friend who was arrested stealing a replica of the Statue of Liberty and told the policemen it was to give to a charity ? »
« Yeah, the very one, the only one. I phoned him the other day to say good bye. And he tried to cheer me up by mentioning ‘ en passant ‘ a possible ‘ coup du siècle ‘ he heard of. I told him I wasn’t interested whatsover but maybe my son would be…I don’t want to know if you’ll follow it up or not. All I’m asking you is to wait until after I’m gone and phone up Max Philenstein – you know where my phone book is, don’t you ? – and say ‘ vroom vroom youp la boom ‘ - that’s the password we agreed on – and Max will meet you to tell you about this coup. »
Gaffy never saw his Dad alive again. After their afternoon tea, Gerry went directly to Niagara Falls and jumped off .
Even before the funeral Gaffy had made his mind up : he was going to attempt to do the « coup du siècle ». After all he had always followed his Dad’s advice – except for his personal life – and always had been glad he did Max Philenstein was among the numerous mourners, but the funeral was neither the time nor the place to discuss business. Gaffy met Max shortly afterwards at Max’s home. Max didn’t like small talk and therefore went straight to the business at hand :
« Not only is it going to be ‘ le coup de siècle ‘ but it is going to be a piece of cake for a professional like you. I know this housemaid, la Zingara – that’s her name – who is in fact a true professional thief. She has robbed her different employers over the years without raising any suspicions whatsoever and she had a very confortable life. In fact she only works officially an average of 6 months a year and goes on holiday all over the world. Where la Zingara is working right now she knows for sure that there are dozens of gold bricks buried in the basement. All you’ll have to do is get a copy of her key cut and you then you’ll have 3 weeks to do the job .The occupants of this place are away for 4 weeks, but in fact la Zingara reckons it won’t take you more than 2 weeks. The quicker you start…. »
At this point Gaffy gulped the last drop from his half pint of Bass and asked :
« But why are you giving me this tip ? Why don’t you do the job yourself ? For that matter won’t la Zingara want to participate or at least to get her cut ? »
« Your father wanted to give you this last gift. Gerry was like a brother I never had. And besides I don’t feel like doing the job. I have my own casino now and – although I’m sure that in this instance the risks are minimum – I had enough of 15 years in jail . As for la Zingara – she has her own philosophy which won’t allow her to change anything in her life. In other words, she doesn’t want to loose her security. »
Max gave Gaffy la Zingara’s phone number and password. This time it was : « vroom vroom youp la boum ratatouille ».
Gaffy met up with la Zingara in a café on Broadway . It was love at first sight for both of them. But business is business hence they hid their feelings from each other and started talking in coded language over capuccinos :
La Zingara : « You’ll have to dig out Bobby – my poor and dear crocodile – at night not to raise any suspicion from the neighbours. I raised Bobby on my own in my bath before the darling had a heart attack when he saw my gold fish – suffer from a sudden ceizure, forget how to swim, and then drawn in his tank in front of helpless Bobby. They were such good pals ! Anyway, you remember that I stole Bobby when he was only a baby from my neighbour’s little girl ? At the time she thought her crocodile had gone on the bus to visit his friends at the Bronx Zoo . Yeah, the very bus which had an accident with no survivors. I made sure there wasn’t any doubt about this scenario.
What you’ll do with Bobby’s corpse I don’t want to know. I’m not the religious type and don’t like to visit anybody’s grave. »
Gaffy : « How shall I give you the key back ? »
La Zingara : « Phone me again and whisper the password : ‘vroom vroom youp la boum ratatouille Bobby’ ».
They parted from each other and Gaffy started on the job that very night. After having dug for an hour all through the basement.- it was only a tiny underground room – he found nothing. He dug again for an other hour. Still no luck ! Nothing hidden. Gaffy was not only desparate because of not being able to make the « coup du siècle » but – since he was madly in love with la Zingara – he had this idea to share the loot with her. He could already visualize the two of them living in luxury for the rest of their lives.
That’s when Gaffy looked at the freezer and thought : it would be very crazy but why not ? Maybe they stocked their gold in there ? Sometimes solutions are much easier than you think ! The freezer wasn’t even locked. Gaffy held his breath and opened it. Inside it was rather empty except for a couple of bags homemade ratatouille . Gaffy’s heart sank. He didn’t know what to think. Has he been taken for a ride by Max or by la Zingara ? No, Impossible. Max had been a real friend to his father and wouldn’t dream of betraying him through his son. In Gaffy’s heart la Zingara was already the woman of his life. She could only be virtuous.
Gaffy put the earth and the tiles back. He had no difficulties – as a real professional – to hide the fact that anybody had ever been there. Before leaving the house Gaffy had a last minute inspiration : he took the ratatouille from the freezer.
« If I can’t offer gold to la Zingara, at least I can invite her over to share ratatouille with me » thought the disappointed Gerry Can’s son.
The following day Gaffy phoned up la Zingara. They met up at the same café, same table, same time of the day. They ordered the same drinks, half a bitter. Gaffy told la Zingara what happened the previous night, how Bobby’s body was nowhere to be found and how in final desperation he got only some homemade ratatouille from the freezer.
Now there are some facts no character in this story knows about : how this ratatouille came to be in this freezer. Well, the next door neighbours had their daughter getting married. They decided not to spend too much money on the wedding reception and asked each guest to bring some food. One of their friend ‘s decided to cook some ratatouille. And they placed it in their neighbour’s freezer, their own being already full. When the time came round to pick up the ratatouille, the bags were glued by frost to the inside walls of the freezer. The young man who should have brought ratatouille came instead with the cheeses…
After the party everybody forgot about the ratatouille.
When Gaffy went in the basement his only luck was that somehow the ratatouille was still edible. In fact it was the first and only ratatouille robbery ever !
Gaffy, embarrassed as if he were in the flury of his first affair, invited La Zingara for dinner on the same day :
« I’ll do something else besides the ratatouille. You know, I feel sort of lonely in this big house since my father died… I’ll be glad to hear all about your life as a thief … » Pretending to blow her nose la Zingara hid her blushiing with her handerkerchief« Ratatouille is one of my favorite dishes…let me bring some chocolate mousse to go with it »
We won’t go into the details of this lovely first evening they had together… Let me tell you only that those two lovers had a very good appetite and didn’t leave anything from the ratatouille or the chocolate mousse !
They got married aboard the QE 2, Max and Robert the Captain as their witnesses. They never lived in real luxury but were succesful enough in their business to travel all over the world and to adopt many bizarre pets.
Benoit Ivernel
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