Man's best friend

Honobono

The two burglars sat in the darkened truck, looking out the driver's window and across the street at the sprawling white mansion bathed from roof to lawn in equally white light.

"Now," said the mustachioed veteran burglar in as much a whisper as he could muster. "Never leave the headlights on, and never leave the engine running," he instructed.

He took a drag of his kretek cigarette, a corner of his mouth lifting under the mustache at the acrid smoke.

"But Kang...," ventured the rookie, "won't someone see the glow of the kretek?"

"Don't ask questions!" snapped the veteran. "I teach, you learn. Got it?" He punctuated each sentence with a stab of the kretek.

"Yes, Kang," the rookie replied, and shuffled a little lower in the sprung passenger seat.

The veteran burglar took another drag, exhaled and threw the kretek out.

"Okay, here's the deal. The family's going away this weekend to Bandung, and that's when we do the job. The husband works on Saturdays, so he'll be there, but it's two against one."

It was 3 a.m., and the single lit window on the second floor finally went dark.

"Now, on Saturdays, he sleeps around two, so we go in at three. I'll pick you up at midnight at the same cafe."

The rookie nodded, then couldn't help himself.

"But Kang, what about the sign?"

"Sign? What sign?" His mustache quivered below eyes as glaring as a Barong's.

"That sign," pointed the rookie at the green steel gate.

Beware of Dog.

He jumped when the veteran snorted.

"Ha! Every house in this neighborhood has that sign. It don't mean nothing."

"But..."

"Look. Our contact, a maid down the street, says all the rich folk here put up that sign to stop burglars like us. But we'll show them, eh?"

"Okay..."

"What?"

"I mean, yes, Kang."

"Good. That's it. Remember, midnight on Saturday."

"Yes, Kang."

The veteran burglar started the truck, then paused.

"And will you stop that Kang stuff? You sound like such a red- neck."

"Sorry, Ka... I mean, Mas."

* * *

This was turning out to be more difficult than he bargained for, thought the rookie. And he wasn't at all sure that he was comfortable with this burgling business, anyway.

He thought back to his cozy little kampong in Cirebon regency, about the little farmhouse he shared with his whip-thin mother-in-law and his sweet wife, and of the white cow who spent all day chewing her cud lazily.

He wished he could be back there under the heat of a pale blue sky, knee deep in the family paddy watching the rice grow taller and straighter and greener by the day.

Oh, what he wouldn't do to come home from the fields to the smell of his wife's cooking! (Well, almost anything.)

But the drought changed all that -- the drought and his mother-in-law. They said she was a beauty once. Life was cruel.

"Useless, useless, useless! Why'd God make you a man if you can't hold up the family, you simple-minded, three-legged creature! And that middle leg's just as useless! Where are my grandkids?" she had said that night he had decided to head for the city.

"Useless, useless, use...," and started choking on their last chicken, which had grown as lean and wiry as she by the time he took it to the chopping block.

"Now, now, mother," his wife had consoled -- and scolded -- softly.

Later, when the hag was snoring dryly on the only rattan cot they hadn't sold or burned for fuel, he had packed quietly.

"Sweetheart?" his wife entered.

"Mmmm?"

"Listen to me carefully. The capital is a big, big city, and there are bad people there. You have a good heart, and are trusting by nature. Just be careful of who you trust," she had said. "Come back before it gets bad."

The next morning, he had watched out of the last train car as her waving figure grew smaller and smaller until the distance swallowed it.

* * *

He had worked for the first three months with a chicken noodle vendor, also from Cirebon, until public order officers came and evicted everyone without a Jakarta ID. Then he hauled baskets of produce for customers at a market, but the market was closed to make way for a shopping mall. He was sleeping under a highway when a man with a bushy mustache approached and asked if he needed work.

"You'll make enough money so you can go home without losing face," the man had said, not unkindly, and with a smile.

Now look where he was. He wanted to go home.

* * *

Midnight came and passed, and here they were again, watching the shining mansion across the way with its darkened window.

"Kang -- I mean, Mas. I don't feel right," he said, frowning.

"Too late. It's three -- time to go." God, these simple-minded kampong folk! How did they survive?

They drove to the next street over, which was full of idle lots overgrown with weeds. And probably full of rats.

"That maid should have left a ladder -- there!" Mustache pointed.

The weeds rustled behind them, and it sounded loud enough to wake the devil, thought the farmer from Cirebon. Or was that his heart?

Up and over the rickety bamboo ladder, pull it over, across the yard in a scurrying gait, pry open a back window with a screwdriver, and they were in. It felt like a lifetime, but took all of a minute.

"The TV room," whispered Mustache, pointing in the dark.

The farmer hoped, wished, prayed it was locked -- it was not.

And almost screamed as he came face to face with a man in the middle of the vast room.

"Idiot! That's your reflection in the TV screen!" Mustache hissed and slapped him upside the head. "Now grab that end!"

They shuffled out, trying not to grunt with the weight of the flat-screen TV the size of a refrigerator.

Back in the living room, they set it down on a plush rug so soft, he wanted to curl up and sleep on it, never mind getting caught. Perhaps that was better anyway. How could he go home a burglar? Oh, shame!

But what was that? A low buzz from somewhere.

A low buzz that was growing louder and louder and changing into ... a menacing growl?

The farmer looked up at Mustache, whose face had gone ashen, eyes showing white all around.

The growl filled the room now, bouncing off the walls, and the echoes came at them, shocked and frozen beside the TV. And now, oh horror of horrors, it was accompanied by the click-click-click of claws descending toward them from the marble staircase.

Click-click-click-click, rapidly now.

A booming bark scared them out of their frozen fear.

"Dog!!" cried Mustached, and tripped over the TV, which fell with a CRASH!

A light went on at the top of the stairs.

And they took to their heels, the farmer frightened and relieved to his bones.

Come back before it gets bad, he heard in his head.

"I'm coming home!" he yelled as he flew over the wall ahead of Mustache, who had stumbled again as the light in the maid's quarters came on.

"Wait! Wait!" cried Mustache, sobbing and crawling, all the strength gone from his legs.

The farmer hopped back over, hauled up Mustache, and half- dragged him up the ladder and into the weeds. From there, he dashed off into the night, bound for the next train home to Cirebon and his wife.

* * *

Inside, master and maid looked upon the night's only casualty lying face down in a glitter of shattered glass.

"Never mind," said the master as the maid reached down. "It is only a thing. It's too heavy -- I'll clean it in the morning."

They retired to their separate ends of the house, the master pausing at the foot of the stairs.

"Good boy, Maximus, good boy," he praised the dog, who was wagging his tail so hard from all the excitement that his entire body was wriggling left and right.

"I think this calls for a doggie treat. Come," he said, picking up the squirming Chihuahua.