Creak, squeak…. Amos was yanking at the grill cover for the main supply vent on the first floor. He had never used the main floor ducts before, and he was hoping that they would be the same as the ones on his floor. This cover seemed to be stuck in place, so Amos gave it a really good yank until it popped off. He did not care so much about being discreet or making noise, he really felt like after today there would be a shift in the building dynamics or at least he really hoped so.

  In the end, he didn’t worry too much one way or another as he and Alanah had their own spot now and not having to rely on his old apartment had immediately made Filthy Phil much less of a problem for him.

  “Ok…I’m in…it all looks the same so I am headed to the fourth vent supply on my right…..haaa-choo….” His voice was muffled, and it echoed in the vents only to end with a loud sneeze. “Go on then, I will wait outside the door with the rope, yell if you need help.” As Amos crawled down the vent he smiled at their two-pronged attack. Him climbing out of the ceiling and Alanah standing outside the door ready to take out his legs again with her baton. Or worse…I should have told her about no shooting under any circumstances. I hope she does not get carried away.

  Alanah had been the only one so far to fire a gun in a conflict situation and Amos was pretty certain she would happily do it again.

  He turned and went down the fourth supply vent. He heard the noise before he even got to the grill to look in on the apartment. A deep rumbling snore was coming from the living room. Amos looked in and laughed aloud at what he saw. “Hey, what’s so funny, you’re supposed to be quiet up there.” Alanah was yelling from the hallway, Amos was not sure if it was because she was not in on the joke or if it was because he had blown his cover.

  It didn’t matter, Filthy Phil was sprawled back on his couch, a wine glass barely held by the fingers in his right hand, completely upside down with a decent bit of wine splashed on the floor. His head was leaning over the back of the couch, cupcake icing still ringed his lips and his mouth was wide open, and he was snoring deeply.

  “Just open the door and come in, I doubt its locked.” Amos saw the apartment door swing open a moment later and Alanah entered the room, and she too laughed out loud at the sight of the slumbering landlord. “Yuck…it smells as bad as I thought it would in here. I’m opening a window before I pass out.”

  Amos knocked the grill cover off and waited until Alanah had turned back from the open window. He had gotten rather good at elegantly tumbling out of the wall without falling onto the floor in a heap and he wanted to show off a bit.

  It was his best dismount yet and seconds after his feet hit the floor, he threw his arms up and called out “and he stuck the landing, perfect scores all around, even from the Russian judge.” “You’re weird, you know that don’t you? I mean who thinks of crawling through the ceiling anyway. Hurry up, help me secure this beast before it wakes up.”

  Amos had brought zip ties and a length of parachute cord with him in his backpack. They started with Mr. Phil’s legs, pulling the ankles together and then binding them in place. Jim had told him that zip ties were almost impossible to break off once tightly applied and once they had gotten the landlord’s wrists bound together, they both felt some relief.

  They used the parachute cord to connect the wrist binding to the ankle binding with no slack making it impossible for the big man to stand up straight and then they wound cord over his chest and down and around the couch so that he was held fast.

  “We need a blindfold” Alanah said when they were done tying him up. “I’ll do that” said Amos while looking at a pair of dirty boxer shorts on the floor that he thought would work quite well for this purpose. “You go and tell Mrs. Garcia that the new lost and found department for the building is now open for business. I will stay and babysit sleeping beauty here.”

  Alanah went to get the others who should have gathered at Mrs. Garcia’s apartment but instead she found that they were instead gathered down at the end of the hallway and listening intently with worried expressions.

  “Go tell the others to come, it’s safe now and he is still asleep. Come and have a look inside.” As Alanah tried to encourage the older residents to come to Filthy Phil’s apartment Amos also had a surge of doubt. What if we were wrong and he doesn’t have anything here. It would be disappointing for everyone and a big waste of time Amos thought with a worried expression as he turned in place and really took in the apartment for the first time.

  It was messy and it did smell bad but under the veneer of unwashed dishes scattered throughout the kitchen and dining area and the dirty clothes left on the floor and on the furniture, Amos noticed that there was quite a lot of …. stuff.

  The walls were crowded with paintings and framed pictures, the dining table had ornate candle sticks and fancy glassware stacked on one side. There was an ornate wooden hutch that seemed to be crammed full of silverware and crystal dinnerware. One wall had four clocks on it amongst all of the artwork. The console table held a large TV and was packed with all manner of electronics both besides and below the TV.

  Amos let out a low whistle, every bit of surface area held something on it whether it was a wall or a flat surface, every bit of shelf space was also crammed with vases, small lamps, desk ornaments and so on. It was one of the larger three-bedroom units in the building and Amos decided to look around a bit more. As soon as he opened the first bedroom door, he took a quick look and then turned and strode to the hallway. The older residents had managed to get two thirds of the way down the hall, but they still looked quite nervous. Alanah was trying to wave them on but for most of them, crossing Mr. Phil in his own apartment was probably too risky to even consider.

  “If you have anything that has gone missing in the last ten years, I bet it might be in here.” Amos looked at the nervous faces in front of him. “Don’t worry, he cannot see anything or move for that matter, and he is still asleep, come on in and be silent if you want to and he won’t even know that you were here.”

  Mrs. Garcia did not take long to work up her courage, “ok then, I go in …. quiet as the mouse.” She broke from the group and walked confidently inside the apartment. It took her even less time to break her vow of silence. “OH MON DIO” she cried out in a loud voice. “He’s taken everything, there is my lamp, there is my clock…what a thief.”

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  As soon as the others saw Mrs. Garcia come to the doorway holding her stuff it did not take the others long to work up their courage to enter themselves. Once a few of them had spotted long lost treasures and missing housewares and valuables the tone completely changed. The friends and neighbours forgot that they were afraid of the landlord and became outraged at the number of items he had stolen from all of them over the years.

  More and more residents came into the apartment as word got out amongst those in the building that all of this stolen loot was there to be recovered.

  Mrs. Garcia took it upon herself to fetch her address book and then start calling all the former residents she could find who had moved out to see if they wanted to come and look. She used Filthy Phil’s phone and asked everyone she could to provide any numbers that she might have missed.

  When she found someone that was unable to come, she asked them what they were missing and then called out to the now sizeable group in the apartment. “Ok, we are looking for a gold watch that says Happy Anniversary Johnny on it. Has anyone seen a painting of a seagull over the waves on a beach? Someone please look for some old Elvis Presley records they are collectible things and worth much money now.”

  While all of this went on Mr. Phil still snored away on the couch. Alanah had the great idea to have anyone who wanted to pose next to the sleeping landlord by holding their stolen item next to him while they stood behind the couch. “We can make a big poster from all of these pictures and you can put them up to remind him never to steal again.

  If he does you can go to the police and the building owners and maybe someone will do something about it.” Soon there was a lineup of residents all trying to make their most serious face as they posed with their recovered property behind the sleeping landlord.

  Amos enjoyed seeing the joy of the other residents as they recovered stolen items and memorabilia that they had thought had been lost for good. It was also really nice to see that the fear and the power imbalance between Mr. Phil and the residents seemed to be diminishing rapidly. However, his good mood did not last that long as the next resident to enter the apartment was Ms. Murphy who was being guided and pushed in by Mrs. Garcia.

  Amos panicked and quickly turned away and busied himself with checking the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen. He hid there for the next ten minutes hoping that he could avoid Ms. Murphy who would surely want to return to the safety and isolation of her own apartment at any moment now.

  He was telling himself that once she left then he would not have worry about having to talk to her when he felt a tap on his shoulder while he was pretending to look deeply into a kitchen cupboard. “ Amos, come meet Ms. Murphy, you used to live right across from her.”

  It was Mrs. Garcia; her voice was unmistakable. He slowly turned toward her and was stunned to see her standing next to a beaming Ms. Murphy who had a huge smile and was radiating happiness.

  “Are you the boy who exposed this awful thief?” She paused and went on “I just can’t thank you enough, I have recovered so many things just now that meant the world to me. I thought they had been lost forever and now I have them back. My wedding ring, my mother’s jewelry and some of my husband’s journals and letters that are just irreplaceable.” With no warning, she leaned forwards and wrapped Amos in her arms and squeezed him tight. “Thank you, thank you, oh thank you…” Amos’ face had surprisingly turned suddenly into a frown, he stiffened and pushed her gently away. “I’m sorry but I really need to tell you something, can we go somewhere private to talk?”

  Both Alanah and Mrs. Garcia who had been standing behind Ms. Murphy with big goofy smiles suddenly gave him a very puzzled look. “I will explain later but right now….” Amos paused, he was not sure what would happen next but already he felt a bit sick to his stomach and a tremendous wave of guilt. He knew he was doing what needed to be done so he continued despite all of the strange looks he was getting. “Right now, I really need to talk to you and Old Man….I mean Dan, to Dan as well. In private.”

  Both Dan and Ms. Murphy were more than a bit confused by the strange request, but they went willingly with Amos down the hall and up the stairs to Dan’s apartment. Once they were seated on Dan’s worn but comfortable leather furniture Amos just plunged into his story and told them everything that had happened from when his mother had passed until now.

  He did not pause, and he did not hold back, he described the fear and desperation he had felt without money or any way to protect himself outside the building walls. This is why he had stolen from them. A significant sum of money from Ms. Murphy and the gun from Old Man Dan.

  There was nothing but silence in the room once it was clear that Amos was done speaking. Old Man Dan’s wheezy breathing had even slowed down a barely discernable level of noise. Amos kept staring at the floor, he wasn’t sure what to think himself. After reliving the last few weeks out loud all at once he was more than a bit taken aback himself at all that he had done and all of the risks he had taken.

  He wasn’t ashamed of the risks or the danger or even at being poor and homeless, it was the stealing that kept his gaze fixed straight ahead at the floor. Amos just couldn’t bear to look either of them in the eye at the moment.

  Ms. Murphy broke the silence. “Well, that is just awful, just awful that two young kids like you have to live like this. And to think here I was, so happy for the first time in years to have my most precious memories back and here you are feeling so badly for just trying to survive.” The older woman leaned forwards and put her small, wrinkled hand gently on his knee. “My dear boy, you have given me so much today. All of us so much. For the first time in a long time, we will have perhaps some peace of mind living here and not living in fear of being robbed.”

  “It was an awful, maddening existence, never knowing when something would go missing or if someone had been in your home while you were out. I had been living like a hermit, not trusting anyone, not even my friends or the bank. I was stashing money and food all over my apartment and putting multiple locks inside and outside of my door and only leaving for short periods of time.”

  She went on “this was no way to live, and I was lonely, miserable, and slowly going crazy. Getting my personal valuables back and standing in that man’s den of stolen goods with all of the others, I realized I felt no fear and instead I was just so happy to be with my neighbours again.”

  Ms. Murphy paused and waited for Amos to look up at her. “I don’t have a lot of time left and thanks to you I won’t be so afraid to live and enjoy myself anymore.” Old Man Dan spoke next, and Amos turned his attention to the kindly old face that was looking for him with tenderness.

  Ms. Murphy paused and waited for Amos to look up at her. “I don’t have a lot of time left and thanks to you I won’t be so afraid to live and enjoy myself anymore.” Old Man Dan spoke next, and Amos turned his attention to the kindly old face that was looking at him with tenderness.

  “You did good, and you did the right things when you could. That’s a lot to ask from a young fella. I don’t mind you taking the gun, I don’t need it, and I don’t want it back. I just wish you didn’t have to carry it, but I see why you do.”

  The old man cleared his throat and his face became serious. “Sometimes son, you can’t just always judge yourself by your intentions or what ya did.” He paused and then went on in a low voice. “Sometimes it’s the consequences of your actions that are really what matters most. Do you understand me? While you intended to steal from us, it is everything that you did after that is most important.”

  Amos felt relief, relief that he could look both of them in the eye and relief that they did not see him as a thief like Mr. Phil. They talked a bit more about his adventures and they all had a good laugh when he told them in detail about rescuing Alanah and how she dropped the bucket with the dirty water on her aunt’s head. Amos realized with a start that they had been sitting and talking for almost an hour now.

  He jumped up and told his two new friends “Mr. Phil may have woken up by now, I need to get back to see what is happening.” He abruptly moved down the hall to the stairwell while Old Man Dan and Ms. Murphy followed albeit a fair bit more slowly.