The Five Commandments Of John Demarke

by
Thomas Mitchell

Michael stepped up and swung into the room. The window had been open far enough for him to get into
the bach. Someone had forgotten the safety catch. Probably, the owner’s snotty nosed kid. The lip of the
window gave him something to hold onto. He held it, fingers sweating and looped himself through, landing
softly, legs spread wide on the thin carpet.
It took a few moments to adjust to the light. The balaclava and gloves he’d picked up from the last break-in
were hot around his skin. The room was empty except for a bunk and a low dresser. On the wall a
snowboarder jumped out of a poster, plunging into the darkness. He stepped up to the door and listened.
There was no one at home, he was certain, but it was still worth checking. He’d been caught another time
by teenage kids coming down to their parents' bach late on a Friday night. He was already in the master
bedroom going through the ski jackets when they pulled up outside in a station wagon, laughing and
shouting, making noise. He was quick then; picking up a small bag of valuables, waiting till he knew they
were coming in, sliding out the entrance window, landing in the shrubs and running to the forest, running
and running through the brush and low ferns, stopping finally and breathing. That was when he decided
that he would have to plan better.
The entrance window was a term he picked up from John Demarke at the pub. John had been in
Paremoremo for a burglary conviction. Three years is what he’d been given. Three years. It sounded too
much for a first time offence. John said he’d been in the business for a long time. Michael remembered
what John had said.
"The entrance window is the way you break-in and the way you should come out."
They’d all gone down to watch the Saturday game and get rotten. There were some people from Auckland
there, flashing their money and parking their shiny new cars on the asphalt. Michael was there with the
local crowd. They sat in a huddle at the back while Stu Freeman filled in the half-time break telling them
how he stole some bikes when he was still at school to pay for a stereo. John Demarke hadn’t said much till
then but he started up about the burglary business and everyone went quiet.
"If you’re going to break into a place there won’t gonna be many places you can do it without being seen."
His face was alive, speaking about something he knew, confident that he was the only expert at the table.
"Most homes have a dark side, a back. If you can use that side to get close then you can find an entrance
window to get through into the rest of it. Most idiots think they can go in wherever, through the front door
even, like they were delivery men except they’ve come to take away. There’s a market for them. Hot
fridges, microwaves, video’s, teles, big ticket items, but there’s only so much of that you can hide at home.
Oh, officer, I saw these ten washing machines on special and bought home them for the family. Bollocks.
They can check your bank account, ask for a receipt. Petty thieving is better. Small things. Cash. Jewellery.
Just take enough to make ends meet. Make it look like the dole pays your bills and you sometimes win a bit
on the horses. The tax department will love you for it."
Michael took this as gospel. How to make a living from the rich out-of-towners; the Five Commandments of
John Demarke, convicted burglar, ex-prisoner of Paremoremo Medium Security. Find an entrance window.
Take just the small stuff. Things you can hide. There were more instructions. Michael tried to remember the
other things as he stood by the door leading into the hall corridor, listening for movement. Don’t break into
occupied houses. People make it too risky. Wear gloves. Don’t let them catch you.
The last rule was like an afterthought. Who wants to get caught? Michael thought it was an unnecessary
rule and after the last break-in, he had a replacement for it. Plan your getaway. He would always have a car
ready on a nearby road. Park it some place he could run to. Some people have guns in New Zealand, he
reasoned. He didn’t want to be running around the streets while the neighbourhood watch were out
looking for him with their duck shooting equipment. With a car he could get out quickly.
He paused in the corridor. He’d seen on an American TV show that the hallway, they called it a corridor, was
the most likely place to be shot. Every room leads to the corridor. People stand by doorways and peak out.
That’s when you get shot. He exhaled and stepped quickly into the main bedroom. Nothing again. No sign
anyone was at home. He pushed the sliding door of the double wardrobe open. On one side hung a range of
men’s clothing. Swandri, raincoat, polarfleece, waders. The other side was the woman’s. Jeans and an
expensive looking jacket with a fur collar. Clothes made to stand out. They’d worked. He’d followed this
turkey home from the boat-ramp. They’d gone back to the city from their cosy little holiday and he was
there pluck the nest. He pulled the jacket off the hanger and examined the label with his Maglight.
Synthetic, he should have known. He put it back.
In the drawers of the dressing table the woman had left some T-shirts and underwear. Michael fingered
through them. He’d seen tele shows where hidden cameras catch the plumber going through the woman’s
clothes. Feeling her bras. Holding up her knickers. Sickos. That’s what prisons were for.
He thought about his girlfriend, Liz. She wouldn’t be seen dead in any of this. Cows didn’t care what
coloured briefs the vet’s nurse wore. He closed the drawer. "Are you going to stay tonight?" she’d say, "Coz
I’ll have a bath and wash the manure off my legs." If she knew that he wanted to be a full time thief, she’d
make him give it up.
He left the bedroom and moved quickly to the kitchen. Moonlight spilled freely onto the sink and bench-
top. There were no net curtains to filter the light and it reflected off the smooth lino floor. He opened the
pantry and looked in. On the bottom shelf, beer and potatoes. Above them, canned food and a range of
mismatched plates and cups. On the highest shelf, in an airtight plastic container, he found chocolate
biscuits. He always took a packet of something sweet from the places he did. He liked the thought of the
family arguing over it later. Who ate all the Toffee Pops? Where are my Slim Jims? He smiled and put the
packet inside his bag.
The dining room was empty and in the lounge there were only a few bookshelves and some prehistoric sofa
seats. He passed the beam of his torch over the books. Jackie Collins novels and Dick Francis. Not much
there. He flicked through a pile of magazines on the little coffee table. Rod and Gun , Woman’s Day. It was
the same stack in almost every holiday place he’d been to.
Michael crossed to where a stairwell led down into the carport. He had started to go down when he saw the
slow, flashing red light in the corner of the lounge. He swung his torch back towards it. It was a only a smoke
alarm but he knew from experience that people with safety locks and smoke alarms usually had burglar
alarms too. John told them that. The man of the house puts them in. Protects his investments. There might
even be a motion sensor in the garage. Michael knew there was a boat there. He’d seen it through an
outside window.
He continued down the steps and stopped at the door which was closed. A draught came up underneath it
and chilled his ankles through the woollen socks. He imagined it coming off the lake, pushing through the
roller doors and up into the house. If there was a wind coming through then a motion sensor alarm would
be going off all the time, not to mention all the rats and cockroaches these places got. It was impractical. He
pushed the door and it swung open.
The boat was fairly new. A Haines Hunter in good nick with a big grunty engine. He ran his gloved hand over
it, feeling the smooth lines, imagining her cutting through the wash of other boats, making light of the
choppy water. He saw himself wakeboarding and skiing behind it; Liz sunbathing topless on the bow. There
were fishing rod clips on the stern. It would make a good possession, he thought. Something to work
towards.
He walked around the boat to the shelves on the other side. A metal cabinet stood at the end. The doors
were shut with a thick barrelled lock. He tried to pull the doors off their hinges but they were firm. Then he
remembered something else John had told the group at the pub. "People are lazy," he said, "They don’t
hide their keys very well. If you find a locked door, look for the key under the mat or a pot plant. You
wouldn’t believe how many times that’s worked for me!" Michael pushed his hand along the top of the
cabinet. Falling free with a certain amount of dust was a key that fitted the lock. He held his torch between
his teeth and turned it. The doors swung open. There were four guns inside.
One was a shotgun. He’d seen those. A Remmington 700 rifle; a target pistol and something he hadn’t seen.
Was it a semi-automatic? He reached for it to examine the stock. As his fingers prized it from the cradle
there was an audible click and suddenly the garage was full of sound. An alarm buzzed and whined above
his head. Outside, a yellow light began to flash on the deck. He let go of the gun and turned.
He ran past the boat to the stairs. He tripped on them as he went up, hauling himself along with his arms.
Thoughts raced through his head. Find the entrance window. What had John said? He burst into the
corridor. His whole head swam with noise. He was off balance. He lurched into the back bedroom, bumping
into the bunk, bruising his forearms. Through the open window he could see lights in neighbouring houses
coming on. Full time residents waking up. The gun club was coming out. He stood astride the entrance
window and swung over. On this side the house was only one storey off the ground. It sloped away and
became two storey’s on the other side. He dropped into the shrubs. His throat was dry now and his tongue
swelled up in his mouth. His right-hand glove caught on a branch and came off. He reached for it but it
wasn’t there. Nothing. There were voices coming. At least he still had his bag. He ran again, breaking away
into a nearby section empty except for marker pegs and a real estate sign. He made it to the road and ran
low behind a group of parked cars and thick bushes. The men behind him surrounded the house. Some had
torches and were shining them up, looking for a switch on the alarm. He got to the car which he’d left a few
streets away. He climbed in and let it coast down in neutral and without lights to the main road. He took off
the remaining glove and the balaclava and tossed them into the back seat.
He sighed and started up. Quite soon he was driving through the forest and was far away.
Eventually he found a place to pull up. A rest stop. He pulled the bag up and opened it to examine the
contents. All he had was the packet of biscuits. He opened them and began to eat, surprised at how hungry
he had become with the adrenalin running through him. He thought about things. This part of the country
was ruined for burglary. The rich pockets he had so often dipped into would have to wait. Their owners
would all be on high alert for months. It didn’t matter. There were other little places full of holiday homes
further south. There would always be rich people.
And it didn’t matter about the glove he’d left behind. He had that much sorted. He would drop it’s partner
and the balaclava into the incinerator at John Demarke’s house. The police would find them. They already
knew where John lived. He had a record for burglary. It wouldn’t take them long to put two and two
together. Don’t let them catch you. That was John’s fifth commandment. Michael could have told him that it
was stating the obvious.

Thomas Mitchell is a New Zealand author. His poetry and short fiction has appeared in a number of New
Zealand anthologies and journals and on the internet in Trout
<http://www.auckland.ac.nz/lbr/trout/trout.htm>. He is current secretary for his local Branch of the
NZSA(PEN) and works as a technical writer for the Auckland City Council. He lives with his wife and son in a
state of constant flux. No guns were harmed in the writing of this story.