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Getting an “I have a plan” text from Charles never bodes well.
Replying a question mark, and getting nothing back but an invitation to a group chat, a time, and a place, does not make it better.
But Lando has nothing going for him right now, so he goes.
He tells Oscar he’s going out, that he doesn’t know if he’ll be back for dinner, and starts making his way to the location Charles had texted him.
It turns out to be an apartment building. Not Charles', though his car is outside.
He rings the proper doorbell (he hopes) and the door buzzes open with no comment. He walks up the stairs to the third floor, and when he gets to the door, it’s already open.
There's three others he can see besides Charles, and they’re sitting in a circle around a pizza box, on the floor of what might be a living room, if not for the fact that there’s not a single piece of furniture in it.
Wait, scratch that, there's a single gaming chair, pushed to the side.
“You’re late.” Charles says. Protests of that he’s really not, or well, only a few minutes, are ignored.
“Do you want pizza?” One of the others asks. Lando takes a piece.
“So. Why are you all here? I have a plan. You are the team I need. Max.” Charles points to the guy sitting to his left. Lando glances at him and realises he’s not wearing any shoes. This must be his house. Charles confirms his suspicions. “Thank you for lending us your house. You’re in charge of logistics. Get us supplies, everything.”
“George.” The person who’d asked Lando if he wanted pizza. The first thing Lando notices is his startlingly blue eyes. The second, that he must be half a foot taller than Lando. Great. “I think we all know what you’re good at.” Charles continues. “ I was hoping for you to do your thing.”
Lando raises his hand as if he’s in school. “I don’t… know?”
“Come on, you don't know him? George Russell? Worked with Lewis Hamilton for years?” The previously silent, unknown third person asks. And yes, that does ring a bell. Charles goes on with his speech.
“Lando. We need you for the main part. You have experience, you’re good. I will help. Five minutes, in and out, huh?” Charles repeats their years old joke. Lando laughs.
“Alex. Our money man. Also, you drive like hell, and we’re gonna need that.” As soon as Charles finishes talking, he stops sitting up straight and slumps back into a shrimp-like posture.
“Um, Charles…” George starts, somewhat hesitant. “Do you care to tell us what the plan is?”
“Oh yeah!” Charles says, like he’d genuinely forgotten. “We are gonna rob the Louvre.”
The plan is worked out into the finest details. They know what they're going to get: nine pieces of jewellery. Old, French. Irreplaceable. Bring it to a contact of one of the boys– Lando doesn't know who– and get a very pretty penny back.
It’s not Lando's first heist. He ran quite a few with Carlos, back in the day, and with Charles, later on. It's definitely the biggest he’s ever been a part of, but that's just what happens with Charles.
As for how he’s gonna explain the sudden increase in digits on his bank account to Oscar, well… he’s hoping to avoid that, honestly. Oscar doesn't seem like the type that'd take very kindly to something like that.
Charles shakes him awake from where he'd been sitting, pretending to be asleep on the underground train. His backpack clatters a bit when he picks it up, no doubt due to the power tool inside.
“Let's go, Lando.” Charles has two high-vis vests in his hands, and gives one to Lando as they make their way out of the station. “Remember, we’re just builders.” He says.
“With balaclavas on.”
“Not yet!” That’s true, it’s still shoved into his back pocket.
They walk past George, standing next to the two motor scooters. Charles gives one of his obnoxious winks and, when they round the final corner, he whispers an even more obnoxious, “It’s show time.”
They pull their balaclavas on in a way that’s so synchronised, it might look practiced (that’s because it is.)
Alex pulls up the furniture lift, fiddling with the controls until it’s pointing in the proper direction: straight at the balcony.
It takes a while for the little basket to move towards them, and Charles spends the time somewhat frantically rehearsing their ‘shopping list.’
“Charles, it’s fine, we rehearsed it like, 20 times.”
“Always, something goes wrong. Always.”
“But we never get caught.”
“Your ride.” Alex interrupts. Then, he turns and calmly walks away, towards George.
It's then that four things go very wrong, all in under ten minutes.
They get up to the balcony just fine. The window is broken easily, and they hop right into the gallery room. Charles takes the disc cutter from Lando's bag, and cuts a hole in the first display case. Lando empties it with ease, shoving the items into his backpack, then zipping it up.
It's only when Charles is halfway through cutting the plexiglass of the second display case, that Lando notices it.
“Guards, 9 ‘o clock.” he says, swatting at Charles' arm to get his attention. Charles rushes to finish the cut, then turns and points the disc cutter at the guards as if it’s a gun.
Somehow, that works. The guards hold their hands up and retreat back through the doorway they came from, walking backwards slowly.
It’s like time goes from slow motion to double time, then. They load the other items into Charles' bag, tugging at and slightly breaking a crown that doesn't fit through the sloppily cut hole.
“Go, go, go!” Charles rushes Lando back out the window, following close behind.
Once again in the furniture lift, it’s Lando's time to shine. In the side pocket of Charles' bag is a plastic bottle of gasoline. He pours it onto the floor of the lift basket and, as they’re approaching, lights a match from the box in his pocket, then shoves it back into the box. He drops it onto the gasoline-soaked floor just as he and Charles hop out of the lift.
George and Alex are standing there. Alex has exchanged his balaclava for a motorcycle helmet, and George is wearing one as well. Lando gets on the back of George's motor scooter, Charles onto Alex’. Alex pulls ahead, giving Lando a proper view of Charles' backpack for the first time.
“Charles!” George shouts, a split second before Lando can. “Your bag’s open!” Charles pulls the bag to his front so he can zip it closed, but the crown– the one they broke– falls out in the process.
“It’s fine! Leave it! Just go!” George shouts again, pulling up to be side to side with Alex.
They ride in silence for another 20 minutes, then Alex takes a sharper-than-necessary turn into an underground car park.
Once they’ve stopped, Lando pulls off his balaclava and high-vis. They join the disc cutter and jewellery in his backpack.
Charles sighs, relief mixed with frustration. Lando feels it as well. They pulled it off, but not as well as they hoped. It’s not the first time it happens like this, but they always hope it’s going to be the last.
George, who somehow has service, even in the underground parking lot, calls Max, then puts his phone on speaker mode.
“I’m in the other lot. It's attached to the one you're in. Just walk east, and I'm in a Mercedes.” Max hangs up before any of them can reply.
Once they find the car, they waste another ten minutes letting George and Max argue over who gets to drive.
“Old married couple, those two” Alex says to Charles and Lando. “They threaten to break up with each other twice a week.”
“Wait.” says Charles, suddenly alarmed. “They’re dating?”
“What? Oh, no. No way.” Alex sounds like he’s holding back laughter.
“But you said…”
“Yeah, they just say that all the time. God, no. Otherwise George‘d have a lot of explaining to do to me. No, Max is very, very single, I'm sure.”
“Oh, thank God.” Charles says, which, given Charles, is probably the most subtle way he could have reacted to that information.
George and Max seem to have reached a conclusion, which is the sign for the rest of them to load into the back set, with Lando– as much as it annoys him– in the middle.
They drive out of the car park, and when the radio stops giving static, they hear, “In other news, a group of men stole nine items from the Louvre today. As of yet, no further information is known.”
“You’ll never guess who I saw today.” Lando says, a few weeks later. They’re sitting around a pizza box again. Nothing much has changed, except that there’s now a second gaming chair on Max’s empty, concrete living room floor, and Charles is basically sitting in Max's lap.
“Mark. You know, he was at Sebastian's place when we went to bring all the stuff. Apparently he’s like, Oscar's godfather or whatever.” Lando laughs. “I have never had such an awkward first meeting with someone. He just kept staring at me.”
“Do you think Oscar is in the business? We could, like, adopt him.” Charles says.
“Absolutely not.” Max says, and that’s that.
Lando grabs a slice of pizza and his phone, which is ringing with a call from Oscar.
“Hey, this is gonna sound crazy, but Mark told me he has a job opportunity for me…”