Finders Keepers

            by Evan Hughes

 

He never knew what it was that made him notice the ordinary brown paper bag that brisk morning.  He was never one to notice small details, especially out in the wilderness where his inner thoughts consumed most of his attention.  His skimp running shorts left his legs feeling numb, but the cold air made him feel alive.  He decided to take a different route that morning, which was odd for him because he rarely diverged from his familiar trail.  He liked the routine of it, and had come know the turns, potholes, and rocks along the way.  This time, because the trail was unfamiliar, he stopped to rest at a level surface surrounded by infinitely tall eucalyptus and pine trees.

But somehow, there he was, alone on the trail, holding what looked like a crumpled bag filled with someone’s discarded half eaten lunch.  He silently cursed the rude picnickers who dare pollute such a natural and beautiful place.  But when he opened the top, and a brief glance inside left him paralyzed.  For a moment, he was rigid as the towering eucalyptus trunk beside him, and struggling for breath.  In the bag, thick wads of rolled up bills were neatly contained by rubber bands; each of the 10 rolls showed a 100 dollar bill on the outside.  The money was crisp and new, as if it had never before been touched.  He quickly looked around.  It was 7:05 am, and no one was in sight.  In a panic, he began to run.  He couldn’t seem to think, and he felt the pounding of his heart in his ears.  He sprinted the rest of the route.  The morning didn’t seem so cold anymore.

*          *          *          *

            Shit.  The boss is not going to like this.  It was supposed to be a simple trade off, what could have gone wrong?  Charlie had just received word that the transaction had not been completed last night, and that the two men were recently found dead in the woods.  Not only that, but the 100 grand was also missing.  Charlie should have known better than to give the young kid such a big job.  But the kid was the boss’s nephew, and the boss insisted that Charlie bring him up fast.  Now he would have to break the news to the boss, and he would probably have to take all the heat for it as well.  Things had been going well for Charlie, and he did not need this right now.  He opened his phone, pulled up the boss’s number, stared at it in hesitation, then with a curse pushed the call button and waited for the call to connect.

*          *          *          *

            When he arrived at his house, his wife was still in bed, but he kept the bag tightly rolled under his jacket pocket just in case.  He went straight to the bathroom and locked the door behind him.  He felt a bit childish, keeping this secret, but he did not want to complicate things by telling anyone what he had found.  He needed time to think.  His heart began to race with excitement as he reached in the bag and pulled out a roll.  He had never seen so much cash in his life.  He held the bills in his hand.  Careful not to ruin the precisely assembled roll, he slowly began to count the bills.  Each roll had 100 bills, and there were ten rolls which meant…one hundred thousand dollars.  He felt dizzy, then ecstatic, then horrified.  Gradually, he realized the seriousness of this situation.  Someone was missing one hundred thousand dollars.  This was no petty amount of money.

            Where had it come from?  Who did it belong to?  How did they get it?  What was it doing in the woods?  What if it was some criminal’s money?  He began to sweat.  What if the police were now after him?  What if the criminals were after him?

            “Ray, are you back?”

            He was so startled that he dropped the roll of money on the floor, the hundred dollar bills spilling all over the bathroom.  “Yeah…I’m in…the bathroom…hold on one second…okay?”

            “Is everything alright?”

            “Yeah…I’ll be out in one second.”  He flushed the toilet and turned on the faucet as he crumpled the bills into the bag.  He stuffed the bag under his shirt, and excited the bathroom.

            “Honey, you’re dripping with sweat, you must have had a good run.”

            “I um…yea…I did.  Listen, I’ve got some stuff I need to take care of…I have to go.”  He ran out of the house and into his car.

            He felt safer in the small confines of his car.  He wiped the sweat from his palms on his blue jeans and took a deep breath.  Perhaps finding this money was the best thing that could have happened to him.  He had a steady job working at the furniture store, but over the last 5 years had shown no sign of advancement, and had been passed over once already for a promotion. 

He didn’t know where he was going, but it was calming to drive.  He put on the “Classic Rock” radio station, and tried to make sense of what had happened.

            As he pulled up to a red light, a black Mercedes came screeching to a stop right beside him.  There were 4 men in the car, all wearing black suits and sunglasses.  He started to imagine the worst possible scenarios.  These must be the guys who owned the money.  They had staked him out and would now kill him.  Had they followed him from his house?  Oh my god, they were going to kill his wife too.  He quickly glanced over at them and gave them a nervous smile.  All four of the men looked his way for a moment, and then sped off as the light turned green.  He realized he hadn’t been breathing, and let out a sigh of relief, then rested his hand on the bag of money sitting on his seat.

*          *          *          *

            Charlie hung up the phone.  The boss hadn’t taken the news lightly, and as predicted, this had become Charlie’s mess to clean up.  If he couldn’t find the money in two weeks, he had to come up with it himself.  Shit.  He was stressed out.  He needed to see Linda soon.  She always helped him calm down.

The money would probably turn up.  He would just have to call some of his connections over at the police station, and start asking around.  It’s impossible for one hundred thousand dollars to simply disappear in a couple of days.  He was confident it would turn up.  Experience has taught him that the mob always comes out on top.

*          *          *          *

            As he pulled into the driveway, he started brainstorming excuses.  Car trouble, breakfast meeting, movie return.  He had rushed out of the house so fast and had not told his wife where he was going.  That seemed suspicious.  After all, he always got mad at her when she did that, so he needed a valid excuse to not sound like a hypocrite.

            He made sure the bag of money was securely hidden under his jacket, stepped out, locked the car door and started up the driveway toward his house.  As he approached the door it was opened a man on his way out. 

            “Hey Ray!  How ya doin’?”  It was his neighbor, smiling broadly.  He looked so relaxed, so normal.  Ray envied him at that moment.

            He could feel the bag under his jacket, and had to walk carefully so it would make loud crinkling noises.  He tried to act normal.  “Hey Charlie.  What’s goin’ on?”

            “Had to grab some butter.”  He held up the stick of butter.  “Hey Ray, you wanna go for a run tomorrow morning?”

            Running.  What a thought.  Yesterday, he would have jumped at the chance.  Now running was the last thing on his mind.  “Oh, I don’t know Charlie, I have a pretty busy day at work tommor…”

            “Hey man.  I know you, and you are never too busy for a good run.  Plus you look like you need it.  No excuses.  I’ll meet you at the usual spot at 6:45.  Don’t you dare bail on me Ray!”  With that he walked away, then into his own house.

            Since he moved next door, Charlie had taken a strong liking to Ray, though he couldn’t understand why.  Charlie’s grandmother had lived in the house before him, but now he lived there alone, working long nights at a management company.  He stopped by often to say hello, sometimes stayed for dinner.  They had discovered their love for running some time ago, and had made it a regular habit.  He would have trouble getting out of it now.

            He usually didn’t mind running with Charlie, but now he needed the privacy and alone time that running in the morning provided.  But maybe Charlie could help him take his mind off of this whole mess.  He walked inside his house.

            “Hey Lin, I’m home.”  He walked into the bedroom where she was putting on a new shirt.

            “Hey.  I’m just changing my clothes.  It got really hot all the sudden, huh?  Where did you go sweety?”

            “Hardware store.  I had to get some…hinges so I could fix that door.”

            “Oh, great idea.  Listen, I’m gonna go stop by Margret’s house, and say hello to her new baby.  You wanna come?”

            “No, I think I’ll stay home for now.”

            “Alright, I’ll see you later tonight.”  She kissed him affectionately, and exited the house, closing the door behind her.

Ray took out the bag just to look over the money one more time.  One hundred thousand dollars.  The possibilities were endless.  Maybe he should buy his wife some jewelry, or take her on a vacation.  He imagined them lying on a beach in the Bahamas.  Or maybe he should invest it.  No.  This was stolen money, he could never do that.  He had to turn it in.  Tomorrow he would turn it in.  But for now, he needed to sleep and forget about all of this.  He hid the money under some shirts in one of his drawers, then lay down on his bed with a pillow over his face.  It had been a stressful day.  Hopefully tomorrow would be better.

*          *          *          *

It was a foggy morning.  The gray haze was so thick it was hard to see the trail ahead of them.  Luckily, the trail was so familiar from the many previous runs, it was impossible to get disoriented; their feet knew the way.  Though Ray was usually a much better runner than Charlie, today he seemed to be lagging behind.  Charlie considered his relationship with Ray; Ray was colossal boar, but could easily be taken advantage of.  These early morning runs seemed to keep him thinking they were friends.  The poor smuck didn’t realize Charlie was banging his wife.  Charlie couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him, but hey, if a man couldn’t keep his own wife happy, it wasn’t Charlie’s fault.

            “Ray, what’s going on man?  You seem distracted.  What are you thinking about?”

            “No, it’s nothing.”

            “C’mon man, talk to me.  You’ll feel better about it.”

            “No, I really shouldn’t.”

            He suspected it was problems with Linda, so he immediately stopped asking.  He did not want to get involved in that kind of drama.  But Ray then started again.

            “Hey Charlie?  What would you do if you found some money on the ground?”

            “I’d call it my lucky day and pocket that shit right away.”  He shot a witty smile back at Ray.  But Ray was not smiling.  His eyes looked bloodshot, and Charlie knew something was wrong.  “How much money are we talking about?”

            “What if you found…a lot of money.”

            No way.  There is no way that Charlie could be this lucky.  Had Ray found the money?  “What do you mean?  Like in the woods or something?”

            Ray quickly glanced away.  “Never mind.  It was a stupid question.”

            Charlie dealt with secrets and lies all the time in his line of work, and right now he could read Ray like an open book.  He knew Ray had found the money, and now getting it back would be easier than he thought.

“Well to be honest Ray, I would put it back exactly where I found it.  I mean, whose ever it was, would probably want it back.  Maybe the police would be looking for it too.  I guess you could get into a lot of trouble.  The right thing to do is to put it back and forget it ever happened.”  Charlie snickered to himself, proud of how persuasive he could be.

            Ray looked back at him thoughtfully.  After a pause, he replied, “I think you’re right.  That’s probably what I would do too.”  Ray was up front for the rest of the run.

*          *          *          *

            Ray felt good about his decision.  Charlie was a smart man, who did a lot of business, so his advice was probably the best.  Ray would get rid of this money, and go back to his normal life.  He had a warm home, a steady job, and a loving wife.  He didn’t need money to be happy.  He changed out of his running clothes and put on his work attire.  He would return the money to the spot where he had found it, and that would be that.

He opened his shirt drawer to retrieve the money, but it was not there.  He rifled through the layers of shirts, then frantically emptied the contents of the drawer onto the floor, but the bag was nowhere to be found.  He could have sworn he concealed the bag in the drawer.  He opened the other dresser drawers one by one, searching desperately to no avail.  Where else would he have put it?  Had he left it in his coat pocket when he hung it up?  Yeah, it must be there.  He ran toward the entryway closet, his fingers twitching, anxious for the feel of the smooth brown paper bag secure in his hands.  As he entered the living room, he was startled to see his wife, sitting statuesque on the leather chair in the corner of the room.  She was eerily stone-like and silent, her hands gently clutching a brown paper bag. The brown paper bag.  She calmly stared directly into his eyes.

“Linda, I know I have some serious explaining to do.”

“I can’t believe you Ray.”  Her voice was distant; her tone measured. “When were you planning on telling me about this?” She held the bag up, opened it carefully, and pulled out a roll of bills. “Here we are, living hand to mouth, seemingly working our asses off, and you’ve got all this cash stashed in our bedroom?”  Her voice was thick with sarcasm as she worked her fingers over the crisp new bills.

“Linda, listen to me.  The money…” 

“I don’t even want to hear about it Ray.  You’re fucking pathetic, you always have been.”  She let the money drop back into the bag, folded the edges, and crammed the bag into her purse.  Standing, she smoothed her clothes, and walked toward the door.

“Oh, and I almost forgot…”

A whirlwind of pain entered his body as the shots rang out in the stillness of the morning. He could feel his shirt becoming wet with his own blood.  As he fell on the hard, cold, tiles of the living room floor, he saw his beautiful wife gently wipe the small black revolver with the edge of her t-shirt. 

“Finders keepers, Ray.”

Her smile was a beacon in the darkness quickly enveloping him, and the sound of the door closing was a final rhythmic pounding in his head.