Old Notes

 “That’s a lot of money.”

“But is it good money?”

I looked at Pete. I was about to say that that was a stupid question, but then, to be honest, I had briefly wondered the same thing myself, so I guess it wasn’t so stupid after all. It was old money, anybody could see that, two thick bundles of one hundred dollar bills stuffed in a decaying wooden box laid open on the floor in front of us.

“Let’s bring it into the other room,” I said, my voice muffled through the respirator. “This plaster dust isn’t helping.” I closed the box up and brought it with me.

Two sawhorses with an eight foot plank at waist height running between them was set up in the room where I kept all of the equipment, and I placed the box on the plank. Removing my respirator and safety glasses, I said, “I don’t think U.S. currency goes bad, at least twentieth-century currency,” feeling pretty sure I was right about that. I reopened the box and lifted out one of the two bundles. “And here’s Benjamin Franklin, my favorite founding father.”

“The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Ohio,” read Pete, staring at the other bundle still in the box. He read it slowly, like a third grader.

“1929,” I put in.

It was old money, but it was nice, clean money. When these notes were placed in the box God knows how many years ago these bills had never been circulated; they were still smooth and crisp, as they would have been right off the press. I carefully extracted one note from the bundle I was holding. There wasn’t a sign of water damage or mold on it, and the other bills weren’t stuck together like I feared. The band holding bundle together was secure.

“There’s a notebook here,” said Pete.

“See what’s in it,” I said, riffling through the bills doing a quick count.

It was a small, black, leather-bound notebook filled with delicate thin paper. A couple of the pages were dog-eared and a barely decipherable pencil script covered the first fifteen pages or so.

“Lots of numbers, not many words,” said Pete, flipping through it. “Women’s names, Dolly, Pat, Sue, and—“ here Pete squinted “—Katherine? Katrina?”

“It looks like there’s a hundred here and the same probably for the one in the box,” I said. “A hundred hundreds, ten thousand each. That makes two grand.”

“Hey, what about the owner?” Pete asked. “Is coming today?” Pete was my helper for the day and wasn’t around when the job first started. He hadn’t met the owner.

“Good point. I never know, he just shows up. But, listen, I’m thinking Mr. Cassidy doesn’t need to know about what we found in his wall. That’s what I’m thinking. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking the same thing.”

“Go to the front window and watch out for him while I check this other bundle.”

Sure enough, it all came to twenty grand. Back in 1929 twenty grand must’ve been worth, what? A million? Two million? Pete came back and we replaced the money and the notebook in the box. We rolled the box up in a canvas drop cloth and messily placed the whole thing in one corner of the room so it looked like the drop cloth had been indiscriminately kicked there.

Then we went back to work. We had to keep working. It was important not to arouse suspicion. We each picked up a sledgehammer and a crowbar, put our respirators and ear plugs and safety glasses back on and started banging away at the wall again. This was one of those old-fashioned lath and horsehair plaster walls that kicked up a ton of dust when you did this. Our respirators were hardly proof against the thick white clouds that covered every inch of us and coated our safety glasses so bad we could hardly see. Meanwhile my mind was furiously working out the problem of how we could possibly pass these antique bills. I imagined that would be quite complicated. Probably they were worth more than their face value.

I had a feeling Pete’s mind was working, too. Pete and I knew each other from high school but we were only acquaintances, never buddies. Since high school we had bumped into each other from time to time at parties or downtown or whatnot, and I knew he was never steadily employed and he was strong and usually available for work like this. Pete was fairly well known to the police. He’d been to court a few times, placed on probation once or twice, never jailed. He might have been a housebreaker a time or two, although that was never proven. There was a famous unsolved murder of a girl a couple of years back and when it happened I thought of Pete, just thought of him with nothing substantial to connect him to anything, but Pete’s name did cross my mind. And now we were partners. I wasn’t sure how I liked that.

At noon Pete announced he had to grab lunch.

“I thought you brought a lunch,” I said.

“It’s liverwurst sandwiches,” he said. “I’m sick of liverwurst. I’m gonna get something at the sub shop. You want anything?”

I told him no. Pete nodded okay and stepped into the other room where he took off his respirator and safety glasses and slapped as much of the plaster dust off of his clothes and hair as he could. Then he went into the bathroom and scrubbed his face and hands with soap and water.

“Sure you don’t want anything?” he asked me when he was ready, reaching for the door. His face was pink and shiny from the wash.

“No, I’m fine,” I said. 

After he closed the door I walked over to the window to watch him get into his car. He started the car, then I saw him raise his phone to his ear as he pulled away.

He was planning something. I knew it. If he wasn’t planning something he would have discussed with me what he thought we should do about the money, but instead he kept quiet. He kept quiet because he was working things out for himself. It took no genius to figure he was getting in touch with one of his criminal buddies.

So now I had to decide what to do. Maybe I had a half an hour, possibly an hour, but not much time.

At first I guessed his plan was to come back with a confederate to strong-arm me out of the money, but that didn’t make sense because he’d wind up with the same problem, having to split the money with someone else. I assumed that was what his goal was, to keep the whole twenty grand for himself. Whoever he was talking to couldn’t know exactly what he was up to. So I then thought he was after a weapon. He needed to pick up a weapon, namely a gun. He’d come back with a gun and put it in my face and relieve me of the money. But would he just rob me? Was twenty grand worth killing someone over? Sure it was. Absolutely. Why risk leaving someone behind to talk to the police? There’s a lot of wisdom to the “leave no witnesses” rule.

I hadn’t the slightest doubt he was on the phone right now asking one of his larcenous friends for the loan of a gun. He’d give the guy three hundred dollars for the gun, provided the gun was cleaned and loaded when he got there. All right, he’d concede, he’d pay five hundred if the gun’s cleaned and loaded and his buddy stops asking questions. At no time did I think Pete was actually getting a sandwich.

Should I play the honest citizen and call the cops about the money? Here’s a cold case for you, officer. Check it out. They’d come right over and then my neck would be saved. Or I could just leave. Just hop in my truck and take off before Pete comes back. Now if I left with the money, he’d hunt me down, and that was no good. But if I left the money here? He’d come back with his weapon, a nine millimeter most likely, see my truck gone, see me gone, no note or anything, assume I just picked up and skedaddled, and there’s the money still in the corner. That way maybe he would just take it and leave me alone. The coward’s way out.

Or I could defend myself because I had just as much right to that money as he did. More, because it was my job. He wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me. The way I saw it, I’m sharing the money with him. Here’s the thing about a work site. If you need a weapon, there are plenty to choose from: hammer, screwdriver, box cutter, crowbar. Sledgehammers are too unwieldy, but here in my toolbox I had a nice framing hammer, sort of a regular-looking hammer with an extra long handle and a good grip. Of course, it would never be a match against a gun. Gun beats hammer every time. If I was to defend myself, there would also need to be some kind of strategy. Say, a Pearl Harbor-type surprise attack, for instance.

Twenty-five minutes. Long line at the sub shop, Pete? It’s only right down the street, pal.

Then it hit me. Of course he’d have to buy a sub just to make it look right. Why didn’t I think of that? Walking in here without a lunch would tip me off. So Pete had two stops to make.

So I waited. It occurred to me that the hammer felt pretty good in my hand. This framing hammer of mine, I had to say, had a nice heft. I’ve always admired it. I don’t know if they balanced these things in the factory like you would balance a tire but that’s what it felt like, balanced. You could drive a three inch nail into solid oak with one blow if you tried. Swing it down in a big arc and BANG!

The clock continued to tick. Forty-five minutes. Christ, this is taking a long time. Maybe he’s not coming back? Ridiculous. Of course he’ll be back. Twenty grand, come on. But this waiting is making me nervous.

Then finally — finally! — Pete’s car shows up. He drives a vintage Dodge Challenger with a loud exhaust, metallic green with mag wheels in the back like he’s still a teenager. Pete gets out of the car, throws down a cigarette, steps on it, and sure enough he’s carrying a paper bag from the sub shop. “CORRADO’S,” it says, big red letters, all caps. The right pocket of his coat is weighted down. The gun. 

Should a person think much at times like these? Or should he just react? It’s important to watch your breath, this much I know, and whatever you do, do not hesitate. But breathing, breathing is everything. Breathe!

Pete strides up the walk, opens the door, and I pop him good just as he steps in, one time on the head with the hammer. Down he goes. The bag with the sub in it skids noisily across the floor and clears a path through the film of plaster dust. Pete’s head comes to rest near the radiator, the one that’s been making an annoying clanking sound all day, and maybe his head hits the radiator a little bit near where the shut-off valve is. I reach into his right-hand coat pocket and fish out a can of Coke and a Snickers bar. No gun. Pete’s not moving. His face looks funny.