Windfall
Edward Mullen
Copyright Edward Mullen 2012
Riley sat alone at the kitchen table. His face was buried in his palm and his eyes were closed. He had been struggling with writer’s block all week. He was trying to come up with a few new songs for his demo and so far nothing was coming. It was all the pressure he was putting on himself, it was stifling his creativity.
At 24 years old, Riley wasn’t getting any younger. As the lead singer in a band, he had no other talents or prospects. If this didn’t work out, he would be forced into a life of manual labour and servitude.
He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight – time to pick up his girlfriend, Jade, from work.
Jade worked nights at a low-scale restaurant. The night shifts were busier and therefore brought in the most tips. It was in a dodgy part of town so the place saw its fair share of creeps. That’s why when Riley wasn’t playing a gig, he was always there to walk her home.
Riley arrived a little after midnight and walked inside.
“Hey, Riley,” one of Jade’s coworkers said.
“Hey, is Jade still here?”
“Yeah, she’s in the back cashing out, I’ll let her know you’re here.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want something to drink – coffee…?”
“No thanks.”
Jade came out a few moments later.
“Hey babe,” Riley said as he kissed her on the forehead.
“Hey,” she said in an exhausted tone. Jade said goodbye to her coworkers and then left. It was a summer night, but it was a little chilly. They huddled together and walked arm in arm down the dimly lit street. They didn’t look like they had money, so the threat of being mugged was low. Jade, however, was still dressed in her work uniform so any enterprising mugger would have to conclude that she was carrying at least 100 in cash from her tip out. Riley was not a large man, but he looked like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. The couple continued to walk home.
“So, did you have a rough night?” Riley asked.
“You wouldn’t believe some of the people we get in here!” she began. “I had this one table – a really trashy couple, about mid-forties.”
“Isn’t that like all your customers?” Riley interjected.
“Yeah, but these people were really ghetto. I just knew something was going to go down.”
“What do you mean, what happened?”
“They came in and ordered the most expensive things on the menu…”
“There are expensive things on the menu?”
“Well, they each ordered a steak and a glass of wine.”
“The steak is only nine bucks!”
“Yeah, but compared to everything else, it’s nearly double the price of anything else on the menu.”
“Alright, then what happened?” Riley asked.
“I told my manager about the situation. I thought these people were either going to dine and dash, or pay with a stolen credit card. I asked him what I should do. He told me to treat them like regular people and if they skip out on the cheque or use a stolen credit card, then he’ll call the police.
“They ordered two appetizers, two steaks, four glasses of wine, and desert. Their bill was over 60 dollars, which is a lot considering most bills are around 20.
“At the end, when I brought them their bill, the man gets up and goes outside for a cigarette. The lady stayed inside and finished eating her desert. My manager stood by the door and kept an eye on the guy in case the guys started to run.”
“What if he ran, what’s your manager going to do, chase after him?”
“I guess.”
“What would he do if he caught the guy?”
“Don’t know.”
“Why would he put himself at risk for some low-level job?”
“Not sure.”
“Okay, so then what happened?”
“The lady starts coughing profusely. She gets up and says that she needs to go outside to get some fresh air. My manager blocked the exit and told her she couldn’t leave without paying the bill. The lady then starts forcing her way out and pleading that she must go outside, and that she can’t breathe. Eventually, the lady pushed her way outside and both she and the man ran away.”
“So did your manager chase after him?”
“No, he just called the police.”
“Wow, what a crazy day of work. What’s with some people? How can you be that ghetto at 45 years old? I would be embarrassed if I was them!”
“Some people just have no shame.”
“Even though we’re not doing so well financially, I don’t think I could ever get to that point.”
They turned a corner and began to walk up the street. Just then, a large truck came barrelling down towards them. It appeared to be out of control as it meandered back and forth, slamming into parked cars. It lost its brakes and the driver was desperately trying to slow down.
Riley and Jade were the only ones around, there were no other cars or pedestrians. They took cover on a side street and watched from a distance.
From out of the darkness, the truck moved past them. When it was directly under the streetlight, they could tell that it was no ordinary truck, it was an armoured transport vehicle – the kind that banks use.
The truck careened past them at blistering speed and clipped the edge of a parked car. The armoured truck flipped over several times making all kinds of noise. Dust and debris flew up in the air in a truly spectacular fashion. It was like something out of a movie.
Riley and Jade watched on in shock. Jade’s initial thought was how lucky they both were. Had they been crossing the street, they may have been struck. Riley’s first thought was to help the people in the crash.
“Come on,” Riley said as he ran down the street tugging on Jade’s hand.
By now the truck had come to a stop. It was flipped over and leaking fuel everywhere.
Riley and Jade arrived no sooner than to witness a man in uniform attempting to climb out of the cabin. He was bleeding and clearly disorientated. Riley helped the man down from the truck. The man weighed close to 250 pounds, much too large for Riley to carry him. He did the best he could and assisted the man to the sidewalk, where he collapsed.
Riley’s adrenaline was pumping as Jade stood by and watched. Neither of them owned a cellphone so they couldn’t call the police. Jade looked around for a payphone, but there wasn’t one in sight.
Riley went around to the back of the truck. One of the rear doors was slightly ajar so Riley pried it wide open. When he did, he noticed a lifeless body slumped over. He then hooked his hands under the man’s armpits and dragged him outside the truck. Riley set the man down next to the other guard.
“What should we do?” Jade asked in a panic.
“We need to call an ambulance.”
In the distance were the faint sounds of sirens.
“I think they’re already on the way.”
Riley walked around the front of the truck to make sure there were no other crew members in need of assistance. He continued around the back of the truck. There was no one in the back, but there were stacks of money and no one to keep him honest. Riley stepped inside the back of the truck.
“Riley, what are you doing?” Jade called out. She walked around to the back and saw Riley scooping stacks of bills into a large canvas sack. When it was almost full, he cinched the top and chucked it outside.
“Grab that,” he said.
Jade just stood there not knowing what to do. Riley grabbed another large canvas bag and stuffed it to the brim. When it was full, he lobbed it over his shoulder and carried it out.
“What are you doing?” Jade asked again.
“What does it look like, I’m takin
g these.”
Riley tossed the other bag that was on the ground over his shoulder.
“Come on,” he demanded as he disappeared in a back alley under the guise of night.
Seconds later, the paramedics arrived.
Chapter Two
Riley and Jade continued toward their apartment, which was only a few blocks away. They took back alleys until they got closer to their building. Once they reached their block, they were in the clear.
“Riley, why did you take this money?” Jade inquired.
“I thought it was going to burn in the fire.”
“What fire?”
“Jade, the truck was about to go up in flames any moment. Don’t worry, it’s just a couple thousand dollars, nobody will miss it. Besides, they have insurance for this type of thing.”
“I don’t agree with stealing!” Jade protested.
“Jade, what do you want me to do, I can’t exactly give it back.”
“You shouldn’t have taken it in the first place.”
“Well, I did, so that’s the situation we have to deal with now.”
“You can always give it back.”
“No, that’s not going to happen. Look, everything happens for a reason, right? We’re the benefactors of being in the right place at the right time. It’s God’s will!”
“God’s will? I doubt God wanted us to steal sacks of money.”
“Why not, it’s karma. We rescued those men, and for that we are rewarded.”
They reached their apartment and were still arguing. “Jade, look around. You deserve a better life than this. You wait tables to low-life scum who can’t even afford to pay for the already discounted crap that you guys serve. We live in a rundown 70 year old building that is infested with spiders and we are struggling. Didn’t you always want to go back to school?”
Jade didn’t respond.
“Well, here’s your chance,” Riley continued.
Riley dumped both sacks of money in the middle of the living room floor. It was immediately clear that it was more than a couple thousand dollars. There was a small mountain of bills on the floor, which was more than Riley had even anticipated. Yellow bands with the number $10,000 written on them were wrapped around stacks of 100 dollar bills, and there was a lot of them.
“Oh my god!” Riley said, unable to contain his excitement. He dove into the pile of money and started screaming with joy. He wriggled around in the money like a pig in mud. He tossed several stacks of money in the air. Jade was ambivalent about the situation. She knew taking the money was wrong, but she couldn’t help but think of all the possibilities that it opened up. She could finally quit her crumby job and go back to school to be a nurse.
It was past 12:30 a.m. In all their excitement, they paid little regard for the neighbours. Three heavy thuds echoed from beyond the walls indicating to keep the noise down.
“Look, Jade, we found this fair and square. If it was a lost puppy with no tags, you’d want to keep it, right?”
“That is completely different!”
Riley grabbed two stacks of money, one in each hand, and put them together imitating a dog’s mouth. “Ruff! Ruff!”
Jade smiled.
“What do you say, can we keep it?” Riley said.
“Let’s hang onto it for a few days and we’ll see how it goes.”
Riley sprang up to his knees and grabbed Jade, pulling her down in the money. They both laid on their backs staring up at the stained ceiling. Riley grabbed a random stack of bills and held it up.
“See this? This is an entire year’s rent of our new apartment. Oh, and this…” he said holding up another stack. “This is new furniture. Wait… and this…” he said grabbing yet another random stack of bills. “This is first year tuition at university… the good one, not the crappy community college down the street.”
Chapter Three
The money was stuffed back in the canvas bags and stashed under their bed. They weren’t exactly sure how much it was, but by rough estimate, it was over a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Riley had a hard time sleeping. It was like a kid trying to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. He tossed and turned with excitement. All he could think about was how lucky he was and what he would do with all the money, the kind of cars he would buy, the house he would live in, all the exotic places in the world he would visit. Visions of jet skis, dirt bikes, and skidoos danced through his head.
When morning came, Riley went straight for the money. He dragged both sacks into the middle of the living room and dumped out the contents into one big pile. Jade put on her housecoat and followed him out. It truly seemed like Christmas morning.
“Okay, let’s begin counting. We’ll divide this up and…” Just then, there was a knock on the door.
Riley’s heart just about stopped.
“Who is that?” Riley said in a hushed tone.
“I have no idea.”
Jade walked over to the door and peered through the peephole. The person on the other side had their thumb covering the hole so she couldn’t see who it was.
“Who is it?” she asked, still looking through the hole.
“It’s me, Dieffer.”
“What do you want Dieffer?”
“Is that any way to treat your neighbour? Are you going to open up and let me in?”
“It’s 9 a.m., Riley and I were up late last night and are still sleeping.”
“How could you be sleeping, when you’re standing on the other side of the door talking to me?”
“Go away, Dieffer.”
Jade walked back in the living room and said. “It was Jay Dieffer.”
“It’s 9 a.m., what does he want?”
“Not sure, I told him that we were still sleeping.”
“Good.”
Riley had partitioned the money into two messy piles and had already begun counting his pile. He organized the stacks in piles of ten thousands, and already had four piles.
Jade tightened the belt on her housecoat and squatted down next to her pile. She had yet to say anything negative about the money.
They continued to separate the money into easy to count stacks. There was so much money that Riley changed his strategy.
“I think we should make the stacks a larger denomination.”
“Like what?”
“I’m going to do 50 grand.”
“Alright.”
It took about thirty minutes to arrange the money. When they were done, the money was laid out in rows – ten rows across and five rows down.
“So how much is there?” Jade asked.
“I’m not sure, I need a calculator… do we have a calculator?”
“There might be one in the drawer.”
“Forget it, Jade, you’re good with numbers, how much is this?”
“Umm… Let’s see,” she said, as she studied the money with an intense look. “Okay, so each stack is worth fifty grand… 10 x 5 is 50… so divide that in two and you get 25…”
Riley watched on in confusion. He was a musician and did not have a lot of practice with numbers. Jade on the other hand had to deal with numbers on a daily basis. She had to cash out at the end of each night and was constantly adding numbers in her head.
“Okay, I think I got it,” she said.
“So, how much are we looking at?”
“Two point five.”
“Million?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she said, as she re-did her math.
Riley delayed celebration until it was official. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m positive. Look, we have 50 piles of money - ten across and five down, right?”
“Right.”
“And 50 times 50,000 is easy math.”
“It is?”
“Yeah, all you do is take 5 x 5 to get 25, then add five zeros and you get 2.5 million.”
“Oh my god! I can’t believe it! We’re millionaires! WE’RE RICH - WE’RE RICH - WE’RE RICH!” Riley said as he dan
ced around the room.
This time Jade got caught up in the excitement as well.
Chapter Four
Riley had always been the cautious one so his mind started to think in terms of keeping the money.
“We should check the news to see if they mention anything about the money,” Riley said.
“We don’t have a TV.”
“We’ll go out and get a paper.”
“It won’t be in the paper. This happened last night past midnight and the papers are already printed up by 5 a.m., we’ll have to wait for Wednesday’s paper.
“I have to work tonight, should I quit?”
“No, you can’t quit yet, we need to lay low and pretend our situation hasn’t changed. If news gets out that 2.5 million dollars went missing in this neighbourhood, they’re going to look for people who suddenly start acting like they have a lot of money.”
“Like people who quit their jobs, move to a better neighbourhood, and pay their tuition in cash?”
“Exactly.”
“So how long do we have to lay low for?”
“I don’t know, maybe a couple of months.”
“Look, we can still spend money on some stuff, we just can’t go crazy.”
“So what do you suggest?” Jade asked.
“We continue to do what we always do, except we eat better, maybe buy some new shoes – stuff like that.”
“So we’re not moving?”
“Not yet, we gotta wait until this all blows over. No one can suspect a thing.”
“So where are we going to keep the money? Shouldn’t we put it in a safe?”
“We don’t own a safe, and if we suddenly have one delivered to us, it’s going to be really heaty.”
“So where then?”
“I say we take five grand each and stash it around the house. That will be our spending money. The rest we will put it in a large Rubbermaid bin and tape it shut.”
“Tape it shut, that doesn’t exactly sound secure.”
“It’s not, but we’ll mark it Christmas Decorations and hide it under the bed. We can upgrade the locks on the front door, but that’s about it. Anytime we are not home, we just have to pray that someone doesn’t break in and need Christmas decorations.
“I don’t like the idea of that,” Jade said.
“Well, what do you suggest we do? Last night you didn’t want the money, now you don’t want to lose it.”
“I’m conflicted. Now that I have it, it would be a shame to just give it back. Besides, this money probably belongs to some bank, and they’re not going to miss it.”
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