It was the kind of road nothing ever happened on. Maybe that was why Anton and Maria had moved out this way all those years ago. It was quiet out here. A nice little place for them to retire to-trees and empty farmland.
It was her dream to own a farm before she died. They squeezed up what little money they had and came out here. She enjoyed the place for a week and dropped dead. The clot moved fast. They couldn’t do anything about it.
Something inside him still ached when he thought about it. He thought he’d be over it four years later. He never stopped feeling guilty over her heart.
If he’d had insurance, he reminded himself one more time, maybe she could’ve gotten help. Maybe she still had a chance. Maybe it would’ve gotten sucked out and they could’ve spent a few more years on the farm. Maybe if he’d had the money, if his harvests stop failing, he could’ve bought her a better grave.
It was bad to think of this while driving. His eyes always got watery. His vision got clouded. His car drifted to the right. The rotting fence drifted closer.
He almost rear-ended the car on the side of the road. It wouldn’t have hurt much, anyway. It wasn’t like he was going fast.
Anton stopped a foot from the bumper. Another tap on the pedal and he’d take them both into the ditch. The back of the Cadillac was flawless. Sleek, shining, beautiful black. Maybe the guy was still alive. If he could afford a car like this he probably got some good money. Maybe he’d give Anton a couple grand for being a good Samaritan and helping.
Anton got out of the car fast. He slammed his door hard as he could. The sound echoed across the grass. Birds flew in a hurry. Wind stirred the field the moment he started walking. Like something wanted him to keep going.
The Caddy was sexy as shit. Two-tone black/red paint glowed in the empty sun. New tires with the kinda rims that spin when they move.
He almost ran his hand down the side doors. If he wasn’t looking going past the driver’s door he would’ve cut his hand open on the sheet metal stuck out jagged.
If the back end was a beauty then the front was a nightmare. Everything from the bumper to the windshield was wrapped around the lightpole hanging by its last splinter, as if the car’d been here first and the pole just grew through it. There wasn’t much smoke. Just a faint sizzling sound and something dripping somewhere under the car.
The dash looked intact. The guy slumped over the steering wheel did too. Maybe he was just sleeping. His window was rolled down. He enjoyed the country air an awful lot. Anton knocked on the door.
“You okay buddy?”
No response. He knocked on the roof above him, the sound hollow like a coffin.
Nothing but the breeze and the hissing and the drip-drip.
Time to see if the guy had a pulse. Or a phone so he could call for help.
Anton opened the door slow. Too fast and the guy could slump out and fall to the ground. The guy didn’t move. The car gave an annoying chime Anton could see the stick in drive across the chrome dash.
Anton nudged on the guy’s shoulder. His neck flip-flopped with it before slipping back down.
“You’re not okay are you?”
No response.
“Gimme a phone or something, my friend, I can help you, don’t you worry.”
Anton was worrying enough for the two of them. His heart was racing into stroke territory. He pulled him back and the driver thudded back on the cushion. The guy’s nose was as crumpled as his hood, a pulp mess. It started making a dripping sound too.
Anton held the guy’s hands in his lap so he couldn’t start throwing punches when he woke. He put his ear on his mouth. The driver didn’t twitch. Didn’t breathe. No heartbeat. Just a Caddy wrapped around a pole and a well-dressed man slumped over its seat.
Time to go through his pockets. Find that phone. It had to be somewhere in his suit. He didn’t see one anywhere on the mahogany dash. He started on the outside pockets. Nothing in the left one, on top his left chest. He tugged to reach the right side. A few crumpled ones, a mint still in the wrapper. He left them.
The white shirt lacked a chest pocket. Only color on it was blood from his crumpled nose.
Didn’t suits like this usually have pockets on the inside? Anton pulled the left side back to have a look. His heart raced in his chest. Anton waited for a breath, a shout, a hand cold on his arm. A gun on his head.
Anton pulled out a cigarette case. Maybe four inches tall, thick, tough, shining right in his eyes. Anton put it on the seat and went back to looking. He shuddered. His hand hit the slide of the gun.
It was in one of those shoulder holsters. It was one of those tiny James Bond guns with the short barrels and silver skin.
The guy wouldn’t be needing it. The gun felt alien in Anton’s hand. He put it on the roof and went back to looking. The sun hurt his eyes and he squeezed them shut.
When he opened them the suitcase perched on the backseat stole his eye. The thing looked thick. Maybe there was a phone in there. The guy seemed classy enough to pull something like that.
There couldn’t be any harm in looking. He kept the driver’s door open with that annoying chime going and the gun on the roof and slid to the back door.
The case was even heavier than it looked in all its chrome glory and thick ridges. Anton couldn’t carry this fucking thing. He was too old for this shit. He dragged it across the leather seat with a slow ripping sound like he was skinning the car.
It fell in the dirt and dust flew. He didn’t bother wiping the sand off. No time. He needed a phone. He needed to find out what the fuck was in this case. He knelt close to it, blue jeans on yellow ground. This thing looked hermetically sealed like a tin can. From first glance he couldn’t tell the difference between one side or another. No lip between, no rubber divide, nothing. It might as well have been made from a solid piece of steel with a handle.
Anton ran his hands down the middle like he was caressing a girl. The latches were hard to find. They were built-in, same color. He had to go over them to make sure they were what he was looking for. He pulled. They thwacked open and stood up. No lock. Good sign. The guy kept it open to get something quick.
Weird. Wouldn’t something important enough for a thousand-dollar metal suitcase with invisible latches at least be locked?
Maybe this was a trap. A bomb. Anton would open it and it would leave him a red mist on the side of the road.
He opened it and his jaw hit the fucking floor. Hundreds of hundreds, bundled in purple bands. “5,000” times five across times two up and down times…how thick could this thing be?
Anton took the middle wad out of its line, ran his hand through it. They felt slick like it’d just been printed. They smelled fine as perfume. He tilted the pack up to the sun to make sure they were real, hands shaking. The 100 went from yellow to green on its way back down.
“Christ,” he mumbled under his breath again.
A shuffle somewhere near the car. Anton dropped the money in the dust ready to throw his arms up.
No need to lunge at a gun in his face. No need to stammer out an explanation. A coyote darted across the road with its ears pulled and never looked back.
The driver sat dead with his head lolled to the left, mouth hanging open. His door was still ajar. The chime was still going. Anton had to listen hard to hear it now.
He had to get out of here fast. Someone would come here looking for this money. There might be a tracker on the car. Someone would find it with the dead rotting driver wrapped around a pole. He had to take this money. For safe keeping. For the mortgage on the farm. For the kids. For Maria’s new gravestone.
Anton slammed the lid hard enough to wake the dead. Suddenly the case weighed like nothing at all. He ran back to the truck and drove home like something was following him.
***
It wasn’t a big kitchen table, but the case fit on it easy enough, snug square in the middle, the legs creaking under the weight. Anton made sure all doors and windows were shut and locked and turned the AC off to hear any noise. His heart was still thudded in his eyes.
He had to open the case now. He had to believe it wasn’t just a mirage from the sunset. He had to know good things came to those who suffered and waited. He had to know this money was real.
The latches went up easy enough. The top half thudded down and shook the kitchen, rattling glasses. He’d never seen this much money before. Let alone owned it. Let alone have it sit on his kitchen table.
He looked over at the door again, made sure the deadbolt was in its place and the little curtain in the door’s window was pulled in. Everything was set. It was time to get down and busy.
The amount was so goddamn daunting. Counting this thing was gonna be a brain teaser, that’s for sure. No way would he be able to do it in his head.
He dug in his pockets for spare paper. Some receipts, faded-too short, too thin. Business cards he didn’t remember getting. He needed to wash his pants more often. A dollar bill. A piece of yellow notepad, folded up, a pen wrapped inside. He tested it and the pen wrote in bold black ink and the paper didn’t tear.
The purple bands read “5,000”; the 100’s all sticking together. He undid the band and counted them one by one.
He tried to ignore the tremors. He tried to ignore the tears.
Sure enough. Five thousand, one brick. Five across, two rows. All the same number. He counted one in the other row. .Started writing the math under the old shopping list. Five thousand times five times two.
That was the top layer. He got through to the second one underneath. One by one. Movies taught him that they put fakes underneath. It took him a solid half hour to check and count every stack underneath. None were fake. None were uneven. He looked at the numbers scribbled underneath and almost fainted.
One hundred thousand. Even. Ignore the thoughts racing in his head. Ignore what he could do with this money.
Ignore what someone could do to get it back.
Someone would come looking for it, eventually. Better to hide it somewhere close to him. His bed was the easiest answer. He could watch it when he slept and not worry about it.
He ran up wooden stairs in his rugged boots that clapped on the wood. Slammed the door open. Moved the suitcase under the bed-imagine the places they could go-and shoved it across the carpet and behind the travelling rolling case. He fiddled with it till it looked like he’d never touched anything.
He felt fantastic now. This was a cause for celebration.
Sometimes car crashes are more than just accidents.
***
He probably had too much to drink. Anton didn’t wake up till the accent guy talked with the barrel cold on his forehead.
“You know what I’m here for, fokker. Just tell me where and we will have no problem.”
He was Russian. Maybe a Kraut. Anton could never tell.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I wouldn’t fucking believe that myself.
The pistol smashed across his face. A fist slammed into his throat, sucking his breath. A hand grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the bedside table and onto the floor.
Blood dripped from his nose. The blood stained the carpet. His breath came back with a wheeze. Anton laid crumpled over the carnage. The lamp buzzed broken. Everything started hurting. From the bottom he saw the case peeking at him, and it shone in the moonlight.
Black boot with the pants tucked in rolled him on his back and held his chest down over the mess. At least he wasn’t laying over the table anymore.
“Wrong answer,” the voice said above him. Anton’s fingers clawed at the rubber sole crushing his chest. He heard and felt ribs snap like twigs.
“Where.”
He’d learned an old trick a while ago. Back of the kneecap is sensitive. A shard of glass winked in the moonlight an inch from his fingertips. He got it in his right hand, slicing his palm, kept clawing the boot with his left.
Poor fucker didn’t suspect a thing. The shard might’ve been three inches long. He drove every bit into accent guy’s leg. He yelped. Anton pushed up. Accent guy toppled. Anton flew up and got the gun and shot too many bullets.
He made a mess on the floor. Red blood showed black on carpet. Anton’s heart was still racing, his vision blurry. The guy was big. It’d be hard to push him down the stairs and bury him in the yard out back. Maybe Anton would have to cut him up first. There was a website for that kind of thing somewhere. He’d have to look when he came back.
The case had to go first. There must be a tracker in the case somewhere. The guy could stay on the floor for a couple hours, at least. Anton pulled the case out from under the bed and dragged it over the accent guy and carried it down to the truck. It was the only car in the driveway.
Anton took the long dust road back to the wreck way too fast and tossed it in.
The money stayed under the bed.
The car was still there, sure, but the plates were gone. The driver’s seat was empty with his clothes crumpled in a pile.
by 
Matt Mattila
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This was some nice work here Matt. You had me from start to finish. Sal