Found Money

The Waffle Shoppe on the corner of Lancaster and 2nd street had been a fixture in the southern California neighborhood for decades. Its grey cinderblock walls were cloaked in dirt and grime, the roof sagged, and the parking lot was cracked and pitted. The neon sign on top of the building flickered weakly, with only the W, S, and one P working.

Four beat up cars and one ancient pickup truck sat in the lot that night, none of them from the current decade. In the weak yellow light from the sign Pete and Jake crossed the lot, skirted the pickup and slouched through the door. The bell that used to jingle cheerily when someone entered clanked dully against the door frame, announcing their arrival. Pete sniffed and nodded at Nate who was the cook.

“Sup boys?” Nate said as he passed a plate through the window to sit under the warmer. He’d seen the two before, but he had no idea what their names were.

“Not much, Nate,” Pete said. Jake just smiled and nodded. They slipped into a booth with chunks missing from the faded red bench seats.

“OK so what you got?” Pete, the taller of the two said, dumping a couple dollar bills and some change on the table. Jake shrugged sheepishly and dropped a few coins on the table.

“Nice that’ll help a lot,” Pete said. He counted the money, pushed an old arcade token and a cracked button across the table to Jake with a glare, and sighed. Sharon, the forty-something redhead who had been a server there as long as the two could remember, passed by and slid two red plastic cups of water with a few ice cubes in them onto the table. She looked at Jake and his meager handful of money and raised an eyebrow.

“Hi Sharon. Two plate of hash browns, with gravy and cheese,” Pete said.

“Wait, no bacon?” Jake asked.

“You can’t afford bacon, cheap ass,” Pete responded, looking up at Sharon, “I’ll take coffee too.” Jake scowled and looked hurt.

Sharon rolled her eyes, wrote their order down and clipped it the chef’s window behind the counter. She poured Pete his coffee and set it down beside his water. As she walked away, she shook her head. She’d seen the two in here dozens of times and knew they spent most of their money on staying high most of the time. She thought they were a cut above the rest of the meth heads, though. They actually tipped her when they could, which wasn’t that often. It put them on her good list.

Pete was watching Jake who was digging at something in the seat cushion. They had been best friends since high school, and they did just about everything together. Most of the time, Jake was cool, but sometimes, Pete wished that he wasn’t stuck always have to be the brains of the operation. He sighed and kicked Jake under the table, “What are you doing?”

“There’s something over here,” Jake reached farther under the bench, and pulled something out. His eyes got big, and he laid a leather pouch on the table. It was a little bigger than a half sheet of paper and looked like it was made of black leather with a zipper across the top to keep it closed. It also seemed very full. Pete grabbed it and hid it under his side of the table, glaring across at Jake.

“Are you nuts?” He looked around to make sure no one had seen. It wasn’t just that it was someone’s property. They both knew who this belonged to, and what was usually inside it. Pete had seen it every week for over a year, and just having it in his hands made him start sweating.

“Is that his?” Jake asked in a loud whisper.

Pete licked his lips and nodded without looking at it. “Yeah, it’s his.”

He and Jake had been dealing weed and meth for most of their post-dropout lives. For the last eighteen months or so, they had been working for a new guy, Hector. All Pete knew about Hector was that he had good product, and he was a bad dude. You sold what he gave you, you paid the man, and life was good. If you didn’t, bad things happened. Jake had sported a broken arm for awhile last year because they had been a few dollars short. They had not been short since.

“Let’s get out of here,” Pete said. Jake nodded and slid out of the booth. Pete left their cash and coins on the table. He stuffed the pouch down into his hoodie and waved at Sharon as they headed for the door.

“Sorry Sharon, we gotta go – money is on the table.” He smiled weakly and pushed Jake ahead of him and out the door.

Sharon shook her head and watched them leave, then collected the cash from the table. She shrugged at Nate, who tossed the two orders of hash browns in the trash and went back to work.

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Twenty minutes later, the two sat on the couch in the cramped apartment they called home and stared at the pouch. It was on a TV tray they had scrounged from another buddy of theirs. Beside it was a small black notebook that had been in the pouch, a flip phone, and a stack of bills. The bills had been rolled up and wrapped with rubber bands, and Pete has just finished counting for the third time.

“$20,000. That’s what I got all three times,” Pete sat back and bit his lip, staring at the cash.

“Damn dude, we’re rich!” Jake was smiling, and he reached out to touch the cash.

Pete slammed his hand down over Jake’s. “Just let me think for a minute. Don’t touch anything yet. Just hang on!” Jake looked hurt and pulled his hand back but sat back with his arms crossed.

The black notebook was a nice one, one of those unlined notebooks that writers use and it was full of notations written in neat, block handwriting. He flipped through the pages and found dated entries for them as well as all the other dealers Hector had working for him. He had seen Hector write in this notebook every time the met them.

“We can’t keep this, Jake.” He looked over at Jake and shook his head.

Jake wasn’t having it. “He’s never gonna know we found it, man! I mean it was just there, sitting in plain sight! Anyone could have taken it!”

“Yeah but, think about it. If he ever found out it was us, we’d be dead.” He looked up at Pete, “It’s not enough money for me to risk dying, bud.”

Jake was shaking his head back-and-forth. He leaned forward to argue but stopped when the flip phone started vibrating. The two of them jumped as if they had been hit with a cattle prod, both staring at the phone. It buzzed again and they just stared at it.

“What do we do?” Jake asked in a forced whisper.

“I don’t know!” Pete knew it was Hector calling, but he also knew answering the phone was not a good idea. They both watched the phone until it quit vibrating. As soon as it stopped, it began again. Finally, after what seemed like forever it quit. They stared at each other and Pete shook his head again, “We need to think about this before we do anything.”

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Hector Ramirez hung up the phone. He hadn’t thought it would be answered, but it was worth a shot. He had returned to the Waffle Shoppe and had just looked in the booth for the pouch. Sharon watched as he searched the entire booth, looking behind and under the cushions and on the floor.

“Lose something?” she asked. Hector scowled and waved at her.

“I thought I did but it’s not here.” Seething inside, he calmly walked over to the counter. “Did you see a small leather pouch? I left it in that booth earlier tonight.”

“Sorry, no I didn’t see it,” Sharon said. She had seen Hector with Pete and Jake before, but something told her to keep her mouth shut about them being here earlier. Hector started at her long enough to make her uncomfortable. It didn’t help that he had two goons with him who were searching all the other booths. She spoke louder so they could all hear her, “There’s no reason to trash the place – if we had found it, I’d have it here by the register!”

Hector smiled and raised his hands in a “Hey it’s all good!” gesture, then whistled sharply. His goons immediately stopped searching and joined him. He still had a smile on his face, but his eyes were not smiling as he stared at her. “It’s very important that I find it, so will you let me know if you see it? It’s about this big,” he showed her with his hands, then reached into his pocket and handed her a card. A quick glance revealed that it just said “H. Ramirez” with his phone number.

“Yes, I’ll let you know if we find it.”

“Thanks Sharon,” he said, pointing at her name tag. He and his goons pushed through the doors and were gone. She leaned against the counter and dropped his card into the pocket of her apron. Nate walked through the kitchen double doors and asked, “You OK?”

“Yeah, I’m OK,” she said a bit shakily, “I just hope those two who were in here earlier don’t have what he’s looking for. If they do, I don’t think it’ll end well for them.”

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“Look we have to get this back to Hector, and he has to know we found it. We’ll score bigtime bonus points with him!” Pete had been saying the same thing in various ways for almost an hour, trying to get Jake to agree.

“Fine!” Jake finally said, throwing up his hands and sinking back into the sofa cushions. Pete raised his eyebrows.

“Fine? So, you get it finally? I mean we couldn’t even really spend it, ‘cus he’d find out, you know?”

“Yeah I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it, dammit!”

“OK, so the next time that phone rings, I’m going to answer it and talk to him. We’ll be his heroes.”

Jake looked sullenly at him, but grudgingly nodded yes. “This really sucks, Pete!”

“Yeah it does, but we don’t have much choice.”

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Outside the Waffle Shoppe, Hector stared into the darkness. He motioned for his men to follow, and headed across the parking lot to his ride, a new Cadillac Escalade. They were almost to it when three trucks pulled into the lot and screeched to a halt. Before they could come to a full stop, doors were flung open and men stepped out, weapons ready. Impaled by the truck headlights, Hector yelled, “Corriendo – Run!” to his men, and dove to the ground, crawling under his Escalade. Both men turned towards the trucks, drawing their weapons and were cut down in a hail of bullets. Six men from the trucks had opened fire, and quickly mowed Hector’s men down.

Hector had made it behind the Escalade, and he had his 9mm pistol drawn. He was panting, but had not been hit. The men had stopped firing. He couldn’t see his men, but he assumed they were both dead. He cursed his luck, because normally he would have had more men with him, but he had only taken the two he trusted most to help him find the bag.

“Hector! Come out, amigo!”

Hector knew that voice, and he also knew that barring a miracle, he was most likely a dead man.

“Alonzo, I don’t think I’ll come out. It doesn’t seem like you’re here to talk!”

“Ah, well, you always were perceptive Hector. Here’s the thing – come out and let’s have a chat. I’m not asking, I’m telling you. Don’t forget, I know where your family lives in Mexico. I’d hate for something to happen to them!”

Hector sighed. He stood tall and walked around the Escalade with his hands in the air. Two of Alonzo’s men approached and took his weapon, checking to make sure he didn’t have another gun on him. Across the parking lot Alonzo stood with his gun in his hand, flanked by several well-armed men.

“It’s over, Hector.“ Alonzo walked closer, his boots clicking on the pavement. “While you were here having waffles, my men raided your operation.” He smiled and spread his arms wide, dark eyes flashing, “It’s all mine now!” He stepped closer to Hector who was still flanked by two of Alonzo’s men and reached out to pat Hector on the shoulder. “Don’t be angry, my friend. It’s just business. We did have to kill some of your men, but that was to be expected. But, what I said before - I’d never hurt your family, you know that!”

Still smiling, Alonzo raised his pistol and shot Hector point blank between the eyes. Hector’s body crumpled to the ground, and Alonzo stepped back and motioned for his men to get back in their trucks. “Vamanos!” He tucked his pistol into his slacks and climbed back into his truck. Within thirty seconds, the parking lot was empty, except for the bodies of Hector and his men.

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Pete woke up and groggily rubbed his eyes. He sat bolt upright when he realized the light outside meant it was well into mid-morning. The TV was muted but still on from last night. The phone from the pouch was beside him, and it had not buzzed all night as far as he knew. He checked it, and the last call was the one they had not answered earlier.

He rolled off the sofa and walked sleepily over to Jake who was passed out on the floor half covered by a towel he had found nearby. He shook him roughly.

“Jake, hey man, wake up!” Jake mumbled something, and tried to pull the towel over his head and go back to sleep. Pete shook him again, “Jake!”

Jake rolled over and rubbed his eyes, “What? Did he call?”

“No, he didn’t call yet,” Pete said, “and that’s weird.”

Jake, who was a bit more awake agreed, “Yeah I wonder why not?” Pete didn’t answer, so Jake opened his eyes all the way.

“Shut up!” Pete was holding a hand up, with the remote in one hand, and making a shushing motion at Jake. He unmuted the TV, which showed a picture of cops outside the Waffle Shoppe. The newscaster chick who Jake thought was pretty hot was talking.

“Police are not sure who committed the murders, but they do have the identity of at least one of the victims. Hector Ramirez, a known drug dealer and two other men were found dead in the parking lot of the Waffle Shoppe on Lancaster.”

They both stared at the television until the segment about the shootings was over, then they looked at each other.

“Whoa,” Jake was still half-awake, “Hector’s dead?”

“Yeah, looks like it,” Pete said. He looked over at the bag on the TV tray and then back at Jake. “Know what that means, buddy?”

Jake smiled, “We just got $20,000 richer?”

Pete smiled and nodded his head. “Yeah, I think we did.

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Two hours later, the two sat on a bench outside the bus station. Both of them carried backpacks that didn’t have much in them, just some clothes and a few other things. They knew buying a ticket across the country with no luggage would look weird, so they had brought the bags. Pete had the money in his backpack, tucked deep inside.

Neither of them had heard more about Hector, and no one had come looking for them.

“I don’t think he passed on the names of his dealers to his bosses,” said Pete had said before they left the house. “That’s why he kept the notebook, and we’ve got it, so I think we’re good.”

They had quickly gathered their things and left the house, walking to the bus station. Pete had a brother who lived in Detroit, and they both agreed that would be a great place to go.

“I don’t think anyone is looking for us, but just in case, I’d rather be as far away as possible.” Jake agreed, and so they waited, each of them lost in their own thoughts about spending their half of the $20,000. After awhile, their bus arrived, and they waited until they could climb aboard. The bus pulled away, fumes pouring from its exhaust, heading toward Detroit