Inheritance

James tugged at the jacket of the man lying face up in the snow, the eerie stillness of the cooling body, still pliable, something he hardly dared touch, but a place he had to go. The corner of the small black notebook edged out of the inside pocket and was just visible. James grasped the corner and slid it out, it was a small, black, leather-fronted notebook, with grubby page edges from constant handling, the leaves thickened by touch and held together with a thin fraying band as it was stretched with the content. He unwrapped the band and eagerly looked into the pages, the tantalizing hope of finally being able to solve the riddle of his fathers inheritance within his grasp.

The old man, of course, had made it a challenge - his wealth, power, and dominion all wrapped up in this little book of memories. If it hadn’t been for a misjudged comment as the patriarch gasped out his final confession, James would have got this book already - instead, Patrick - for he was the body - had somehow known where it lay, grabbed it and ran - resulting in this little side story as James jumped in a car, gunned through the hills around the family estate and eventually used the brute force of steel and wheels to take Patrick down.

With an angry shake, James tugged off the band and sought the phrase that he knew would tackle that damnable safe room, back at the house. “How did it start”, he mused out loud - misting the air as he breathed out his adrenaline from the chase. “Dean’s Love or some such” - it was an odd start, but James was certain this would crack the lock - a simple four digit code, but one with only two attempts left to get it right (James had already wasted the first) - he couldn’t believe how stupid the old tech was - given what other security you could get today.

Working quickly, James found the phrase, three couplets that little sense, obviously a code:

“A little trampy woman, less Dean Martin’s love,
“Take just one naught, nil or nothing,
“Add a baker's dozen with all the deadly sins,
“We are more than just number”

“Christ”, he muttered, “This is bloody typical”. Turning, the settling snow drifting onto Patrick’s corpse, James snaked past the crumpled fender on his car and jumped back into the rather chill interior - wishing he’d shut the door before. Gunning the motor, James turned and headed back.

The first line was pretty obvious to James, his father loved Dean Martin and the old crooner’s songs were burned into his brain. Dean’s ‘love’ had to be “Amore” - that 1953 classic that was on so often at home that it wrapped around you like an old friend. ‘53 had to mean something - as much as some trampy woman - but who… of course, Dean had a friend there - Lady and the Tramp had come out around the same time hadn’t it? So Dean Martin’s love, less a trampy lady, had to mean something about the songs, taking away from each other right?

Stopping, James grabbed his mobile and thumbed in ‘lady and the tramp’ into the search - in a couple of ticks, the results came, showing the film as being released in 1955. “1955-1953 - is 2” - could that be the start? Feeling sure it was, James glanced back at the notebook page and turned his mind to the second line as he drove on - just a few turns from the main gate now and soon to be rolling up the length drive.

Now, why were there only three couplets, but four digits? Thought James as he let his back brain mull over the phrase. Now there were three zero’s and a one in that line - “Take just one, naught, nil or nothing” - but it had to mean 1 or zero - either you take just one or you take one of the naught, nil or nothing? James was willing to bet that it was the simpler thing, just a single ‘naught, nil, or nothing’ - Zero then. Grinning at his quick thinking, James pulled up by the front door - the priest, and Sarah, his wife, looking searchingly as he stepped out from the, now warm, car.

“Did you get it?” asked Sarah? The priest, looking concerned from his earlier mistake, echoed the question. James nodded and threw the notebook to Sarah. “It’s few pages in, look for Dean Martin.” - Sarah flipped them to find the words.

“I think the first number is 2, and then 0, but we’ve got more to work out - the last line might be easier than I think - can you work it out?”

Sarah jumped in with “Baker’s dozen - 13.” - James nodded, an easy one.

“Seven deadly Sin’s” remarked the priest, who had been spying over Sarah’s shoulder as she’d read the odd little poem.

“Putting them together is 20” jumped in James. “So that gives us 2, 0, 20. That has to be a bit of a joke! 2020, was nearly thirty years ago!”

Quickly, they all sped over to the safe and with careful entry, James tapped in the numbers. Nothing seemed to happen and the safe just looked back at them - the single eye of its handle gently mocking their attempt. “Seriously!” Started James angrily, “Why doesn’t it work?”.

“Did you miss something”, asked Sarah, “Let me check… there’s one more line you know?”

“What?”, insisted James.

“We are more than just number”, she replied.

James considered this last phrase. What kind of numeric keypad doesn’t have a number? Looking back over to the safe, James saw that there were two possible options here, * and # - keypad keys weren’t just numbers.

“It’s an odd phrase”, intoned the priest, “Why does it say number and not numbers?”.

James looked back at the keypad and immediately tapped the # key. “Simple, # means number - it probably just needed something to finish the code”. However, there was no magic clunk, instead there was a subtle buzz and the display reset.

“What the f---”, started James as he realised the attempt had failed. This left only more go - or else those little stacks of paper - mere inches away, behind a thick wall of steel and god knows what else (his father had always managed nasty little tricks for such things). “Oh, shit” he muttered and cast about to the others. “It didn’t work, what do we do?”.

Sarah looked up and quizzed “One more go?” James nodded. “What was so special about 2020?” he countered?

Together they reached for their phones and in a couple of taps had search results buzzing around. “There was some fluff about a virus”, said James - the priest looked at him sharply - “It was more than fluff!”, he said a little huffily - a lot of people died back then - who would have thought that a simple virus could do more to stop the world than any threat of war.”

“Black Lives Matter”, said Sarah, “That was big too, as was some odd-ball president called Trump.” - Didn’t your father contribute something there? She asked.

James nodded, “He was a right idiot about that - dropped a mil into the campaign and got nothing back - the guy only lasted a term.”

Sarah tapped a few bits more - “Man, he was quite a thing on the ‘net - way too many things were said by this one”.

James thought for a moment, “He got some weird hat - can you see if anything comes up?”

“Make America Great Again”, queried Sarah? That’s all over the place on this lot.

Excitedly, James said - “That's the one! MAGA - god, i remember that now. The old fella kept on droning on about how this was going to change the world, that someone was finally showing everyone how to do it and how much he wished we’d do that here.”

“What the hell do MAGA and 2020 mean for some safe code,'' asked Sarah?

“God knows? Don’t tell me there is a whole other code we’ve missed?” grumbled James.

Sarah looked over at the safe, and back at James - “Can I try?”

James looked at her for a long moment and then nodded with a cold, wry grin, “If this goes wrong, we have nothing.” Sarah stared back unflinchingly and then confidently stepped over to the safe and tapped in 6, 2, 4, 2, # and with a thick clunk, the lock disengaged.

“How the hell” --- “Really James!” snapped the priest jokingly, but quickly stopped as he saw his face.

Sarah turned her phone around to James and showed him the keypad - a hangover from a few years back when people still used numbers as the main contact rather than other means to call each other - these days more of a throwback for the metro chic. James immediately saw the answer - 6, 2, 4, 2 spelt MAGA on the keys. He growled at the simplicity - but really it took knowing his father to understand that thought process.

He spun the handle and with a practised ease, the door slid open on the weight of it’s metal, and there, in little neat stacks across several shelves were piles and piles of notes - money as old as… “Oh damn!” said James, pawing out several stacks - “It’s old money!”. Sarah looked at the priest in consternation. “What do you mean?” they chorused.

James frantically pawed out more stacks, the notes floating onto the floor as he busily scoured the piles. Then Sarah, who had picked up one of the notes, realised what was wrong. “Old money!” she exclaimed and pushed over to help James claw through the lot as he desperately sought something that had some value.

In a short order, wedges of notes spilling out across the room - James, and Sarah, came to the realisation that this safe room was nothing - a million, million pieces of rubbish - only really good for disposal. This money was 30 years out of date and it didn’t mean anything to anyone, even a museum!

As the moment of realisation came onto James, he began to laugh softly, a toneless edge betraying his annoyance - and picked up a few handfuls of notes, throwing them up in the air and watching them cascade about, like some old rap video moment. “The old bastard always said I didn’t need the money, you know - I guess he really did mean it. F-----.” - he spat out the last expletive with feeling.

Sarah looked wary, she had heard that edge before and the last time had cost more than one she cared for. James had a side to him that was the product of his father, you didn’t get his kind of riches honestly - not that she wanted to know, really, what went on.

“Why don’t I go fix a drink - there must be something we missed?” she cajoled and stepped towards the door to reach the bar.

James grimaced a nod and looked over at the priest. “Did you know?” he asked quietly - a subtle menace in those three words that pricked the flight responses in Sarah’s head. But the priest didn’t look panicked, just calm - his demeanour changing from a cowering persona to that of a confident, well, killer, marvelled James.

“He had to know James” - stated the priest blankly - “Was it just the riches, or could you do more?”

Before he could answer. James saw the brief flash of something nastily familiar, before the clear blankness of nothing came down - not even noticing the second thud as Sarah’s body hit the floor.

Reaching down, the priest plucked the little black notebook from Sarah’s hands and slipped a slim chip from the spine. From a pocket, he pulled out a lighter and snatched up a fistful of the old money - quickly lighting the edges before dumping the burning notes onto the rest of the safe - turning, the soft roar of fast burning paper reaches his ears as he strides away from the greedy pair.