Not As I Do

The early morning rush for caffeine always has its casualties.

Seven AM on the dot, and the man in the white hat is about to cross the café’s snowy threshold. Another man, politely sitting on the sidewalk dressed in a dark old jacket and smelling of sweat, stands to hold the door open.

“Mighty kind of you,” the man in the white hat says and he hands the man a five-dollar bill. Kindness is currency, but money gets food in your belly.

The bustling café is all steamed milk and espresso, and immediately the man could tell there were new hands behind the bar. He steps neatly out of the way of a young barista bustling to hand a sitting customer her almond milk cappuccino.

“Sorry!” she chimes at him as she places the mug on the booth’s table, leaving foam to collect on its surface.

The man smiles and nods, opting to keep his white hat safely on his head until he found a place to sit. The new proprietor of the cappuccino gracefully stands from her minuscule booth. Out of nowhere, the barista returns to wipe the table before he can sit and knocks the expensive beverage to the floor.

“Don’t worry about it,” the lady in business attire says through bright red lips and curly hair. She seems hurried and strides out the door and into the streets without looking back.

The man smiles quietly to himself as he plops heavily onto the padded seat. He frowns as he feels a sharp corner digging into his right thigh. Confused, he palpates the seat blindly until he pulls a nondescript black notebook from within the booth seat’s cushions.

“What on Earth?” he mumbles as he thumbs open the front cover.

Just then, the innocent barista returns to take his order. He startles guiltily and shuts the book.

“Just a black coffee for me, please,” he says with a wide smile. He leaves a five-dollar bill on the table and tells her to keep the change. Once the coffee is securely placed on the table, he takes off his white hat and returns his attention to the mysterious black notebook.

He is a curious man. That is what has led him to be so good at his profession, his inquisitive nature and propensity for meticulously thought-out judgments.

Surely, he can figure out the contents of this notebook. The pages are filled with numbers and symbols, meaningless to him but of great value to someone else. But to whom? Almond milk cappuccino lady?

He takes a long sip of his coffee and continues to investigate. Carefully folded between two pages is a piece of thin paper. Delicately, he pulls it out and unfolds it away from the gaze of potential onlookers.

He starts coughing as the coffee goes towards his lungs instead of his esophagus.

It is a cheque, a bonda fide, handwritten cheque. Neatly written in black cursive were the wondrous words twenty thousand dollars.

Who was this person? A banker? An accountant? The only name on the cheque is that of a company he is not familiar with. The signature is a scribbled mess. Most conspicuously, the name of the recipient is nowhere to be seen. The line was blank.

Instantly, his level of suspicion rises. He did not spend all those years behind the gavel not to be able to recognize possible illegal transactions. Perhaps the book will give him a clue.

He carefully slides the cheque beneath his white hat and brings his full attention to the black notebook before him.

What could these numbers mean? He chooses a page at random and focuses on the first few lines. With all the decimal points, these could feasibly be monetary transactions. Most consisted of amounts in the hundreds of dollars, a few in the thousands.

The previous occupant of his booth swiftly comes to mind. True, she dressed as well as any businesswoman, but her make-up was too bright (that lip shade of red, goodness), and her hair too wild to work behind a professional desk.

The clumsy barista returns with a shy smile, asking if the man needs a top-up of his coffee. He nods absently, then asks: “The woman sitting here before me… does she come here often?”

She shrugs apologetically. “I’ve only been here for two weeks, but she’s here every Thursday morning and sits in the same spot.”

Interesting. As she saunters off to make a latté, the man returns to his study of the enigmatic notebook.

What if that lady is not what she seemed? Perhaps this café is a safe location for her transactions. In this part of town, cocaine and girls are the name of the game for the Wall Street sharks and their minions. After all, seven in the morning is never too early for a little powder with your side of coffee and eggs.

He takes another long gulp of his hot, black coffee, turning the pages back to where he found the hefty cheque. The numbers stop midway through the page, and the man wonders if he would have seen the twenty-thousand-dollar transaction in the book if he had found it one week from today.

Thankfully, he never got on the bandwagon of booze, girls, and drugs. He is happily married, enjoys a neat scotch now and then, and only takes prescription pills to fall asleep. He makes more money than he needs, with a good chunk of it safely stowed in the Caribbean.

Do I report this? he wonders, fingering the edges of his white hat. He sips some coffee, hoping it will give him the inspiration he needs.

He imagines reporting the book and cheque to the local authorities. He, a man of good-standing and prestige, coming forward and disclosing information that could ultimately lead to a crack in a case, a promotion for some young buck looking to cut their teeth in detective work, justice for victims of potentially forced sex-work or drug trafficking.

Maybe his would be the hand presiding over court-proceedings in that distant future, his last big case before retirement.

Oh, but the paperwork! he laments internally.

Or worse- what if the authorities turned their gaze to him? God knows the media and public love the story of a good judge gone rogue. In the court of public opinion, he would be tried, judged, and sentenced mercilessly at the mere whisper of a man of his stature engaged in covert affairs.

He picks up his cup but finds it empty. He looks around; his innocent barista is nowhere in sight. Slowly, deliberately, he slides another five-dollar bill under his cup before slipping the mysterious twenty-thousand-dollar cheque into his wallet.

The notebook? He tucks it discretely back into the cushions of the booth seat, right where he found it. No harm, no foul.

Do as I say, he thinks to himself.

The only casualty this day will be a stranger’s shady business.