The Black Book Keeper

Black Book Keeper

During the pandemic of 2020, many people lost jobs and businesses lost the ability to sustain themselves. In Brooklyn, Joe was no different times were tough for a 22-year-old living in an apartment with his best friend. Joe and Chris had known each other since they were in diapers and remained close friends their entire lives. Joe was tall and skinny Caucasian man with brown hair and brown eyes. Chris was a short skinny African American man with an adventurous personality.

Joe had lost his job when the restaurant that he worked in closed from the pandemic. The two boys had managed to save about 6 months of rent money but now the boys had been without a job for 3 months. Everyday they would wander the streets looking for a job but most of the time they just found little odd jobs that made them enough money to buy a meal or two for the day. Joe and Chris would travel in opposite directions on Conduit Blvd occasionally the Asian supermarket around the corner would pay cash for them to help load or unload boxes, but it was never a permanent job.

Joe had just finished helping unload some boxes of halal meat at the Asian supermarket and made enough to get a pretty good meal for both boys to eat. On his way out of the door he noticed a little black leather book on the sidewalk. He picked it up and looked around with the book clearly visible to anyone near him hoping he could find the owner and return it. In high school, Joe loved to write and always knew the importance of a good leather binding. Nobody was approaching Joe to retrieve the book so he continued up Pine St towards the apartments.

Upon walking in the door to his apartment on the third floor he noticed Chris was already there. As he walks in Chris says, “How was work? Did you find a job?” Joe shrugged and replied, “No job, but I made enough to get some food.” The two boys cook up some Raman noodles and eat standing up at the bar while talking about the day. Joe and Chris finish their Raman delight and walk to the couch.

Joe flops down on the couch saddened by the moneyless situation the two boys are in. He rolls to his side and remembers that he found a little black book outside of the supermarket. Joe reaches into his pocket pulls out the black book and opens it up. As he flips through the pages, he notices that each page has a sequence of letters and numbers. Chris walks to the other side of the couch sits down looks over at Joe and asks, “What’s that?” Joe explains where he found it and showed the first page to Chris and asked, “Do you know what any of this means?”

Chris replies, “I don’t know what the letters mean but the numbers look like coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds.” Joe pulls out his phone and inputs the first coordinate in his GPS, “It pulled up a location in Andover, “Joe said. Chris responds, “Let’s take a trip out there and find out what’s there.” Joe is a little reluctant to go because they don’t have the money to travel out there and nowhere to stay once they get there.

Chris has always had an adventurous personality and decides to buy a car with the little money he has saved without letting Joe know. The next day the two boys venture off in opposite directions Joe finds a job doing some landscape work. Meanwhile Chris traveled south down Conduit Blvd to purchase a 2000 Ford Expedition. He believes that it’s a great deal for only $1500 and makes the purchase without checking any of the maintenance of the vehicle.

Joe arrives back to the apartment complex and notices the black Expedition sitting outside. He walks into the apartment and says, “Did the government finally come to pick you Chris or is that black SUV out there some new drug dealers?” Chris jumps out of his room with a suit, tie and sunglasses on and replies, “Let’s go find some aliens.” Joe starts laughing hysterically sits down on the couch and Chris says, “That’s our car out there. I bought it earlier today so that we can go out to Andover.”

Joe becomes upset and says, “How could you just spend the money to buy that when we barely make enough money to live?” Chris calms Joe down by telling him, “If we end up losing our apartment, we can sell everything and live out of the Expedition. Come on now we can drive out to Andover and stay in the SUV.” After informing Joe of his plan to stay in the SUV Joe agrees to take the trip out to Andover.

The next Monday the two boys packed up a few changes of clothes and started driving to the coordinate’s location avoiding the tolls on the highways out there in order to save every little bit of money that they can to afford gas to get back. They decided to begin their journey early that morning before sunrise and along the way Joe notices that the vehicle makes a strange noise. He asks Chris if there was any maintenance issues with the vehicle when he purchased it, but Chris was so excited about the vehicle he looked at Joe with a smile and said, “No it was really great deal. I don’t think the guy knew what he had.”

The two boys spend about 2 hours on the road and they notice a small diner on the side of the road and decide to stop and eat. While sitting down to eat the boys notice they aren’t in the city anymore and most of the people in the diner are truck drivers and locals. After the boys eat their food, they continue the drive arriving at the end of the road which still leaves about 2 miles left until they reach their destination. The boys exit the vehicle and walk the 2 miles to the location of the coordinates sharing old stories about when they were growing up.

Upon arriving at the destination, the boys notice the remains of a house that was destroyed by a fire. Chris’s curious nature sends him inside the house with Joe telling him its dangerous in there. Each step the boys make inside the house sounds like the shriek of old wood rubbing together making Joe believe that ghosts now inhabit the house. Chris makes his way to the storm shelter and notices that it is almost refurnished compared to the rest of the house, but Joe’s fear of the ghosts of the burned have caused him to retreat to the car. Chris finds a piece of wall in the storm shelter that looks as if it was carved out.

He pulls the cinderblock out to reveal a hidden suitcase, and as soon as he lays his hand on the suitcase an eerie wind blows through the burned house causing the wood to shriek and howl. Chris snatches the suitcase runs out of the shelter and jumps into the SUV hugging the suitcase tightly to his chest. Joe looks over at Chris hugging the suitcase and says, “Ready to go.” Chris doesn’t reply, instead he starts the vehicle and throws the suitcase into the back seat.

The boys drive to the nearest hotel and park in the back of the parking lot where no lights can shine on the vehicle. That adventure at the house had them there for the majority of the day as well as getting lost when the GPS lost signal due to limited cell towers and civilization in the area. Night has now come over the area and the boys laid the seats down in the vehicle and prepared to go to sleep. Before they did the boys took a look at the suitcase and figured out the combination to the locks. They opened it with great curiosity and as they did the boys eyes doubled in size. The suitcase was filled with money and the boys believed this was the answer to their prayers.

They decided to go to sleep and eat at the diner on the way back, but the next morning they couldn’t start the vehicle. That strange sound was a tell-tale sign of engine problems the transmission had fallen out of the bottom of the vehicle. It was still early in the morning and dark outside and the boys could hear strange knocking and scratching noises on the vehicle. They rushed to lock the doors as Joe started to suspect that the ghosts of the burnt house had followed them because the boys took their money. The noises changed from knocking and scratching to what sounded like rocks hitting the SUV.

Suddenly the vehicle starts to shake violently as the boys wrap their arms around each other screaming, “We didn’t mean to take the money. Please don’t hurt us.” Then all of a sudden everything stops and grows as silent as the night is dark. A bright light shines through the car blinding the boys and they grasp each other tighter closing their eyes and fearing the end is near. Tap Tap Tap! The boys hear the sound of a metal flashlight beating against the window.

Chris opens his eyes to see a police officer standing on the other side of the vehicle. “Are you boys alright?” the police officer asks and then continues, “Why don’t you boys step out of the vehicle.” As the boys exit the SUV they notice that police cars are surrounding the entire hotel parking lot. The boys notice two men are being hauled off into the police vehicles.

Officer Hardy informs the boys that the entire police force and the U.S. Marshall’s office had been tracking two extremely dangerous individuals. These individuals had followed the boys from the diner to the burnt house and then back to the hotel parking lot. The two men tracking the boys were after the money and the little black book. Officer Hardy explained to the boys that all crime organizations have a financial person that keeps logs of all of the money and keeps it hidden for these organizations.

That little black book belonged to a criminal financer known as the Black Book Keeper. The two men attempted to steal that book so they could acquire all of the money from these sites annotated in this little black book. The boys were relieved and little saddened that they could not keep any of the money. All that the boys were left with was a broke down Ford Expedition.

Officer Hardy offered the boys a ride to the nearest auto shop in town and disheartened but happy to be alive the boys accepted his offer. On the way to the auto body shop Officer Hardy gasped and said, “I forgot to tell you boys that there is a reward for the capture of these two men. $250,000 for each one of those men.” The boys begin to cry in relief and the Officer says, “Yeah I guess the pandemic has hit everyone hard. That money is probably a happy sight.” Joe replies, “I’m just happy the ghosts didn’t get us.”