The Finding

He was out on his usual rounds, The Guard. And yet now he was hesitant. He came around the building and could hear the protest in the distance. A great wailing and crashing of the mob in and animal rage. He could understand their point, and agreed that the police didn’t automatically have the right to resort to violence. The crowd seemed to be destroying shops in the downtown area about a quarter mile off. He didn’t like this but he did shrug, because he could understand their rage.

He eased forward through the sparse trees and listened, then stepped forward again. Then he paused. There was something under the bush to his right. He moved the foliage with his gloved hand and saw a small waist pack on the ground. He knew that this could be trouble, even deadly, but he couldn’t call the police. Every available man was on the streets in the downtown area for the protest. He had spoken with a corporal who told him they had brought in all of the reserves and surrounding jurisdiction officers, so there would be no one free to come and check on something that probably was just a bag. I was probably safe, not dangerous and almost certainly not a bomb. That was ridicules. A bomb. Nonsense.

But still he got down close to the ground and extending his flashlight to its full length, turn his head away and behind his shoulder and fish the loop of the bag’s strap and flung it away. Nothing happened and he poked it with the flashlight a few more times. Silly, these protesters were non-violent and the policeman had told him that they were worried about outsiders who were reported to have come in to disrupt the proceedings. That is who was suspected of damaging the property and raising the ruckus. This bag had a distinctly military look to it though.

As The Guard stood-up he caught the whiff of pepper spray, his eyes stung and watered. He looked again to the low animal grow coming from the unseen crowd. He sighed and picked up the pack and continued on through the decorative trees and shrubs, skirted the edge of a currently unused fountain and crossed the Small loading dock at the back of the building.

Inside he rinsed his eyes, but this also set them to stinging as it was freshwater and he needed saline. He had seen protesters leaving the area with gallons of milk, but he had thought that would be a messy proposition without a shower to wash up with. Drying his face on a paper towel he checked the bag. It was now on a table and gave no indication of its contents or usage.

He opened it slowly and peered inside. Some kind of paper and a book. He took the contents out and laid them on the table. There was a large stack of cash. He riffled the bills. At a glance there might be five thousand dollars. It had been a long time since he had seen that kind of money and he felt for one of the chairs at the table. Sitting down he pulled the pack to him. No name on it, no identification, no markings at all. He realized he kept turning back to the cash, staring at it longingly.

He shifted his eyes to the book. It was black, palm size and had a band holding it closed. He picked it up and slipped the band off. Inside the cover was a drawing of the troublemakers group logo. It was poorly done by hand, but it gave him a clue to the owner’s bend. He turned the page and in a crabbed hand was an entry printed in block letters. It was a man’s name, presumably his address, a date listed him as joined and several training courses completed. They were in a wide range of things from first aid to weapons and hand to hand fighting and a column of numbers such as in an old style bank book. Lastly was the most troubling thing, a bank ATM card with the same name on it. He turned the page and similar information appeared but for a different name and again an ATM card. And again for a total of twelve cards. He made a rough tally of the figures and again glanced at the cash. He supposed that there was around $20,000 in total.

This struck him as odd. Why would anyone turn over their bank information and money to one person, let alone someone who would lose it? He picked-up a card and turned it over. There on the back was the usual information, a signature and most surprising a piece of paper under transparent tape with a four-digit number. He chose another card at random and found the same information and the presumed pin number. Strange and as he held the cards up together he noticed that the signatures appeared to be in the same hand. He sat looking at them and then gathered the others with the same result and impression. There were no photographs, so he could not verify that these were separate individuals or the same, but it did seem like the kind of trick someone who wanted to avoid a visit from the taxman or have fast money available would use. He looked back at the crude logo in the front of the book.

He was an honest man at heart, but this was cash found abandoned and there was no guarantee that he could find the owner. If he looked. He did not bare the troublemakers any good will, actually quite the opposite. Their prating, posing rudeness based on the conviction of the rightness of their opinions and willingness to shout and be rude when others tried to have a civil conversation with them would alienate most decent people.

But what to do? He could go back to his office, call the police and ask them to send someone by, explain what had happened and turn everything over. Then, if the owner retrieved it he could continue to his next city where he would disrupt life there. He could. But then again, he could keep the cash and dispose of everything else and no one would be the wiser. But then again, there was this potential other money. He could keep everything and after work he could visit the mall that he knew to be three miles away. He knew his city like the back of his spotted hand. At this mall he knew there were four banks that sat around it like watchdogs. He could go and bleed this series of possibly illegal accounts with little worry that the owner would complain or even be aware that it had happened. He was sure that this fine fellow never felt any guilt for his actions either. But still, what to do?

As he sat thinking it came to him that he could flip a coin to make the decision. He went so far as to have the coin in his hand, but then realized if he were going to do that he had already made-up his mind. It occurred to him if he were considering all of the options as equal and viable that he could have very well have also made-up his mid at that point. He smiled and stood. He stowed the cash in the pockets of his uniform and slung the pack under the light jacket he wore. He knew he only had to traverse the tunnels in the building and then he would be back at his office where he could stow the money and little black book that held such promise. He could then go out to the far side of the complex and dispose of the bag off camera and he could deny all knowledge. Luckily he had another jacket in his car to cover his duty shirt and everyone was wearing masks now because of the pandemic, so he could hide his face from the ATM camera’s without anyone noticing. Whistling a jaunty song, he planned how he would harvest this windfall as he went down to the tunnels that lead from one building to the next.