The warm, misty rain was doing that thing where it just hangs in the air and slows your pace. Elias was standing under the awning of a hot dog window waiting for a break in the weather, when the guy walked up.

The guy looked like he lost a fight with rooster in a washing machine. Hole pocked clothes wet-through, and eyes that looked like over caffeinated adrenal exhaustion. He was holding a briefcase that was out of character for his appearance. It was a beaut. Thick, rich black leather, with sleek brass hardware that could have come from President Washington’s personal skiff.

“You Elias?” the guy asked. His voice saccharine and elevated, like a newbie MLM salesman anticipating his first sale.

“Depends on who’s asking.” Elias cautioned.

The guy was urgent. He just held out the briefcase. “Take it.”

Elias looked at the briefcase. Then at the guy. “What’s in it?”

“Take it.” He repeated enthusiastically,

Elias should have walked away. That’s what a smart guy does. A smart guy sees a sloppy wet stranger with a top end briefcase and an eager demeanor, and crosses the street. But Elias wasn’t feeling smart. He was at a place where something weird like this could either be interesting, or unable to make his life suck any less. So what the heck? He took it.

The guy didn’t say anything. He just turned around and disappeared into the gray mist like an incompatible gas.

Elias stood there for a minute, holding the handle. It was heavy. Heavier than it looked. He looked around, but the street was empty except for a stray cat licking at a wet hot dog bun next to a sewer drain.

His apartment was three blocks away, up four flights of stairs that smelled like 40 years of sweat and skin cells. His apartment was an odd triangular former office space converted into an efficiency. It wasn’t much, but the oddness of it made Elias feel interesting.

He locked the door, and secured the chain. He looked out at the rain distorted traffic light on the three way intersection outside.

The table folded down from the wall on a hinge, as the legs were hinged under it. He sat down, and put the briefcase on the table. His hands were shaking from the cold. His head was shaking at his decision.

The latches open with sharp ping. So perfect and strong. If nothing else, he landed a very nice briefcase.

He lifted the lid.

It was full. Stacks of bills. Hundreds. Neat, tight bundles wrapped in paper bands. It smelled like Library.

Elias stared at it. He placed his hands on his thighs and exhaled. His brows raised and his head nodded.

He reached out and touched. He pulled one, he held it up to the light. These were real.

He pulled out a bundle. One hundred bills. Ten thousand dollars. He set it aside. He pulled out another. And another.

The rhythm of the bills sliding against each other would have put him to sleep if the prospect of this cash wasn’t so exhilarating. He counted and checked every bill in every stack. Replacing them as he went along.

Elias put on a pair of kitchen gloves to ease the constant sharpness and more frequent paper cuts.

He looked up and nearly two hours had passed. Time got weird in the triangle. The air in the room was cooling with the evening. It was quieted with the end of the rain. He turned on the overhead light. As the sun disappeared, the single low-voltage LED light brightened as it warmed.

When he got to the bottom of the briefcase, there it was, the very last bundle. What a moment. He relished in it. He picked it up. He looked it over, rotated it, and grinned.

He repeated the counting process with the last stack, and then the final bill.

Elias picked up that note. Poker face Franklin looking heedless as always. He flipped it over to check it in the light. There was writing.

Handwritten. Blue ink. Small lettering written in the clouds on either side of the clock tower of Independence Hall.

Elias froze. Disappointment came over him. It was a seething sort of despondence.

He looked back at the bill.

He brought it closer to his face. He squinted, wishing he could identify the writer.

Elias read the words again.

This wasn’t a gift, or a delivery, it was a message. A message to a man that the senders know is unbiddable. It was an insult.

Elias’s head tilted. His contempt deepened. His resolution reaffirmed.

He transferred the money into an alternate attache.

The response of his behavior will be the message he sends back.

He did however admire his cool new briefcase.

799 Words

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