How Al Paid For Culinary School

Al’s hands were shaking. What was he looking at? What was this? His left hand was weighed down by the rubber-band-bound stack of hundred dollar bills it held. His right trembled, reaching down to push through more stacks. Hundreds. Thousands?

What was he looking at? Why was this here?

He dropped the cash back into the satchel and fell back from his crouch onto his rear. His legs were useless. Sweat was breaking out on his brow. He ran it back through his hair before starting and looking around, taking in the security camera directly over him, looking back and forth between that one and the one by the door.

He hopped and scrambled to his feet, pushing the satchel back into it’s hole, covering the hole with the drywall slab, pushing the footlocker back into place. Picking up the broom, he composed himself as he returned to his cart, dropping the broom in the bucket next to the other cleaning supplies. He did his best to look nonchalant as he exited the file room and headed back into the more peopled parts of the police precinct.

****

Al pulled the cool coffee through the straw until it made a hollow, sucking sound. He kept pulling, rolling the plastic cup around the straw, escalating the loud rumble of nothing while his mind raced on caffeine.

What did he know. 6 weeks ago he’d inadvertently uncovered an old satchel while chasing intense layers of dirt behind a footlocker at the base of some shelves. Metal shelves that just happened to be in the file storage room of the local police department. A police department he’d been working at for the better part of four months now, having been hired at a job fair after failing to pull tuition together.

Al exhaled coffee breath and then began rooting around with his straw for more liquid hiding around the ice, the loud rolling gurgle bothering no one as he sat alone on top of a picnic table behind the precinct in the occasionally used outdoor break area. Far enough away to calmly gather his thoughts, close enough to literally fill the frame of his perception.

He also knew that no one had seen him. On top of having visited the satchel twice now and no one having stopped him to demand he confess to what he’d found, over the course of those first few post-discovery weeks he’d been brazen enough to glance up whenever he mopped the faux-marble tiles near the security console. He did his best not to linger, but after a dozen or so glances he was confident that not only did no one pay much attention to any of the monitors, the cameras in file storage were positioned in such a way that no one could see the area where he’d found the money. The shelves along that back corner were well obscured from the door camera by a row of larger shelves directly in front of them, and the camera over the corner looked back at the door, ignoring the space directly beneath it.

He’d shoved his push room back in between the footlocker and the shelf legs to grab some grime absolutely no one cared about, certainly not the previous custodian, but instead of hearing the thunk of wood on concrete, he’d both heard and felt the give and chuff of drywall crumbling. When he’d pulled the broom back out, it’d been covered in off-white plaster dust. “What the fuh...” he’d whispered out loud as he got on his hands and knees to inspect what had happened.

Al also knew that no one was looking for the satchel. Well, he thought he knew that. Was pretty sure. He still marveled at his own temerity when his duty cycle brought him back to sweep file storage a month later. The days in the lead up had been worse than preparing for a test. Or a fight. Everything had slowed down. People on the street barely moved, drops of water held sunlight and never let it go. Quickly and quietly he’d dropped to his knees and tugged that old metal box, gingerly moving aside the crumbling false wall, hefting the bag with his fingertips. Slow, deep breaths to keep his pulse down and steady, his ears sharp for footsteps, he’d flipped, flipped, flipped each stack of bills from right to left, counting in his head. There was easily $20,000 there.

The only other things he’d found were a little book and some photographs from the... 70’s? 80’s? There were lots of pictures of men drinking and carousing with young women. Very provocatively dressed young women. Al got the impression he was holding the generational equivalent of “boys will be boys” in his hands. Were all these men cops? None of them were doing things that cops would care to be seen doing in public. At least not these days.

The book was a nondescript little black notebook. No lines, just page after page of dog eared, barely legible writing. Clearly sums of money, dates, times, and names. Even if he could make out what was written in it, he doubted he’d find meaning there.

Al drained the last of the melted ice-water from his cup and tossed it the 12 feet between him and the open mouth of an unceremonious trash barrel, sparing a wry thought to the fact that he’d just be back later to empty the thing out. So, what did he have? $20k plus in stacked, wadded hundreds, some useless old blackmail pics, and a book documenting... protection money? Extortion? Illegal gambling?

It really didn’t matter. Al had barely spared half a thought at the provenance of the bag. Some old, crooked cop. Some old, crooked secrets. He’d burn them once he got the money out. Al hopped down off the picnic table, gears turning as he returned to work.

****

Satchel liberation day was as innocuous as the rest. At least Al hoped it would be. Around 11:30 he wheeled his trolly of supplies, with it’s large black hole of a garbage can in the center, back into the file room. It was almost painful, forcing himself to recreate the pace of man who wasn’t dreaming of the future an easy twenty thousand could open up for him, of a man who wasn’t worried about getting caught with a 30-year-old bag full of incriminating cop-ephemera and 20k in unmarked bills. For all he knew the owner of the bag still worked here. It could be a detective, or a captain, or... no. He wasn’t going to spiral on this now.

He rolled his eyes at himself as he “accidentally” knocked over the large, central garbage can on his cart, swearing as convincingly as he could beneath the security camera that couldn’t see him but had sound, maybe? Al did his best to shift his leg across the detritus on the floor, back and forth as he worked, in the hopes it would cover any noises he made relieving the hidey hole of it’s treasure. He needn’t have bothered. No one came in, just like last time and the times before that. There was no one there to see him drop the satchel to the bottom of the barrel, obscured within the inky dark liner, hidden beneath the rearranged garbage on top of it.

Time to go, Al had cleaned up his innocent spill and now that his liner was full and he was near the back of the building, near the dumpsters, it was time to head outside. Just like always. Leave the file room, just like normal. Head for the rear exit, no deviations. ‘It’s a normal day!’ He screamed in his head, while he listened to the deafening whistle of nominal activity, possibility, and impending doom. He pushed with his back into the double doors that led to the dumpsters. Most people parked near the front or side entrances, but Al had made sure to park as close to the dumpsters as he could that morning. All he had to do was jaunt the bag quickly over to his car and he’d be home free.

Al was so dumbstruck by what he saw as he wheeled himself forwards that he ran over his own foot, stumbled, and nearly actually accidentally tipped the cart onto the ground. Regaining his composure, slowly, loudly as the heavy cart jiggled and growled over the asphalt, Al made his way past the 3 officers chatting and drinking coffee in front of their two cars that were parked, head-to-head, between the door and the dumpster. He managed not to look up and gape as they ignored him, like they always did, and he continued to ignore them back, as he always had.

Expletives pinged through his synapses as he reassessed, fighting the urge to conspicuously slow his pace. Where they were parked, he’d have to make a wide arc around the cruisers to get to the dumpsters.

Ok.

Ok, 20 seconds to think of something.

19. 18. He could come back later? Try to climb into the dumpster to retrieve it? Jesus, no. Was he stupid?

16. 15. He could just turn around? Make a u-turn and bring the full bin back in to... to what? Haul the satchel around all day? And what if they for once decided to notice him as he deviated from his routine?

9. 8.

Al swung the cart wide, wincing at the constant rumble that felt like a megaphone declaring “inept jail-bound thief here!” What could he say if he was caught? Maybe he could pass the bag off as just another thing he’d found in the trash? His wide arc brought him up to the break area, where yet another cop was sitting at the far end of the picnic table, smoking and scrolling their phone. Not exactly facing Al, not facing away either.

Al’s entire being screamed feigned nonchalance as he removed the trash liner from the break area barrel and held the open end shut while tipping the trash up. He angled the opening of the bag over the cart’s barrel, releasing his grip on the closed end, letting gravity and a bit of jiggling slowly marry the trash in the liner to the trash in the cart. Trying not to make a show of it, Al pushed his higher, bag tipping hand down, swathed in trash liner, as though to press the garbage down in. In truth he slowly, slowly felt around within the cart until his covered hand felt the handles of the satchel. Trying to appear as though he was simply tamping the refuse down, he wiggled his arm a few times, pulling the satchel up into the bag and letting it invert, covering the satchel as he tried to make his right hand seem weightless, moving the liner back into the drum, inside out, letting the satchel come to rest hidden beneath the liner at the bottom of the barrel.

He did his best to scan his periphery for signs that anyone had noticed as he continued his rumbling trundle around the chatting cops to the dumpsters, tying off and depositing his now-satchel-less load into the large bin.

Tamped adrenaline made Al feel like an animated stick figure as he put the cart in the janitorial closet and headed toward the bathroom, where he finally collapsed onto the toilet. His hands were shaking. He was sweating profusely. He’d need to stay here, most of his lunch break, or however long it took to calm down. Jesus. Jesus. He’d done it. It would be cake to retrieve the bag later today or any point in the future, when there was no one around.

He’d done it.

He’d done it.

He’d done it.