Nothing I Wouldn't Do For You

I had been shoveling for so long. My back ached as I lifted a big pile of dirt. I looked up at Chad, who had been dragging the dead body across his broad shoulders. I hated doing body bag runs, but specifically with Chad Buick. I’m not too sure why he grabbed the body from the trunk on his own. Chad dropped the body bag on the ground from he shoulders and began to drag it the rest of the way.

“You ass!” I shouted at him, “You’re leaving a trail.” He huffed at me, out of breath, “Are you going to come help me with it you nitwit?” I took a deep breath and pushed the shovel down to the ground to go help my partner. When I was to return, I would ask Boss Man for a new partner. Buick did a lot of dingy things that could put us behind bars or worse, six feet under.

I just need a couple more thousand dollars to get my little girl the surgery she needs to get pass this Leukemia. If I could just get through these last couple of body bag missions.

We both dropped the body bag to the ground. “Now, can you help me finish digging this hole?” I said sarcastically passing him a shovel. “With pleasure.” Chad snatched the shovel from my grasp. I rolled my eyes and let the animosity for my partner bypass my mental. I picked up my shovel and continued to dig. Forcing the shovel as deep as I could into the ground, I heard and felt something unusual. Chad, in the distance, heard the same exact odd sound.

I pushed the shovel down into the ground with my foot the second time, and believe me when I say it almost took my ankle out. “Great, another obstacle.” Chad annoyingly spoke out making his way towards me. He shined his flashlight on the buried object, “What is it Penske?” he asked. “I’m not sure.” I answered him curiously. We dug around the object enough to where we could lift it out of the ground. It appeared to be a chrome matte lock chest.

“I think we should replace the box with the body, toss the box in the trunk and get out of here.” Chad said impatiently. “Let’s see what’s in it.” I whispered out of curiosity.

“Rob, dude, its locked, and about to ran cats and dogs out in this field. Let’s get the job done first.”

I dug around in my pocket, where all of my loose change sat, feeling around for a bobby pin. I pulled the two wires pieces apart and picked the lock to the matte chest within a matter of seconds.

“I’ve never seen anyone pick a lock so fast.” I heard Chad say from behind my back.

I shined my flashlight and raised the top of the chest to see a stack of books lined up against each other. “See Penske, it’s just a bunch of old books. Junk! Let’s lay this body down, grab the chest and ditch this place, seriously.” There was a crack of lightening and a light rumble of thunder following behind it.

There’s no way someone just dumped these books here unless they were hiding something.

I picked up what caught my eye the most, the thick black notebook. On the cover, I could see a moving image of a man’s face. He wore a long-tailed beard and a magician’s hat. The image tilted its hat, and winked at me all in a repeated motion, then vanished from view. I opened the book and flipped through the first couple of pages. They were blank. The following pages were blank until I stared at the center of the page; long enough for Bradley cursive handwriting to appear. The writing read:

Don’t ask questions. Thank me later.

As I continued to flip through the pages, I noticed that on every page, there was a ten-dollar bill taped to them. Skipping to the very end of the book, I saw there were 2,000 pages. The mental math came out to be twenty thousand.

“How much do you think is in there?”

In awe and disbelief of what I was seeing, I snapped back into reality. Realizing everything I saw my partner was witnessing from behind.

“I’m not sure, Buick.” I closed the book. In deep thought of how I could walk away with the entire 20K, I turned around in a fair demeanor when really, panic shivered down my spine.

“There’s 20K within this book. I say we bury the body in place of the chest, ditch this place, and split the cash evenly.” I spoke without hesitation.

“And not a word about this to Boss Man?” Buick asked with furrowed eyebrows. “

“Not a word.”

We buried the body and packed the chest to the trunk. On the way back to the city, we made a quick pit stop for food, gas and snacks. The radio played as Chad munched on a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.

To set up my plot, during our pit stop I decided to get a chili cheese hot dog. Keeping napkins in the side door cupholder. “Accidentally” wasting chili cheese on my bomber jacket while driving, I reached down in the cupholder, where my saxitoxin filled syringe utensil lay. With no remorse, I stabbed Chad Buick in the side of his neck. Injecting him with the paralyzing liquid. Once the saxitoxin spread throughout his body, I pulled over to suffocate him from consciousness.

When I arrived home, I immediately made way to the barn house with the body. Grabbing my meat cutter from one of the cabinets, I was able to slice him into pieces, where I then boiled him in my big jumbo gumbo pot. Once boiled to soft chunks, I plugged in the blender, and before you knew it, the sun was rising over the mountains just in time to take Isabelle to breakfast.

“Daddy has a surprise for you, baby.” I told Isabelle in the middle of the breakfast diner. “I was able to raise enough money for your surgery. Isabelle looked up into my eyes. “Everything’s going to be OK again.” I told her in a hushed soft-spoken tone. Tears of joy and relief filled her eyes.

“There’s nothing Daddy wouldn’t do for you. Before I take this bill, I’m going to go use the little gentlemen’s room.”

As I entered the restroom, I locked myself into the second to last stall. I stood there, hovering over the toilet. Reaching into my inner coat pocket where my flask sat, I screwed the top off the flask, and poured Chad Buick into the water, flushing him down the toilet. I walked out of the restroom with no feeling of inhumanity, because it was true. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for my daughter.