Accidental Death

Accidental Death

If bad news caused warts, I would look like I slept with a frog. Things could not get worse. I was a Certified Financial Planner working for one of the Big Eight firms. I say “was” because I had just been told I was being replaced by an algorithm, and to take my things with me on the way out. I took my things, such that they were, and tossed them into a trash can. Seven years years on the job. Gone like a fart in the wind.

It could not have come at a worse time. My wife of three years was celebrating our anniversary on a cruise boat with her tennis instructor, and her petition for a divorce had been hand delivered to me only two days ago. A failed ATM withdrawal indicated that our joint checking account had a balance of only ten dollars in it, as opposed to the eight thousand balance of only a week ago. I found a withdrawal slip on our dresser with "Happy Anniversary, Loser," written on it. Thank goodness I still had a credit card that wasn't maxed out.

So it is no wonder that I was heading into my third bar of the day slightly woozy-headed. Downtown Chicago, given the late hour and the rotten damp chill of the weather, was pretty much deserted except for the homeless and the hopeless like me.

Entering the dark bar I saw only the barkeep wiping down the bar and a lone customer sitting in a booth facing the entrance. He was staring at me as if he knew me, so I stared back trying to place him. We locked eyes and he nodded slightly. He obviously knew me, even though I couldn't place him, so I nodded back.

I walked toward his booth, and he rose from his seat and walked toward me. I started to extend my hand to shake as one does when renewing acquaintances, but instead of stopping he continued past me and exited the bar. I think I heard him mumble "Good luck," under his breath as he passed me. I looked at the door where he wasn't, shook my head in confusion for a second, and plopped down in the booth that he had just vacated.

Since I was the only customer in the bar, I easily got the bartender’s attention and asked for a draft Guinness, which he didn’t have, but he did have a Negra Modello which I ordered and he brought to me. Sipping it slowly, and nibbling from the small bowl of stale popcorn that was on the table, I faced the entrance and mused about who might next make an entrance. Glancing around like bored drinkers do, I noticed a package wrapped in brown paper tied up with string on the bench of my seat abutting the wall. Honest to Goodness, my first thought was, “These are a few of my favorite things.”

My first action was to look for some address or identification on the package. I found nothing. I asked the bartender if he knew the customer who had left when I came in. He did not, had never seen him before. I asked if his name might be on a charge slip. Nope, he had paid cash.

Perhaps there was some identification inside the package, I thought. I carefully opened the package to see.

The package could not be plainer, but it was neatly wrapped. Brown paper covering a plain brown cardboard box about the size of the box my Samsung Tablet came in, tied with innocuous string. I looked inside and immediately closed it, looking around to see if anyone had seen me open it, even though I knew only I and the bartender were in the place, and the bartender had his back to me inspecting drink glasses.

I left a twenty for the beer and left the bar carrying the package. I did not want to be there if the owner of the package returned. I Ubered to my apartment, and only after I was in the apartment and had fastened all the locks did I open the package again.

The box in the package was filled with $20,000 dollars in $100 bills. I know because I counted it three times with trembling hands. There were also pictures of a man leaving his home, entering and leaving his place of business, eating in a restaurant , getting into and driving a car, and a good shot of the license plate on the car. There was a fact sheet on the man with time tables of his movements and instructions that his death had to look like an accident and had to happen within one week in order to get the other half of the payment for the kill.

I had inadvertently picked up a package intended for an assassin. Worried that the intended recipient of the package might have arrived after I left, I called the bar on the pretext of possibly having left my glasses in the booth and discovered that no one came into the bar after I departed. I had a dilemma. If the assassin had a miscommunication or didn’t accept the job, he would not be searching for me. That’s the good news. On the other hand if the target didn’t get killed, then the employer would eventually be looking for me, or probably just hire someone to track me down. I could end up getting killed even if I tried to return the package.

A clearer mind was needed to figure out my best course of action, so I slept on it. Well not exactly, a half bottle of scotch later, I passed out on it.

The next morning, after a pot of coffee, I decided I needed to know more about the target. A Google search identified him as a “person of interest” in a financial scandal involving drug trafficking that had two murders alleged to be related to it. Despite the fact that he probably had feds from two or three different agencies trailing him, I decided it would not hurt to have a look-see of my own. The material I had told me where and when he was expected during the day.

I decided to observe the target in front of the Illinois Building down by the overhead subway in the Loop. I got there a half hour early, bought a Tribune, and leaned against the building to read it. After a while, I tired of the paper and rolled it up tightly to fit into my coat pocket. Minutes later the target arrived and exited a limo with darkened windows. Two burly men got out with him. Bodyguards I assumed. To get closer I moved from the building wall while pulling the paper from my pocket.

Things got confusing. Someone shouted, “He’s got a gun!” Someone else pushed me to the sidewalk. The target bolted and started to run across the street away from danger, only to be hit by a speeding Taxi trying to get out of a dangerous situation where men with guns in their hands were yelling at each other.

I couldn’t really see anything. I was on the pavement. Mostly I was aware of loud incoherent yelling.

Finally Federal agents and local police got things squared away. They acknowledged that I was an innocent citizen with a newspaper out job hunting and that one of the bodyguards mistook the bulge of my paper for a gun which caused Federal agents and the bodyguards to pull their registered weapons. The taxi driver might be accused of reckless driving, but I saw no one pursuing that angle. The target was rushed to the emergency room but died of head injuries while enroute to the hospital.

When I got home I texted a message to a number from the package saying “Package Arrived. Billing to follow, and added my bank routing number and my new account number. Within one hour $21,000 had been deposited in my account, three deposits, one for $9,000, one for $8,500, and one for $$3,500. I assume the extra $1,000 was a bonus for doing such a good job.

The $41,000 total pretty much solved my immediate financial problems, but I still have to find a new job and get the divorce out of the way. But I may have another problem. I received a text this morning to my phone from an unknown number. They said “New package available for a limited time, $37.5 X 2. and gave me a number to “Text if available.”

What do I do now?