Читать книгу Everything to Lose - Andrew Gross, Andrew Gross - Страница 7

It was a black Kia or a Honda or something. I was never the best at recognizing cars. It swerved to avoid the deer as it bolted past and then another car heading in the other direction.

Maybe the driver got blinded in the lights.

The front of his car spun out. He was going around fifty, and was headed into a curve. I watched him make a last effort to brake, then the back end drifted off the shoulder and suddenly the car just rolled.

A jolt of horror ripped through me.

The curve was at a steep embankment and the car plummeted over the edge and tumbled down. I hit the brakes, craning my neck as I went by. I watched it roll over and over until it disappeared into the dense woods. I heard the jarring sound of impact as it came to a stop against a tree.

Oh my God!

I screeched to a stop about twenty yards past the crash site. I leaped out and ran back to take a look, my heart racing. I smelled the steamy burn of rubber on pavement and the smoke coming from the engine down below. I could see the car’s taillights, still on; it had cut a path though the thick brush. It was clear that whoever was inside had to be badly hurt.

I was about to race down when another car backed up on the far side of the road, the one that must have passed it a moment earlier. The driver, a man with a round face and thin, reddish hair combed over a bald spot, put down his window. “What’s happened?”

“Someone drove off the road,” I told him. “I’m going down.”

I headed down the incline, tripping on the brush and losing my footing in the damp soil. I fell on my rear, scraping my arm, and got up. I knew I had to get there quick. The car had spun over twice and come to a rest right side up, the front grill sandwiched between a couple of trees. I saw that the roof near the driver’s seat was severely dented.

I could see someone in the driver’s seat. A man. His door was wedged against a tree. I tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I peered through the window and didn’t see anyone else. I knew I had to get this guy out. He didn’t seem to be conscious. He could be dying. He looked around seventy, white hair, balding, slumped against the wheel, blood streaming down one side of his face. He wasn’t moving or uttering a sound.

The engine was smoking.

“Are you all right?” I rapped on the glass. “Can you hear me?”

He didn’t respond. It was clear he was either dead or unconscious.

“Mister, are you okay?” I tugged on the driver’s door one more time, but you’d have to rip it off or move the car.

From above, I heard the driver of the other car call down, “Is everyone all right down there? Do you need help?”

“Call 911!” I shouted back up. I’d left my phone in the car. “Tell ’em there’s a single driver who’s not responding. I can’t get to him. The door’s stuck, and I don’t know, I think maybe he’s dead. They need to send an ambulance.”

I could barely catch a glimpse of the guy through the brush as he hurried back to his car. I looked at the smoking hood and had a sudden fear that any second the engine might catch fire. Maybe the right thing was to back off and wait for help, but with the guy non-responsive, the engine smoking, the stronger voice inside me pushed me to see if he was alive.

I ran around to the passenger side. The door there wasn’t obstructed and opened easily. I wedged myself into the seat. In front of me, the driver’s head was pitched forward and a trickle of blood ran down his forehead as if it had been bludgeoned against the wheel. His eyes were rolled up. His white hair was matted with red. I reached across and pushed him back against the seat. “Are you okay? Can you hear me?” Again, he didn’t respond. I’d taken a CPR course a few years back, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do for him.

There was a black leather satchel on the floor mat that must have fallen off the seat in the crash. I picked it up so I could squeeze in closer.

My heart almost jumped out of my chest at what I saw.

A wad of money. Hundred-dollar bills. Neatly wrapped together. I couldn’t help but pick it up and flip through. There had to be a hundred of them—Jesus, Hilary!—bound together by a rubber band. A hundred hundreds would be what …? I did the math, ten thousand dollars. The satchel was open slightly at the top, and so far the guy hadn’t moved or even uttered a sound. I couldn’t help but satisfy my curiosity, unzipping it all the way open.

This time my heart didn’t jump—it stopped. And if my eyes had been wide before, they surely doubled now.

Holy shit, Hil …

The bag was filled with similarly bound packets of cash. All hundreds! Reflexively I pawed through them. There were dozens of them. This time the math was a little harder to calculate.

I was looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I looked over at the driver and tried to figure out what some old guy driving a beat-up Honda would be doing with this kind of cash. Maybe the receipts from a business. No, that wouldn’t make sense; they wouldn’t be all hundreds. Maybe the guy’s life savings that he’d been hoarding for years under his bed.

More likely something illegal, I speculated.

I pulled myself across the seat and tried to determine one last time if he was alive or dead. I even put my hand on his shoulder and shook him. He didn’t move. I spotted a cell phone in his lap and picked it up. There was a phone number and a partially written text on the screen. “Heading back wi—”

Heading back with what?

Heading back with the cash, of course. What else would it be? The message hadn’t been sent. On a hunch I looked for the time of that last entry: 6:41 P.M. It was 6:44 now. He’d probably been about to text that when the deer bolted out in front of him. That’s why he couldn’t control his car. Something that every father begs his own son or daughter not to do …

I put the phone back.

It was clear there was nothing I could do for him. The EMTs and the police would be here any second. The engine continued to smoke; I realized I’d better get out of there. I pushed backward on the passenger seat and my eyes landed once again on the open satchel of cash.

In business, I’d made a dozen deals for this amount of money, but I’d never actually seen so much in cash. At least, not staring directly up at me. It might have been only an instant in actual time, but yesterday’s events came flashing back to me: losing my job; the four-weeks’ severance; how I’d had to beg for an extra month on the health plan. And how the past couple of years were such a struggle …

Then this … Enough to take care of so many things: Brandon’s school, which was five months past due; a good chunk of my payments on a house that was now completely underwater. Even help my folks. Life-changing money for me. I’d never done a bad thing in my life. I mean, maybe smoked a little pot back in college. Stolen a book or two out of the library. But nothing like this.

Nothing like what was suddenly racing through my mind. You must be crazy to even be thinking this, Hil …

Suddenly the guy called from back up on the road. “They’re on the way!” I still couldn’t make him out through the brush. “I’m coming down.”

Everything I’d been raised with, every code I lived my life by, every voice of conscience inside me told me just to let it sit. I didn’t know who it belonged to. It could be gambling or drug money for all I knew. Possibly even traceable. Whatever it was, it damn well wasn’t mine.

I just stared.

Then I felt my blood begin to surge. The guy was dead. Who would ever know? If I just got the hell out of here, didn’t take it with me now, but maybe hid it, then came back another time? I’d gone to a few Al-Anon meetings with a friend back in my twenties, and I remembered this role-playing game they used, on how easy it was to slide back into past behavior—in one ear, there was the addict side, to whom they gave the name Slick, and in the other, the person’s rational side. Slick, seductively whispering in your ear like the devil: “Come on, you can handle it; no one will know; it’ll just be this once.” On the other shoulder, your conscience countering, “You’ll know. This will only be the start of something bad. Once you do it you’ll never go back.”

We all have a Slick inside, the exercise was meant to show.

And it all just caught me at a point when my life was crawling on this teetering sheet of ice. And I saw Brandon there, all the good work he had done taken away, on that ice with me, about to split into a hundred pieces beneath my feet. And nowhere to go but in. Into the black, freezing water.

And I’d been there before.

“Shit,” I heard the guy cry out on his way down, sliding in the wet brush as I had.

“Be careful!” I yelled back. “It’s dangerous.”

If you’re going to do it, you have to do it now, Hilary.

In that moment there was no offsetting argument or rationale. Not that it was someone else’s money. Nor that it didn’t belong to me. Or whether it was legit or dirty.

There was just Brandon. And the fear that I no longer could take care of my son. I didn’t see it as right or wrong. Only that fate had given me a way out. And I had to take it. My heart felt like it was beating at a hundred miles per hour.

I zipped up the bag and lifted it out of the car. I hesitated a last second, almost hoping that the guy on his way down would suddenly appear and the decision would be out of my hands.

But he didn’t.

I took the bag and hurled it as far as I could deep into the woods. I prayed it wouldn’t be visible when it landed—sitting up there like a fucking neon arrow was pointing to it, and I’d have to admit to the police what I’d done. But it landed about ten yards in amid a thicket and disappeared into a clump of brush.

It was done.

The other motorist finally made it down. He seemed in his fifties, in a sports jacket, striped shirt, and loosened tie. As if he was on his way back from a hard day at the office. He had a flabby, ruddy face with thin, reddish hair combed over a bald spot.

“You were right. You could kill yourself getting down here.” Wide-eyed, he focused on the wreck and then the driver. “Shit,” he whistled, “is he …?”

“I think so. I tried to get at him, but he’s completely wedged in. I couldn’t even open the door. Not that I could have done anything anyway. He was already gone.” I nodded toward the engine. “I think we ought to back away …”

“I think you’re right. The police said someone will be here soon. I saw the deer up there. It took off into the woods.”

The police. At the sound of the word, I felt my heart start to patter. If they found me here, I’d be a witness; I’d have to leave my name. There’d be a record that I’d been first on the scene. If the money was ever reported missing, it would lead right back to me. I glanced at my watch. Four minutes had elapsed. Others driving by might see our cars and stop to help.

“Listen …,” I said, hesitating.

“Rollie,” the guy said, pushing his hair across his brow. “McMahon.”

“Jeanine,” I said, in a moment of panic, knowing I needed to say something, so I came up with my middle name. “Rollie, I know this is crazy, but I really have to get out of here. I’m already late to pick up my son. He’s in this basketball league. The cops will be here any second and, you know how it goes, they’ll have me tied up for an hour. You said you saw the deer …”

He nodded. He seemed to think it over for a second, a round-shouldered, amiable dude. “I guess you’re right. No worries. I’ll wait for them. You can go on ahead.”

“Thanks.” I blew out my cheeks. Realizing that every second I remained here might get me in a load of trouble. “You’re a lifesaver.

“Shit …” I looked at the body and grimaced at the choice of words.

“You ought to leave me your info though,” he said. “In case the police want to contact you.”

“You’re right. I’ll leave my card on your car. Under the windshield wiper. That okay …?”

He nodded. And glanced back at the wreck. “Like you said, it’s not like there’s much we can do for him anyway.”

“I’m really sorry to run out like this.” I looked at the dead guy one last time.

“Go on. Go get your kid,” he said. “Raised three myself. I know what it’s like. I’ll wait here.”

I waved thanks and hurried back up the slope, feeling like hell that I’d taken advantage of such a nice man.

On the street, a car going in the other direction slowed to see what was going on. I averted my face and waved him on like everything was okay.

Suddenly I heard the wail of a siren from behind. I turned and saw flashing red and blue lights through the trees, heading my way. Shit. I hurried to my car, climbed in quickly, and started it up. For a last second I questioned whether I should stay. Admit what I’d done now. Anyone might have been tempted. Probably nothing would even come of it.

I heard myself say inside that I could always follow it up. I could track it and see if the money was ever reported missing. And if it did end up rightfully belonging to the guy, I could send some kind of note, anonymously, to his family, about where it could be found. They’d be happy to get it back. No one would even have to know what happened. Or care, ultimately.

Right?

The siren grew louder.

I pulled away just as the police car came around the bend. I accelerated and looked back at it in the rearview mirror as the police car slowed.

A hundred yards ahead, I passed a poster on an electrical pole. An election poster that hadn’t been taken down. BRENNAN FOR CONGRESS. In bold underneath his photo, COMMITMENT. INTEGRITY.

If I ever needed to come back, I could use it as a marker.

This time, Slick won out.