Read Online That Good Night by Richard Probert - Free Book Online

passport. “It’s about to expire,” she observed. “You’ve got a few months left.”
    â€œI hope I have more than that,” I quipped, which got a smile but nothing more.
    Handing the passport back to me, she stood and said, “Follow me.” I secured it back into the leather fold-over and put it back into my shirt pocket.
    Ms. Keats-Emory led me to box 1443 in a tidy vault located in the basement. She inserted the bank key and turned the lock. Then I inserted my key and the box was in my hand. Leaving the vault, we entered a small ante-room where Ms. Keats-Emory left me behind a locked door. I set the box on a small mahogany table and sat down in a comfortable upholstered arm chair. Offering a peaceful respite from the turbulent escape, the softly lit room was elegantly decorated with flocked light green wallpaper, dark woods and soft brown carpeting. My stomach was fluttering with a flock of butterflies. No, make that dragonflies. I mean, I was really shaking. My life was in that dark green metal box. Gingerly, I lifted the lid. Inside was a note that I wrote to myself. It read,
You son-of-a bitch. I hope life’s good
. Signed,
Your loving self
. I smiled. “It sure is,” I chuckled.
    Under the note was a stack of bills: One-hundred-six-thousand-dollars in denominations of hundreds, fifties, and twenties. I reverently placed the tidy stacks on the small table. I closed my eyes. This was my secret. Lori knew nothing of it. My kids would never get it. The people who had given it to me were either dead or too old to care. At the bottom of the box was an envelope containing four labeled keys: Binghamton, Scranton, York, and Annapolis. I folded the envelope and put it in my pocket and closed the empty box.
    A stack of bills amounting to over a hundred thousand dollars was larger than my pockets could hold. I didn’t bring a briefcase or a gym bag, or anything to put it in. I couldn’t leave the self-locking door and I sure as hell didn’t want to use the intercom to ask for help. Even with my pockets stuffed full, I still had a lot of bills to deal with. With no other apparentsolution of how to deal with them, I took off my pants, slid off my boxer shorts, tied them into a makeshift bag, and stuffed them with the remaining money. I had a bit of a time scrunching it all together, but in the end I was able to jam it under my arm and exit the bank without a wisp of impropriety. I had to rap on the car window to get Bob’s attention—he could fall asleep at the blink of an eye. He hit the unlock button. I slipped into the car seat, underwear dangling from my left hand. “Have an accident?” Bob asked, eying the bulging boxer shorts.
    I spread the elastic. “Does this look an accident?”
    â€œHoly shit!” Bob exclaimed. “Did you rob the place?”
    â€œI thought we already talked about that,” I answered. “Of course I didn’t.”
    â€œBut Charlie, there’s a lot of money there, that is if it’s not all ones or fives.”
    â€œOne-hundred-sixty-thousand.”
    â€œI’m glad I’m carrying.”
    â€œCarrying what?”
    â€œA 38 special. Under the seat.”
    I shook my head. “I should have guessed, Bob. But, I don’t think we’ll need it.”
    â€œNever know.”
    â€œOkaaaay,” I said, “let’s leave that subject for later. Next stop, Binghamton, sixty miles, south.”
    â€œNegative,” Bob declared, taking on CB radio lingo. “Utica, to get my truck.”
    I had forgotten about his truck.
    Bob’s F150 made the nondescript Camry look like a Bentley. Think rust. Dents just about everywhere. A faded green bed-cap with a ladder rack bolted askew to the truck body, a rearbumper fashioned from a hand-hewn log. Some wire dangling underneath. Complete with a coat-hanger radio aerial. I knew this truck when it was new. That was over twenty years ago.