James Grippando - Found money

With a steady pull he removed the box from its sleeve. He laid it on the bench behind him. It was no larger than a shoe box, sealed all the way around. With the truth so close, curiosity took over. He didn’t bother taking the box to the back room with the table. His heart quickened. He flipped the latch and opened the top.

He stared inside. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but this didn’t look like much. Just some papers. He reached inside and removed the top sheet. It was a bank record for yet another Panamanian bank, the Banco del Istmo. Ryan read it closely. He recognized his father’s signature at the bottom. It was an application for a numbered bank account. Attached to the back was a deposit slip. Ryan shuddered.

The deposit was three million dollars.

“Holy shit,” he uttered. His mind raced. The two million he’d already found in the attic was possibly part of the three million. Or perhaps the three was in addition to the two. The thought made him dizzy.

He reached inside the box for the remaining contents, which were in a large manila envelope. He opened the flap and removed a document. It looked old, tattered around the edges. It was old. Forty-six years old, to be exact.

Ryan scanned it from top to bottom. It was the information his mother had intuitively feared. A copy of a sealed record from the juvenile courts of Colorado. A criminal sentencing report for “Frank Patrick Duffy, a minor.” Not only had his father committed a crime, he’d apparently been convicted. In fact, he had pleaded guilty. Ryan felt chills as he read the charge aloud in quiet disbelief.

“One count sexual assault in violation of Colorado Statutes, section…”

His heart was in his throat. Before opening the box, he had hoped for many things. This was not on his wish list.

At age sixteen, Frank Duffy had raped a woman.

Ryan Duffy, M.D., S.O.R. — son of a rapist.

That was the identity with which he had to come to terms. He felt anger, resentment, betrayal — a flood of emotions. He and his father had always been close. Or had they? Certainly Ryan was proud to be his son. In truth, however, there had always been a safe emotional distance between them. Dad was a great buddy — a regular guy who would share a round of Irish whiskey on his deathbed. On that level, he and Ryan were close. Hell, on that level, Frank Duffy had been “close” with half the male population of Prowers County. But there were things Ryan and his father had never discussed, things they probably should have talked about. Not just the rape, the money, or the extortion. Other things, too.

Like the real reason Ryan had chucked a promising career in Denver and moved back to Piedmont Springs.

Secrets, it seemed, were a bit of a Duffy family tradition. Maybe it was genetic. As a child, he had emulated his father, wanting only to be more like him. How much, he wondered, were they alike?

Ryan returned to the hotel around 6:00 P.M. He had already checked out of his room, but his flight wouldn’t leave Tocumen International Airport for another four hours. He decided to kill some time in the bar in the main lobby.

“Jameson’s and water,” he told the bartender.

He sat alone on a stool at the end of the mahogany bar. It had been a long day. First the safe deposit box at the Banco Nacional, which had led him to a second Panamanian account at the Banco del Istmo — which had turned out to be a veritable bonanza. The two million dollars in the attic hadn’t been withdrawn from that account or even laundered through it, whatever the correct terminology was. The funds were completely separate sums, though inextricably related. Ryan had found an additional three million dollars that his father had obtained through extortion. The total was now five.

The bartender poured his drink. “ Salud,” he said, then returned to his televised soccer game at the other end of the bar. He and some other fanatics were screaming at the set. Ryan was oblivious to the game, the shouting. He guzzled his drink and ordered another, a double. With each sip, the background noises were retreating further into oblivion. He was beginning to relax. The bartender served him another drink.

“No, gracias, ” said Ryan, waving it off. “Reached my limit.”

“Is from the young lady at the table over there.” He pointed discreetly with a shift of the eyes.

Ryan turned in his bar stool. The bar was dimly lit, but not so dark that he couldn’t see her. She was surprisingly attractive. Very attractive. Ryan glanced back at the bartender. “Is she a… you know.”

“A hooker? No. You want one? No problemo. What you like, I can get it.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” he said with mild embarrassment.

“Berry good-looging,” he said with a smirk.

Ryan checked his reflection in the big mirror behind the bar. No woman had ever bought him a drink before. Bars had never been his forte. He was too shy. He felt like the only man in America who had actually never gotten a woman’s phone number in a bar, not even in college. Maybe I should have been hitting the happy hours in Panama.

He looked her way to thank her, raising his glass. She smiled — not too much, barely perceptible. A subtle smile that invited him over.

His battered ego swelled. It had been a long time since a woman had looked at him that way. Liz hadn’t wanted him for months. Amy had sparked him for a few minutes at the Green Parrot, then backed off like a squirrel. Flirting, however, was the last thing he felt like tonight. Still, her interest was flattering. He at least had to be polite, thank her properly. He started across the room toward her table. The closer he got, the better she looked.

She was in her early thirties, he guessed. Her straight hair was shoulder-length, a rich black sheen beneath the dim bar lights. The eyes were equally dark, not cold but mysterious. She wore a tan fitted suit, probably French or Italian. Her jewelry was gold and sapphire, clearly expensive but still professional. A stunning international businesswoman. Ryan was amazed she was alone.

Don’t see many women like this in Piedmont Springs.

“Thank you for the drink,” he said.

“You’re quite welcome. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you looked like you could use it. That’s a very stressful look on such a handsome face.”

“Kind of a tough day.”

“Sorry.” She offered the empty chair. “Care to commiserate?”

He considered it, then thought better. Nothing good could come from confiding in some stranger, however beautiful. “I appreciate the invitation, but my wife has this thing about me meeting women in bars. Can you imagine that?”

She smiled thinly. “I understand. That’s very decent of you. Your wife’s a lucky woman.”

“Thanks.”

“Does she know how lucky she is?”

It was an oddly personal question, the kind that sounded rehearsed. Ryan guessed it was a tried-and-true modus operandi, the gorgeous woman in the bar who made married men feel the need to spend time with a woman who could appreciate them. “Thanks for the drink,” he said.

“Any time.”

He turned and headed back to his bar stool. The irony nearly choked him — using Liz as an excuse not to meet an attractive, interesting woman. Instinct, however, had him questioning everything and everybody. Especially with what he was carrying in his bag.

My bag!

He froze just a few steps from his bar stool. He didn’t see his leather bag. He’d forgotten it had even been there until now. The come-hither looks had made him forget all about it and leave it behind when he’d walked over to her table. He was sure he’d left it on the floor.

He checked the other bar stools and the floor all around. It was nowhere to be found. Panic gripped him. The bag contained everything. His passport. His plane tickets. Photocopies of everything from the two Panamanian banks.