He stood at the window looking down at the street below. He was thinking that Tampa was a pretty good looking town. He almost wouldn’t mind actually living here. He finished his coffee, put on his suit coat, picked up his small leather duffel, checked to see he wasn’t forgetting anything and walked out the door.
In the parking lot, he got behind the wheel of his rental car, a silver Toyota Camry, placed his telephone on the seat next to him and pulled into the morning traffic.
His telephone told him where to go, turn left in 1/4 mile…he shook his head in wonderment at the technology. Getting old, I guess.
He followed the directions from the phone to the suburbs, turn left here, turn right there…all so simple, no map necessary. ‘Ain’t technology wonderful?’
The homes here all looked the same. Different colors, pastels. The same green lawns,the same manicured shrubs. He knew a lot of people claimed that the sameness was depressing. But those same people lived in the same kind of apartment in the same kind of building. They talked about how they loved the ‘diversity’ of The City! Diversity was a big word in the cocktail lounges. Then they all went back to their little apartments. The man thought diversity was probably one of those things that everyone talked about but no one really wanted to do. He thought maybe people really wanted the comfort of the herd. The knowledge that everyone lived basically the same life. I wonder if cave people all wanted their caves to be unique or did they want a cave just like the cave that sheltered dear old Dad.
When the phone, he’d come to think of it as ‘The phone’ rather than his phone, informed him that he had arrived at his destination, he pulled into the driveway as though he lived there, was just coming home. He was driving the same model automobile, same color as the man who lived in the home. He glanced around as he exited the car, the sameness amused him but he could see the attraction, the stability, ‘Maybe some day’ he mused. ‘Some day.’
He opened the door using his Swiss Army knife as easily as if he’d had the key. He paused
momentarily just inside, listening to the silence.
As he moved through the house, he met a cat, a tortoise shell with fierce eyes. “Hello, Cat” he said. He had long ago decided that he liked cats. One of these days he was going to get one.
He found the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, took out a carton of milk and looked for a glass. He found one in the dishwasher, of course, where else would it be. He sipped at the drink as he moved about the room.
There were pet dishes on the floor under the window, one for food, the other, he assumed, for water. He poured a little of the milk into one of them. The cat had followed him and went to the dish.
“Not too much, Cat. Milk isn’t really good for you but a little won’t hurt.”
He wandered through the house, the laundry room, the door to the garage. He opened it, looked and closed the door. Down the hallway, he found a den. A large television, ‘probably a 50 incher’ he thought. If I were a burglar…well, a regular burglar, I’d have that out the door in a heartbeat’.
The stairs were carpeted and he made no sound as he climbed. There were four doors at the top. He opened and closed each one. Three bedrooms and one bathroom. In the master bedroom, the bed was made, everything in place, picture perfect.
‘This guy is neat’ he thought. He opened the drawers on the dresser, poked through the clothing, closed them and moved to the large chest. He went through the drawers a little more thoroughly.
In the closet, in a dark corner, he found what he was searching for. A dark briefcase. He carried it to the bed, used his Swiss Army knife to pop the locks, opened it.
The briefcase was lined with cash, one hundred dollar bills in what appeared to be stacks of twenty-five. Forty stacks, to be precise. One hundred thousand dollars.
‘Ah’ thought the man, ‘trouble with being in such a lucrative, illegal business. What do you do with the money? Can’t put it in the bank, the Feds ‘ud have you in a heartbeat. Can’t invest it, same reason. When you have a lot of cash that you’re not supposed to have, it’s difficult to know what to do with it.
In the linen closet, he picked out a pillowcase and went back to the bed. He dumped all the money into the pillowcase, put the briefcase back in the closet and, carrying the sack of money, went down the stairs.
In a kitchen drawer, there was a stash of brown paper bags. He put the pillowcase of money into a large one, looked around the house, didn’t see the cat, and started for the front door, stopped, returned to the kitchen, retrieved his glass from the counter, rinsed it at the sink and returned it to the dishwasher. Glanced around the house once more, left by the front door, locking it behind him, got into his rental car and drove away. There was no one on the street, no one peeking from a window, no one cutting grass, sprinklers on automatic, might almost as well be a ghost town.
The Phone gave him directions to Tampa International where he parked the rental in long-term parking and caught the shuttle bus.
At the counter, he bought a one-way ticket to New York, paid with an American Express card.
His leather duffel bag was almost full but he stopped in the gift shop, bought two souvenir tee shirts, a ball cap and a coffee mug with a leaping swordfish on it. They fit nicely on top of the brown paper bag. He dropped his Swiss Army knife in the trash in the men’s room and rode the escalator to the top floor where he stood in line for the TSA inspection. When it was his turn, he took off his shoes, placed them and the duffel in the bin provided and walked through the metal detector.
He drank a cup of coffee while he waited for his plane.
No comments:
Post a Comment