Diminishing Returns
Paul and Lou decided they would go on their weekly Saturday afternoon bike ride to the park. The weather was unusually warm, and light sweat jackets and jeans would work for their outside clothing. After riding a few miles around town, they stopped at Mr. Jacob’s convenience store for cold drinks and continued their journey to the park. When they arrived, they parked their bikes in a more secluded spot that wasn’t filled with mothers, strollers and babies. They laid down in a grassy area under the warm sun.
“What a great day to ride,” said Paul.
“Yeah,” said Lou. “I feel like I could just lay here and sleep the rest of the afternoon. You wanna maybe go fishing or to the movies or something later?”
“I don’t know. Let’s see what we feel like and ‘play it by ear’. My dad always says that to my mom when she asks what he wants to do, or where they should go. He always says, “let’s play it by ear”. Then she gets mad because she likes to have everything planned out. So, ‘let’s play it by ear’”.
“It’s too nice of a day to sit inside a movie theater. Maybe we should go to the creek and fish a little.”
As the boys rose from the ground, Paul spied a black case underneath a park bench.
“Hey look. There’s a briefcase under that bench over there and no one’s around. Let’s take a look.”
“No way!” said Lou. “What if it has a bomb in it, or bloody body parts, or a gun?”
“You have some imagination. I’m going to check it out.”
“Knock yourself out. I’m not touching it.”
Bending down, Paul reached and eased the suitcase out from under the bench. “Wow, this seems kind of heavy. Wonder what’s in it?”
Kicking it softly with his tennis shoe, the boys watched in anticipation for any movement or sound coming from within. When nothing happened, Paul’s fingers gingerly touched the brass latches.
Click.
“You ready?” he asked Lou.
“Yeah. I hope something doesn’t jump out at us.”
Paul eased open the lid.
“Holy crap!”
“Holy crap!” repeated Lou. “Money.”
With opened mouths, the boys stared in disbelief at neatly packed stacks of bills.
“Are these all one thousand dollar bills?” asked Lou.
“I don’t know. Let’s take a look.” He picked up a stack and leafed through it with his fingers. Selecting a few more, they all appeared to be the same.
“Geez, Lou. There must be a thousand of them in here. How much would that be?”
“Don’t you know math by now? A thousand dollars times a thousand is... is…”
“Is what?”
“Is a million dollars! There must be at least a million bucks in here!”
Paul slammed the lid down on the black case. Running his fingers through his dark hair, and rubbing them up across his forehead, he lowered his voice saying, “Is anyone looking at us? How about phones? Are our pictures being taken by anyone? Don’t act suspicious.”
Lou glanced around and whispered, “I don’t think so. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Let’s think about it for a few days. Come on, let’s go home. I’ll hide it in my room.”
“Shouldn’t we try to find the owner?”
“How are we going to do that? We can’t go around and ask people if they lost a case full of money. Maybe we can check the paper later, and see if there is anything in the ‘Lost and Found’.”
“What if it’s ransom money?” asked Lou. “Someone’s life could be at stake. What if someone dies? We could be the blame. Maybe it belongs to one of those big guys you see on TV that hurt people, and then bury them alive in a grave or grind them up at a sausage factory. We could end up like meatloaf!”
“You and your imagination.” Paul bit his lower lip. “Relax. Let’s play it cool for a couple of days. I’m sure we’ll find the owner. If worse comes to worse, we’ll contact the police.”
Loading the case into Paul’s backpack, the boys hurried back home.
Jumping off his bike, Paul put his forefinger to his lips.”Don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll talk to you later. I need to try to think about what we should do.”
In order to avoid talking to his mom, he bolted up the stairs to his room. Stuffing the case to the back of his closet, he threw clothes on top to conceal it. Picking up dirty clothes, Paul stuffed them in a hamper and tidied up his room. Any unneeded papers, cans, receipts were thrown in the garbage. He vacuumed and dusted so his mom wouldn’t have a reason to enter.
Laying down on the bed he started thinking about the money. Should we keep it or split it up with the rest of the gang? Should we tell our parents or go directly to the police? Maybe put it back where we found it? Are we going to be ground into meat loaf?
Paul and Lou ignored each other at school, afraid to speak about the money. After a couple of days without seeing anything in the paper, Lou said, “How about if we go back to the park and sit on the bench near where we found the case to see if anyone’s searching the area?”
“That’s a good idea. But, I was thinking about something. What if the money is fake? I was reading online about how to spot counterfeit bills. Let’s try to figure out if this is bogus before we go back.”
“Okay, let’s check it out.”
Paul dug the black case from the back of his closet and laid it on the bed. Snapping open the latches, he lifted the lid.”What the heck?”
Touching his fingers on the top stack of bills, he said, “What happened to the thousands? I don’t get it. We both saw one thousand dollar bills, didn’t we? Now they’re hundreds.”
Paul glared at his friend with narrowed eyes and furrowed eyebrows.
“Wait a minute,” said Lou. “You don’t think I changed them out, do you? First of all, I wouldn’t do such a thing. And second of all, I don’t have a stash of one hundred dollar bills to fill this case. Let’s see how much we have.”
“Maybe in the excitement of finding the money we thought we saw another zero,” said Paul, trying not to be accusatory to his friend.”We must have been confused. That’s okay. We still have a case of hundred dollar bills.”
Counting the money, the boys found they had a thousand one hundred dollar bills.
“One hundred thousand dollars is still a lot of money,” said Lou.
“It doesn’t look counterfeit. Let’s just split it up,” said Paul.
“No. We said we were going to go to the park to see if anyone showed up looking for it. Let’s go. If we don’t find anyone searching around, then we’ll split it up.”
Riding their bikes directly to the park, they barely spoke. Sitting on a bench in the same location where they found the money, they tried to act normal.
“Will you stop shaking your feet and legs like that?” said Paul. “You’re a nervous Nellie.”
“What’s a nervous Nell—”
“Shh...” whispered Paul. “Here comes someone.”
Approaching the boys was a disheveled man weaving back and forth towards them. Dirty knees poked through holes in his sweat pants, and his shoes were caked with mud. One shirt sleeve was ripped at the elbow, and his long gray hair and beard hadn’t seen a razor in weeks. He stopped where the boys were sitting. “Have you kids found a black case? Please, I need to find my case!”
Paul and Lou barely raised their eyes to the man. They sat rigid with their backs glued against the bench, tightlipped.
“Boys, did either of you find a black case here in the park?”
Lou responded. “Well, we just got here, and didn’t see anything. What was in your case?”
“I didn’t lose it today. I lost it days ago. It had all my precious money. I’ve been looking everywhere for it. I need it!”
“How much was in it?” asked Paul.
“It has everything I own! A million dollars! Have you seen it?”
Neither boy answered. It certainly couldn’t have belonged to this guy, plus it only has a hundred thousand dollars. My mom has donated better clothes. He looks like a man who hasn’t showered in weeks. With their hands tightly positioned under their legs, they didn’t dare budge, for fear of looking guilty.
“Sorry,” Lou gulped.”We haven’t seen it.”
“Good luck. Hope you find it,” said Paul.
Nervously, they stood, and mounting their bikes, rode like the wind to Paul’s.
“Come on. Let’s check and make sure we counted it correctly.
As they bolted up the stairs, Paul’s mom greeted them. “Hi, boys. You guys seem to be in a hurry. I made chocolate chip cookies. They’re on the kitchen counter if you want some.”
“We’ll get them in a minute, Mom,” said Paul. “Lou needs some cheat codes from my gaming magazine.”
“Oh, by the way, nice job cleaning your room. It makes me happy that I don’t need to go in and pick up clothes all the time. Try to keep it looking that nice.”
“Thanks!” and in two more steps he was at the top of the stairs.
Locking his bedroom door, Paul retrieved the case and placed it on the bed. Lifting the lid, the boy’s anticipation was immediately squelched.
“Not again,” said Lou, staring down at the open case. “How could we both make the same mistake of not knowing what kind of bills were in there? Now they’re all tens. It doesn’t look like anyone tampered with it.”
“Criminy,” said Paul. “According to my calculations, a thousand times ten dollars is now ten thousand dollars. No way could this have been the homeless guy’s case. There’s not enough money.”
“Since it’s not his, we should start spending it. How about if tomorrow we go to the mall and buy ourselves the new gaming consoles and the Kastle Kapture game that was just released. That will leave us plenty of money to split up afterwards.”
“Works for me.”
The next day, the boys decided to walk to the mall and avoid asking for rides from their parents. “Now is not the time to be answering questions about what we’re buying and where we got the money,” said Paul.
Holding the gaming consoles under their arms, along with the Kastle Kapture game, they waited patiently in the checkout line. The young clerk rang everything up and told them their grand total. She had a confused look when Paul set the case on the counter and opened it up. Paul and Lou’s mouth’s dropped open as the tens were now one dollar bills.
“There’s probably not even a hundred dollars left,” said Lou.
Knowing a hundred bucks couldn’t possibly pay for the gaming consoles and games, Paul said, “Sorry. We must have brought the wrong case.”
“Next time, bring your parent’s credit card instead,” said the clerk, laughing. “It would be easier than carrying around a black briefcase and it doesn’t look as suspicious.”
“This sucks,” said Lou, leaving the store dejected and dragging themselves back home. “It’s like we have nothing now. Maybe we should have tried to find the owner right away, instead of keeping it for ourselves. Or maybe the case did belong to that crazy old guy.”
On the way home, the boys sat down on the sidewalk outside of Mr. Jacob’s. “Was this a dream?” asked Paul.
Lou pinched Paul in the arm. “Ow! Why’d you do that?”
“To see if you were awake or dreaming,” said Lou, laughing. “We couldn't both have had the same dream. We know what we saw. Well, at least we have a hundred dollars to split. That should buy us something.”
“Do we really have a hundred bucks now?” said Paul. He opened the case. A single one dollar bill lay inside. “Just what I thought. We don’t have a hundred. We’re down to a single dollar.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I. It must have been a gag gift or it’s cursed. Either way, we’re going to get something out of this. Come on, let’s go inside and get us each a candy bar.”
Paul and Lou entered the store with downturned mouths and long faces.
“What can I do for you boys?” asked Mr. Jacob.
“Oh, we want to get a couple of candy bars,” said Lou.
“How about these ‘Gazillion Million Dollar’ bars? They have caramel, nuts, nougat and chocolate. All the kids seem to like them.”
“Okay,” said Lou, and he placed the dollar on the counter. “We’ll take two.”
Paul and Lou almost screamed when Mr. Jacob said, “That will be a dollar twenty-nine cents. Sorry, you don’t have enough money here.”