I was waiting like a cat on hot bricks at the counter of the Baltimore Penn Station lost and found. The employee had disappeared into the back room to search for the duffel bag. He was young, portly, and had a bad haircut. Most kids had bad haircuts these days. Too many of them looked like Hitler youth. Heck, too many of them were Hitler youth.
The kid seemed decent enough, but he was taking a lot longer in back than I’d expected. Was he on the phone with security? I worried I was being watched, but I didn’t dare look around. No reason to act overly suspicious. I was just a guy picking up a duffel bag full of heroin.
I’d taken the first train out of Wilmington, a Northeast Regional. It was the slower cousin of the high-speed Acela, but much faster than driving bumper-to-bumper on I-95. I’d already spent too much time behind the wheel over the weekend.
The regional train was cheaper, though, and that meant more riffraff. Since business class had been full, too, it turned out to be the first time in decades that Amtrak’s most famous passenger sat amongst the working stiffs. Instead of feeling out of place, however, I discovered that I felt right at home. I struck up a conversation with the lovely woman seated next to me, and we chatted about our grandkids all the way to Baltimore. It was a welcome distraction from the chaos of the previous week.
But it wasn’t enough to distract me from the letter.
Dear Joe,
I hope this letter finds you well.
Things are not going so good on my end. In January, Darlene had a stroke. She is over at Baptist Manor. We do not know if she will recover. All I want to do is bring her home. As you can imagine the costs involved are more than we can afford. This is not to excuse my actions, because there is no excuse.
I met some men one morning at Waffle Depot, who told me, “How would you like to make some extra money.” I said, “What do I have to do.” They said, “Take this bag with you to DC and give it to somebody.” I asked what is in the bag, they said “Do you want the money or not.”
I knew the men were drug dealers. Still I said, “Yes.”
The first couple of runs went fine. The money was good. I didn’t open the bags, but I had an idea what was in them. We (Amtrak conductors) got a notice to be on the lookout for increased trafficking. Specifically “opioids.” Agencies were doing stings on the interstate, and the DEA thought dealers might try alternate routes. I had to laugh at that one, because the DEA was a little late to the party.
Last week, my daughter tells me a girl in her dorm overdosed on heroin. “I thought only junkies overdosed,” I said. This girl was a college kid at Georgetown. On the volleyball team. Good grades.
She lived. The next might not.
I never opened the bags, so I can’t say for sure what I was transporting. But it wasn’t marijuana. The dealers were paying me too much to move a little pot.
There is a black duffel bag in lost and found at the station in Baltimore. I told the man at the counter someone left it in the men’s room. I think they believed me. The perks of wearing a uniform!
The drug dealers are in a motorcycle group. “The Murder Town Marauders.” I do not know their real names, but the one guy who gave me the bags and the money calls himself “Texas.”
I do not know what the men are going to do when they find out I didn’t deliver the bag. The men say they are being protected by the police, so I cannot go to them. I do not know if I can trust other government agencies. You are the only one I can trust right now who might be able to help me.
Your friend,
Finn Donnelly
P.S. I am sorry. Give my best to Dr. Biden.
The lost-and-found employee finally returned. He was holding a black duffel bag. Instead of being relieved, my heart sped up. I could feel sweat forming on my brow.
It was real. It was suddenly all too real.
“Is this it?” he asked.
I had no way of knowing. It was black, and it was a duffel bag. It would have to do.
“That looks like it,” I said. I tried to smile like I’d just been reunited with a long-lost friend. I suppose it was true, in a way.
The kid heaved it onto the counter with a huff. He reminded me that, in the future, I might want to place a luggage tag on my bags. I said I’d keep it in mind, and reached for the bag.
“Wait,” he said, slapping his forehead. “I forgot to have you identify what’s in the bag. I’m so sorry, Mr. Vice President.”
I kept my grin up, but inwardly was hitting the panic button. “What’s in the bag?”
“I know it sounds stupid, that you’d want to take someone else’s old gym clothes,” he said. “I trust you, go ahead and take it. But you can’t be too careful these days, especially after 9/11.” He whispered the date like it was a naughty word. “Just so you know, we go through everything that’s brought in—not to be nosy, just to be safe. You might want to make sure everything’s in there. Sometimes things get misplaced.”
The kid didn’t look old enough to remember how lax security had been before September 11, but I let it slide. “I’m sure all of my…old gym clothes…are in there,” I said, taking the bag off the counter. It wasn’t much heavier than a bag of gym clothes. Could there really be enough drugs in it to be worth killing someone over?
Nobody stopped me as I crossed the concourse. Nobody swarmed in with guns drawn and told me to drop the bag and get on the ground. Still, I lowered my head and quickened my pace until I reached the men’s room.
Inside a locked stall, I set the bag on the back of the toilet. There was piss all over the seat. I’d never understand how some men couldn’t aim their pistols. Half of ‘em probably had handguns at home, too—a terrifying prospect.
I unzipped the duffel bag quickly, like I was tearing off a Band-Aid. I knew there was no reason to draw things out. It wasn’t going to change what was inside.
I breathed deep and looked.
Sneakers.
A couple of T-shirts.
A pair of shorts.
A Monster energy drink.
That was it.
I rifled through the bag, feeling for a false bottom or hidden compartments. Nothing. Finn had given me one job, and in the end I’d failed him. Taylor and his biker buddies had been searching for the bag all week—in Darlene’s room at Baptist Manor, at the Donnellys’ home in Riverside. Had they beat me here?
I stuffed everything back in the bag. I could return to the lost-and-found counter later, when somebody else was working. See if there was another black duffel bag. Damn you, Finn, I thought. I knew why he hadn’t left his name and address inside the bag, but he could have done something. Of course, it was futile to get upset with him. He’d been working with what he had. He hadn’t planned this out. He’d been acting impulsively. I could hear Jill’s voice in my head: Now who does that remind you of, Joe?
Wait.
I pulled the energy drink out again. Finn and I might have both been impulsive, but we both had something else in common: we didn’t drink alcohol…and we didn’t drink caffeine. The likelihood of Finn buying one of these highfalutin beverages was zero to zilch.
I popped the tab. Though the drink was supposed to be carbonated, there was no release of air. The can weighed about the same as it would if it were filled with liquid, but there wasn’t any liquid inside. Instead, there was a plastic bag, packed with bright-white powder and taped up tight. Good night, nurse.