chapter 60
BERNARD DESPERATELY WANTED to turn around to see the money Walter and Sebastian were excitedly talking about, but he had to concentrate on driving. They couldn’t get stopped by the police. Judging by Walter and Sebastian’s comments, they had stolen a hell of a lot more money than they had anticipated.
Sebastian was trying to rough-count the cash. “I’m telling y’all, there’s a million bucks here…just in this bag!”
“It’s gonna take us all night to count.”
“You got something better to do?” Bernard asked.
“Nope. Just get us back home safe,” Walter replied. Then to Sebastian he said, “You did really good tonight. Crackin’ that door lock was impressive.”
“Thanks. It felt good.”
“What door are y’all talkin’ about?” Bernard asked.
“The door to the office was locked, and our man here picked it.”
“Years of gunsmithing finally pay off.”
“I’ll say it’s paid off,” Walter remarked, slapping the side of the money bag.
Bernard held up a silver key. “Bailey gave this to me this yesterday. She said it’s the key to the office and that we might need it. Sorry, I forgot.”
Walter placed his cigar in the corner of his mouth, leaned forward, and took the key from Bernard. “This certainly would have made things easier.”
“I’m sorry,” Bernard said as he watched Walter’s eyes in his rearview mirror.
“Don’t worry about it. Thanks to Sebastian, we went over that hurdle.”
“Did y’all leave the evidence?”
“We sure did,” Walter stated as he pointed with his cigar.
“Woody’s not gonna have time to bother Bailey anymore,” Sebastian added.
“Perfect!”
“And thanks to Bailey’s insight and direction, our little foundation just received a huge donation,” Walter said.
“Is there really a million dollars back there?” Bernard asked as he turned his head to look.
“I’m thinkin’ there is…this bag’s is full of big bills. They’ll add up to a huge number quick.”
Following a moment of clarity, Walter said, “Guys, listen to me. This is serious shit. We gotta be really careful. We can’t tell anyone or draw any attention to ourselves. Somebody’s gonna get killed for this.”
“Yeah, like Woody,” Sebastian chuckled.
“Seriously. It could be Bailey or us if we aren’t careful. That’s a lot of money, and somebody’s gonna be really pissed.”
“Are you thinkin’ that we shouldn’t have framed Woody?” Sebastian asked.
“Maybe.”
“You serious?”
“Somebody’s gonna completely freak out about this money! Woody’s an abuser, and that’s about as low as it gets in my book, but we shouldn’t be playing judge and jury.”
“But what we’re doing is to help others,” Bernard said.
“We just stole a shit pot full of money…and now you’re feelin’ guilty?” Sebastian asked.
Walter’s guilt was that he had convinced the others to believe in him and his ideas. They now believed that some wrongs were right, if they were done to benefit another. How did one determine what was right and what was wrong? And who gets to make that determination? He had convinced them to alter their core beliefs. The allure of money was powerful. It motivated people to make excuses for their actions rather than taking responsibility for their choices.
“Let’s just get back to the Henry Clay. We are all jacked up on adrenaline and coffee. I don’t mean to suddenly change and sound like a television evangelist after we’ve done all this.”
“You think we oughta go back and get the can of dip?” Bernard asked.
“I don’t know…maybe? The fact that there was all this additional cash makes me think something really big was about to go down and that we got real lucky.”
“We can go back if you think we should. I trust your judgment,” Sebastian said. Then he added, “But I gotta say, I think we’d really be pushin’ that luck.”