excerpt
– I guess we better get going, I said. We don’t wanna miss our rendezvous.
Burt didn’t budge. Finally he said, Ain’t gonna be no rendezvous.
He loosened the flaps of his pack and spilled its contents.
River rock. I dumped mine — the same.
– What’s going on, Burt?
– Ain’t no satellite receiver, little brother. Those two buggered off
long ago. And look, he said, fingering the napkin map and peering
over the edge into the ravine. They were hoping we’d have ourselves
a little accident.
– But this cable! And the TV store!
Burt chuckled. The van was leased, he said. The TV store was
rented by the month.
I still wasn’t convinced.
– I was checking on my stash one night when I overheard the two
of them talking. It was all Swanson’s idea. He’s done this before.
Bud’s his stooge.
– And?
– I told the cops everything. Those two are probably in cuffs by
now.
Burt removed a nylon bag from his pack.
– Open it, he said.
It was stuffed with paper money, and plenty of it.
– Explain, Burt . . .
– While Bud was trying to find mine, I was looking for his. A couple
of times we almost bumped into each other. With a little help
from a friend, I found his first. All the share money, his cut of the TV
sales.
My brother separated the money into three piles and pointed to
the tallest. The bills were stacked like a column of Chinese characters.
– I figure we’d turn this in, he said. It belongs to Aunt Peggy and
the others. But this one—he stuffed the second pile into the pack—
is ours. After all, folks have their TVs.
– And the third?
– That’s for cousin Mark. A reward. He’s the one found a couple
of Bud’s chewed-up toothpicks down by the river and suggested we
start digging.
Manolis Aligizakis 