The Fixer

3

He grabbed a handful of plastic supermarket shopping bags from the broom closet-a couple from Star Market and a couple from Whole Foods, from the old days, when they used to give out plastic bags. The packets of cash fit into six bags, but when he tried to lift one of them, the bag broke and the cash tumbled to the floor. He doubled each bag, then hauled them downstairs two at a time, handling the flimsy bags gingerly. When he’d gathered them at the foot of the staircase, he tested carrying two at a time. Not possible; the weight he could manage, but the cash was too bulky. He didn’t want to risk a bag failure between the house and the car, cash spilling across the driveway.

Especially if Jeff were watching from next door. Why the hell wasn’t he off on a job somewhere, renovating a Watertown condo or building a spec house? What did he do all day when he didn’t have a job scheduled?

The trunk of his old red BMW 3 Series-the red had been a mistake, one of a long line of mistakes; cops really did go after red cars more often-was stuffed with crap. A gym bag, a pile of magazines he’d optimistically planned to read on the elliptical trainer, a set of jumper cables. He rearranged the junk, jamming old Entertainment Weeklys and Back Bays as far back as possible, until there was room for the six bagsful of cash. Then, after looking around outside to make sure Jeff-or anyone else-wasn’t for some reason watching, he trundled the bags carefully to the trunk.

Then he got into the driver’s seat and sat there, thinking for a moment of where he might take 3.4 million dollars for safekeeping. The obvious place, of course, was a bank. A safe-deposit box. He didn’t have one; all he knew about safe-deposit boxes was what he’d seen in the movies and on TV. He seemed to remember a standard size of a few feet long by maybe eight or ten inches wide. Did they come in larger sizes? He assumed you could request a larger one if you wanted.

His bank had a branch office in Harvard Square. He started the car and maneuvered down Clayton Street to Huron Ave, and then over to Garden Street toward the square. He’d begun to think more clearly now, and he started having second thoughts about carting six grocery bags of cash into the Bank of America. Was it even legal to store cash in a safe-deposit box? He pulled the car over to the shoulder in a no-stopping zone and switched on his blinkers.

He loaded the Safari browser on his phone and searched. The answer wasn’t clear. Banks had to notify the IRS of any deposits of more than ten thousand dollars. But that referred to deposits into bank accounts. Not stashing away packets of cash.

Still, in this post-9/11 age, banks probably had to pay close attention to the movements of large quantities of cash, right? In case it was connected to ill-gotten gains? Maybe the US government could even confiscate your cash if it thought you were engaged in criminal activity. He wasn’t sure, but it wouldn’t have surprised him if that were true.

If he wandered into the Harvard Square branch of the Bank of America toting six shopping bags full of cash, mostly hundreds, that was as good as blowing a trumpet and announcing to the world that he was a coke dealer. He would be observed, no question about it-how could any banker who wasn’t too busy texting or checking her Facebook page fail to observe him carrying in a load of cash? Then the teller would summon the assistant manager, and…

It no longer seemed like such a good idea to bring all this cash into a bank.

In fact, it didn’t seem like such a good idea to carry his cash anywhere in those crappy supermarket bags. Not just because of the risk of the bags’ splitting, but also because anyone could see their contents. That was just asking to get mugged.

He turned off his blinkers and pulled back into traffic and headed back the way he’d come, then over to Mass Ave, where he found a 7-Eleven. Parking the car in a space he could monitor from inside the store, he quickly bought a box of Glad trash bags (ForceFlex, black, extra strong) and returned to the car. Standing at the trunk, about to pop the lid, he suddenly became aware of how exposed he was.

Any passerby, anyone peering out of a car in the honking, snarling traffic, would be able to see into the trunk. All that cash-that insane, scarcely believable quantity of cash-wasn’t something you wanted to put on display.

He pulled the car out of the space, turned it around, front end out. Safer this way. Now maybe someone inside the store could see, if he happened to be looking. But there seemed to be no one in the 7-Eleven except the cashier. He pressed the button on the remote and the trunk opened, and there they were, six bulky overstuffed shopping bags, the diaphanous plastic strained to the breaking point. He glanced over his shoulder for the third time, reassured no one was watching, and set to work pulling a big opaque black trash bag over each smaller one, jammed with legal tender.

Then he slammed the trunk closed.

He looked around again, just to make sure no one had seen anything, and then he glimpsed a truck lumbering by with COSMOS SELF STORAGE painted on its side, and he had an idea.

Cosmos Self Storage was a tall boxy cinder block building on a short block of matching cinder block buildings off Fresh Pond rotary, a faceless row of automotive glass companies and plumbing supply firms. It looked freshly painted, bright yellow, like a Crayola box. He parked right in front and locked the BMW when he entered. Inside it was cavernous, warehouselike. The storage units were rows upon rows of converted industrial pallet racks. Sitting at a desk behind a window was a young guy with big eyelet piercings in each earlobe. He answered Rick’s questions in a tone that made it clear he’d rather be doing anything other than sitting in a box in a self-storage facility. He slid a clipboard through the slot.

Ten minutes later, Rick had rented the smallest storage unit available. It was located on an upper level, like all the smallest units, reachable only by means of a rolling steel ladder.

Motion-sensor lights came on as he went down the aisle looking for the locker. He found number 322 and pulled the ladder over to it, climbed to the top platform, and tried his key. The lock came open, but it took him a while to figure out how to open the roll-up steel door. Calm down, man, he told himself. He took a deep breath, then surveyed the space. The unit was maybe four feet wide by five feet high by six feet deep. More than enough space. Its interior was clean and dry.

It would do just fine. An anonymous locker in a building where no one seemed to be paying much attention to anyone.

He rolled a dolly out to the parking lot and unloaded the trunk.

Ten minutes later he’d moved all six black trash bags into the storage unit. Even though there didn’t seem to be anyone else loading or retrieving stuff, no one here but the guy with the big holes in his earlobes, Rick still was careful not to open the bags until he was crouched down inside the unit. Not that he needed to. He just wanted to see if the money was still there, if it was still real. He resisted the urge to count it again. Looking around-the coast was clear-he reached into one of the bags and pulled out a few packets and slid them into the inside zippered pocket of his Mountain Hardwear down jacket. Then he grabbed more packets, stuffing one into each of the four pockets. His ski parka was now worth a hundred thousand dollars.

A little spending money.

When he was finished, he rolled down the steel door and locked the Master Lock and glanced around, his heart pounding, sweat droplets breaking out on his forehead. He tugged at the lock a few times to make sure it was secure.

There was probably only one person who would know how the hell all that cash ended up in the house on Clayton Street, walled up in the crawl space. How it got there and what it was doing there.

Only one person.

And that guy-Rick’s dad-couldn’t speak.