Wallace MacGilvery was not bad man. The world of today was not an easy place and he did what he had to do to survive. Maybe he gouged prices a bit at his hardware store sometimes. He cheated a bit on his taxes. Everybody did. They set it up so you almost had to. Just to get by. When he saw the wallet in the road, he was almost afraid to pick it up. At first he drove right past it. But then he looked in the rear view mirror and it sure looked like a wallet. Probably a piece of trash, but what the hell. He backed up. No one was anywhere near it. In fact there were not even any cars on the small suburban street. Just four small neatly spaced houses. Typical middle-class residences with quarter acre lots. Just enough lawn that you had to mow.
The wallet was brown and looked like well worn leather. The thing was though, is that it was fat. Filled with something. Business cards, photos or credit cards maybe. But what if it was cash? Bunch of ones probably. What they used to call a St. Louis bankroll.
Before he knew it, Wallace had gotten out of the car. Now he had a real sense of anxiety. What if it was full of hundreds. There would be some form of ID in it of course, but would he call the person? That would be the right thing to do. Of course he could take the cash and say he found it like that. At least the owner wouldn’t have to cancel all his credit cards and get a new driver’s license. That would be a decent thing to do. Such a careless person would be lucky to get them back. Suddenly, it seemed to Wallace that there should be some kind of consequence for being so careless – some sort of fine imposed by the universe for not taking care of your property. He reached down to pick up the wallet and for the first time, it occurred to him that maybe someone had been robbed, their cash taken and the wallet tossed out the window with pictures and credit cards intact. No, the thief would take the credit cards and try to use them or maybe sell them to someone even more desperate.
The wallet was full of hundred-dollar bills. Wallace counted twenty-two. And there were credit cards galore. Also, a driver’s license. But no pictures. None. Must belong to someone who either had no family or didn’t care much about them. There were a few business cards stuffed in the side pocket, but none of them matched the name on the license…wait, here were a couple in the other side pocket. Robert Donnely was the name on the license and according to the business card he was an insurance salesman. That was a lot of cash for an insurance salesman to be carrying around. Maybe he’d been on the way to the bank. Maybe he’s just sold a big policy and the cash was the initial payment. Or maybe he sold drugs on the side.
Or maybe he was dead and whoever killed him dumped the wallet. That meant two things. It was probably a crime of passion so the money didn’t matter but if Wallace was caught with it, he could be linked to the murder. Now he regarded the wallet as a threat.
As far as threats go the cash could be part of a drug deal gone bad, a robbery or a blackmail scheme. Maybe Wallace should put the wallet back. That would be the smart thing to do. And that’s what he did.
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