Bad Pennies Chapter 22
Previously In Bad Pennies
About two years ago former lovers, Josh and Paul robbed Paul’s employer, a process server named Cooper, of almost $300,000. Josh suggested they run off together. Thinking it’s too dangerous, Paul insists they must go their separate ways.
After laying low for a year working as a bail bondsman in Olympia, Paul gets caught up in a drug raid where some of the stolen money is recovered. This leads Paul to grab his stashed money, find Josh, and warn him that the authorities are coming.
This warning is interrupted when Josh’s pregnant fiancé, Erica arrives. Josh confesses his involvement in the robbery to Erica who drives him to the police station to turn himself in. But during Detective Pandy’s interrogation of Josh, he isn’t nearly as forthcoming and he is released.
Meanwhile, Paul has enlisted the help of his unscrupulous bounty hunter friend, Dano to help him get away, preferably with Josh. But Detective Pandy isn’t the only one on the hunt. Cooper is still looking for both Paul and Josh.
Paul woke up disoriented. His stiff neck told him he’d been asleep in one position for too long. He opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He was in Dano’s Tesla. In a grocery store parking lot. And no Dano.
He saw that his duffel bag remained at his feet and appeared as overstuffed as before. So Dano hadn’t run off with the money, but they were supposed to be staking out Josh’s place to warn him about Cooper. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. Somewhere in the night it’d lost its battery power.
The sunlight told him it was morning. He recognized he was only a few blocks away from Josh’s place. Now that he was paying attention he saw that the Tesla was plugged into the complementary electric car charger provided at the grocery store.
With a little time to himself, Paul went over recent events in his mind. He could get out of town right now except for Josh. Was he still hoping there was some way to convince Josh to run off with him? Was it just that he wanted to keep Cooper away from him? Paul needed to at least warn him. But knowing Josh, he’d just ignore the warning. As long as Josh was still in the same city as Cooper he wouldn’t be safe. Josh had to come with him. Paul realized this truth. He couldn’t leave without Josh.
For his own safety.
Somehow he felt more comfortable with the idea that his decision that Josh had to come with him wasn’t an emotional one. Not that he didn’t feel anything for Josh. He did. But Paul tried his best not to make decisions based on emotions.
He’d spent too many years watching his henpecked father stay with his mother, a woman who never had a nice thing to say about the man, but was all too happy to have a person to ridicule. He’d asked his father about that one time, only once. And he simply said, “Son, I love your mother.”
Whatever decision he made, he wouldn’t be the fool his father was. Love alone isn’t a good enough reason. If he’d thought otherwise he would have run off with Josh the night of the robbery.
A few minutes later, Dano walked out carrying two bulging bags. While Dano put the bags in the car, Paul said, “What are we doing here?”
“I was hungry. If you’d slept five more minutes, we’d be back in our spot with you none the wiser.”
“What if Cooper showed up?”
“It’s like seven in the morning,” Dano said. “Only cops bust into places that early.”
Dano unplugged the car and got in.
Paul looked at Dano. Dano shrugged and reached into one of the bags.
“I pay you to do a job and the second I’m asleep you stop doing it?”
“You wanna fire me or do you want a grocery store breakfast burrito?”
Josh’s morning began with his noticing Erica’s absence in their bed. From their his memories of the last couple days emerged in his consciousness. He grabbed his phone finding he’d apparently forgotten to plug it into the charger.
He rolled over to the other side of the bed, found the charger on the nightstand, and plugged in the phone. His phone started beeping with text message from Paul. He’d read them later. Now that the phone had power, he made a phone call.
After four rings she picked up.
“Are you calling for bail money?” she answered.
“What? No,” Josh said. “They released me. I’m at home. Where are you?”
“They released you? Did you confess?”
“I’ll tell you everything later.”
“So that’s a ‘no’. What’d you do? Walk in, wait for me to leave, and call an Uber?”
“I talked to the cops, Erica. I did. I’m helping them. Come home.”
“I can’t.”
“Where are you?”
“My mother’s. I haven’t even unpacked.”
“You’re just twenty minutes away. Don’t unpack. Just come home,” Josh said, really trying not to sound desperate, but then adding, “Please.”
“Josh, I-,”
“Come home. We’ll talk.”
“No. I need-I need time.”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can’t fix this if we’re not together.”
“You bought your life with stolen money and my Dad was a cop. What the hell did you think was going to happen, Josh?”
“Just come home and we’ll work it out,” Josh said and thinking out loud, he said, “For the baby.”
“Don’t,” she said, “Don’t fucking do that.”
“What?”
“This is about you lying. Not anything else.”
“But you don’t want our child growing up without-”
He stopped talking when he heard the click on the other end of the line.
“Yeah,” a voice from the hall said, “I don’t think your bitch is coming home anytime soon.”
The stocky Black man belonging to the voice walked into Josh’s bedroom.
“I don’t think we’ve formally met,” the man said. “I’m Cooper. I hear you have my money.”
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