Bad Pennies Chapter 27 (FINAL CHAPTER)
Dano could admit, at least to himself, that going to Cooper’s office was a bridge too far. The two bullets still in his chest and one in his shoulder burned like lit cigarettes put out by three stepfathers. Holy shit did they hurt. And his right hand was all fucked up.
Paul had run the fuck out of the office and Dano wanted to chase after him, but running wasn’t in the cards. In fact, just walking presented more of a challenge to Dano than it ever had before. He leaned on the wall and kept walking towards the exit, but there was no sign of Paul.
All he had to do was get to his car. He’d catch up to that homo thief. He ignored the sirens. Just put one foot in front of the other. Catch him before he gets away. Four bullets wasn’t anything. His people could take six and keep coming. He could do this. He took another few steps towards the front door. Sirens were closer.
He should have just drove off with the bag of money. Why’d he have to get greedy?
One of the two bullet wounds in his chest, the one by his right armpit seemed to explode with pain. Dano looked down and saw far more blood than he expected. He was making a mess.
The front door of the building was glass and he could see outside. He saw his Tesla he’d parked in the handicapped spot. And he saw a lady cop in a trench coat standing next to half a dozen uniformed officers and four or five police vehicles parked in the street.
The uniformed cops had their guns out. They’re all yelling for him to raise his hands. Dano slowly opened the door. He raised his left arm, but his right arm wouldn’t move resulting in what looked more like a wave than a surrender.
Dano cracked a smile.
“Any of you guys wanna call me an ambulance?”
She’d sell the Galaxie. On Erica’s return trip to her mother’s from Josh’s she decided that while her father had left it to her, she associated it too much with Josh. Erica intended to go on a Josh-purge. She’d delete photos, block him on social media, and sell the damned car. Because thinking of Josh was the last thing she wanted to do.
Moving back in with Mom wasn’t too far behind that on the list, but she didn’t see a lot of choice. The empty driveway let her know her Mom had not returned home yet. She’d have a break before the inevitable you-picked-up-a-scorpion lecture.
Erica pulled to the curb in front of the house and got out of the car. Opening the trunk, she grabbed one of her bags, but a strap was caught on something. She gave the strap a yank and it dislodged the lid of a green metal toolbox revealing bundles of cash.
Erica snapped the lid of the toolbox shut, grabbed her bag, and shut the trunk.
With the exception of a rest stop bathroom (with terrible free coffee) outside of Wenatchee and the gas station a few miles from there (with not-terrible but not free coffee) where he filled the tank and got back on I-90.
At this time of night he practically had the freeway to himself. Everything behind him, he hit the gas pedal and rolled down the driver’s side window the cold air was bracing. He looked in the passenger seat, the empty passenger seat. Where Josh should be. Instead, the only thing on the passenger side of his car was a duffel bag full of money.
He reached across and down and pulled the bag up into the seat and then reached in with his left hand and grabbed some loose bills that weren’t banded together. He took the fist full of cash and let the bills blow in the breeze as he clutched them in his hand and held them out the window. He sped up, keeping his right hand on the wheel.
Slowly, he let go and the money started to fall into the wind.
Over the next few hours he broke the banded cash up and every few minutes he’d let a few more hundred dollars go. The tears felt good. He tried to imagine each bill being a memory of every step that got him here. If only those memories were as easy to lose.
The lamppost had changed. Probably some halogen light or something. The son of a bitch never moved. He was still in that house where Josh spent the first years of his life. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got to the door, but a combination of fear and anger made him hyper aware of his footsteps getting ever closer to something he’d been avoiding for years.
It had been a week since Josh made that phone call to Detective Pandy. A week since Paul had disappeared. A week since Erica left.
The house looked largely the same. In fact, it looked better than he remembered it looking. His father wasn’t the biggest on lawn care from what he recalled, but this place seemed to be well maintained.
Only three days since the call from Detective Pandy telling him that she believed he didn’t know where Paul was and that he was free to leave town. Before she hung up she reminded him to call her if he ever heard from Paul again.
Josh last talked to his father almost ten years ago, but he had planned on making this trip before to tell him that he was going to be a grandfather and that he had a girl he was in love with. If he lied about having a job, he’d be the son his father always wanted. That was before.
But now. No Erica. No baby. No job. Almost no money. Still, he decided to catch a bus to the old neighborhood and talk to his father. Maybe they’d work things out.
Two days ago he put the condo on the market. It felt like the right move. He’d spent the last week thinking about not just Paul or Erica or his father or anyone else, but the whole expanse of his life. He applied Erica’s little diagnosis that Josh just loved to be loved to the course of his life. It didn’t quite fit, but she definitely had a point. And so what if he did? Was that so bad?
“Maybe not,” a voice in his head said, “but that’s not love.”
He knocked on the door to his father’s house. He heard some movement inside. The door opened and a little blond girl no more than eight years old stood in front of him in light blue pajamas with pink butterflies on them. Could this kid be his father’s? That would make her-
“Who’re you?” the child asked.
“My-my name’s Josh,” he said hoping he sounded friendly enough to her. He peered into the house, it looked nothing like he remembered. The rooms had the same shape, but the walls were a different color and none of the furniture sparked any memories. This blond little girl couldn’t answer his questions.
Luckily, a man a few years older than Josh came from another room. The man had a good build and classically handsome features and messed up blond hair the same color as the girl’s.
“Evelyn!” the man said to the little girl. “Don’t just open the door.”
The man came to the door, scooped the girl up in his arms, and said, “How can I help you?”
Josh became flummoxed for a moment. “I-um, Does Harold live here?”
The man furrowed his brow.
“No. It’s just me, Julie and Evelyn here.”
“Okay,” Josh said, beginning to turn away. Then he turned back. “How long have you lived here?”
“About six years,” the man said, then something seemed to click with him. “Wait. We bought it from a guy named Harold!”
Finally something made sense.
“Do you know where he moved to?” Josh asked.
“Sorry. Couldn’t tell you. He’s long gone.”
Josh thanked the man for the information and left the porch. The little girl waved goodbye.
Long gone. His mother might know how to find Harold, but they tended to avoid that topic in their conversations. Josh walked down his old street for the last time knowing his future whatever it might be lay far away from here.
Author’s Note: The first version of this story was a screenplay I wrote in the year 2000. If I wanted to be hyperbolic I could say I spent half my life working on Bad Pennies. In reality it was a project I kept trying to bring to life every few years with varying degrees of success, this one being clearly the most successful.
Thank you for being a part of it. Thank you for reading. And for those of you waiting for the physical book, know you’ll have it in time for reading this Summer.
If you read the story, let me know what you thought. Writers live off money and feedback.
Thanks again for helping bring this story to life.
A Shot of Jack is on hiatus until May 2, 2025.
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