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On the off chance, Gator called Baptiste and told him about their discovery.
“Ah, you found it,” Baptiste said over the phone.
“You knew about the safe?” Gator asked, surprised.
“No, but I have a number combination that I couldn’t think of what it could be for. Try this,” he told Gator. “7 left, 5 right, 2 left, 9 right, 3 left.”
“Give me a sec,” Gator said. He crouched down and entered the combination as Baptiste had told him. “Success,” he said as he turned the handle and opened the heavy door.
Gator couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He turned to see Sylvie’s reaction, and she was wide-eyed.
“There must be tens of thousands here,” he said, his voice full of disbelief.
“Tens of thousands?” That was Baptiste’s voice over the phone.
“Where did all this come from?” Gator asked Sylvie. She shrugged. “Looks like crime pays,” he said with a wry smile.
“What do we do with it all?” she asked, her voice wavering.
“Give it all to me,” Baptiste said over the phone, and they both laughed.
“I’m going to end the call now, Baptiste,” Gator joked.
“Might as well,” Baptiste said. “I’m already on my way.”
He did, in fact, arrive in a time that suggested he’d been speeding the whole way. When he saw the stacks of cash, he asked, “Do I get a share?”
“What, we’re going to keep it?” Sylvie asked, taken aback.
“We don’t even know where it came from to give it back, and I’m sure if we did, it wouldn’t be anyone who got this kind of money honestly,” Gator said. “I think the best thing to do would be…”
He started to stuff cash into his pockets. Baptiste playfully pushed Gator aside, trying to do the same, and they both ended up rolling around on the ground, wrestling and laughing. The sound of their laughter filled the shed, and for a moment, Sylvie felt like she was looking at two young boys having a whole lot of fun.
When they finally stopped and sat up to catch their breaths, Baptiste said, “Do you know what this is?” He threw a bundled-up stack of cash in the air, and it rained down on top of them.
Sylvie and Gator waited for him to explain, their eyes following the fluttering bills.
“This is your reward, lovely lady,” Baptiste said, his eyes crinkling as he smiled at Sylvie. “For putting up with that jerk for all those years. You two deserve all the best for the rest of your lives. I couldn’t think of two people more deserving.”
As the last of the money settled around them, Sylvie felt a warmth in her chest. Maybe it wasn’t the most honest way to start anew, but it was a chance for her and Gator to leave the darkness of her past behind and begin a new chapter together. And in that moment, surrounded by laughter and the unexpected windfall, it felt like anything was possible.
23
The sun hunglow in the sky, casting long shadows on the streets of Thibodaux as Gator received a call from Bruno. The urgency in his voice was palpable, an undercurrent of something more that made Gator feel concerned for his friend. He asked Gator to meet him at the Rusty Spoon, a local hole-in-the-wall diner about an hour or so drive from where Gator had pulled over to the side of the road when he felt his cellphone vibrate in his pocket. Gator had gone for a ride to blow out the weeds…it had been a long-ass week with everything that had been going on, and there was nothing better than the road to reset his mind.
He wondered why Bruno had chosen that place, so far out of town. Maybe there was something special about the location that he was about to find out. Either way, he wasn’t concerned, it just meant he had a reason to ride.
An hour would be just enough time to get there. Gator wondered again why the urgency, but maybe that was something else he was about to discover. Something didn’t quite feel right about the call, so he pulled out onto the empty road, gunned his Harley, and headed towards his destination, the big bike eating up the distance between him and the answers he sought.
After ending the call to Gator, Bruno sat at his table looking down at his phone for a long time, contemplating what the rest of the day would bring. With a big sigh, he called Baptiste. He hoped his friend was closer to Thibodaux than Gator because he was running out of time. The day was quickly ticking by, and he wanted to see both of his friends while he still had the chance.
He called Baptiste but he didn’t pick up. Bruno was contemplating sending a text…he didn’t want to do that, but he didn’t have an option it seemed. He was about to try calling once more when his phone rang.
“Hey, man, what’s up?” Baptiste said when he answered. “I missed your call.”
Baptiste had been riding too but he couldn’t pull over in time to receive the first call, because of the heavy traffic and nowhere to stop.
“Yeah…hey, I’m at a restaurant, the Rusty Spoon.”
