The Money Follows

by Louis Kummerer

Find something you’re good at and do it, my high school counselor used to tell me. The money will follow.

Trouble is, I’m not good at anything. I’m not a people person. I’m not a handy-man type. I suck at math. Computers, all that tech stuff—forget it.

My dad owns an auto repair shop. When I was a senior in high school, he started taking me to work with him on Saturdays, hoping I’d learn the trade. But after a few weekends, he got frustrated and gave up. Kid can’t screw in a damn light bulb, he’d yell to my mom.

So I haven’t had a lot of luck getting into what you might call a career.

I did okay in Afghanistan. Guys in my rifle company used to call me “Robo,” because, in a firefight, I was like RoboCop from that old movie. I didn’t feel fear. I didn’t feel anything. I just saw objects that needed to be neutralized. Out on the range with a 9, my shots were all over the target. But in a firefight, I found the kill zone instantly, hit it, moved on to the next threat.

But I’m not in Afghanistan anymore. I’m back in Bryan, Ohio working on a county road crew. I go to work at 7:00 am, get into a dump truck with some other guy, and drive to an asphalt plant to pick up a load of cold patch. Then we drive around county roads all day looking for potholes to rake cold patch into. I make enough money to pay my bills. That’s my life now.

Wyatt was our company clerk in Afghanistan. He used to tell us he had mob connections back in Toledo, Ohio. None of us really believed him. I mean, come on. Mob connections in Toledo? But he was a useful person to know anyway. If you needed something done under the table, you saw him.

The whole Ohio thing aside, Wyatt and I were never close. I hadn’t heard from him, or even thought about him since I left the Army. Suddenly, one evening I hear a knock on my door and it’s him. Now he’s in my living room with a proposal.

“Dude in Detroit owes a friend of mine some money. There’s a couple grand in it for you, if you help me collect.”

“A couple grand?” I say skeptically, “And for this, I have to do what?”

Wyatt shrugs and says, “This guy’s a small-time dealer, sees himself as bigger than he really is. He hangs with a couple of bad dudes, so he thinks he can’t be touched. We need to help him understand that he can be touched. We need to scare him. That’s where you come in. You’re scary. Especially with a gun.”

“Why do I need a gun if all we’re going to do is scare him?”

“Because you never go into Detroit without a gun.”

Wyatt picks me up in a rental car the next night and we drive to Detroit. I keep arguing that we need some sort of plan.

“You brought your Berretta, right?” Wyatt says, “So, we have the makings of a plan. The rest we’ll just play by ear.”

We park across the street from a condo in the suburbs. We sit there for two hours, watching people go in and out of the condo. Finally, three guys leave the building and begin walking toward an Escalade parked in the street. 

“That’s him!” Wyatt shouts, “The guy in the tan cashmere overcoat.”

Without saying another word, Wyatt grabs his Glock, opens his car door, and fires several rounds at the group. All three of them pull out pistols and begin returning fire. Wyatt ducks down beside the car as a bullet shatters our rear window.

I open my door and roll onto the street, pistol in hand. A bullet ricochets off the asphalt in front of me. I light up the guy who fired it, then pump two rounds into the guy in the cashmere overcoat. The third guy is crouched behind a car. He sticks his head up, fires, then ducks back down.

“Amateurs,” I think to myself. The next time he pokes his head up to fire, I nail him.

We jump into our car and race toward the freeway. On the entrance ramp, Wyatt slows down and eases into traffic.

 “What the hell, Wyatt,” I yell, “We’re on I-75 in a car riddled with bullet holes and the back window’s shot out. Is that smart?”

Wyatt pulls out a cigarette, lights it, inhales, and blows out a puff of smoke.

“Relax,” he says, “The car’s hot anyway. We’re going to ditch it in a few miles and pick up my car. I got a couple of cans of gas in my trunk. We’ll torch this baby and we’re clean.”

I sit without speaking for a few moments, nervously watching the cars around us, imagining which ones might be calling the police to report a suspicious-looking vehicle. I breathe a sigh of relief when we pull off the freeway and onto a darkened street.

Finally, I break the silence.

“I thought we were just going to scare him,” I say.

Wyatt rolls down his window and pitches his cigarette into the street. “He pissed off the wrong people,” he says.

He reaches into his jacket, pulls out a thick envelope and throws it to me.

“There’s 10 big in there. Go back to Bryan, keep your mouth shut and lay low. Don’t quit your job, don’t start spending a lot of money, buying a new car, expensive gifts, that kind of shit. Don’t do anything that would call attention to yourself. Just continue being nobody. And from time to time, there’ll be more jobs like this, better-paying jobs, if you play your cards right.”

I open the envelope and leaf through the 100-dollar bills.

“Why me?” I ask.

“Because you’re good at this,” Wyatt says.

<END>