Manhattan Is My Beat

the close-up of the actor’s eyes as he wakened and realized that it had just been a dream—the blackness of the dirt he’d been digging up with his fingers becoming the shadows of the bars across his hands as he woke.
    The minister emerged with a suitcase. He set it on the floor. “Here you go.”
    Rune asked. “You want me to sign a receipt or anything?”
    “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, no.”
    Rune picked it up. It was as heavy as an old leather suitcase containing a million dollars ought to be. She listed against the weight. The minister smiled and took the case from her. He lifted it easily and motioned her toward the side door. She walked ahead of him.
    He said, “Your grandfather told me to be careful with this. He said it had his whole life in it.”
    Rune glanced at the suitcase. Her palms were moist. “Funny what people consider their whole life, isn’t it?”
    “I feel sorry for people who can carry their homes around with them. That’s one of the reasons the church has this residence home. You really feel God at work here.”
    They walked to his small office. He bent over the cluttered desk and sorted through a thick stack of envelopes. He said. “I wished Robert had stayed longer. I liked him a lot. But then, he was independent. He wanted to live on his own.”
    Rune decided that she was going to give the church some money. Fifty thousand, she decided. Then, on a whim, upped the ante to a hundred Gs.
    He handed her a thick envelope addressed to “Mr. Bobby Kelly.”
    “Oh, I forgot to mention … this came for him care of the church a day or so ago. Before I got around to forwarding it, I heard that he’d been killed.”
    Rune stuffed it under her arm.
    Outside, he set the suitcase on the sidewalk for her. “Again, my sympathies to your family. If there’s anything I can do for you, please call me.”
    “Thank you, Reverend,” she said. Thinking: You just earned yourself two hundred thousand.
    Little Red Hen
…
    Rune picked up the suitcase, walked to the car.
    Richard eyed the bag curiously. She handed it to him, then patted the hood of his Dodge. He lifted the bag and rested it on the car. They were on a quiet side street but heavy traffic swept past at the corner. Superstitiously they both refused to look at the scuffed leather bag. They gazed at the single-story shops—a rug dealer, a hardware store, a pizza place, a deli. The trees. The traffic. The sky.
    Neither touched the suitcase, neither said anything.
    Like knights who think they’ve found the Grail and aren’t sure they want to.
    Because it would mean the end of their quest.
    The end of the story. Time to close the book, to go to bed and wake up for work the next morning.
    Richard broke the silence. “I didn’t even think there’d
be
a suitcase.”
    Rune stared at the patterns of the stains on the leather. The elastic bands from a dozen old airline claim checks looped through the handles. “I had some moments myself,” she admitted. She touched the latches. Then stepped back. “I can’t do it.”
    Richard took over. “It’s probably locked.” He pressed the buttons. They clicked open.
    “Wheel … of … Fortune,” Rune said.
    Richard lifted the lid.
    Magazines.
    The Holy Grail was magazines and newspapers.
    All from the 1940s.
Time, Newsweek, Collier’s
. Rune grabbed several, shuffled through them. No bills fluttered out.
    “A million ain’t going to be hidden inside of
Time
,” Richard pointed out.
    “His whole life?” Rune whispered. “Mr. Kelly told the minister his whole life was in here.” She dug to the bottom. “Maybe he put the money into shares of Standard Oil or something. Maybe there’s a stock certificate.”
    But, no, all the suitcase contained was newspapers and magazines.
    When she’d gone over every inch of it, pulled up the cloth lining, felt along the moldy seams, her shoulders slumped and she shook her head. “Why?” she mused. “What’d he keep these for?”
    Richard was flipping through several of them. He was frowning. “Weird. They’re all from about the same time. June 1947.”
    The laughter startled her, it was so abrupt. She looked at Richard, who was shaking his head.
    “What?”
    He couldn’t stop laughing.
    “What is it?”
    Finally he caught his breath. His eyes were squinting as he read a thumbed-down page. “Oh, Rune … Oh, no …”
    She grabbed the magazine. An article was circled in blue ink. She read the paragraph Richard pointed