Episode 23

I wave my hand and now Charlie sees me. He looks my way, studying my body language. He wants to know if it's real or if I'm just acting. He doesn't wait for the traffic light to change and throws himself into the traffic, dodging the onslaught of cars. A taxi honks its horn loudly, but Charlie ignores it. Just because he sees me panicking doesn't mean he should be too.

"Mr. Duckworth, I'll need the account password," says the woman from the bank.

"It was me," she answered.

-What happened? Charlie asks as he walks up the curb.

I ignore him; I'm still waiting for the information from the bank.

-Tell me! she insists.

-What I can help? - finally asks another woman on the other end of the line.

"I want to know the balance and also the last movements of this account," she answered.

Then, right there on the sidewalk, Charlie laughs out loud, the same patented little brother laughs when he was nine.

-I knew it! He shouts-. I knew you couldn't help it!

I put my index finger to my lips to shut him up, but to no avail.

"You couldn't wait even twenty-four hours, could you?" he asks, leaning into the booth. Which has been? The cars outside the bank? Federal license plates? Have you talked to anyone or have you only seen the cars and wet the bread...?

"You want to shut your mouth!" I'm not a jerk!

"Mr. Duckworth...?" asks the first woman.

"Yeah…I'm still here," I say, refocusing on the call. I'm here.

'I'm sorry I kept you waiting, sir. I was hoping to get in touch with one of our supervisors to...

"Just tell me what the balance is." is it zero?

-Zero? the woman says unable to avoid laughing. Not at all.

I too let out a nervous laugh.

"Are you sure?"

'Our system is not perfect, sir, but this account is very clear. According to our data, only one transaction has been recorded in this account... an electronic transfer that was received yesterday at 12:21 p.m.

"So, the money is still there?"

"Of course," says the woman. I'm looking at the balance right now. A single wire transfer... for a total of three hundred and thirteen million dollars.

-We have to? Charlie yells.

"I can't believe it," I stammer, my hand still resting on the phone's receiver. Do you have any idea what this means?

"It means we're rich," he says. And I'm not talking about filthy rich or even extremely rich; I'm talking obscenely, grotesquely, impossibly rich. Or as my hairdresser once told me when I left him

five bucks tip: "Now that was a good deed. »

"We're dead," I say, my entire body weight collapsing against the phone booth. That's what I get out of a stupid moment of anger. There is no way to explain...

"We'll tell them we made all that money betting on the Super Bowl. They could believe it.

"I'm serious, Charlie. It's not just three million, it's...

"Three hundred and thirteen million dollars. I've heard you the first three times. He counts on his fingers, from the little finger to the index finger. Three hundred ten... three hundred eleven... three hundred twelve... three hundred thirteen... Holy guacamole, I feel like that old guy with the mustache in Monopoly, you know, the one with the monocle and the bald head...

"How can you joke?"

-What else can I do? Lean against a phone booth and cower there for the rest of my life?

I stand up without saying anything.

"Now you feel better, don't you?" he asks.

"This isn't a game, Charlie. They will kill us for this...

"Only if they find him, and last time I checked all those fake companies… that bad boy is foolproof.

-Infallible? You're crazy? We're not…" he interrupted me and lowered his voice. There are still a lot of people on the street. We're not talking about four bucks," I whisper. So he stops playing Butch Cassidy and...

-No. No way," he interrupts me. It's time to get real, Ollie, this is not something else we should run from, this is Wonderland. All that money is ours. What else do you want? Nobody knows how to find it... nobody suspects us; if it was good before, now it is doubly good.

Three hundred and thirteen times better than before. For once in our lives we can sit down and...

"Dammit, Charlie, what's wrong with you?" he yelled at her, pushing me away from the booth and grabbing him by the collar of his coat. Weren't you listening to me while he was talking to you? You heard Shep, the only way this is going to work is for no one to know the money is missing. We can put three million dollars in our pockets... but three hundred and thirteen... can you imagine what they are capable of to recover that money? I do my best to keep my voice to a whisper, but the

people start looking at us. I look around and release him. He's already here, he murmured. I'm done.

Charlie smoothes down the collar of her coat. I turn to the phone.

-Who are you calling? he asks me.

He doesn't answer, but he watches my fingers as they press the numbers. Shep.

"I wouldn't," he warns me. -What are you talking about?

"If they're smart, they'll be monitoring all the calls coming into the bank." Maybe they'll even listen to them. If you want information, go back and talk to him personally.

I stop dialing halfway through the number, look over my shoulder at Charlie, and the staring contest officially begins. He knows my expression: doubtful Thomas. And I know yours. The honest Injun. I also know it's just a trick…his preferred tactic to calm me down so he can get away with it. It's what he always does. But even I can't argue with logic. I hang up the phone violently and walk past him.

"You better be right," he warns her as I head back to the bank.