The Bump by Mike Bozart - HTML preview

Sturgeon, Missouri. Thursday, October 11, 2018. It is a sunny 61 degrees Fahrenheit (16º Celsius) with a light northerly breeze: a prairie-perfect autumn afternoon. Mark MacAdamson, a 47-year-old, short-blonde-haired Kansan is screeding a freshly poured concrete patio behind an older residence. His mind drifts to the NFL (National Football League) as the reciprocating motion of the hand-held aluminum straightedge flattens out the semisolid sand clumps. The [Kansas City] Chiefs are off to a great start this season. 5-0. Mahomes looks like the real deal – the one who can finally get us another Lombardi [Super Bowl] trophy. This half-century drought is insane; we’re due. Beating the [New England] Patriots in Foxboro [Massachusetts] on Sunday will be tough. Hard to best Brady and Belichick on their home turf. Jack [his 11-year-old son] really loves that red jersey. Just hope Lynn [Jack’s mom; Mark’s ex-wife] doesn’t put it in her scorching-hot dryer and ruin it, like she did with the last one. Really can’t afford to shell out another $85 right now. ‘Mark, you couldn’t encumber a cucumber.’ Steve [a longtime friend] is right; I let everyone get away with murder. No wonder the company is losing money. Even with me working jobs again. Well, can’t watch them all. Steve says that I’m too trusting. Probably true. And I’m probably not going to change. Fate. Need to finish this project today. Rain tomorrow. Why did George [an employee] say ‘monkey’s half-uncle’ to Ken [another employee] yesterday? What does that mean? George is weird. Not sure about him. Wonder if he’s skimming money. Need to check the books this weekend. Audit all accounts.

“Hey, Dustu,” Mark summoned.

“Yeah, boss,” Dustu, a mid-30-something, dark-haired Choctaw Native American replied from the driveway.

“Can you float this slab? I think I got a text message.”

“Sure, boss. Go text your new squaw-eze.” [sic] Dustu grinned.

Blue-jeans-and-white-T-shirt-clad Mark laughed as he walked over to the spigot to rinse off his hands. When he extracted his cheapo cell phone from his right-front pocket, he saw that he had indeed received a text, which he quietly read to himself and two looping gnats.

“Got your truck fixed. It’s all good to go. The total came to $880. You can pick it up anytime tomorrow, Mark. Thanks.”

Mark looked down at the not-so-green grass that was already going dormant. A lone yellow jacket circled its hole. His thoughts were straight from the land of glum. Man, when it rains, it pours. $880! What the hell did he do to it? Thought he said that it would be under $500. Can’t ever catch a break. Never.

He drank some alkaline water from his thermos bottle. His stomach was now hyper-acidic due to the financial stress. The sound of a single-prop airplane caused him to look up. A hawk appeared to be hovering in place. And then it dove sharply towards a barren field. Must have spotted a mouse. Or, maybe a snake. Or, maybe a …

“All done, boss,” Dustu shouted.

“Ok, I’ll help you broom it,” Mark replied.

They were soon putting the final sweeps on the 10’ x 8’ (7.43 square meters) slab. The sun dipped another quarter-degree and put them in the cool shade. Cold weather will soon be here. Hope the damn furnace holds up. And, I hope the price of fuel oil doesn’t skyrocket again. Really can’t afford it. Can’t go into credit-card debt again.

As the surface finishing was nearing completion, Mark’s edging trowel hit something – a bump – in the already-beginning-to-cure, ash-gray concrete. At first he thought that it was a larger-than-average stone. But then the now-protruding, symmetrical, rounded, oblong shape caught his eye. That’s not aggregate; that’s a manmade object of some sort. Is it a miniature lighter?

He grasped it and brushed off the wet cement. It was a flash drive with a strangely distorted, red-on-black logo in a snugly sealed, clear, very-thin-plastic case. How in the world did that get in this batch? Guess it fell out of someone’s pocket, or off a keychain, down at the ready-mix plant in Columbia. [18 miles (29 km) away] Maybe check it out tonight on the laptop and find out whose it is. Yeah, then just mail it back to them. Maybe they’ll send me a reward for doing the right thing. Doubt it. But, it will be a good life lesson for Jack.

“What is that, boss?” Dustu enquired.

“A USB drive, Dustu.”

“I wonder how it got in the concrete.”

“Me, too,” Mark said as he stood up. “I’ll look at it tonight on my computer. I’ll see if I can identify the owner from the files on it, and then get it back to him. Or her.”

“Maybe it’s loaded with exotic porn, boss.” Dustu chuckled.

Dark-blue-eyed Mark shook his head and smiled. “Ok, are we ready to wrap it up, partner?”

“Sure, boss. You can go. I can take care of it from here. I’ll have the truck in the lot in an hour and lock the gate.”

“Dustu, I sure wish the other guys were like you. When business picks up, you’re getting a raise. I promise.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“See you tomorrow. Stay safe.”

“Will do, boss.”

After a 23-minute, enjoyable-yet-doleful-in-the-conversation-silences, fast-food dinner with Jack (a Thursday evening routine; Lynn had primary custody) in the nearby town of Centralia, Mark drove back to his modest, three-bedroom, brick-veneer rancher. He got his old Acer laptop up and running and inserted his find. Not as he had anticipated, there was only a single file on it – an Excel spreadsheet: ColumbiaConcretePlantAcquisitionAnalysis-September2018. He double-clicked on it.

After seven hard-drive-grinding seconds, a cost-benefit study was fully displayed on the dirty, smeared-with-cough-and-sneeze-droplets LCD screen. The data was concerning a potential purchase of the ready-mix facility where Mark had got his concrete for the past 16 years.

There were nine sections. All were very matter-of-fact technical comparisons, except for the last one, which was curiously titled in italics: Probability of Certain Issues Being Unknown by Current Owner.

Line item 6 jumped out at him. He could hardly believe it.

Abandoned UST [Underground Storage Tank] contains diamonds … 77%

Mark began imagining an off-white, linen, peck-size sack of the precious, transparent, cubic-carbon crystals. How much money might it be worth? Who put the diamonds in there? Some mobster? When did they do it? How does this person know about this? Diamonds can’t be revealed by a metal detector. Or, can they? No, they can’t. And, the UST is made of steel; thus, that’s all a metal detector would pick up: a big fat blip. Did they use ground-penetrating radar? Would the diamonds show up? Guess I need to research this. Maybe this person was told about this by someone – someone involved in a crime(?) But, why wouldn’t that person figure out a way to extract those diamonds himself? Strange. And, how did whoever compiled this spreadsheet come up with 77%? And, exactly how many diamonds are in that UST? How many carats? Don’t see any names on this document. Anywhere. No contact info whatsoever. What should I do with it? Just sleep on it for now. Maybe I’ll come up with a strategy tomorrow.

After a couple of beers, Mark retired to his bed and fell asleep as the ten o’clock Kansas City local news aired.

The next day at the office, as Mark was taking his first sip of radiator-piping-hot, crude-oil-black coffee, Dustu walked by.

“Good morning, Dustu.”

“Good day, boss. You want me to start forming that walkway up in Moberly [a town 25 minutes northwest of the office] today?”

“No, that’s ok, Dustu. After organizing the main toolshed, go ahead and take the day off – with pay. You’ve earned it. Anyway, there is a good chance of rain moving in.”

“Boss, would the probability be 77%?”