There are a lot of things in life, I will freely admit, that I know next to nothing about. Examples of this spring readily to mind. Sailing (never been on sailboat), love triangles or quadrangles or however those things go, bull riding (not to be confused with bull writing, about which I do know a bit), and grandparenting.
But maybe the biggest mystery to me has always been money laundering. Maybe because I have never had any money, I have had no need to launder it, whatever that is.
However, in the life experience I have had, I have heard rumours about small businesses that serve as fronts for organized crime and money laundering. They never do any business, have no customers, and yet never close up shop. Hmmm.
I’ve even heard it said some mom and pop corner stores are involved in this and today, I think I finally got some proof. As I approached the counter and cash register in one of these variety “stores”, I noticed a jug of hand sanitizer and a big plastic bowl next to it, filled with a clear liquid. And in that liquid was cold, hard and very wet cash. Bills, coins, the works. A steel tongs lay by the bowl, with which the man there, standing behind a clear plexiglass screen (probably bulletproof), was taking currency from his customers and putting it in the liquid.
I was shocked to see him so brazenly laundering money, as though he believed he would never get caught. I wondered if he was paying off the police so they would look the other way. Another indication that he was up to no good was the fact that, amazingly, he was wearing a bandit’s mask.
Not only had I never seen a money laundering operation before, but now I was looking at an actual money launderer and he didn’t fit whatever image I might have had in my mind for such a criminal. There was a tall woman behind the counter, watching proceedings. Now she did sort of look like the type.
I don’t know what to do. If I report them to the police, and they are in on it, what trouble might I get into?
So I left the store. Shaken, but maybe a little wiser. Also, unable to process what I had just witnessed. So I went back to doing what I had been doing before I entered the place which was daydreaming about love triangles.
Whatever they are.
(Update 2024: This story probably made a little more sense when it was written, at the start of the recent Covid-19 pandemic.)
©2020 Jim Hagarty
