Title: No Money Down
Author: Martha
Email: marthalgm@yahoo.com
Category: Gen / Story
Rating: G
Spoilers: Provenance (XF)
Summary: The Gunmen buy a van with a past.
Disclaimer: The characters contained in this story are the
creative property of 1013 Productions and FOX Broadcasting
and are being used without their permission or knowledge.
Author's notes: This fic takes place some time after
Provenance, when the Gunmen's van was shot at and wrecked. 
The future events of Jump The Shark are not acknowledged
here.  For those who may wonder, BWI is the code for
Baltimore-Washington International Airport .  In memory of CWC

and his last walk home.



"Check it out."

Langly waved to Jimmy to come up the steps that led to the
alley beside the warehouse.  They had been waiting for the
others to return from their train trip to Baltimore and
were both surprised to see an older model red-and-white VW
van pull up next to their headquarters.

Frohike rolled down the driver's side window.  "BWI was
having its annual sale of abandoned items."  He opened his
door and jumped out.  "Come on, come see."

Jimmy was puzzled.  "How could someone abandon a car?"

Frohike patted the front windshield.  "You'd be amazed at
some of the things people forget at an airport."

"Umbrellas and briefcases, yes, but a car?"

Byers came around from the passenger side, various
envelopes and papers from the purchase in hand.  "It's in
reasonable condition, and the cost was cheap.  We needed a
new vehicle and, right now, this is the only thing that we
can afford."

"Let's get to work on this baby."  Frohike was practically
salivating at the thought of working on its engine. 
"Jimmy, why don't you pull up all that old carpet in the
back so we can put down a level floor for the equipment." 
He signaled for the other two to follow him inside for the
tools and materials they would need to set up their new
mobile unit.

Jimmy slid open the side door and crawled into the back of
the van.  He felt around the edges of the carpeting,
looking for a gap.  Finding one near the back corner, he
slid his fingers underneath the factory-installed carpet
and began peeling it backwards, rolling it towards him for
about a foot or so. 

Looking back at the floor space that he had just uncovered,
Jimmy spotted what looked like plastic grocery bags that
had been under the carpet, tucked away in pockets in the
flooring.  He picked one up and noticed that it had
something inside it.  Looking in, he could not believe his
discovery.  He picked up the other plastic bag and found
more of the same contents.  Scrambling out of the van, he
took both bags inside to show the others.  "Guys?"

"Aren't you almost finished out there, Jimmy?" Frohike
called from the back.

"Guys, you're gonna want to see this."

"What is it?"

Jimmy brought the two bags to a clear work table and dumped
out the contents for the others to see.  Langly whistled,
and Byers just stood next to the table, mouth open, staring
at the pile of money.

Frohike picked up a few of the bundles of bills and began
sorting them.  "Holy cow, there must be five . . . no, ten
thousand dollars here.  Where did you get this?"

Jimmy pointed towards the door.  "I was pulling up the
carpet like you asked, and there it was."

"I can understand someone leaving behind a car, but all
this money as well?"  Langly picked up one of the
rubberbanded bundles, checking to see if the bills were
real.

"Was there anything else with the bags?" Byers asked.  "Any
papers or such?"

Jimmy looked again into the plastic bags.  "No, just that. 
What do you think it means, guys?"

Langly juggled one of the bundles from one hand to another. 
"Finders keepers, I say."

Frohike was more cynical.  "My guess is drug money."

"I don't understand."  Langly threw the bundle back on the
table.  "The only reason someone would leave this kind of
money behind is if they didn't know it was there."

"Or if they were dead."

Byers had gone to pick up the documents that he had
received with the purchase of the van from his work area
and opened one of the envelopes while walking back to the
table.  "Here it is.  The paperwork we got doesn't give us
any indication as to the previous owner, but the old title
number is written in there."  He handed the form to Langly. 
"Why don't you get into the Maryland DMV system and see if
you can get a name and address on whoever this vehicle was
registered to before."

"Shouldn't we count it?"  Jimmy reached out and touched the
money for the first time.  "See how much there is?"

Frohike unwrapped one of the bundles, picked out some bills
from the middle, and began to walk to his darkroom. 
"First, I'm gonna hit these with some methanol.  See if it
might be drug money."

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Forty minutes later, Frohike emerged from his darkroom
after experimenting on several twenties.  "Well, there are
some traces of cocaine on some of the bills, but that's
gonna happen with most of them now in circulation.  There's
not enough to make me think that it is drug money, though." 
He found Byers and Jimmy still at the work table, counting
the money.  "So, what's the total amount?"

Byers checked his figures for the count.  "There's just
over nine thousand dollars, from ones to twenties."

"From a bank robbery, you think?"  Jimmy was excited at the
prospect of uncovering an adventure.   

"Probably not.  They weren't bundled together by
denomination, and quite a few of the bills are worn.  Most
banks wouldn't keep those around."  Byers stood and took a
few steps back from the table, as if to distance himself
from the probable contraband.  "If it was taken in a
robbery, it would more likely be from a convenience store
or gas station, but then why steal money only to leave it
behind?"

Langly interrupted them.  "You guys are gonna want to check
this out."  He waited until the others had gathered around
him at his computer and pointed out the vehicle
registration history on the van from the DMV archives. 
"The van used to belong to an Alfred Walker of Cheverly,
Maryland.  He bought it in 1992 and renewed the
registration and tags every year until 1996.  After that,
nothing."

"The van has been parked at the airport since 1996?" Byers
wondered out loud.

"Unlikely - they usually make the rounds and check the
parking receipts for dates - but it's not impossible." 
Frohike tapped the monitor to get Langly's attention.  "He
might have moved to another state and registered it there. 
Got a current address on this guy yet, Langly?"

"Oh, yeah.  Fort Lincoln Cemetery ."  Langly opened one of
the windows on his desktop that revealed a newspaper
obituary for Alfred Walker.  "He died in 1997."

"That makes some sense."  Byers walked back to the table
with the money, now neatly stacked and rebundled.  "There
are some of the redesigned twenty dollar bills here, but
none for the other denominations that came out since that
time.  This money *has* been sitting in that van for almost
five years."

It was now Frohike's turn to be perplexed.  "If he lived
and died in Cheverly, then what is his van doing in a
parking lot at BWI?"

"This guy was some sort of corporate bigwig.  I mean, look
at this," Langly was pointing at the monitor, reading
through the obituary.  "He was on the board of trustees of
the local school system and sat on the boards of a dozen
corporations.  Why would a guy like this have money stashed
away in an old van?"

"Maybe it was stolen; maybe he was murdered," Jimmy
volunteered.  "I say we go ask the family."


~0~0~0~0~0~0~

the following day
2010 Charles Wynd Way
Cheverly MD

Langly parked the van at the foot of the driveway and
waited for the others to get out before turning off the
engine.  He had spotted someone working in the flower bed
in front of the house and did not want to pull all the way
up and spook her.  `Good day, ma'am.  We just bought your
dead father's vehicle and, oh, by the way, did you know
that he stashed a wad of cash in it?'  Oh, yeah, let's not
spook her, he thought to himself. 

The lady seemed to be just as curious at the sight of the
vehicle and met them halfway down the driveway.  "That van. 
I think that it belonged to my father."

It had been earlier decided that Byers would act as their
spokesman.  "We bought it yesterday at an auction.  The
previous owner, Alfred Walker, he's your father?"

"Yes."  The lady walked past them to get a closer look at
the van.  After a moment, she turned back to the others. 
"I'm sorry.  I don't understand why you're here."

"We got curious as to the previous owner, hoping that we
might be able to get some insight into the repair history
of the vehicle, and this is the only address we had for
him."

"My father died, almost five years ago."  She took one last
look at the van and walked back to rejoin them.  "I'd
almost forgotten about this.  I got a call about six months
ago from the airport authority up in Baltimore , saying that
they had my father's van.  I told them that all I wanted
were any of his personal effects that might have been left
behind.  I guess that's where you got it?"

"Yes.  Had it been left at the airport all these years?"

"My father . . .  Well, I guess there's no simple way to
explain it except that he had dropped out of life.  He
retired from his job, resigned from the boards that he sat
on, and started wandering.  He loved to take walks; he just
sometimes took it to an extreme.  He would take the van and
park it in a central place, someplace that he knew that he
could get back to easily, and just start walking.  He would
usually go to another city, even to Virginia and sometimes
Pennsylvania .  I think he did it so that no one would
recognize him, and he didn't want to embarrass his family." 
She could tell by the puzzled looks on the faces of the
four men in front of her that they did not understand her
last statement.  "My father would not take a lot of money
with him.  He would usually beg on the streets for money. 
I don't know why he did it.  He certainly didn't need it,
and it never seemed as if he spent any of it on himself. 
When he would come back, he would usually just give the
money to a church or a soup kitchen.  His doctor said that
these bursts of wandering were probably linked to
depression and could be controlled with medication, but my
father wouldn't hear of it.  I think he actually enjoyed
being out on the streets.  Of course, we were always
worried that something would happen to him out there, when
he was on one of his `walks'.  Then one day, we got the
call."

"Something happened?"

"We got a call from the Baltimore police.  My father had
gone to a shelter one night and, the next morning, they
couldn't wake him up.  He was taken to a local emergency
room.  He had a stroke in his sleep, most likely.  They
must have found my number in his wallet.  Anyway, once they
got him stabilized, I had him transferred to an intensive
care facility near here.  He died several weeks later."

"We'd read some really nice things about him in the papers. 
I guess that's what got us curious.  A van seemed  . . .
out of sync somehow."

"Most of the reports were kind.  They knew that my father
would disappear for periods of time, but they never found
anyone who could say a bad word against him for it."

"Well, then, I think that you should know something." 
Byers gestured to Jimmy, who carried a bag that contained
the money that they had found.  "We were outfitting the van
for our work, and we came across . . ."

Jimmy jumped ahead of Byers, interrupting him, and
presented the woman with the bag.  "Your father was quite
good at this begging thing.  We found about nine thousand
dollars hidden inside the van."

She took a quick look inside the bag.  "You're not kidding,
are you?  That much?"  She took a tentative step backwards
away from them.  "Is that why you're here?  Why you're
*really* here?  It's about that money?"

Frohike finally spoke up.  "We just had to find out where
it came from.  We couldn't figure out why someone would
leave that much money behind.  And now that we know, well,
it really belongs to you now."

She shook her head insistently.  "No.  No, it doesn't. 
Like I said, most of the money my father would collect he
would just donate.  You found it; you should keep it."

"It . . . It wouldn't be right . . ." Byers stammered.

"I would have never known about it if you hadn't come here
today.  I really don't need the money; I would just donate
it anyway.  You found it.  You should decide what to do
with it." 

"Well, if you're sure, we won't take up any more of your
afternoon."  Byers turned with the others to get back into
the van but stopped after a step or two.  "Your father
sounded like a good man.  You should be proud of him."

"I am."

~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Jimmy barely took his eyes off of the bag containing the
money during the ride home.  "Guys, I've been thinking."

"The apocalypse can not be far behind."

"Langly, be quiet."  Byers called out from the front
passenger seat, "What is it, Jimmy?"

Jimmy crawled his way to the front seats and sat cross-
legged behind Byers.  "Well, I know it's an awful lot of
money and I know that we found it and all, but finding out
about that lady's father and what he did with the money he
collected before . . .  It just doesn't seem right to keep
it all for ourselves."

"Of course, it's right," Langly whispered to himself,
gritting his teeth.

Jimmy ignored the interruption and continued to plead his
case to the others.  "I mean, I know that we could use the
money.  But I really think that if we were prepared to give
it all back to that lady, then maybe we should at least
give some of it to the people that it would have gone to if
that guy hadn't died."  He looked from Byers to Frohike and
then back to Byers.  "Don't you think?"

"I hate to admit it," Frohike sighed, "but he does have a
point."

Byers nodded in agreement.  "Jimmy, think of what you'd
like to do with the money.  Just make sure that you leave
us enough for the next couple of months' rent, okay?  We
did have to eat into the savings to spring for new wheels."

end
written & distributed July 2002