The Midas Touch

THE MIDAS TOUCH (1950 words)

Todd was busy counting his blessings when he became aware of the headlights behind him. He had noticed the small white van before it became really dark. It was the sort of thing you did notice when you’d fallen foul of as many people as Todd over the years. He had just come off the motorway on this his last visit to Ciss when it came up behind him far too fast on this narrowish B road in south Warwickshire.
He registered the driver wore a baseball cap and shades before losing interest and returning to his blessings. The first of these was his good health, no doubt due to the genes inherited from his dull but impeccably clean-living parentage. The second was his appearance – and here he glanced briefly at himself in the rearview mirror. Despite these, though, he’d never been very good at women. The sex stuff was great but he couldn’t handle all the Emotion that women dragged in. Still, he had soon perfected the knack of moving on when things started getting heavy.
And then a few months ago he met Zoe.
She was petite and blonde and curvy and vulnerable. There she sat sipping something long among the plush velvet of the Marchioness bar. She’d given him a little dimpled smile and declined another drink but didn’t discourage his company. So they had begun to meet and in due course she confessed that she really, really liked him, in that little-girl voice of hers. But, she added in the same adorable voice, she was sort of aiming for certain … certain goals in life: may be a nice penthouse to live in, a few designer clothes and sparkly things, smart places to show herself off in, a bit of travel …. And though Todd was not exactly broke, things were no longer what they had once been in the world of petty crookedness; certainly not in a league to meet Zoe’s needs.
And he wanted Zoe. Badly.
Which brought him to blessing Number Three, the greatest of any blessing ever bestowed upon him: nothing less than an inexhaustible source of lovely jubbly for the foreseeable future.
What’s more it had been handed to him on a platter. Or rather through the letterbox in the form of a brown manila envelope, C6 in size and containing four sheets of paper headed ‘PLEASE DO NOT BIN THIS’.
At the end of the four sheets was a list of names. When Todd learned that Step One was to send a tenner to the first name on it, he nearly chucked the whole thing in. Sending tenners to strangers was seriously not consistent with normal behaviour in Todd’s book. But his eye had caught another figure, a six-digits figure, which was apparently the reward for following these steps.
Having sent the tenner, Step Two was to delete the first name on the list and add his, Todd’s, to the end of it. He should then (Step Three) photocopy the four-page letter, including the list, say, 200 times, and (Step Four) mail these to a list of addresses picked out of a telephone directory or two. Step Five was to sit back and wait; and Step Six to start collecting the tenners that would start rolling in after about six weeks.
Todd checked the letter through again. And again. He couldn’t fault it. Even if only two-percent of the original 200 took the bait, by the time his name worked its way up to the top of the list it would be going out to 204,800 people. And if two percent of those did their stuff, Todd would be singing to the tune of £40,960. You could do a lot with £40.960.
You could do even more if you increased the mailing from 200 to 500.
And what if you put your name down six times, using aliases and false addresses of course?
He spent two days and a night with a calculator and a wad of paper. Then he bought a lot of stamps and C6 manila envelopes and took Zoe out for a very special meal. Her big amber eyes had widened in admiration as he told her of his plan. She was extra specially good, she said dimpling, at putting things in envelopes.

It was fully dark by now. Todd glanced at the dashboard clock. Another five miles; he’d be with Ciss by seven as arranged, and home by nine. He thought of Zoe waiting for him and how they would open a bottle of something heady while they counted up the latest takings – for surely she would bend her quaint water-wagon rule on this occasion.. And then …
Must concentrate. On a rare straight stretch of road the white van suddenly overtook him at a cool seventy-five. Cheeky bastard. But he felt oddly pleased to see it go.

It had taken some thought to sort out his list of five aliases and addresses. Gran, of course, had been the obvious first. She doted on him and would not hassle him with questions. Next on the list was his sister Ciss, who didn’t need any explanations as she had ‘a bit of a drink problem’ and rarely knew what day it was.
Just occasionally he felt a small stab of guilt about Ciss who had sacrificed a life of her own to bring him up after Ma and Pa were obliterated in a pile-up. It wasn’t her fault he loathed school, that his earning skills lay in less orthodox directions which occasionally landed him in jail. Once was on the eve of her wedding when he was supposed to give her away – there was a laugh! The prospective bridegroom – a right smug bastard – had never been seen again. He supposed it was disappointment that led Ciss to the bottle; but at least he’d always made sure she had plenty of her preferred sauce; rescued her from this or that park bench or police cell, and even visited her once or twice in hospital when she smashed herself up.
Next on the mailing list was Creeper, a one-time partner in crime with a simple dog-like devotion to Todd. The last two on the list also both owed him one way or another.
There had been an initial problem about what to do with the dosh. Then he came up with the perfect solution, at least until he and Zoe were finally settled. You wouldn’t believe how many notes you can get in a 2-litre ice cream carton and how neatly a few of these fitted into the bottom of a chest-freezer. Soon after this he had the ultimate inspiration:and bought a state of the art motorhome for the initial stages of their life together: Naturally it had a particularly capacious freezer. They’d chosen it together, he and Zoe. Tomorrow they would pick it up and head for the Channel Tunnel.

As he pulled into the little drive in front of the cottage, he was glad to see the lights were on in the front room. It helped if Ciss was at least coherent, and he might even get a cuppa. He let himself in as usual with a “Hi Ciss. Only me.”
It was a surprise to see her sitting up quite straight in the armchair in which she was usually slumped and often unconscious, the envelopes neatly stacked on a small table beside her, and a tray of tea all ready on the coffee table by the sofa. And what about that red dress she was wearing!
“You look great Ciss,” he said. “Goin’ out?”
“No, just wanted to show you my new ack .. ackw.. acquisition. And as always you’re on time.” She indicated the tray. “Help yourself”
He poured out a cup and leaned back. She smiled at him, patted the pile of envelopes. “Amazing where they all come from. .Imagine there’s one from Iceland! And two from Bulgaria” She began to shuffle through them as though riffling through a pack of cards. “What did you say they were about. I expect you told me – but you know what a scatterbrain I am ….”
Todd drank his tea and went on watching her, now a little uneasily. She had never before shown interest in the contents of the envelopes.
“Yeah, as I told you I’ve got this special bargain lot of mobile phones ….”
“Right. And you didn’t want all these orders coming to your place in case the landlord started asking questions.” Ciss nodded, full of understanding..
So that’s what was worrying her. He poured himself another cup of tea and smiled reassuringly. “Absolutely legit. Ciss.” He leaned towards her confidingly, “I’m planning to go abroad soon. And when I’m settled you could come out and visit.”
“That would be nice Todd.” Ciss looked pleased. She got up and took the teapot “Just a sec while I top this up.”
Todd sat there, drinking his tea, looking across at the pile of envelopes, resisting the temptation to start opening them because that was a little ritual he always kept to share with Zoe. Anyway, he felt rather lazy.. He leaned his head against the back of the sofa, yawned, closed his eyes.
“Will your friend be going with you abroad?” Ciss said, returning with the teapot.
“My … my friend? Who do you mean?” Todd looked up at her, and rubbed his eyes because she seemed strangely blurry as she leaned down and plumped a cushion behind his head.
“She means me,” Zoe said, not sounding at all as she usually sounded. Or looking as she usually looked in that leather jacket, her blonde curls stuffed under a baseball cap, amber eyes screened by shades. God, he was hallucinating.
“Wha…?” he began, but the words wouldn’t come out.
“Just relax dear brother. You’ll be fine in a few hours. Which will give Zoe and I time to tidy up a few things.” She pulled an overnight bag from behind the sofa, then began slitting the envelopes, extracting the notes, slipping them into a box … no not a box, an ice cream carton that was already half full of notes. His ice cream carton …..
“I think we ought to explain Ciss,” Zoe said. “You know, how you and I met ….”
“Yeah, in the drying out clinic….”
“After I was ditched by that son-of-a-bitch who took everything I had ….”
“So when we finally got our heads sorted, we thought it was time to even things out a bit. Zoe didn’t think you’d be fool enough to fall for that scam idea, but I know my Todd. Great ideas, but not really too bright.” She smiled at him approvingly. “And of course we both knew you wouldn’t be able to resist Zoe if she put her …er .. her mind to it.” Ciss clicked the carton firmly shut. “Right,” she said crisply. “Ready to hit the road partner?”
Zoe leaned over and dropped the car keys into Todd’s lap. “We shan’t need these as we have the van,” she said. “And we wouldn’t want to leave you stranded. You left them in the ignition. Careless.” She patted his cheek. “I’ve left the flat in good order. Haven’t taken anything of yours. Well, except for the ice cream cartons and I guess a court of law might quibble about ownership of those.”
“Wha …?” Todd tried again, now very confused. But the girls were collecting up their things, chattering away. Their laughter and the door slamming behind them was the last thing he heard before he drifted into deep, deep sleep.

Ends