Free Money To Burn by Katy Munger

After wishing Bobby well for his walk on the wild side, I headed back to Durham and the offices of T&T Tobacco.
    The lobby of T&T looked like it had been designed by someone who’d spent too much time in Miami. A wall of water took up the entire southern exposure, with tropical plants and white slat benches arranged in front of it. A newsstand was nestled into an alcove across from the waterfall, near the bank of elevators. I stopped for a pack of bubble gum and recognized a familiar face.
    “Well, well, well,” I said, staring at an old black man who had more wrinkles than a geriatric Shar-pei. He was sitting on a stool behind a rack of magazines, his eyes shaded with Ray Charles specials.
    He dipped his head first to one side, then the other as if searching for the source of my voice.
    “Knock it off, Dudley,” I warned him. “You’ve seen too many Stevie Wonder concerts. Besides, I can tell you’re staring at my tits.”
    He checked to see if anyone was watching, then snickered when he saw we were alone. “Would you rather I use the Braille method to check them out?” he asked, extending two eager hands.
    I slapped them away. “You couldn’t tell the difference between Braille and buckshot,” I pointed out. “You’re no blinder than I am, you old fraud. I can’t believe you’re still getting away with it.”
    It was true. Dudley was a sixty-eight-year-old con artist from Philadelphia who moved south about ten years ago in search of greener pastures. He used to panhandle down near Brightleaf Square, pretending to be a blind harmonica player. He was such a lousy musician that, for a while, he made a good living accepting donations in return for silence. But he got rousted after making a smart-ass remark about the girth of a leading citizen’s wife. So he stole a wheelchair from the Duke Cancer Center and switched to impersonating a disabled war veteran at Durham Bull gau crham Bumes. He would score the excellent seats set aside for the handicapped, turn around and sell them for three times their face value, then demand that his companions supply him with all the beer he could hold during the games. Leaping up to wrestle a foul ball away from a screaming seven-year-old kid had lost him that gig. Now he was back to being blind and I knew why.
    “How many times do you give the wrong change and people let you get away with it?” I asked, knowing southerners would be loathe to pick a fight with a blind man who’d made what they thought was an honest mistake.
    “All the time,” he cackled with satisfaction. “Got a twenty? I’ll show you.”
    I shook my head. “I’ll take your word for it.”
    “Don’t go turning me in, Miss Casey,” he pleaded. “I got me a tasty younger girlfriend who depends on my income.” He kissed his fingertips.
    “Enjoy it while you can. In a couple more years, you’re going to be depending on your Depends.” I took out a photo of Thomas Nash and showed it to Dudley. “Recognize this guy? Look carefully and think hard before you speak. My PMS is acting up and I’m in no mood to screw around.”
    Dudley glanced at the photo over his sunglasses. “Sure. He was a big cheese around here for a while. Used to work on the tenth floor.” He jerked a thumb toward the bank of elevators. “Kinda the absent-minded professor sort. Would let a dozen empty elevators go up without him before he noticed he was still standing in the lobby. I used to sit here and count them. The guy was maybe a hot dog or two short of a picnic, know what I mean?”
    “He was here a couple of Mondays ago,” I told him. “Did you see him?”
    Dudley nodded. “He bought a pack of Rolaids and let me keep the change from a five.” He stopped to reconsider. “Course, I think it was more like he never noticed what he handed me or what I handed him back.”
    “Where did he go on Monday?” I asked.
    “You think I’m a goddamn doorman or something?” he asked indignantly, holding out his hand for a