graphix: spwilcen
NSFW/MA: language, infidelity, and sexual innuendo
Help a Guy Out
I been watching this guy for a couple of weeks. See, my car was being held hostage by Sammy Glick what owns the repair shop down to Seventy-seventh street at Pagminster. Damned auto repair guys got a hellova racket, ya know? Costs an arm and a leg to get your car outta hock. Me being shy a couple hundred, and nothing good going down paying big, I needed a quick score. The guy I was watching was heeled pretty good. I mean, this guy wearing a eight, nine hunnerd dollar suit probably considers five, six hunnerd chump change.
He got outta work around five, sometimes six, every evening. Walked past the corner news stand, sometimes stopped into the classy bar for a drink before heading to the commuter station. So I waited. Regular as you’d like, he came out about six, well after normal foot traffic got real scarce.
“Hey bud,” I says, “can you help a guy out here?” I wasn’t gonna ask him for a loan. I was gonna relieve him of whatever he had in his pockets. After I got his attention, so’s they’d be no ruckus.
“Me?”
“Yeah bud. You see it’s real quiet here. Nobody around. I want you to nice like, give me everything in your wallet.”
Didn’t seem to register with this banker-type guy. “What?” He says.
“Sounds kinda goofy to say this is a stick-up, but that’s exactly what this is, a stick-up. Gimme all your cash.”
“You picked the wrong guy to rob today, mister,” Mr. Banker says.
On the odds the guy was a black belt in Kung-Jitsu, or worse, a psycho, I pulled the little thirty-eight outta my trousers, so’s he could get a good look at it. Mr. Banker looked at the piece, but it like didn’t affect him, you know? Not my style but I had to do it. Case like that, you’re either first or you lose.
I wiggled the piece and made a show of pulling back the hammer. “Gimme your money. No foolin around.” A thirty-eight can make somebody listen real close. Finally, I was getting the message to him. He reached into his inside suitcoat pocket. “Okay. But you’re gonna be disappointed.”
“Easy bub! No stupid stuff. Okay?”
Slow like, he pulled out one of those fancy one-fold longwise cash wallets. He was cool about it, opened it up so’s I could see there was just one bill in the damned thing.
“That’s all I have,” he said holding a Jackson out to me.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“It’s been a bad day. A really bad day.”
Figgered to try a tough guy act on him. “Gonna get worse.”
“That’s all I got, really. Here. Take my watch. It’s a Kromograph II. Worth about a thousand.”
“Don’t want your watch.”
“Why not?”
“More trouble than it’s worth. Finding a fence. No thanks.”
“That’s really all I have.” His face looked like one of the choir boys down to Ste. Philomena’s.
Dunno why. I believed the guy. “Before I make your day tougher, impress me with your troubles.”
“Both of my teenage daughters are pregnant.”
“Yeah, that’s tough, awright.”
“By the same guy.”
“Ouch! The bastard!”
“Gets better.”
“Ain’t that enough?”
“My wife filed for divorce.”
“Yikes! Gonna take you for a bundle, eh?”
“She’s not gonna get much.”
“Why’s that?”
“Feds swooped into my office today. Seized everything.”
“Playing fast and loose with Uncle Charlie, eh?”
“No.”
“What?”
“My CFO siphoned off every damned dime I thought I had.”
“Feds don’t charge in right away ‘cause you’re broke.”
“Do when your CFO hasn’t paid taxes in almost a year.”
“You knew this?”
“Nope.”
“The Feds will take care of him.”
“Her. Not likely. She left the country last night.”
“You didn’t see this?”
“I was boning her.”
“Ah. So. Unh, who screws who?”
“Better yet. She left with my partner. I figure they socked-away about six mill in Switzerland.”
“Damn, man! It has been a bad day.”
I switched my thirty-eight from left to right. Reached into my front pocket. Pulled out a fifty and two tens. All I had. Never carry a billfold. Too easy for pickpockets. Those crooks are everywhere. Beside, what? I want to carry ID? I held the cash out to Mr. Banker.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Take it, you need it more than me right now.”
Mr. Banker took the bills. I put the thirty-eight in my waistband. “Good luck,” I said, “see ya around.”
“Hope not.”
“Yeah, that’d probably be best.”
He was still standing there, bills in hand as I left him. I went looking for a different score. You know, to find someone to help a guy out.
© spwilcen 2022
spwilcenwrites 3/25/2022
Ramblings 