No-Good Behavior

Walking into her friend Patty’s house as she had done a million times, she was startled to find Patty’s Husband Lou standing behind the door with a rifle in his hand, holding the rifle firmly in one hand he pushed the door closed with the barrel and stared directly into her eyes, she smiled and said You robbed that bank didn’t you? He grinned and replied just what makes you think that, I’m just cleaning my guns and you could have been shot sneaking into my house like this.

She and Patty had been friends since they were kids, they grew up together in the same small Southern town and lived just one town away now, they had both married and raised a group of kids of their own and these kids played together, She and her Husband were good friends with Lou and Patty and they depended on each other as most good friends do.

Some time back her husband Buster had gotten into a car wreck and totaled her car, she loved this car and now it was gone, Buster had been taken to jail because he was way too drunk to walk home and now that their car was gone driving was not an option, the next night he picked up the phone and called Lou, it wasn’t long before Lou pulled up and backed his Caddy into the driveway, popped the trunk and removed what looked like a loaf of bread, walking into the house he dropped the bag of money on the table and asked Buster how much do you need, borrowing just enough to pay his fines and thanking Lou for the loan with the promise to pay him back, Lou smiled and said “I know you will” as he walked out the door.

Without a car Jane had to ask Patty for a ride to shop and do her errands, this gave them a little more girl time together and Patty didn’t mind because this was kind of fun, but Lou put his foot down and wouldn’t allow Patty to come over during the day anymore, it was a big surprise when Lou showed up late one evening with a car identical to the one Buster had wrecked, this car looked brand new and still had that new car smell inside even though it was a few years old, the mileage on this car said it had been driven very little, a hole in the windshield raised the question if it was from a bullet which Lou laughed off, and never answered, when Jane asked where he found a car so clean he said “You know I deal in cars, and I knew you needed one” This thing is like brand new how can it be the same year model as my old one, Lou grinned and said “It’s been sitting in a warehouse up north waiting for a windshield”, a new windshield was installed the next day and Jane had a new car.

Jane and Patty sat and talked about the rash of bank robberies going on around town lately, it was sure funny that there were so many and no one had been caught, the police were always showing at the wrong bank, they laughed about Jane accusing Lou and he left for the day taking his rifle with him, it’s the one he keeps in his office at the car lot for protection Patty said as Lou was leaving, waiting for the sound of the Caddy pulling out of the drive before saying anything else, Patty wanted to tell Jane of the robbery she witnessed the day before.

Patty had gone down to the Winn Dixie to pick up some groceries the day before, she had her preschool age son with her and while standing in line to pay, a group of men burst through the doors brandishing firearms that included rifles, shotguns and maybe a few machine guns, everyone was ordered to the floor and told to lay face down and to not look up, they began emptying the cash registers and continued yelling for everyone to stay on the floor, Patty’s son was crying and one of the men approached her and yelled in her face to make him Shut Up, he looked at her son then quickly back to her and softly said, “I’m sorry Mrs. Stone, you can stand up and take care of him”, when questioned about this statement by the police she said that the others must have misunderstood, actually what he said was you had better take care of him or you will be sorry, the police bought it and Patty was still racking her brain trying to recognize the familiar voice of the ski masked hoodlum.

To be continued…