Pootie Game Revived #2: The Kid

The Jew's harp had started the whole mess – again. That and Noonan's “spirits,” as he liked to call it. And now Noonan was on the ground, somewhere in the massive cornfield down below, or so she had to assume, and Amelia was circling and looking for a sign of Noonan's canopy. But the canopy had seemed to disappear. Noonan had been floating downward over the field and had disappeared into a small patch of fog near ground level. The fog had dissipated just as quickly as it had mysteriously seemed to form, but for the life of her Amelia could not see Noonan's parachute spread out over the tops of the stalks of corn. Had he gathered it up that quickly? She circled again in the big lumbering bi-plane known as Maxwell's Silver Hammer. She'd named the plane after her father, a carpenter. Fuel was, for the present, of no concern. She had plenty (it was funny how that just never seemed to be a problem anymore) and she could circle the area for a long while yet before she would need to worry about that. Would she ever need to worry about that again? It seemed as though she should have to sometime.

They'd left an airstrip on the outskirts of St. Louis, bound for one of many county fairs they visited annually. Noonan was the self-proclaimed navigator, but usually he'd get drunk and take an in-flight nap while bound for their next gig. Once on the ground when and if they reached their destination, Noonan would normally be sobered up enough to be the money man, the ticket seller and taker. Amelia would then spend her day giving airplane rides to fair-goers. 50 cents per ride; pricey, but there never seemed to be any shortage of customers. But today she was pretty sure they were lost again, and perhaps even without all the extreme drama Noonan was providing, even then they might not find their county fair – the one that always seemed to be out there somewhere. In fact, they always seemed to be lost; lost and never found. It always seemed as though people were searching for them, searching for them and never finding them. How could that be? There had always been the county fairs, hadn't there?

They had agreed to meet for breakfast at Sam Frank's diner near the airstrip. Noonan had shown up late and already drunk, and he had a flask of his “spirits” inside his pocket. Waiting for the ham and eggs, Noonan had pulled from his other pocket the Jew's harp he always liked to play when he was deep into his cups. Amelia was sick of it, the drunkeness, the godawful noise Noonan would create with that damned Jew's harp. And then, just before they'd left the diner, Noonan had paid a visit to the men's room... and he'd left his “spirits” and the Jew's harp on the table. Amelia had taken the opportunity to walk over to the service counter and asked Sam if he'd dispose of the bottle of booze. He didn't want to get involved. When Sam had turned away, she tossed the flask and the Jew's harp together in the direction of the garbage can in the kitchen. The flask had landed in the right spot, but the Jew's harp had landed in an open can of Crisco. Oops!

An hour later, airborne and lost again, the only thing that seemed different was that Noonan wasn't passed out. He had become too worked up over the realization that he had neither his flask nor his Jew's harp, and he was insisting they return to the airstrip in order to retrieve both. Amelia would have none of it. Amelia was in the rear seat, the captain's seat as it were, and Noonan was seated directly in front of her doing about as much navigating as he ever did – which was to say none at all. He didn't like flying. He feared it and he didn't trust airplanes, including this one. For that reason he always flew with a parachute strapped to his back, and today was no exception. “Turn it around, Amelia,” he slurred.
“No,” she shouted back. One always had to shout when conversing in the cockpit of an airborne bi-plane.
“Amelia, turn this thing around or by God I'll walk back there if I have to.”
“Not going to happen, Noonan.”
“Damn it all – then fine!” And with that he stood up, stepped out onto the wing... and jumped.

And now Amelia was circling, looking for a drunk that she didn't even like all that much. But she did feel responsible for him. It seemed as though they had been together for so many years. They had... hadn't they? Maybe she should put the plane down on the gravel road running next to the field. At least then she could call to him. The more she thought about it the more sense it seemed to make. “Noonan,” she murmurred to herself, “you left your spirits in St. Louis, and I left your harp in Sam Frank's Crisco.” She flew away from the area for a mile or two and then turned the plane around and aligned it with the gravel road. She eased off on the gas, trimmed the flaps, and passed over a green car that was just turning onto the gravel road beneath. To Amelia's left, a police car was racing a mile or two behind the car under the airplane. Was he pursuing the green vehicle? Probably not, she decided. She swept over the green car and moments later she was down, on the gravel road, and the big green vehicle she had spotted was racing up behind her.

“Going?” Angie answered the boy in the form of an echoed question. “Anywhere but here.” She hadn't noticed the boy when she'd taken the car, but Angie, who was often quick to anger but just as quick to assess a situation, was anything but rattled by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a passenger. The sheriff had mentioned something about not needing to hurt "the boy" after all, and this must be "the boy" he had been referring to. The speedometer was already pushing its way through the upper sixties into the seventies, and for the second time that day Angie was leaving Cleves and rolling east on County 13. She glanced at the rearview mirror, noted the bandaging on top of the kid's head, and asked, “What happened to you?”

“I got shot,” Zeke answered meekly, frightened of his driver but also sensing that he was looking forward to the time he would be able to tell his buddies all about today's adventure... assuming he would indeed live to tell about it.

“Yeah?” Angie replied. “Some of those cops back there would love a piece of my scalp too. You in trouble with the sheriff or something, kid? He the one that ' shot ' you?”

“No ma'am,” Zeke swallowed hard. “It was you that shot me, truth be told.”

“Me?” Angie stole another glance at the mirror while the speedometer was now blowing past eighty-five mph. Then the recognition kicked in. “You're that kid at the bank, aren't you? The one at the bottom of the steps. My brother's got your collection of nickels and dimes, kid. I hope that's my money you've got with you in the briefcase. It is my briefcase after all.” A mile-and-a-half back, at the edge of town, Angie was also catching the sight of a squad car's flashers. Someone was in pursuit.

Sgt. Darren Pepper pulled onto the station tarmac, lights on and siren at the only setting its volume had - full, and saw Archie Younger standing behind a young woman who was handcuffed. But a second glance at the woman made him think that something wasn't quite right; something was a little out of place. The young woman (or was it possibly a young man?) had blood trickling down both sides of her/his neck and it looked as though he/she had been bleeding more profusely not long ago. Archie looked pale and he too was bleeding, though from the left shoulder. The policeman idled his engine, weighing whether he should offer medical assistance to the sheriff and his prisoner or pursue the green Chieftain he'd seen leaving town just moments ago. Sgt. Pepper then decided to simply ask, “What do you think, Sheriff? How bad are you hit? Do you need my assistance?”

“Oh, I'll get by with a little help from my friends,” answered the sheriff. “And there's help on the way, or so Mr. Wittmer here tells me. God help me if it's Jerry and Barry.”

“Do you need anybody?” Sgt. Pepper asked, feeling as if he was addressing ground that had already been covered.

“I just need someone to... to catch that young woman and bring her back here right now! Now go get her!” It was all he needed to hear. Sgt. Pepper was gone – and in pursuit.

Lobe, diamond earring, and bullet, all struck Sheriff Younger, but only the bullet punched a hole in his shoulder and buried itself in the ball of his humerus bone. The projectile's momentum drove him back against the open car door, and because his right arm was still uninjured he tried to square himself for another shot at the woman. The same odd combination of materials that had struck the sheriff had nearly hit Angie as well, but instead missed anything solid and only tugged at her hair as the small mass went on through it. She rushed the downed lawman, hurdling her brother as she did so, trained the gun on the sheriff's head and told him to drop his weapon. Recognizing the checkmate under which he had been placed, Sheriff Younger made an appeal, “There's no need to hurt the boy,” he said, and laid his gun on the sidewalk.

“What boy?” Angie asked as she cautiously approached the sheriff, yet being mindful to keep herself out of arm's reach. When the sheriff didn't answer her question, she told him to step away from the car. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and they were getting louder. Angie could only hope it was the two imbeciles who had given her a free pass earlier. She directed the sheriff to go sit by her brother, and when he acquiesced she folded herself into the driver's seat of the squad car, forced the door closed, and started the engine. The streetlight pole was wedged onto the hood and roof of the car, so she found reverse, hit the gas, and nearly ran over her brother and the sheriff as she freed the vehicle from the pole. Then she spun the car around, began working the forward gears, and from behind her, a wide-eyed boy named Zeke asked, “Ma'am, where are we going?”

Oh it was said, on that hot summer day, that Angie's heart grew three sizes that day.

“Three sizes?” you say; “three sizes in just one single day?” “Well!” I say! “I say no way, Jose” – that's what I say!

It went like this...

Cindy Lou Who - who was only two - and if it could be said at all that at that age she knew - it was then caution to the wind she threw!

The tight concentric circles on the driveway ridden on her deeply treasured tricycle were fun. And it was thrilling to have her much beloved dog Boo chasing her about. But, Cindy Lou became bored, as two year olds will, and her mother had been lulled into a false sense of security. Cindy Lou was with Boo, after all, and had never before ridden off in the direction of the street. She had been told countless times never to do that, and she had never given her mother reason to be concerned that she might do otherwise. From behind the wet bedsheets that were being hung on the clothesline everything was fine until Boo barked, which he did often. But this time there was a slight sense of urgency to it. Betty Lou looked from behind the bed sheets, and Cindy Lou was nearly upon the street already.

The sheriff and Angie both saw Cindy Lou at the same moment. Sheriff Younger veered right, away from the approaching direction of the child, and Angie, approaching from the opposite direction and in the lane of traffic most proximal to Cindy Lou, turned hard to the left. They nearly missed... but didn't quite. Cindy Lou, on the other hand, suffered nothing more than being terribly startled by the sound of two vehicles colliding. She stopped – frozen – then began crying, and finally turned and raced back to her mother.

The Chieftain's front left headlight caught the left rear quarter-panel of Sheriff Younger's squad car and dislodged the rear bumper, which Angie then drove over, puncturing one of the front tires. She didn't strike any buildings, but the collision with the sheriff's car was enough to cause damage to the radiator, and coolant was streaming onto the sidewalk when the big green vehicle came to a halt. The sheriff's car would have spun around completely had it not been for the rear bumper hanging on to its supports just long enough to prevent that from occurring. But then the car did plunge ahead into a street light pole, and the tall pole fell back on top of the car, severely cracking the windshield and destroying one of the emergency beacons on the roof of the vehicle. Sheriff Younger's car door was jambed just enough to make it resistant to opening, but he eventually managed. In the other car, Angie had no such impediment, and she was out of her car with her gun up and ready for a fight. Trevor had had enough. He untied Ralph Wallace, pushed him out the rear door opposite of the side where Angie had taken a stand and told him to “beat it.” - He did. When Sheriff Younger finally managed to kick open his door, he thought it might be prudent to check his rearview mirror before exiting whatever protection his squad car might be offering, and things were as bad as he could have imagined. The woman was outside of her vehicle with her gun drawn... but she was completely exposed. The sheriff drew his own gun, and slid out of the car, but as his car's rear was facing the Chieftain it left him exposed to his adversary as well. “Put that gun down, Miss,” he said, and the answer he got was Angie's first shot, breaking the car door window just behind him and sending bits of broken glass flying. The sheriff hadn't thought she would actually shoot, and though he wasn't hit he was startled, and he twisted defensively in reaction to the shot. Angie wasn't sure if she had hit the sheriff or not, and she hesitated...

“Oh no,” Trevor said to himself, “not this.” This could only end one of two ways; either the sheriff would be shot or Angie would be. He couldn't let either of those things happen if he could prevent it. If Angie shot, or worse – killed, the sheriff, she would never see the outside of a prison again. Trevor bolted from the car and placed himself directly in the line of fire of Angie's gun. He faced his twin sister, put his palms up and said, “Angie, give it up.”

Sheriff Younger saw the look in the woman's eyes and realized she was going to shoot again. He aimed and fired... and Angie did the same. Sheriff Younger's bullet tore the earring from Trevor's right ear, while Angie's tore the earring from his left. Trevor paled, screamed, and fell.

“dumb Dumb DUMB DUMB!” Angie chastised herself. “ I knew damned well that's what the siren was all about, but I came this way anyway!” In the back seat, Trevor was asking what the problem was, but he was just so much white noise at the moment. Angie didn't think she had been spotted yet, and with luck she could make a quick right turn in about another fifty feet. But then the cherry red lights atop the sheriff's squad car came alive and she knew she had been made.

Sheriff Younger, with Zeke belted in the rear seat, took a right as he turned west out of the Standard station's tarmac and onto Main Street. He recognized Ralph Wallace's Chieftain in the oncoming traffic lane immediately and flipped the switch to bring up his emergency lights. He was reaching for the radio mic...

“Hang on tight, everybody!” Angie exclaimed, and she knew the only thing to do now was to make a run for it... she put the pedal to the floorboard, and the Chieftain's engine roared.

He should have expected it, but nonetheless it was to Sheriff Younger's amazement that Wallace's car seemed to be rapidly accelerating as it approached. He decided the radio call would have to wait for a moment or two and began the motion of replacing the microphone in it's cradle... and then his eyes caught something just off to his left.

The car had always been well tuned. It was one of the advantages of having its owner working at a service station, and the Chieftain was accelerating rapidly. Angie would be doing at least 50 miles per hour by the time she covered the distance to the service station, and then her eyes caught something just off to the right.

Betty Lou was hanging the laundry along the clothesline next to the house. She'd heard the police siren a short while ago when she had been collecting clean bed sheets from the laundry machine. Something appeared to be going on just down the street at the Standard station. And that was certainly interesting, to be sure. After all it wasn't every day that Betty Lou heard police sirens in Cleves. And to think that the destination for those sirens had been the distance of only a single block away, well! She'd be on the telephone for a good long while tonight talking with her sister about it, and by then she would undoubtedly have all the particulars.

But for now...

those bed sheets weren't going to dry themselves just so Betty Lou Who could fluff her new dew, step over to the curb, and see what was happening with the service station crew! Her daughter, Cindy Lou, had spilled some glue (that was nothing new), and Betty Lou had said, “Oh, what to do? What to do with you, Cindy Lou!” So Cindy Lou and her dog Boo, had been banished from the house – yes it was true. So after much hype the glue had been cleaned (and with only a single wipe!) And then Cindy Lou Who was contentedly riding her tricycle in tight circles in the driveway, and Boo was happily chasing her in such a live way, and Betty Lou continued to hang sheets so they would soon be in a dry way.

And then came the bark, and not just a happy little yip or yap or a puppy kind of hiccup on your lap. Oh no, this bark – this bark was something far more dark. This sounded something like the rooster's crow that won't let you sleep in the morning. Yes this bark sounded something like some kind of warning. And so at the hour of two, Betty Lou turned with one shoe... and then two, so as to see what the alarm was with Boo. But where was Cindy Lou? She wasn't with Boo. No, she was not with Boo at two; oh dear, once again what to do? And Cindy Lou? Why, on that trike she could be so fleet. And on that trike she was headed for the street! That street where two cars might just meet!

Sheriff Younger had thought the chase was through. To the bank robber he thought, “It's off to jail with you!” But as he glanced to his left he saw a little girl – was it little Jenny or was it little Carol? And then with recognition he knew – and with a sense of horror he shouted, “Cindy Lou Who!”

Ned Wittmer finally alerted the sheriff's office to the possibility that there may be a problem at the Standard service station. Customers were required to use the phone booth out by the sidewalk, but as Ralph Wallace was nowhere to be found, Ned simply walked to the cashier's side of the service desk and used the station's telephone. After describing the situation, “There ain't nobody here. The register is open and cleaned out, and one of your deputies has left what looks like an IOU of some kind on the desk.” Sheriff Younger was quickly dispatched by radio to the station, and he and Zeke pulled onto the station's tarmac with lights on and the siren blaring... which Zeke thought was just about the bees knees!

Sheriff Younger deduced in a matter of seconds what the Atrick brothers had failed to notice in the nearly ten minutes that they had spent at the station. The register had been robbed and Ralph Wallace was likely a hostage in his own vehicle, as the green Chieftain was nowhere in sight. The sheriff's face turned near to full crimson when he saw the IOU left by Deputy Jerry Atrick. He immediately returned to his car, raised Sally Mangan (the dispatcher) on the radio, and instructed her to
issue a “Be on the Alert” for a green Chieftain. “And find out what year that car is, Sally. I'm thinking it's got to be five or six years old, and get his license plate number and put that out on the air, too.” The radio transmission would go out to all nearby law enforcement agencies. She knew, also, to call the state police and to call each individual sheriff's office within 100 miles of Cleves.

Sheriff Younger then called out to his deputies and to Sgt. Pepper to ask if any of them had seen Ralph Wallace or his car. Sgt. Pepper responded immediately with a “negative,” and that response was quickly followed by Deputy Barry Atrick. “Negative, Sheriff. But Jerry and I did see another car just like Ralph's a little while ago. It couldn't have been his, though, as some young gal was driving it, and a good deal faster than Ralph ever would. So we should all try to make sure we don't pull her over by mistake, don't you think?” The sheriff could feel his pulse thumping under his shirt collar, and for a moment stars were flashing before his eyes. He struggled to regain his composure, as it wouldn't do to harangue his deputies over the air. There would be far too many other ears listening in.

“Barry, Jerry, and Sgt. Pepper,” he said as calmly as he could manage, “find that car. You find that car and you will find the bank robber and any accomplices she may have. You'll probably find Ralph, too. Any other law enforcement officers picking up this transmission in nearby communities, please direct your immediate attention to the roads leading into your town that would be coming from Cleves. Look for the license plate number and make and model of the vehicle that Sally is putting an alert out for.” And then to Zeke he said, “Against my better jugdment, you're still with me young man. But you make certain your seat belt is fastened and it's tight.” Zeke, eyes as big as saucers, only nodded in return.

Trevor had assured Ike Green that to deviate from his instructions would not be a very good idea, and those instructions had been to continue looking forward, put down the briefcase, and then just walk away. Ike had done exactly that, and like Trevor he realized that he was in no position to call the authorities. To do so would only implicate himself in the aftermath of the bank robbery. Trevor had picked up the briefcase, made sure that Ike was sufficiently acquiescent, and then hurried back to the car. He tossed the briefcase in the back seat, got in, and said, “Let's go,” as he pulled the door shut behind him. Angie pulled away from the curb and drove five blocks down, putting several hundred yards between themselves and the original scene of the robbery. Nearing the edge of town, she turned left and drove back to Main Street. She had heard the siren in the distance not long ago, and she had no doubts that the siren was that of one squad car or another... and it had come from the east. But east was the shortest distance between themselves and the city limits. She turned right onto Main Street, and she knew she was risking another drive past the service station. If she could make it just a few more blocks, they would be past the service station and out of town again. She prayed - or rather what passed for praying in her mind - that the siren hadn't been that of a policeman being called to an unattended service station with no money in the till.

Trevor had the briefcase open just as Angie was turning onto Main Street. “What's this?” he nearly screamed.

“What now?” Angie asked, the panic in her voice only thinly veiled.

“There's no money!” Trevor shouted. “It's only... drugs and bandages and scissors and... I don't know... doctors' stuff!” Angie's eyes were focused on the rearview mirror and the look of disbelief on her brother's face. When she finally returned her attention to the road in front of her, what she saw was the sheriff's car pulling out of the service station's parking lot only a hundred yards ahead.

Each evening he could get away with it, Francis Xander would stand outside the window of Dorsett's Electronics in the little of town of Carpenter, and he would watch CBS's Douglas Edwards with the News. Francis was utterly fascinated with two things, the news and televisions... and in Carpenter he had neither. The news would forever come to Carpenter; it would never be made here, and Francis's father was of the opinion that it was far more cost effective to read the news from a newspaper (or hear it from a radio) than to have to look at the man who reads it to you from inside a television box. Sometimes, if Mr. Dorsett was in a foul mood, he'd shoo Francis away. Mr. Dorsett didn't like having kids loitering about his business, and he wanted people who could actually purchase televisions ogling over his state of the art RCA television set in the display window, and Francis never appeared to be able to purchase so much as a pack of gum. Francis suffered from scoliosis, and he leaned noticeably to the right. His father liked to tell him that “he leaned to starboard,” but in Francis's mind that only amounted to yet another of the disappointing opinions that so often seemed to spill from the mouth of his father. Francis wasn't aware of the news being made nine miles to the west in Cleves, and it was about as likely that Douglas Edwards would be reporting on events in Cleves as it was that he would be doing the same regarding anything happening in Carpenter. From the west, Francis noticed a boy coming into town. He was running, and Francis judged that the boy would reach him in just about another minute or two.

Oddly, Forrest wasn't all that winded when he reached the little town of Carpenter; definitely thirsty, but not all that tired. He continued running into the heart of the town and then noticed the boy standing outside the electronics shop. As he neared the boy, he saw that it was a television that had caught the boy's attention. Forrest knew of these wonderful devices, but as yet there had never been one in his own home or that of any of his relatives. Nobody had told Forrest that he could stop running, but he judged that if he were in the next town then it would probably be alright with whoever it was that had told him to run that Forrest might be allowed a short break. He decided to introduce himself to the boy. “Hello, I'm Forrest; Forrest Gump.” And Francis Xander put forth his hand, shook Forrest's, and introduced himself, too.

“That man on the television,” Forrest queried, “what's he doing?”
“He's telling us all about today's news,” Francis answered.”
“I see,” said Forrest. “Is that what televisions are for? Telling us the news?”
“Why, yes,” Francis replied. “I suppose they are.” He couldn't think of a better use for televisions, and Forrest's question had sounded almost prophetic.
“That man must get awfully tired, sitting there telling us the news all the time,” said Forrest.
Brilliant! This angel from Heaven thought the news was being constantly broadcast – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, year-round! He had no idea that Douglas Edwards would be finished with his day's work in another five minutes or so and that he wouldn't return to his desk in front of the camera at CBS for nearly another 24 hours. What an amazing concept! A 24-hour news station! Francis's head was spinning in the epiphany of it all. And then Forrest was saying something.
“You sure do lean to the right a lot,” he said.
“Yes I do,” answered Francis. “I guess I always have.” The question hadn't wounded him in any way. He was used to the stares and the comments, and Forrest seemed nothing other than sincerely curious.
“Maybe if you leaned to the left sometimes you would straighten out,” Forrest observed.
“I don't think I could ever lean to the left, Forrest, no matter how hard I might try. I'll just be leaning to the right for all of my life, I would imagine.” And then Francis had a question of his own. “Hey, let me ask you something. If you had your television station, what would you call it?”
Forrest thought about that for a while. “Radio stations seem to use initials. I guess if I had a television station, I'd call it by my initials.” And then he felt he needed to be on his way again. “Is there any place where I could get myself a drink of water, Francis? I really should be going.”
Francis directed Forrest to the public drinking fountain in the city park, and watched as his new friend ran off in that direction. But Francis's thoughts were a thousand miles away and decades into the future. A 24-hour a day news station, he thought... and with my initials! Francis Oliver Xander liked the thought of that, he liked the thought of that a lot! “But I'll never lean to the left,” he murmurred to himself. “No, that will never happen.”

“Pull over, Angie – now!” Trevor saw his twin sister's eyes instantly glaring at him in the rearview mirror; the look was the same as it always had been for as long as he could remember, the one that conveyed the message that she was either going to need a damned good reason to pull over or a full on brother/sister dispute was about to ensue. “No arguments, Sis, pull over right now!” She did.

They had been cruising the streets as near to the bank as they dared, looking for the kid with the cash, but up until now they had come up empty. And suddenly that was just fine with Trevor, because he knew the search for the kid was over. Walking along a sidewalk, two blocks removed from the town's business strip, was none other than the pawn shop owner who had tried to con Trevor out of the earrings that were even now still hanging from his own ears. But what truly set Trevor's pulse to racing was that he also recognized the briefcase the man from the pawn shop was carrying. “That's a bingo, everybody!” he announced, and stepped out of the car as the man with the briefcase calmly continued his early afternoon walk.

Ike Green reminded himself that there was probably nothing to be alarmed about when he saw with his peripheral vision that Ralph Wallace's car had just stopped and parked on the other side of the street. Even so, he all at once didn't feel quite as invisible as he was accustomed to feeling. In fact, he suddenly felt about as obvious as a fly in a bowl of ice cream. He didn't know why Ralph wouldn't be at the service station right now, but whatever the reason might be, he was sure it had absolutely nothing to do with him. “Not my problem,” he whispered to himself. He continued to look straight ahead and made a conscious effort to maintain a steady gait. But then, in the next instant, it did become his problem. A voice from directly behind him asked, “You got $8.00 in that briefcase, Mister? I thought you might want to up the bid a little on these earrings.” Ike hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath, and now the air rushed out of his chest as rapidly as if he'd just been kicked in his midsection.

The stitches in Zeke's scalp were neatly finished, and everyone was for the moment satisfied that Zeke had had nothing to do with the robbery. Still absent, though, were his parents, and Sheriff Younger decided it would be best if he could keep the kid close at hand... just in case the boy proved to be a bit better at deception than he was now being given credit for. It was time to leave, and the sheriff explained to Zeke that he'd be going for a ride with him. “You might be needed for an ID if we catch up to these two hooligans,” the sheriff had explained. That was fine with Zeke. He was still a bit wary of the sheriff, but he'd played cops and robbers with his pals hundreds of times. If he was now being invited to be part of a situation that was the real deal... well, what kid could pass that up? Why, it might just turn out to be about the most swell thing that had ever happened to him.

The employees' refrigerator was on everyone's right as they passed from the examination room back toward the waiting room, and Sgt. Pepper reached inside the cooler for a Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper grabbed Sgt. Pepper by the arm and said, “You're going to have to pay for that Dr. Pepper, Sgt. Pepper.”

“Of course I will, Dr, Pepper,” said Sgt. Pepper... and then everyone began to chuckle. The sheriff picked up the briefcase full of cash on the way out the door, and then the two officers and the kid were gone. Dr. Pepper grabbed a Dr. Pepper from the refrigerator and mentally noted that Joy Pibb hadn't yet returned from the bank. It occurred to him that she might be thirsty too, so he grabbed a Mr. Pibb for Mrs. Pibb, and if her husband Mr. Pibb happened to be there too... well, that Coca Cola drinking Cubs fan knucklehead could find his own soda to drink. But why wasn't Joy back yet? Maybe there had been more scrapes over there than he had originally thought. He went to grab his medical bag, but it wasn't located in its usual spot. He looked about. Nothing. Had he left it with Joy up at the bank? His old medical bag had finally disintegrated a few weeks back, after many years of service to the doctor, and he'd had to temporarily replace it with a faux leather briefcase from Sears and Roebuck. But it was nowhere in sight now. He left the office and locked the door behind him, reasonably sure that the case was with his nurse.

Ralph Wallace sat in silence as Angie blew by the sign announcing the city limits. For someone who might not wish to draw attention to herself, Ralph thought the young woman may want to consider easing off the gas pedal. Besides, even with all of the attention that Sheriff Younger would be giving to the bank and its immediate surroundings, surely someone by now would have noticed Ralph's absence at the service station. Everyone in town knew he drove a green '51 Chieftain, and that would certainly make it even more difficult for the kidnappers to evade detection if they were going to continue driving his car.

Jerry and Barry Atrick waved at the young woman driving a green '51 Chieftain as she went by them headed in the opposite direction, perhaps a bit too fast in the estimation of Jerry Atrick, and he again felt a momentary sense of pride in the belief that there wasn't much that got by him. “Did Ralph Wallace sell his car?” Jerry asked his brother.

“No, not that I know of,” replied Barry. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“I sure am. It looks like there's another green Chiftain in town,” Jerry remarked. “I probably should turn around and pull her over. She was well over the speed limit, but I think it might be best if we let it go today. It's not every day you have a bank robbery in town, and we've got a crime to solve.”

“Roger that, big brother... roger that.” The brothers' eyes were like lasers. Surely something big was about to happen, and they were determined to be on hand when it did.

Angie's stomach nearly leaped into her chest when she saw the squad car approaching from the opposite direction. She knew she was driving much too fast given her location – Main Street. Unbelievably, the two police officers in the car merely waved as she went by. She immediately checked the rearview mirror and watched in astonishment as the police cruiser just kept on going, as if the most important thing on their minds was getting over to the local coffee shop for a couple of donuts and a cup or two. Angie, recognizing her good fortune, forced herself to try and calm down and slowed the vehicle to what felt like a crawl. In the back seat, Ralph shook his head in disbelief, "but then," he reasoned silently, "it was undoubtedly the Atrick brothers who had just gone by. God help us all."

Darren Pepper, a 2nd or 3rd cousin to Dr. Edgar Pepper, was a sergeant with the state police. He'd been 15 miles away, in the town of Renville, when he'd began hearing reports over the radio of a bank robbery in nearby Cleves. Darren was acquainted with Sheriff Younger and his deputies, Barry and Jerry Atrick, and he had quickly concluded that the sheriff would more than likely need all the assistance he could get. Twenty minutes later, he had parked his cruiser near the bank and found Nurse Joy Pibb administering small bandages to a couple of folks at the scene of the crime. “Excuse me, ma'am, but would you happen to know if the sheriff is still here inside the bank? I'd like to see if he needs my help.” Joy Pibb had said that she expected him back at any time now. He'd asked the bank tellers some questions, and then had followed the boy who may or may not have been shot over to Dr. Pepper's office. But he'd given the bank employees and everyone else who had been inside strict instructions not to leave. “He needs to talk with everyone – no exceptions,” Joy had said, and then had pointed the officer in the direction of his cousin's office.

“Darren, I'm damn glad to see you're here,” Sheriff Younger said just minutes later, as the sergeant stepped into the examination room with the others. “Doc, I'd like to introduce you to a fine policeman with the state's force.” Edgar turned and recognized his cousin but before he could interrupt, the sheriff was already making the introductions... “Dr. Pepper, Sgt. Pepper – Sgt. Pepper, Dr. Pepper.”

“We know each other, Archie,” Darren said. “Now, how can I be of help?”

Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot by just watching.” Ike Green was a Yankees fan through and through; always had been. And the owner of Universal Pawn smiled (but only a little; his smile always came off as something more like a smirk) as he reflected on his favorite catcher's seemingly silly comment. But he knew what Berra had meant by the comment, and it occurred to Ike that you could learn a lot by just listening as well.

Ike was a master at slipping into and out of buildings, rooms, places... or just situations... without ever being noticed. He'd never intended to be that way; it was just something that had seemed to come by him naturally his whole life. To this day he remembered quite clearly the day when, as a boy, he'd been standing silently behind his mother and she had nearly scalded herself with boiling water as she moved the pot of spaghetti noodles from the stove to the sink. She should have known he was there; it's where he always seemed to be... but once again she was unaware of his presence. Tripping over her son, the pot had somehow miraculously been pitched forward instead of back onto the woman and child. “Isaac!” she'd said, the exasperation and hysteria growing with each word. “How many times do I have to tell you not to do that!” The chastisement hadn't delivered its intended effect, and it was in that moment Ike Green realized that perhaps he had a gift, one that might be deemed as quite useful over time. And so, now more than a half-century later, Ike found himself in Dr. Edgar Pepper's waiting room, completely alone and unattended. Dr. Pepper's nurse, Joy Pibb, was still over at the bank attending to the minor injuries - cuts and scrapes mostly - that had occurred to several people during the robbery. The doc, the sheriff, and the kid were in the examination room... and Ike was listening to every word.

He'd slipped into the waiting room, unnoticed as usual, only for the purpose of picking up the topical cream that would help control his psoriasis. Joy, the nurse, always referred to it as “Pepper's persistant, pasty, psoriasis patch putty.” It was the doc's own concoction after all. Ike never bothered to remind Joy that the “p” in psoriasis was silent, thus rendering her little witticism as more witless than witty. But the topical cream could wait... oh yes it could. Ike had heard mention of a briefcase filled with cash, and the sheriff had carelessly left it sitting next to the reception counter. “The silent slithering that has been my life,” Ike thought to himself. “The gift that just keeps on giving.” He padded over to the briefcase, picked it up, and noiselessly slipped out the door.

“You see him anywhere back there in the service bay?” Jerry Atrick called to his younger brother Barry. They were looking for Ralph Wallace, but it appeared the service station attendant was nowhere to be found.

“Nope. He's not back here,” Barry called back. He surveyed the area once again, as if Ralph might miraculously reappear from thin air, and then decided to rejoin his brother in the customer service room. “We need to get some petro, Jerry, or Archie will have our hides again.” The brothers were deputies, though Sheriff Younger privately referred to the two as his “diputies.” The sheriff, not wanting to have two of his men standing around idly at the scene of a robbery, had told the brothers to make themselves useful and go search the town. “Look for anything out of the ordinary,” he'd told them. “And if you find anything get back to me immediately.” The boys had their orders... but their squad car was in need of fuel.

“Lookit here, Barry.” Jerry was pointing to the cash register. “That knucklehead Ralph left the store and didn't even bother to close the cash register. Looks empty, though, so I guess there wouldn't be any money to steal anyway.”

“Well that explains it then,” Barry offered. “There's no money in the till. He's run down to the bank to make a deposit.” The brothers thought about that for a moment, both shaking their heads at Ralph Wallace's obvious stupidity. “Leave it to Ralph,” Barry further observed. “Only an idiot would try to make a deposit during a bank robbery investigation.”

“Roger that, little brother,” Jerry concurred. He leaned over and picked up a copy of Look magazine off the floor. It was crumpled and partially torn, as if it had been discarded somewhat violently. “Now that's just a shame. A perfectly good picture of Jayne Mansfield and it's nearly torn in two.” Again the brothers shook their heads in disbelief at the careless nature of Ralph Wallace's behavior. “Well, Barry, do you think you can figure out how to run that pump out there? The sheriff will be expecting us to be out looking for anything suspicious.”

“Yeah, I can manage it I think. It would be nice to have Ralph here to check the oil and clean the windshield, though. How you planning on paying him for the gas?”

“I'll just write him a note. I hate to do it, but I may have to word it a bit strongly,” Jerry said. “I don't appreciate him not being here when we're in an emergency situation like this.” He reached over and grabbed a Hershey's bar from the box next to the register, grabbed another, and then grabbed a couple more for his brother. It wouldn't do to have those on the note, though. Archie wouldn't want to be paying for Jerry and Barry's candy bars. “Well, consider it an inconvenience tax,” he muttered to himself, and pocketed the candy.

Barry was placing the pump handle back on its holder when Jerry met him at the car. “Wouldn't it be great, Jerry, if we came across another crime that these half-witted bank robbers committed, and we were the ones to discover it? That would be just bitchin!”

“Yeah, it really would,” Jerry agreed. They both got into the car and then they pulled away from the gas station. They had their fuel. There sense of purpose was renewed, and they were now on a mission. If it took them all day, by God they were going to find something that was out of the ordinary!

“My my, young man, that is some paper route you seem to have. Why, you must be the envy of every paper carrier in the country.” Sheriff Archie Younger was standing over the shoulder of Dr. Edgar Pepper while the doctor continued to administer tests that should either confirm or rule out the presence of a concussion. Treelore Gump was on his way to Jefferson City, and now Dr. Pepper, the sheriff, and Zeke had made their to Dr. Pepper's office and found themselves in the examination room. Ostensibly, someone had been dispatched to fetch Zeke's parents, but whether or not anyone had actually gone to get them was unclear.

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Zeke replied. Respect your elders, respect authority, and mind your manners; lessons that had been ingrained in him for as far back as Zeke could remember. But his response to the sheriff was also one of true bewilderment. He could read in the sheriff's demeanor that the man thought Zeke was hiding something, but Zeke also had absolutely no idea why the sheriff would make such a comment about his paper route. He suddenly felt a bit frightened – again.

“What's on your mind, Archie?” the doctor asked. “I'll be needing the boy's attention for a while longer.” Dr. Pepper had picked up on the edge in the sheriff's voice, too, and as neither of Zeke's parents had yet arrived, he now felt it might be necessary to take on the role of becoming the boy's protector and perhaps even his momentary lawyer, in addition to being his physician.

“Oh, you go right on doing whatever you need to do there, doc,” said the sheriff. “I'm sure our bank robber – or robbers – are a couple of very patient folks. I imagine they'll just wait around somewhere close by until I have a chance to get everything sorted out, and then just wait for me to come and get them.”

“What does any of that have to do with my patient?” Dr. Pepper asked.

“Oh, maybe nothing at all,” replied the sheriff. “I've just never known a paper boy who makes collections in stacks of 100s, 50s, and 20s. Why, I'm quite sure there must be in excess of a few thousand dollars in this young man's briefcase, and I'm more than a little curious what this young man had in mind to do with all that money.”

“Uh, Sis?” Trevor was in the back seat of the '51 Pontiac Chieftain, along with its owner Ralph Wallace. Unlike Mr. Wallace, Trevor's wrists weren't bound behind his back with electrical cord. Alone in the front seat, Angie was driving. Mr. Wallace had been sitting idly behind the cashier's desk at the Standard service station, flipping through the pages of a months old and badly grease spotted issue of Look when a couple of young ladies... “or wait a minute.” he'd wondered, “Were they both women?” They both looked so similar, but one had a look of some masculinity to her as well. He was waffling on the man vs. woman issue for only a moment and then the gun came up and it was in his face and the woman was making demands of him. “Put that damned magazine down!” she'd said. Then she wanted to know where the keys to his car were, how much money was in the cash register, and well... “what the hell are you waiting for? Get it out of the register,” she'd said - “all of it!” The young man, Ralph had definitely decided that the other young woman was a man, had found a lengthy extension cord and quickly bound Ralph's hands behind his back just as soon as the register had been emptied. And then they were off, all three of them, in Ralph's car. They were probably ten miles or more out of town, and had just blown by some youngster running east on a gravel road ("Had he been at the bank when all the excitement was happening?" Trevor wondered), when the young man who looked like a woman had become interested in the contents of the briefcase, the one with the singular dried blood spot on the top of it.

“What is it now, Trevor?” Angie asked.

“What did you ask for when you were in the bank, all the quarters or something?” Trevor asked, a bit confused.

“What are you talking about? Everything I got was paper. And there were large numbers on every bill, too,” Angie said with a smile.

“Yeah? Well what did you tuck the paper into? All I see here is maybe twenty or thirty dollars worth of change.”

They both thought about that for a while. A minute passed, and then another ten or fifteen seconds, and then, as it often did, the realization of what had happened struck them both at the same time. “The kid!” they exclaimed in unison. “He had a briefcase too,” Trevor recalled, thinking out loud. “That kid has our money!”

Angie hit the brakes. “We're going back!,” she nearly screamed. “If that snot-nosed punk thinks he's going to spend my money then I'll just show him what his little payday is going to buy him!”

Edgar Pepper had stanched Treelore Gump's bleeding and had done all that he could for him. All that was left was to wait for the arrival of the ambulance, which would be coming from forty miles away in Jefferson City. There was no exit wound to be found, and that left Dr. Pepper confident that the bullet was still lodged inside Gump's shoulder. Gump was both conscious and lucid though, and the doc felt encouraged by what he saw.

“Has anybody seen Forrest?” Treelore queried, obviously in a great deal of pain.

“Who?” asked the doctor.

“My nephew, Forrest,” Treelore answered. “By George told him to run, and the thing is... well, Doc, he's a bit simple. He won't stop running until somebody tells him to.” Gump saw the 'your pulling my leg now' expression on Dr. Pepper's face and said, “I'm not kidding, Doc. He'll be halfway to the next county by now if somebody hasn't corralled him. He took off to the east. Could you humor me and have a deputy go look for him? He'll be on one of the gravel roads east of town.”

The sheriff was hunched down thirty feet away, asking questions of the boy who had been grazed by the very same shot that had ricocheted off a car fender and then hit Treelore Gump. Edgar Pepper called to him, “Archie? When you have a minute, Mr. Gump here needs to ask a favor of you.”

Stupefied and stunned, Zeke stooped to pick up the briefcase he'd dropped, and a droplet of blood splatted on its side. He wasn't all that cognizant of the commotion surrounding him, and he took little notice other than to see the bank robber as she came bounding down the bank steps. Zeke's personal radar then completely failed to identify another person bearing down on him from the direction of the sidewalk. Trevor, noticing the kid with blood running down his forehead and cheek, saw that Angie was flying down the steps with her head turned toward the bank door, her arm outstretched and a gun in her hand. She was going to bowl over the bloodied kid, and Trevor sprinted toward the boy with the intent of tossing him aside. Trevor was just a single stride away when Angie, still not watching where she was running, missed a step and pitched forward. Knees and elbows collided with an already somewhat traumatized head, and all three went down in a pile.

“Angie, Angie!” Trevor shouted as his twin sister was already bringing the pistol around for the express purpose of neutralizing whatever or whoever it was that had placed himself between her and a quick escape. The mirror image of herself brought up short the whip of her gun hand. “Trevor?” she asked, recognition rapidly catching up to the shock of her twin brother's appearance. “You get a little confused about which of us is which this morning?” she said, a smile widening on her mouth.

At the bottom of the pile, and perhaps a bit concussed, Zeke gazed at the two lookalikes and said the first thing that came to his mind, “Angie, there ain't a woman that comes close to you.”

“SHUT UP, KID!” the twins shouted in unison. Trevor grabbed the briefcase as Angie swept her gun hand in an arc at the gathering crowd. Not dispersing to her satisfaction, she fired a shot in the air and that set the domesticated folks of this sleepy little burg to running! And then they were both running themselves, together, away from the bank and away from the crowd.

Zeke sat up, surveyed his surroundings, and saw his Cardinals ball-cap lying twenty-five feet away. He stood, and then stooped again to pick up the briefcase, and idly wondered what had happened to the blood stain on the side of case?