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there were upwards
of thirty, totaling anywhere from fifty to two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. They had to be counted, recorded, bound and ready
for the first courier run at 9:40. She was half toying with the
idea of phoning in sick as she stepped in the shower, but knew she
wouldn’t make the call. She’d never taken a sick day in four
years.
    “Oh my God!” she exclaimed, letting the water
run down her shoulders. Had she set a dinner date for tonight?
    Great first impression, she thought, and
scrubbed furiously. She toweled dry as she half ran to her bedroom
to get dressed. Let’s see, the guy invites me to his restaurant for
a glass of wine. I repay him by calling back drunk, unable to
remember if we set a dinner date.
    ***
    Great! Merlot thought returning to the
kitchen once he watched the meat truck drive away. Why not just ask
the guy to come along when I buy the damn car? So much for keeping
everything below the radar. At least at this hour he could swing
past the bank, get another look and feel for the place, drive down
a few side streets and maybe begin a plan.
    There was a little more traffic on the
streets than he expected, but nothing like the day before, and he
had plenty of time to leisurely cruise the side streets. He was
making his second run past the bank when he caught sight of Cindy
dashing across the sidewalk and slipping into the bank.
    Damn it, he thought, reminding himself of
their dinner date. What in the hell was he thinking?
    It had been his experience that when things
started to get shitty he usually did one of two things; either he
found a way to step in it or he just plain fell down and rolled in
it. This seemed to be no exception. He had arranged a dinner date
with a teller from the bank he planned to rob.
    But what better way, he reasoned, to garner
inside information. He could loosen up pretty bank teller Cindy
with an evening of drinks and dinner.
    * * *
    “What do you mean they won’t dance?” Osborne
bellowed into the phone. “You tell them to get their collective
buns up on stage.”
    It had always been the policy of the Beaver
Hut, the dance portion of Osborne’s empire, that the stage
temperature be kept somewhere just below arctic. He had set up cold
air returns to blow continually across the stage, all day, every
day, much to the consternation of his dancers. Despite the
potential for enhanced tip revenue, they complained.
    Sassie, one of his headliners, had slipped
and fallen near the end of the Brunch and Buns shift. She had
slipped on a patch of icy condensation just at the edge of the
stage and landed, rather inappropriately, on an ill-placed,
long-necked beer bottle. The force of the fall inserted the beer
bottle with some unfortunate side affects.
    For her part, Miss Sassie, really pissed off
and currently unable to sit down, was pacing back and forth across
the stage indignantly rallying the rest of the dancing crew. She
had them conducting a work stoppage. They were sitting down, fully
clothed, in the middle of the stage. Demanding the heat get turned
up and that beer bottles no longer be allowed on the edge of the
stage.
    “Milton,” Osborne instructed through clenched
teeth after spraying his phone with disinfectant. “Get down there
and toss that twat out into the street. Then get the rest of them
back to work.”
    Milton returned twenty minutes later,
sporting a perfect bloodied imprint of Sassie’s orthodontia on his
right hand.
    “They ain’t moving,” he said, holding his
throbbing right hand, the individual teeth marks were already
beginning to puff, the overall bite area felt as if it was on
fire.
    “What do you mean, not moving?” Osborne
pushed his chair back and thrust his left arm out as nurse
Serpentina wiggled forward with the blood-pressure cuff and
delicately rolled up his shirtsleeve.
    “I reached for her, Sassie, I mean. They were
all gathered around her and she bit me. Someone else grabbed hold
of me, wouldn’t let go