A freckle-faced boy in line preparing to board the school bus called to his plump friend, "Hey, Brett. Y'ain't ridin' the bus?"

"Nope. Not today," he said, shifting his eyes to ten-year-old Ashley, her hair dancing in the breeze. He grinned like he just opened a box of puppies on Christmas morning. He unclipped his backpack and produced a crinkled waxy, bakery bag.

"I saved you a chocolate chip." His eyes brimmed with adoration as he offered the open bag. She slipped her hand inside and delicately withdrew a cookie. "Could be a might melty," he said. They crossed the school's front lawn and walked side-by-side down the neighborhood street.

"Glass a cold milk would just about make this a perfect day," she said, biting into the cookie.

"Yeah.Perfect."

They walked for a block in a cookie-consuming daze before Ashley said, "Would you stop starin' at me like that? You make me nervous."

"Didn't mean to. I just like lookin' at you is all." He shoved the last of his cookie into his mouth, sucking the chocolate from his stout fingertips. "You know this just might be one of my best days." He brushed his hands on his pants.

Ashley dropped her head.

"What's troublin' you?"

She sighed. "Aw, just thinkin' about I got a geometry test comin'. And if I bring home another bad grade,..."

"Well, I can help you study."

"The test is tomorrow. Second period." When she took Brett's beefy hand, his face lit up. "I'm surely gonna miss walkin' with you."

"Well,... supposin' I was to get you the answers to that test."

"No, Brett, I don't want you to get yourself in no trouble."

"You know I'd do anything for you, Ashley."

"You are just about the sweetest boy in the parish." She surprised him with a quick peck on his chocolate-coated lips.

A sheepish grin pushed across his blushing face.

"Ow!" She yelped. "You're squeezin' my hand."

########

From his seat on the couch, Blake watched Rachel's manic pacing into the living room, then out into the kitchen, then back again. "You've been sitting in a parking lot scoping this out?!" The words squeezed their way out from between tight jaws, her pretty face flushed.

"Damon's such a bullshitter," he said. "I needed to check out his story."

"And?"

"And, it turns out he's right."

"Right about what? People bet sports online. Duh. It's not 1960. At the bar, half of them are on their phones all night long."

"Okay, so maybe it's not just sports betting. It's probably money laundering, right?"

"Let's be honest," Rachel said. "Damon's an asshole."

"Can we tone down the anger for a minute and just think about this?"

She paused, turning to look at him. "Think about this? Are you serious?!"

"Listen, Babe. If it doesn't look like the easiest thing in the world-"

"--Easiest thing in the world is to forget about it... Damn Damon!"

"I'm not gonna jeopardize our future. Not for anything." He took her wrist then pulled Rachel down onto the couch beside him.

Acutely aware of the apartment's thin walls, he lowered his voice and then launched into his pitch. "Every Tuesday night, McQuaid walks across the street to the diner before Pat and that other dude come to pick up the money."

"Karas."

"Right. There's like a half-hour when that money is sitting all by itself down there in that empty garage. Totally empty."

"You're sure about that."

"For the past four Tuesdays, that's exactly how it's gone down. McQuaid sits up there and eats his dinner for thirty, sometimes forty-five minutes, depending on how busy the diner is."

She shook her head.

"While he's at the diner, I walk into the garage and I walk out with the money. Simplest thing in the world.

"Nothing's that easy."

"Ten minutes max. If anything looks the least bit sketchy, anything at all, I turn around and walk away. Forget the whole deal."

"We're not those kinds of people," she said. "I can't believe we're even talking about..." Her voice trailed off.

"There could be a hundred thousand dollars just sitting there."

"How do you know that?"

"We could get you outta that nasty bar and finish the house. We deserve better than this. You know we do."

She nestled her head against his chest.

########

During his lunch break, Blake walked from the car lot down to the garage where two grease-stained guys in coveralls stood outside sucking cigarette smoke into their lungs. Both bay doors were raised revealing mechanics inside swarming like ants over a collection of vehicles in various stages of disrepair. Seeing his car on the floor with the hood up, Blake went to the Shop Supervisor's desk.

"What's up?" the Supervisor asked, wiping his hands with a rag. 'Mateo' was stitched above the pocket of his coveralls.

"Did Damon get a chance to look at my car?" Blake asked.

"Think he's under it now." His words fought their way through the walrus mustache that draped his upper lip.

Damon rolled out from beneath the car as Blake wandered over.

"I'm callin' around for parts," Damon said. "But you might wanna have a priest on standby."

Blake heaved a sigh at the grim news that he'd anticipated.

"Why don't you dump this pile of crap and buy something up there on the lot?"

"I can't afford lunch," Blake replied. "I'm gonna buy a car?"

Damon opened a brown paper bag sitting on his tool chest. "You want half an Italian sub?"

"When did you buy it?"

He unwrapped the questionable sandwich and held it to his nose. "Smells okay. Salami never goes bad."

"I'm gonna pass." Blake surveyed the concrete block building. The only windows were located near the ceiling, twelve feet from the floor, and secured with steel bars. "So, where's McQuaid's office?"

Damon nodded toward a corridor behind Mateo's desk. "End of the hall on the left."

As if on cue, a teenage kid exited the hallway, dragging an empty backpack. Damon's eyes drifted from the kid to Blake.

########

After work, Damon drove from a narrow county park road bordered by tall conifers into a vacant gravel parking lot. He got out of his truck, looking around at the pine-covered terrain, anxiously jingling the keys on his keyring. He noticed an opening in the tree line at the edge of the lot, crossed to the trailhead, then descended the pathway into the forest.

He wore the look of the first man ever to set foot on an alien planet, not the look of awe and wonder but the expression of an intruder who couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. He was far more comfortable with concrete or asphalt under his feet and he walked the trail as though the ground might crack open at any moment and swallow him whole.

Aside from the twigs breaking underfoot, the only sounds he heard were bird calls from the treetops and the distant rippling of water from a running stream at the base of the hillside until a stubborn fly buzzed his ear. He swatted at the air then felt the insect bounce off his cheek.

"Get the fuck off me," he muttered with both hands swinging. "Damn you." He nearly lost his balance stepping over a fallen log decorated with a stripe of fungus that looked like a staircase made of white clamshells. His invisible tormentor had given up the attack so he pressed onward.

He hiked another fifty yards or so when he noticed a figure leaning against a tree. It was Rachel barely recognizable in sunglasses and an oversized hoodie. As he approached, he could feel the heat.

"I didn't see your car," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "It's fuckin' freezing down here."

"So what's so urgent?"

"I messed up. It's time to face reality." He scraped the toe of his boot through the dirt. "He's not getting in there."

She responded with a cutting glare he could feel through her sunglasses.

"It's not gonna happen," he said with downcast eyes.

"He's smart. He'll figure something out."

"Call it off, Rach."

########

That evening, Blake and Damon sat in his truck parked in the diner's lot overlooking Simon's Used Cars. Behind the wheel, Damon munched french fries from a crinkled bag. In the passenger seat, Blake was halfway through a cheeseburger.

"Diner makes a pretty good burger, am I right?"

Blake nodded, licking mustard from his lips. "You're absolutely positive there's no safe in McQuaid's office?"

"Guaranteed. I been in there a hundred times." Damon tore into his sandwich.

Blake winced. "Don't take this personal, but dude, you eat like a shark."

"How am I not supposed to take it personal?"

"Do you even taste it on the way down?"

"What're you? My mother?"

Blake shrugged, carefully peeling back the foil wrapper.

"You wanna hear this or you wanna criticize my table manners?"

"Go ahead."

Self-conscious, Damon wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"So what about security cameras?" Blake asked.

"Nah." Damon dipped his fries into ketchup. "Alarm went off last winter. Some anus tried to jimmy the front door. Cops gave McQuaid shit for not having surveillance wired. But they're never gonna set up security cameras. The mob boys want no record of the activities goin' on in that garage."

Blake took another bite of his sandwich.

"But the alarm isn't the cockblock," said Damon. "It's that big ass front door. Weighs a freakin' ton. McQuaid's like king of the castle with his key and the security code."

Damon chomped his french fries. "Lotsa mornings we stood around freezin' our Cracker Jacks off, waiting for His Royal Highness to let us in."

"Shop Super doesn't have a key?" Blake took a sip of his soda.

"Nope. McQuaid opens up around eight, most nights the garage is in lockdown by seven."

"So, why'd you even start all this in the first place?"

"Guess I didn't think it through with my little parakeet brain." Damon licked the grease and salt from his fingertips then pointed, "Look. There they go."

Through the windshield, they watched the familiar Lincoln turning from the road into the deserted used car lot.