A warm beer, a desperate waitress, and $200,000 in stolen cash—who is setting up whom?
Neil Harvey swirled the warm amber liquid in the bottle. An hour ago, it had been a frost-caked Sam Adams; now, it was as warm as the noon sun beating down on the corrugated roof of the ice house. He raised it to his lips, pretended to take a swallow, and set it back down, leaving a ring of condensation on the sticky formica.
Sally Simmers paused at the edge of his table, wiping her hands on a grease-stained apron. She was the only waitress working the dead-end 3 p.m. shift. “You a shamus or something?”
“Who wants to know?” Harvey asked, his voice low over the hum of the neon beer signs.
“Me,” Sally said, leaning in. “Because the louse I’m living with hit the Sentinel Bank yesterday. Is there a reward if I tell where you can get him?”
Harvey took a long look at her. She had an hourglass figure, and if her denim jeans were any tighter, you’d think somebody had painted them on. He stroked his jaw, weighing the desperate look in her mascara-smudged eyes.
“Maybe I’m interested,” Harvey said slowly. “Maybe I think you’re setting me up. Or maybe you know where the stash is, and after I take lover boy in, you run off with two hundred grand.”
“That’s a lot of maybes, mister,” Sally hissed, her eyes darting toward the front door as the bell above it jangled.
A heavy-set man in a canvas coat stepped inside, his hand buried deep in his right pocket. Sally’s face went pale, but her hand slid silently into her apron.
How does the story end? Does the man in the coat catch them in the act, does Sally draw a gun of her own, or was Harvey the target all along? Write the final paragraph in the comments below!
