I was biting the last chip of pink nail polish off my right thumbnail when the bell above the door tinkled and in walked a man who must’ve been seven foot tall if he was an inch. He stopped and looked up at the bell with all the concentration of a man laying the last ace on a house of cards.

“Can I help you?” I asked , spitting a fleck of Sally Hansen’s Ingenue Pink from the corner of my lips.

The man turned as quick as a lizard about to pounce on a fly. “Yes?” he asked.

I cleared my throat and said it louder this time. “Can I help you find something, Sir?”

“Yes,” he said, “you can.” One cuff of his trenchcoat was rolled up; the other rolled down.

“I know I can help you. I’m asking what I can help you with,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. He regarded his left coat pocket with a degree of seriousness only reserved to brain surgeons and chess masters. He looked up and said, “You can help me by giving me all the money in this bank.”

My eyes narrowed. “And who do you think you are?”

“I’m a bank robber.”