” D’ya hear tha, Pa, he call us genelmen?”

The older man laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh, and his voice too was also rather unpleasant, and full of spittle.

” Well, he’s right ain he, son? We is genelmen.”

With another laugh the older man pulled a gun, an old Smith & Wesson, and pointed it at Ernie.

” Now, boy, I wan you to turn off that damnable radio there cos I’m the one doing the talkin around here, an then help my son there load up the Olds with all the liquor and grub it can carry while I empty the contents of the cash register.”

Ernie didn’t move, just looked at the gun.

” Well, go on boy, do as I bid otherwise you’re gonna lose that little head of yourn, an that’s a promise.”

A shivering Ernie Miller did as he was told and turned off the radio just as Ernest Hemingway was telling the radio listeners about the time he was blown-up by an Austrian Minenwherfer mortar shell in the lowlands of the Dolomite mountains in 1918.

” Good, boy. Now start helping my son to load the car, an if anyone comes by act as if we’re jus good customers, understand?”

The older man laughed his evil laugh.

” Yes, sir,” replied Ernie.

” He understands right enough, Pa, look at him a shiver. What’s your name, boy?”

” Ernie, sir, Ernie Miller.”

” I like you, Ernie. I like a boy who shows respect.”

The sound of the door opening took them all by surprise.

Joe Mascala was tall for an Italian, and his frame filled the whole of the doorway, blocking out the light filtering in from the two arc lamps on the forecourt and the illuminated glass bowls sitting on top of each of the three gasoline pumps. Like Hemingway, Joe – a former member of the famous Italian Arditi regiment – had seen a lot of fighting during the Great War, and feared no one, and the loaded twelve – gauge shotgun he held comfortably in his hands proved he meant business.

” What you guys want here?”

The younger of the two men answered.

” We jus come to do a little Christmas shoppin is all.”

” You take your custom somewhere else. I don’t want you in my place.”

The younger of the two men looked at the one he called Pa and smiled a yellow gap-toothed smile.

” Hear that, Pa, he wan us to take our custom somewhere else. Don’t seem right friendly, an this being Christmas, an the time of goodwill to all men…”