I was at a night club with some friends. I'd just been to the bar and was carrying a couple of drinks back to our table when I ran into a little problem. Or maybe I should say a little problem ran into me.
She was sweet and petite with a figure other girls would kill for. Blonde and, unless she was dying her eyebrows, that was her natural colour. She looked too young to be there but she had to be at least eighteen. The Blue Rhino was pretty strict on admissions. Trying to get in with fake id was a big no-no there. The young woman also looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't work out why. She smiled, apologised prettily, patted me on the cheek and danced away, leaving me smiling.
I must have had a big cheesy grin on my face all the way back to our table, but it vanished pretty quickly when I found my wallet was gone.
I moved very rapidly in the direction I had seen my blonde friend go and was lucky enough to catch sight of her slipping out the side door. I was through that door only seconds behind her and she was just standing there, busy rifling my wallet.
"That's my wallet, I believe," I said quietly and she squealed like a stuck pig. Before she had a chance to bolt I had hold of her arm and quickly extracted my wallet from her greedy paws.
"I was going to return it," she blustered. "I was only going to take enough for a couple of drinks."
I'll bet. And I'm Santa Claus when I'm not busy fighting crime.
"Now why don't we go back and you can explain to the bouncers that you were only borrowing my wallet?" I suggested.
Bad idea, it seemed. The little wretch hauled off and kicked me hard in the shin, and it felt as though she was wearing steel capped boots. I yelped and grabbed at my shin and she took off running. I had my wallet so I wasn't going to chase her.
It turned out that, sore shin or not, I should have chased her. When she turned around to see if I was gaining and realised I wasn't chasing, she stopped for a moment. She held up a hand and waved it, showing she had a couple of notes in it, and then took off running again.
A quick check of my wallet showed that she'd manage to grab a hundred without me realising. Little bitch. It was no use chasing her, and I was prepared to bet she wouldn't be showing in the nightclub again tonight.
The odd thing about the whole incident was this feeling that I knew that young woman. I'd seen her somewhere recently. I just couldn't remember where. I forgot about it and wrote it off to experience.
Later that week a mate asked if he could borrow my Gerni pressure cleaner on Saturday. I said sure. Just come around and grab it. It'll be in the garage. Next time I was in the garage I checked to make sure the Gerni was in its accustomed place ready for Mike to grab and was met by a vacant spot.
So where was my Gerni? Running through the people who've borrowed it, and there has been a few, I finally hit on my brother. He borrowed it a couple of weeks back and hadn't returned it yet. I gave him a call and he said sure, he still had it and he'd finished using it. He couldn't drop it off before Saturday but if I cared to drop past it was in his back room. I told him I'd swing past Friday evening and collect it. No worries. If he and the missus weren't home they'd leave word with the baby-sitter that I was coming around.
What with one thing and another it was pushing nine when I rolled up to my brother's place to collect the Gerni. The baby-sitter answered and I introduced myself.
"Evening. I'm Gordon, Peter's brother. I'm here to collect some equipment. I assume that he told you I was coming?"
"Oh, hi. I'm Samantha. Everyone calls me Sam. We've actually met here before. Yes, Peter said you'd probably drop past. Come on in."
"Thanks. I won't be but a moment. I know where the equipment is."
I headed off to the back room, puzzled by something that was nudging my mind. I picked up the Gerni and was heading back out. Sam reached for the front door to open it for me and then it clicked.
I put down the Gerni and took a closer look.
"Tell me, Sam," I said, my voice all affability, "have you stolen any more wallets lately?"
She looked as though she'd been slapped. Her face turned bright red and she started stuttering.
"Wh-what are you t-talking about? Wh-what makes you th-think I'd steal a wallet."
"Friday night at the Blue Rhino," I said. "I thought you looked familiar. In case you're wondering which of your victims I am, I'm the one you kicked in the shins."
From the look on her face she did recognise me now, and wasn't happy about it.
"Why don't we step into the front room and discuss the matter?"
"You got your wallet back," Sam pointed out, a touch of desperation in her voice.
"Less a hundred dollars handling fee," I murmured and Sam blushed again. She'd apparently forgotten that.
"I'll pay you back," she said. "I just don't have it on me right now but I will pay you back."
"Well you're certainly going to pay for it," I told her. "I believe in keeping all my accounts up to date. I see no reason I should make an exception for a cheap little thief."
"I'm not really a thief," she protested. "I really needed the money. Yours is the only wallet I ever took and I only grabbed what I needed."
I'll admit I'd been surprised she hadn't just grabbed the entire contents and kept running rather than stopping to extract a hundred. Mind you, if I'd known she'd extracted the hundred I'd have held on tighter until I got it back.
"So you say," I scorned. "So how do you propose to pay me back?"
I was half expecting her to offer me a blowjob or sex, but she didn't. She just looked at me helplessly.
"That's what I thought. No idea. Well as far as I'm concerned you're going to have to pay a penalty. After that we can possibly discuss terms for repayment of the money you 'borrowed'."