“I’d say you’re getting bolder everyday.”

“Maybe.” I didn’t like his tone of voice.

“Do you know what happens? When you get bold?” He emphasized the word bold a little too much for my liking. But I shook my head, still smiling.

“Take mice for example. Mice get bolder as time goes by. They’re smart at first, but then they start taking chances. Maybe the cat’s asleep they walk around the floor like they own the place. People go on vacation they may scurry around in the kitchen. But sooner or later it catches up with them, know what I mean? You know what happens when a mouse gets that bold?”

“It gets some cheese?”

“It gets killed.” He grimaced on the word killed.

“Sounds an awful lot like you’re threatening me.”

“I’m just talking about mice.”

Yes he was. And talking like he was the cat that was going to catch one.

“Am I the mouse?” I asked.

“You could be. Boy, you sure could be.”

“You know a little about cheese stealing yourself, I think.”

He laughed then, not a big laugh, really just a chuckle, but it meant he knew what I was referring to.

“Boy, when I was sixteen I stole seven hunnert dollars off a made man. You know what that is, a made man?”

“I believe I do.”

“You know what they did?”

“What who did?”

He wouldn’t play along, just glared for a second and continued talking. “They paid another man a thousand dollars to break my leg. Don’t make sense does it?”

“I’m not sure.” I said, trying to bait him again. Again he continued.

“Thousand dollars they spent on a seven hundred dollar thief. That don’t make no sense. Hell, even if they’da got the money off me they’da lost three hunnert.” I noticed he slipped in and out of his hillbilly accent at will, but didn’t bother to mention it. “No sense at all.”

He stared into my eyes, waiting for some kind of reaction, but I didn’t really know what he expected so I just stared back. Did he want me to laugh? Agree with him that it was stupid? It wasn’t. And I think he knew it. So I let him tell the story his way.

“But it does make sense.” He lit a cigar after that little revelation. “See the important thing was that I didn’t get away. Somebody found out I stole seven hundred and got away with it the next guy steals seven thousand. You see what I’m getting at?”

“Mafia guys can’t count?” I asked innocently.

“Boy you sure do got a smart ass mouth.” He was starting to get pissed. I love it when they get pissed.