"Keep your fresh hands to yourself, Billy Dade!" Jenny Baker slapped the young man across the face. "Marla, wait up!" the barely legal girl called, tottering in her new red heels to her friend who was just starting her truck in front of the bar. Billy rubbed the side of his face as he watched Jenny get in the truck and Marla drive off. He shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his pants for relief, and looked around and saw Maria. She had just gotten out of the front seat of some codger's boat-like sedan. Billy felt the wad in his pocket. He nodded and then went over to the woman. "How much?"

"Are you a sheriff?" Maria said it as a matter of course, not like she cared about the answer.

"Are you?" Billy grinned.

"Go waste someone else's time."

Billy sighed. "No. I'm not a sheriff." Billy shifted feet. "So how much?"

Maria checked the time on her phone. She had time to get one more in and she could use the dough to keep Hank Swan off her back. "For what?"

"A hummer."

Maria told him and Billy gave her the bills. They ambled around back and she started. At one point Billy exclaimed "Oh, doctor!" and she was startled. But she recovered.

Doc Humphries closed the ledger and rubbed the bridge of his nose. It didn't add up. It hadn't for a while. He needed more paying patients. Of course, if he didn't have to pay Henry Swan... But he did have to pay Henry Swan. Who would have thought that a big city mobster like Tony Lucarelli was more honorable than a boy from the county?

Blue stood up from her bed next to Doc Humphries's desk and turned her head to the door. Someone was coming up the road. Maybe it was Maria. Or maybe it was trouble. Doc got his shotgun from the closet and went to the door. The car coming up the road wasn't Maria. But he new it. It was the stylish black car of Lucarelli. Doc kept the shotgun.

Lucarelli helped a medium height man from his passenger seat and up the stairs. The man couldn't put any weight on his one leg. The man was wearing a knit cap, denim shirt, an aviator jacket, and dark blue jeans. Lucarelli rang the bell. Doc Humphries opened the door.

"Doc, you know how I said that one day you'd do me a favor?"

"Yes. I remember."

"Well, this is the favor. I want you to meet my good friend Dave."

"So how'd you break your leg, Mr...?"

"Dave. Dave is fine."

Doc Humphries looked at him skeptically. "So how'd you break your leg, Dave?"

The average man smiled. "Someone broke it for me."

Doc Humphries turned to Tony Lucarelli.

"Hey! Don't look at me, Doc. I'm the one that brought him to you."

"So, Dave, are you in the same line of work at Mr. Lucarelli?"

"Imports, exports, and procurement? No."

"So what is your line of work?"

"Whatever I need to do whenever I need to do it."

Doc began examining the leg. "Is there a lot of call for that?"

"It keeps me busy."

"Well, I am going to splint it now and then cast it in the morning." The doctor got the materials for the splint from the supplies. "Mr. Lucarelli, will you stay around to help me get Dave into the guest room? I'd have Maria help, but she's nowhere to be found."

"Sure, Doc. I owe Dave here."

Maria saw Lucarelli's sedan and the driveway as she pulled up and sighed. She drove around his car, parked by the barn, wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and walked in.