“What sides you want?” she asked.

Shit. Slim didn’t tell him that part. Oh shit. He got it wrong and they’d kill him. His furtive, hard eyes cast about, not seeing the Tracker anywhere.

“Baked beans. Slaw. Biscuits.” He did the best he could.

She rang it up, and took his twenty. He left the change on the counter, fearful that tucking it in his pocket might draw attention to the gun. When the big bag of chicken and side orders were gripped under a frail arm, Wheatie drew the gun, not real smoothly, but he got it out and pointed it at the fat lady’s startled face.

“Give me all your money, motherfucker!” he commanded in his cruelest voice as the gun shook in his small hands.

Wyona managed this Hardee’s and was working the counter because two of her people were out sick tonight. She’d been robbed three times in her life and this little piece of motherfucking white meat wasn’t going to make it four. She put her hands on her hips, glaring at him.

“What you gonna do, cock-a-doodle-doo? Shoot me?” she sang.

Wheatie had not anticipated this. He clicked back the hammer, hands shaking harder. He wet his lips, eyes jumping. It was decision time. No way he could let this fat chicken lady dis him. Shit man. He walked out of here without the money and that was the end of his career. He wasn’t even sure he’d gotten the sides right. Oh shit, he was in trouble. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The explosion was incredible and the revolver jumped in his hands. The bullet smashed through large fries $1.99 on the lit-up sign over Wyona’s head. She grabbed the big .357 magnum away from him, and he ran like hell.

Wyona was a firm believer in community intervention. She chased Wheatie out the door. She thundered after him through the parking lot, across the way to the Payless, and behind it where a red Tracker was parked, filled with teenagers smoking weed. They locked the doors. Wheatie tugged a handle to no avail, yelling, as the huge woman grabbed the back of his pants, yanking them down to his leather Adidas. He fell to the pavement in a tangle of red denim as she pointed the revolver through glass, at the driver’s head.

Slim knew a determined look when he saw it. This bitch was going to shoot him if he so much as blinked. He slowly lifted his hands from the steering wheel and held them up.

“Don’t shoot,” he begged. “Oh please don’t shoot.”

“Get on your car phone and call 911 right now,” Wyona screamed.

He did.

“Tell them where you are and what you done and that if they don’t get here in exactly two minutes, I’m blowing your motherfucking head off!” she screamed, her foot firmly planted on Wheatie, who was supine and shaking on the pavement, facedown, hands covering his head.

“We just robbed Hardee’s and are behind the Payless on Central Avenue!” Slim yelled into the phone. “Please get here quick!”