It was hard to know, from our window across the street, if we were watching the FBI, local detectives or insurance agency investigators at work. . . But in any case I figured they'd have the whole station ringed with armed guards for the next few nights, so we decided to leave well enough alone. About six in the evening, however, we stopped there and had the tank filled up with ethyl. There were about six bony-faced men hanging around the office, killing the time until dark by studying road maps and tire-pressure charts. They paid no attention to us until I tried to put a dime in the Coke machine.

“It ain't workin',” one of them said. He shuffled over and pulled the whole front of the machine open, like a broken refrigerator, and lifted a Coke bottle out of the circular rack. I gave him the dime and he dropped it into his pocket.

“What's wrong with the machine?” I asked, remembering how hard it had been to rip the bastard open with a crowbar about 12 hours earlier to reach the money box.

“No concern of yours,” he muttered, lighting up a Marvel and staring out at the pump where the attendant was making change for a ten-dollar bill after cleaning our windshield and checking the oil. “Don't worry,” he said. “There's some folks gonna be a lot worse off than that there machine before this night's out tonight.” He nodded. 'This time we're ready for them sonsabitches."

And they were. I noticed a double-barreled shotgun standing in a corner by the rack full of oil cans. Two big coon hounds were asleep on the greasy linoleum floor, with their collar chains looped around the base of the chewing gum machine. I felt a quick flash of greed as I eyed the glass bulb filled with all those red, white, blue and green gum balls. We had looted the place of almost everything else, and I felt a pang of regret at having to leave the gum machine untouched: All those pennies just sitting there with nobody to fondle them. . .

But in retrospect I think that moment was the beginning of wisdom for me. We had pushed our luck far enough with that place and the world was full of colorful gum-ball machines. There was a weird and menacing edge in the man's voice that it took me a long time to forget.

We drove downtown and cruised around drinking warm beer for a while, then we robbed a crowded liquor store on Main Street by starting a fight with the clerks and then cleaning out the cash register while they struggled to defend themselves.