It’s nighttime in a somewhat rundown outdoor used car lot, one housing dozens of older cars. All is quiet except for the grunts of a small-framed Indian, whose clean but inexpensive blue jeans have turned-up pants legs, and whose grunting is the result of trying to get the final hubcap off an old sedan. His other Indian partner in crime is trying to fit a lone car key into each and every car on the lot, without luck. This is Willie. His grunting childlike partner is T. P.
“Willie,” says T. P., “I can’t get this last hubbie off. What can I do, Willie?”
“Just leave it and help me with this key. I’m tired.”
“O.K., Willie. – Willie, tell me again this is how Sitting Bull got his start.”
“No, I tells you! I didn’t say that, T. P. It was Sitting Bull’s grandson. Cars didn’t have hubcaps in Sitting Bull’s time. Anyone who has studied history knows that.”
T. P. tries valiantly to loosen the last hubcap.
“I didn’t know you knew Indian history, Willie.”
“I don’t. Auto-mo-bile history, that’s my specialty. Studied it at every prison library I ever been to.”
“O. K., O. K., Willie. You better make that key work or we ain’t gonna eat tonight. The ‘fence’ said be there by elevenses or he’s gone beddie-byes.”
Willie growls and shakes his head.
“T. P. would you please quit with that baby talk! You know how I hates it, uh, hate it, when you do that.”
“O. K., Willie.”
T. P. hangs his head. But not for long as, finally, the car key does work and Willie opens the latch on an old, full-size sedan. The boys joyfully get in, placing a big burlap bag of clanging hubcap loot into the back seat.
T. P. is happy.
“I’m glad we got a top on us tonight, Willie. It’s pretty cold to be exposed to the air.”
“Oh, hush your whining,” Willie counters. “The old wheels make a great convertible. We’ll come back and pick it up early tomorrow, after we get our moolah.”
Willie turns on the Accessories with the ignition switch. Really loud rock music blasts from the radio. Willie quickly turns it off. He lifts the receiver of a cheap car phone that has been installed in the floorboard.
T. P. is beside himself.
“Let’s check our messages! I hope we got messages! Oh boy, oh boy. Put it on the speaker, Willie.”
“Shhh, I tells you! I swear, T. P., you’d wake up the dead if they weren’t already dead!”
Willie carefully punches some buttons and puts the phone on speaker mode. The telephone line rings at the other end and Willie’s voice comes out of the speaker in the car.
“We’re not here right now. We are out on a job... ”
In the background of this sober message there appears a little high voice. It’s T. P.
“... Say ‘Leave a message,’ Willie. Say ‘Leave a message.’”
The message continues.
“Leave a message... Beep.”
In the car, Willie hits the buttons needed to retrieve messages and finds that there is, indeed, a message. A new voice emerges from the phone.
“Willie,” intones a voice sounding deeper than it needs to be, “this is Nickels. The Big Man wants you to go to Washington to do a big job. This is your chance to redeem yourself, along with that idiot partner of yours.”
T. P. pouts as Willie wags his finger at him in consternation and remembrance of some screwed up time past.
The voice continues.
“Meet me tomorrow at noon at the usual place.”
T. P. pulls on Willie’s arm.
“I wonder if all expenses are paid?” he asks Willie.
The voice answers.
“I know what you’re thinking. All expenses are paid. Now, get out your best East Coast suits and get ready for some equipment training. Bye. – And tell T. P. ‘bye-byes’ for me! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
T. P. looks a little hurt and asks, “Willie, why does he always say that?”
“Because he knows you!” puffs back Willie. “Let’s get this stuff a-juderated and go home. We soon got bigger fish to fry!”
Willie starts the car and the boys begin their drive out of the lot and into the night. The left blinker goes on. Willie turns right.