"Ah, not again! Those are $30 socks! Bill is going to be pissed," Mrs. Murkle said, her voice carrying through an open window.

The Hose heister, sitting with his back to the wall of the garage under the window, cackled with glee and headed out to the alley.

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"We've got only a few seconds, before he ditches that hose!" Gerald hissed.

And you could see it, the little creep had zeroed in on an unobserved trashcan about a half block down the alley and nearly skipped off to toss it in.

"Freeze!" I said.

The Russian turned, dangling the sock over the trashcan. He laughed.

"Oh, you must be the baby," he said. Russian accent so thick, it sounded like bad acting. "So kind of you to join me."

The Russian pulled a small silver automatic pistol from his waistband.

"I wouldn't drop that sock if I were you," I said, pointing the only weapon they'd issued me, in his general direction.

"If you catch one with hose in hand, deploy the sockinator 3000," Marsha, the woman of the Special Ops duo had instructed.

"What happens?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it, just know that heister will be stuck with that sock for a while," she said.

The Russian wagged the sock over the trashcan, dipping it ever closer. I fired.

It happened so fast, I couldn't track it. A large tube of elastic snaked out of the gun's barrel, covering the man from head to toe, his face the only thing protruding. Then the elastic sleeve curled into a ball, and him inside it.

"Aaahhh!" the Russian screamed, gurgling at the end.

"Breathe slowly," Gerald said, popping out from the side of the garage, where he'd gotten to without me seeing him move. "If you struggle, that sock will strangle you."

"Eto otstoy," the man said.

"Yeah, it does suck, huh?" Gerald said. "But, not as bad as what you did to his dad, though."

Gerald walked over to me.

"You're a natural," he said, walking over to me. "So, go ahead."

"Go ahead and what?" I asked.

"Kick him," Gerald said.

"Why?"

"He killed your dad, don't you want to kick him in the nuts just once?" Gerald grinned.

I did. So, I did. The Russian puked.

"Yeah, that didn't really feel as good as I'd hoped, I said. "Natural, or not, this is going to have to be the last go round for me."

"Well, I was hoping you wouldn't say that," Gerald said.

"Yeah, I know, could have been cool, but..."

"No, that means I have to sock you," he said.

"Sock me? Like this guy?" I asked.

"No, just with my fist," he said. "To make you forget."

"What?"

So, my father died last week. Froze to death in the freezer of a local butcher shop. What are the odds? He was a mailman, not the end you'd expect for a postal carrier, huh?

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