"All right, sure, but could we take the melodrama down a notch? Let's say the local mail carrier was strangled with a sweat sock," I said.

"Poly cotton blended athletic hosiery," the woman said.

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"Whatever. Let's say it's true, the rest of this still doesn't make sense," I said. "Mom, call the police. Let's get someone down here to sort this out. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation."

"Yeah, there is." the man said.

"Great. What is it?" I asked.

"Russians."

"What?" I asked.

They couldn't be serious. I squinted at the guy, but if this was a joke, he was really good. Not a hint of any irony.

"I know, first they get you know who elected, now this," he said. "We've been tracking these Hose heisters for about six months. They've been through the entire Baltimore area."

"We think they're gearing up for the big leagues," the woman said.

My mother gasped.

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked.

"DC," the woman said.

"Okay, enough of this bull..." the man put a finger to my mouth.

"Did you just shush me, with your wet, nasty finger?"

"I didn't want to do this, but you've left me no choice," the woman said.

I turned to her, she stuffed the sock in my mouth and shoved me hard into a wooden chair. The man clamped my arms to the sides of it with gorilla like hands.

"I need to know if I can trust you to keep a secret," the woman said.

My mother stepped up behind her, with a big metal drop light in her hand. Finally, she was doing something! Hit her! I thought. Then she turned the light on and pointed it in my eyes.

"William," my mother said. "Can you keep your mouth shut, or are you gonna squeal like a little bitch?"

This day just kept getting weirder. I nodded, because it seemed the best thing to do.

"Johnson, take the sock out of his mouth," the woman said.

"Eeww, no, not me," the big man said.

My mother reached in and dragged it out.

"Good grief, what are they teaching you agents these days? In my day, we'd have had him in uniform and back out on the street stopping these monsters by now," my mother said. "Get outta my way."

"Look, William, your father's dead. He died serving his country. It's a family thing. We've been in this business for three generations and the Russians are the worst. They killed your father, because he was too close to their ringleader," my mother said.

"Mom, what are you talking about?" I asked.

"Hose heisters. Sock thieves. They've been the bane of American civil society since before electric dryers," she said.

"I must have fallen asleep on the way over here. Is that it? I ran off the road and I'm in a coma in some hospital somewhere..."

She slapped me.

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