a little longer - wait just a little longer.
are you sure? he is not getting any younger..
a little longer, i want to make sure he feels completely safe, like he does not have a care in the world.
except that he might have a heart attack, or die of old age.
a little longer.
all right, i will be happy to just take my advance, if he just drops dead. it is up to you.
it is up to me, and i say wait a little longer. i will let you know when it is time.
you know where to find me.
with that, mister a (for assassin) got up and left, leaving mr p (for powerful) to his thoughts.
it had all begun several light years before, when mister p had been plain joe potts, dreaming of starting his own convenience store and asking cynthia carter to make him the happiest man on earth.
joe and cynthia both worked at burger king and had just finished the thursday afternoon shift and were sitting at a table in the front of the store sipping cups of coffee before heading home. it was the first time joe had ever found himself alone with cynthia. joe was trying to make small talk to prolong the encounter when the door opened and nick narwhal, marshall high’s quarterback walked in.
nick looked displeased. what are you doing talking to cynthia, joe? he asked. she just happens to be my girl.
we were just talking, joe replied.
i have been practicing my butt off all afternoon getting ready to lead the team to victory on saturday, and this is the thanks i get? nick continued.
i am sorry, nick, joe stammered. it won’t happen again.
joe got up and left, without looking back at nick or cynthia.
in the years that followed, joe became , if not the richest and most powerful person on earth, one of the four or five richest and powerful.
nick narwhal was third on the depth chart on his division ii college team, and never took a snap at quarterback, although he played on special teams and suffered an injury to his leg which left him with a permanent limp.
after college, nick got a job selling cars at beat my price billy’s. selling cars came natural to nick, and he stayed at it for forty years, before retiring and moving to arizona with his third wife.
nick could not help but be aware of joe potts’s rise in the world, and occasionally wondered if joe ever gave a thought to himself, nick, but always concluded that he did not.
he has got better things to worry about, nick would say, like how to spend all those billions.
cynthia disappeared after graduating from high school. nick never thought about her, but joe never forgot her, and when he began to rise in the world, spent what most people would conside fortunes to have her located , but without success.
and joe kept a constant surveillance on nick, never forgetting the humiliation he had suffered at his hands, and never wavering in his resolve to have his revenge. he was also convinced that nick was responsible for cynthia’s disappearance and might have murdered her, though none of the people he employed could ever find any evidence for either supposition.
after mister a left him, joe went for his afternoon walk.
he usually just walked around his spacious grounds, but on this day, as he occasionally did, he decided to walk into town, and he did, followed discreetly by some of his bodyguards.
the town consisted of a gas station, a post office and library, two restaurants, and a few dozen gift shops.
joe walked down the main street.
an elderly woman whom he did not recognize approached him.
do i know you? she asked joe.
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