I pulled the dress over my head and stuffed the pillow up under it and belted it in place. I tied the scarf on my head over the cowl so it hid my hair. The hem of the dress brushed my ankles and the sleeves came down to my wrists. The parts of the suit that showed wouldn't be noticed.
"What do you think?" I asked Neeka.
"You need to do something with your face."
I looked into the rear-view mirror on the bike's handlebar and concentrated. Seconds later, I had mottled grayish skin and dark lines across my forehead, under my eyes and down either side of my nose.
"Hello, granny!" Neeka said. "Try walking."
I did my best slow shuffle with stooped shoulders and hunched back.
"Bang on!" she said. "Even in a good light, you should pass for an old woman."
"Let's go try it out."
Neeka coasted to a stop a couple of blocks from the all-night convenience store. I walked from there, trying to look helpless and frail. At first, I didn't think anyone was around. The buildings were mostly ramshackle and abandoned. Their windows were long since busted out and many of the doors had been kicked in, patched, kicked in again, and finally left hanging loose on their hinges.
As I shuffled along, I listened carefully. When I got within sight of the store, I heard muffled whispers coming from the shadows ahead of me. There were sounds of footsteps, then nothing.
I held the handbag clutched to my chest as though it held all my worldly possessions. I wasn't too sure the pillow-under-the-dress business was going to work, but I knew that no one would buy a grandmother with a bust like mine and it was the best I could do.
As I drew abreast of the doorway where the sounds had come from, nothing happened. I was tempted to stop, but I kept going, in case they were so insecure that they felt they needed to sneak up on old women from behind. I had gone only a few feet when I head footsteps behind me. I heard one, then another, then a hand came out of the darkness and grabbed the bag. The purse-snatcher took off running, intending to rip the cheap bag from my hands and be well down the street before I could raise an alarm.
His plan was foiled by one small detail. When he grabbed the bag, I grabbed his wrist. Once in my grip, he wasn't going anywhere without me.
He ran a few feet, dragging me along with him. Then he realized that I wasn't going to let go and he tried to get free. He yanked and pulled and twisted, but it did him no good.
"Leggo!" he shouted, and pulled back his free hand to hit me. I yanked him closer before he could take a swing at me and got him in a bear hug.
"C'mon sonny," I said in my best old-maid cackle, "give granny a kiss."
This seemed to disturb him more than being caught. He started struggling wildly and called out, "Help!"
I thought that was the ultimate irony — a criminal calling for help in the middle of the crime. At the moment, it worked to my advantage since it meant I wouldn't have to chase down his buddies. I squeezed him a little tighter and he called again.
"Help! Get this bitch offa me!"
Judging by the footsteps, there were two more of them coming up behind me. I kept my hold on their friend until they got close enough, then I let go of him and grabbed them instead. These two didn't catch on either that we were playing Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. They grabbed my arms and held on while I slammed them together hard enough to loosen their fillings. When they slumped to the sidewalk, stunned, I re-grabbed the first one and tossed him through the nearest doorway. From the sound of splintering wood, this was one that still had the door in it. I shrugged and tossed the others after their friend.
The building was so gutted that I couldn't tell what it used to be. I looked around and then dragged the three menaces to society into a small windowless room to wait for them to regain their senses - what few they possessed.
I stood in the doorway and looked at the haul from my first fishing expedition. It wasn't very impressive. They all looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. Their shabby clothes looked to be that way deliberately, rather than from actual wear, so I assumed that they weren't orphaned street children who had fallen into crime as a means of survival. These looked to be your common, garden-variety thugs who preyed on old women because they were too lazy to have higher goals or even to go after bigger prey.
I intended to see that this time they got far more than they bargained for. My problem was that I hadn't expected such quick success from my ruse and I didn't have a plan for dealing with them. While their eyes stopped rolling around in their heads, I thought over what I could do to them that would make them reevaluate their choice of profession without causing them any serious physical damage.
I was fresh out of creative ideas so I went with the first thing that came into my head.
"Well, lookee here," I cackled. "Three fine, strapping young men. We're going to have some fun tonight, yessirree!"
One of them sat up and stammered, "Wha... what do you want?"
"Why, I want you, young man! It's been a long time since I had a nice young fella like you. You're going to make old granny mighty happy." I feigned undoing my belt. "Now you boys hurry up and get out of those clothes. I've got an itch and you've got just what I need to scratch it!"
All three of them looked like I'd told them they were going to be executed at dawn. They started crawling away from me. I reached down and snatched a hold on the ankle of the slowest. He tried to squirm away from me, but I dragged him slowly closer while reaching for the crotch of his jeans. When I put my hand on the bulge in his groin, he made a noise halfway between a squeek and a whimper.
"Yes, it's been a loooong time," I said, squeezing his balls like they were ripe fruit in a produce bin. "Now you boys get those clothes off, you hear!"
When nobody moved, I unfastened the belt of the one I was holding and before he could move, I took hold of the waistband and ripped his pants open halfway to his knee. He looked like he was about to cry. I couldn't tell if it was from shock or because I had ruined his favorite pair of jeans.
Still nobody moved, so I used the same technique I had used on Dave. I grabbed the thug on the floor by the thigh muscle and started to squeeze. His friends watched him thrash about for a while, but when the light dawned on them that they were next for this treatment, they started shedding clothes.
I had to yank off one pair of boxers, but eventually I had them mother-naked in front of me.
I looked at them and shook my head, "You boys sure are a disappointment. I thought I had some serious cocks here, but instead, I got little pricks." I picked up a pair of pants and stripped the belt out of them. I had been thinking about playing with them some, messing with their heads, but they looked so wretched and so scared that I just wanted to get it over with and get out of there.
"I thought we could have some fun, but it looks like the only fun I'm going to have is whipping your butts. C'mere you!" I reached for the thug furthest from the door. In doing so, I stepped out of the doorway and gave them a way to escape. The first one dashed through quickly, but the second bent down for his clothes. I snapped the belt across his ass and he reordered his priorities and ran after the first.
The last one I chased around the room, flailing the belt at him. It wasn't until the second time around that he thought to make a break for it as well. I ran after him as far as the door of the building and watched him run down the street after his friends. Then I went back inside and collected their clothes into a bundle. Carrying it with me, I resumed shuffling down the street at my own slow pace.
No one else bothered me and I reached the store without further incident. There was a small crowd out front and I could hear people laughing and snickering. I walked up to the front of the store and held out the bundle of clothes for everyone to see.