their movements. They stopped near the central console. Joe Bob had a twenty-two pistol clutched in his right hand. He removed it from the back of Mick's head and turned leaving Loneshark uncovered but pointing the gun directly at Jasmine.
Bobby Joe was facing the wall of tellers with his twenty-two smothered in his huge left hand. He whined over his left shoulder, "You watch he-em clost, ye hear? He's faster nan greast lightnin'!"
"You got that right!" Bold boomed at the televised cracker.
"Shh!" Cap hissed.
"Ahh," Joe Bob confidently drawled, "He ain't gone do nuthin' long es Ah got dis here piss-tell pointed at dis here littl' gal."
"Jest watch 'em!" Bobby Joe snarled. "Now, y'all jest stuff nem grainbacks in sum pokes nen slang nem thangs ouch-ere!" He commanded the tellers. The tellers stared blankly in utter incomprehension. "Waaa-il!" Bobby Joe screamed.
Mick calmly offered, "Let me translate that redneck dialect into English for you. He wants all of you to put the paper money in sacks and then toss them out here."
"Oh!" the tellers sighed in unison and began filling bags.
Brad received a call in the control room from one of the news networks, listened for a few moments, and then answered, "Yes, I think subtitles would be an excellent idea."
"Did they find an interpreter?" A junior tech asked, attempting to keep a straight face.
"They have an English-as-a-foreign-language professor on the phone from Auburn," Barker replied, making the same vain attempt.
In the lobby, Joe Bob was getting more and more exited. His good eye was staring straight at Jasmine. "Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh . . ." Jasmine's perfect nose wrinkled from the ghastly gush of skunk-gas breath the nasty rag over Joe Bob's face couldn't filter. ". . . Ehhhhhhhh." Joe Bob almost sucked the neckerchief down his throat with the intake. He pulled it down and grinned lasciviously at Jasmine with four black teeth. "You shore ere purr-tee. You wonsta come 'long wit us? We es a-gonna be rich, ye-know!" At that repulsive proposition one of the most beautiful faces imaginable suddenly distorted into a death-mask of utter revulsion. Miss Jade expressed her refusal with a swift hard kick to Joe Bob's shin. "Ow! Why, you littl' bit–" Joe Bob squawked as he raised the pistol and brought the gun down fast to crack her skull.
Jasmine ducked reflexively, but the blow never landed. In that moment of distraction lightning struck! Loneshark simultaneously swung his left hand around Joe Bob's head, slapping a grip on his face while the strong fingers of Mick's right hand caught the wrist of Joe Bob's descending gun hand. Mick swiveled Joe Bob's body left, swinging the gripped wrist in a downward arc. As one blue laser sighted down the short barrel, Loneshark sharply wrenched the smaller man's head to the left, causing Joe Bob's finger to twitch on the trigger, which fired a shot
