Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5543592-20160202235358/@comment-25828117-20160203003044

Peter Bering, the owner of the Bering food & groceries corner store put the jars of peach jam in a brown paper back and gave the it to Misses Kenley. The older woman was quite small and her back wasn't what it used to be so he had to lean over his counter to pass it on into her frail hands.

The old woman smiled by Peter's subtle help.

"Thank you, young man." She said to the forty year old shopkeeper.

"Erm, don't mention it, Misses Kenley it was no bother really." He replied in kind while he started clearing the top for the next costumer.

But the old lady as per usual didn't appear to be in any hurry, seeing it as the perfect occasion to start a conversation. Probably to liven up her lonely life.

"Have you been to one of those newfangled super duper markets yet?"

Peter stopped whatever he was doing to watch the lady with a bit of an hidden angry glare. It was probably not intentional by the old fruit but reminding him of the very thing that might one day put him out of business wasn't exactly something he was counting on.

"No, I have not." He said matter of factly.

"Well, they're quite big. Very big... And filled with so many things... There's even eleven flavours of Fizzy Popsicles, eleven! How on earth am I supposed to choose!" She vented in a mixture of awe and genuine indecisiveness.

"I wouldn't know, Misses Kenley." Bering said looking at the cooler in the back of the store, remembering he should probably get rid of the out of date stuff any time soon.

"... Shame of the service though... Everything's automated, even the lady that packed my bags didn't even help me afterwards. Even when I told her about my rheumatic. I didn't like that."

"Well, if you want good service you have to be with me!" Peter charmed, seeing a way out of this nightmare.

"Quite right!"

At this point the bell in front of the door rang again, as two men walked into the store.

They wore suits. One brown with a tan shirt and the other dark grey with an equally grey tie and shirt ensemble. Their hair almost identically combed back with cheap hair wax. Their foreheads glisten in the light because of some strains had leaked from the hair down. These fellers probably weren't that accustomed to the almost perpetual hot weather in Florida.

One was short and chubby and a bit darker, the other long, rather thin and blonde. A bit amusing but these guys obviously weren't a comedy duo.

Both of them moved aside when Misses Kenley went for the door. She in return thanked the young men and went on her merry way to make peach jam toast, which she will subsequently eat in small bites whilst sitting in her rocking chair on a wooden porch overlooking the ocean.

The men wandered in rather casually, ties loosened and hair slightly uncoiled probably by the absence of a hat that had been sitting on it for the majority of the day. They looked around the shop somewhat disinterestedly, as if they weren't actually looking at what was to offer, but rather at the shop itself.

Peter sighed.

Where these guys from the Supermarket chain that had been trying to buy him out? It seemed like he couldn't catch a break today.

The taller one remained close to the counter while the chubby feller checked out the back. Poorly hiding the fact they weren't actually gonna buy anything.

Peter couldn't take it any longer though, so he decided to chime in.

"Can I help you?" He asked the blonde one with a smile, the feigned smile behind which the two-times winner of the amateur light-weight Florida boxing championship resided.

Bering could see the chubby man turn to look at the counter in the corner of his eye while the long one nodded at him.

"Yes, you could."

"We're with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We'd like to ask you some questions."

(To be continued)