Dastard and the Briefcase

I have very little knowledge of the way quotation marks work in a sentence. I always pick up a book I am reading and rifle through it to find how it's done and if I can't find an example I make it up. By now I should give up and just assume that a copy editor will one day fix it all but I am way too anal to just let it go.

Dastard's character is a reflection of being able to do what I or the reader would want to do in a given circumstance but can't because we have social decorum to worry about. I am not saying we all want to be murderers or thieves, but when a waiter, for example, says or does something you don't like and you want to just slug him, you hold back. Dastard won't. He might be looked at as a sociopath, my brother's favorite subject, but I kinda think of him as a pragmatist. Sort of like a John Wayne character who won't take no guff. You say the wrong thing or look at him wrong and pow! Of course he is a villain and he will end up taking plenty of guff in his problematic career, but you get the gist.

Like all my stories of Dastard, I don't really know where they tie in or fit in his continuity, I just thought of a funny sketch-like bit and fleshed it out. One day I will actually plot out the whole story and it will hopefully, make sense to the reader.


-------------------------------------------------------------

The three thugs piled into the car; at least one of them grunting as if just walking there and getting in was enough physical exertion for the day.
“So you guys dropped off the briefcase and took the one with the money? Everything went ok?” Dastard asked while smoothing his cape out over his knees with his gloves as he often did when he was anxious.
“Yeah Boss,” the skinny one named Maury or Maurice said.
“Good because we don’t want to be anywhere near the…” started Dastard before being cut off by the big heavy set thug named Apples. “Uh, Boss… I’m not sure what briefcase I grabbed.”
“What? “ he stammered “There’s a bo..” cut off again, this time by the “brains” of the group Danny Figs. “Don’t worry Boss, I took care of it. I switched the cases for him.” Figs looked pleased with himself. Not a normal sight around these guys.
“Gah! Really? That’s good. “ Dastard looked at his watch. “I was gonna say there isn’t a lot of, what, ten seconds ‘til that briefcase explo..”
“Uh…Boss… I hear ticking coming from our case of money,” Apples said quietly.
“I was gonna say I switched it boss. I knew dese guys might mess it up,” Maury or Maurice said.
“Sonofa…” was all Dastard could get out before the case exploded and with a shriek of metal the car pitched up in the air, crashing back down with flames bellowing out all the windows.
Dastard sat there, his car a smoking ruin, small burning bits of metal, plastic and bloody parts strewn around it.
Dastard pulled himself wearily out of the wreck as a couple kids about seven years old rode by on their bikes. One of them threw something at him; most likely a small rock or some used chewing gum while the others laughed.
Dastard shook his head and sighed. Standing up slowly, he then kicked the brat off his bike. The chewing gum which was stuck briefly to his boot then became pasted to the boy’s t-shirt. He then mounted the bike and awkwardly rode away making for his hideout, the sounds of a crying child drowned out by the squealing of one of the bike’s wheels.