“I don’t know what to say, Mister Church.”

The reverend, normally a verbally adroit man, was utterly unable to express what the paperwork spread across the table before him meant.

“I think ‘Yes’ or ‘Thank you’ is a generally accepted place to start, and please, call me Robert.” Robert Church was gathering up his copies of the documents, a smile on his face.

“This is just such a shock, sir. We’re a church. We’re not used to receiving charity. We’re used to giving it.”

“Who ever said this was charity? You’ll pay that loan back.”

The reverend flipped a few sheets of paper over and pointed to an empty section in the middle of the page.

“You left the interest rate blank, and the repayment period. I don’t know of any bank that does something like that.”

“We’re not any bank.” Church put his had on and extended his hand to the reverend. “The Solvent Savings Bank and Trust Company was founded to help the black community in financial ways we couldn’t before, and keeping the Beale Street Baptist Church out of foreclosure seems right up our alley.”

The reverend gladly shook his hand. “I’ll see you on Sunday, Robert.”

Memphis Note
Robert Church was one of the most benevolent people to ever live in Memphis, and probably the first black millionaire in the South. Most of his giving was focused on bolstering the culture of the black community in Memphis. He also helped to found the first black-owned bank in Memphis since Reconstruction. If you ever need a role model, just look to him.

“I can make it stick!”

He’d said that louder than he’d intended to, and felt his courage desiccate into nothing as all the eyes in the FBI briefing room focused on him.

“Beg pardon, son?” Said the case lead at the front of the room, visibly displeased at being interrupted, especially by a junior agent.

“I can make it stick, sir. They’re going to slip because of a lack of evidence right?” He started talking faster, getting excited. “But that’s not true. We’ve got recordings of them threatening the banker and recordings of them from the interrogations.”

“So what? ‘Less you got some magic way to prove beyond a doubt that it wasn’t another fella with the same soundin’ voice, we’re just as screwed.”

“I do, actually. We can match voice patterns and intonations from both recordings, show physical evidence that the speaker in both is the same person.”

“You got papers to back you up? Experts to prove this isn’t some crock?”

“Wouldn’t bring it up if I didn’t, sir.”

“Good enough. I’ll see what the DA says. And son, how’d you know about all that sound crap?”

“We’re in Memphis, sir. I grew up in a recording studio.”

Memphis Note
In the 1970s the local FBI branch ran a case against a pair of bank extortionists. They had recordings of the criminals calling in the threats, and had arrested them picking up the payoff money. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough additional evidence to convict. Luckily, because of Memphis’s place in the recording world, they were able to tap local knowledge and develop a technique to match vocal patterns that was admissible in court. This technique is still used in legal cases to this day. This is probably the only occurrence in history of rock and roll actually stopping crime.

As he crouched in the overgrown hollow, bramble thorns pulling at his clothes, he thought his first bank robbery had not gone off as well as he’d hoped.

Which didn’t much make sense to him. He’d been sure to sign up with the best crew in the South. Billy Ray Dawson and his boys were legends amongst folks like him that didn’t cotton to a nine-to-five sort of life. And he was lucky enough to get in on their thirtieth heist, which was as near a sure thing as he could hope for.

But, nope, it had most definitely not been a sure thing. Which he was reminded of as the fellow next to him hissed out “Dogs! They’ve got dogs!”.

He swore, a lot. He didn’t like dogs. Well, he liked dogs you owned, the domestic, love-you-no-matter-what kind. Police dogs were an entirely different kind, more of a pain-on-four-legs kind.

He took a deep breath, and made sure to remember that note of honeysuckle on the breeze. ‘Cause there weren’t no way he’s gettin’ his face chewed off by a police dog, so he’d best get himself right for prison.

Memphis Note
Billy Ray Dawson and his gang were an anachronism. They were the sort of bank robbers you expected to be from the Old West, robbing bank after bank in every state within a day’s drive. The Memphis job was their thirtieth and final one. The police and FBI stayed with them as they tried to get away, ultimately cornering the gang in some local woods before flushing them out with dogs and gunfire.