I stood in line, as patient as the other taxpayers, my filled out forms and my cash gripped body in my hand. Cash, money, the old fashioned green folding stuff. A local custom that I intended to make expensive to the local customers. I was scratching under the artificial beard, which itched abominably, when the man before me stepped out of the way and I was at the window. My finger stuck in the glue and I had a job freeing it without pulling the beard off as well.

"Come, come, pass it over," the aging, hatchet-faced, bitter and shrewish female official said, hand extended impatiently.

"On the contrary," I said, letting the papers and banknotes fall away to disclose the immense .75 recoilless pistol that I held. " You pass it over. All of that tax money you have extracted from the sheep like suckers who populate this backward planet."

I smiled to show that I meant it and she choked off a scream and began scrabbling in the cash drawer. It was a broad smile that showed all of my teeth, which I had stained bright red, which should have helped her decide on the proper course of action. As the money was pushed towards me I stuffed it into my long topcoat that was completely lined with deep pockets.

"What are you doing?" the man behind me gasped, eyes bulging like great white grapes.

"Taking money," I said and flipped a bundle at him. "Why don't you have some yourself." He caught it by reflex, goggled at it, and all the alarms went off at once and I heard the doors crashing shut. The cashier had managed to trigger an alarm.

"Good for you," I said, "but don't let a minor thing like that prevent you from keeping the cash coming."

She gasped and started to slip from sight, but a wave of the gun and another flash of my carmine dentures restored a semblance of life, and the flow of bills continued.