The Sale of the Hi-Point - or Things that Make Josh Sugarmann Sad

In our last exciting episode, M had found himself tasked to legally and profitably dispose of a Hi-Point .380 pistol. In the name of his self-esteem and sanity, he was motivated to do this as expeditiously as possible.

Somehow - and he didn't say how - he made contact with a person who was very anxious to own it. He made arrangements to meet this person at the periphery of the parking lot of a local shopping center. Unfortunately upon arriving at this location, he found that a street-paving project had pretty much closed off access to the lot. Unable to contact his principal, he wormed his way into the lot anyway.

The area, said M, was crawling with traffic cops busily interfering with what little traffic could get past the construction. So his arrival did not go unnoticed.

Now, M is a gentle, mild, ordinary-looking fellow who is not used to drawing the attention of the Forces of Law and Order:

...so imagine his surprise when two of the city's finest coincidentally decided to join him in aimlessly occupying that corner of the parking lot.  In their unmarked car, they undoubtedly expected that their presence would go unremarked.  They might have considered their attire, however:

The transaction M anticipated was locally as legal as breathing.  But still, not the sort of thing you necessarily want to indulge in with two tacticops sitting so unobtrusively in a car right behind you.  So M picked up his cell phone to call the buyer and find a new venue.  His phone showed four signal bars, but informed him he had no service.  It did this three times. 

Undeterred, M did what anyone would have done in a situation like this.  He exited his truck, walked up to the unmarked police car containing two tense, armored cops, asked the cops if they had some sort of cellphone jammer going on and if so could they please turn it off because he was trying to make a call.  They informed him they possessed no such device.  On the fourth attempt, his phone worked fine.

But by that time the buyer had shown up.  So ... M went ahead and sold him the pistol.  The cops did not interfere - or offer a higher price.

To M's mild displeasure, the cops accompanied his truck out of the lot, giving him a bad moment or two.  But then they turned a different way and apparently lost all interest.

The End.