She thought that they were 'gross'.Then one day she and a few of the girls in the office were talking and kidding. They had been talking about differe...t people in the office when one of them made mention that Howie Herman had lost part of his penis through an accident. They began kidding about how small he must now be when one of the black girls said that maybe Ben could lend some of his to Howie. It was then that this girl and another coworker divulged the rumor that their manager happened to. "Of course, Connie. What is going on?" he said.Connie took a deep breath. "Okay, when I invited your mom out to lunch yesterday it wasn't just so we could have a "ladies day"… I had something important I had to talk to her about. And so over lunch, we did talk. She helped convince me to tell you what I'm about to tell you, and I can only hope her advice was right," she said."Advice about what?" Tommy said.Connie saw that Tommy wasn't going to let this go. The more she tried to evade and talk. Their destination was rather large citadel with a population of over ten thousand people and situated on a substantial hill. Malcolm pulled the reins bringing his horse to a stop when they crossed through the pass. Below them, he could see the citadel about a day’s ride away. This side of the citadel was rocky and there were few farms. The area past the citadel was marked into a checkerboard pattern that Malcolm recognized as individual farms. Pointing to it, he said, “There’s our. .. “That’s more than I’ve got on me, right. Still, when we get to Long Cut if you’ll take me to the bank I’ll show you your Conch. You won’t get it until I reach the bank at Small Cove, though.”“Give me a Shell first, and then the Conch in Small Cove.”“Deal.”I held my hand out and we shook. If I paid in advance, he could just have me killed while I slept. This way, he knew he would get the money, but only if I made it to Small Cove. An extra Shell was a small investment in my safety. I was no.