The owner of Joe's Garage on Wabash Avenue in Northwest Baltimore likes to keep gas prices down. One way is by not accepting credit cards. Joseph Goldman runs a cash business, and its not a secret judging by the lines of cars often seen snaking around his business near Cold Spring Lane.

But lots of cash makes Joe's Garage a target for robbers as much as a haven for motorists trying to fill their tanks.

Friday evening, police say, two men walked into the garage to rob it. One held a handgun. Goldman grabbed his own handgun and shot one of the men, who later died at a hospital. It wasn't the owner's first time gunning down someone trying to hold him up. In 2002, he shot and killed a man who tried to rob him with a knife.

Goldman was cleared of the shooting six years ago. The one on Friday is under review by police and prosecutors. I wanted to talk with Goldman today, but a call to his phone ended with a pickup and a click, maybe because the newspaper's number appeared on the screen.

I drove out to the garage this morning only to find it closed. The three service bays were shuttered and only a handful of junked cars were left in the sprawling lot. The pumps showed the last sales, but other than that the place was deserted. I hung out for a bit hoping a customer or two would stop by, but only one man drove into the lot and then sped away.

Goldman joins a long list of people who have shot would-be robbers in our area. One of the most recent was the dry cleaner who shot a man who held him up in Charles Village.

The owner of Joe's Garage isn't even alone in shooting two suspected robbers. Back in 1997, the proprieter of Bay City Liquors in Northeast Baltimore, Sung Kim, shot and killed a man who tried to hold him up with a gun. Two years ealier, police said he shot and killed another man during a similar robbery attempt.

I hope Joe Goldman gets in touch. I'd love to hear his story.

And for motorists, it was too bad that his store was closed today. His sign advertised regular gas at $3.39 a gallon, and $3.59 for the medium grade. The Citgo up the street: $3.45 for regular and $3.69 for medium.