Kenneth Kobobel Sr., a 72-year-old Marine veteran, had yet to put on his eyeglasses when he heard a knock at the door of his office in a northwest Houston strip mall around 9:45 a.m. on Friday.

The great-grandfather was chatting with his brother inside the office, making plans for the day, and figured the towering man waiting outside was one of his workers coming to collect his Friday paycheck.

But when Kobobel opened the door, a man he had never seen before forced his way inside and put a 9mm handgun to his forehead.

"You're dead!" he said the man screamed. "Give me the money! You're dead!"

But the next few, frantic minutes actually would turn out to be the robber's last.

He forced Kobobel to his knees, his brother to the ground. He emptied the brother's wallet, and Kobobel gave him $20. But the robber kept looking, Kobobel said, and patted down one of his pockets, finding a tight wad of bills totaling more than $800.

"You lied to me!" the man screamed. "You're dead!"

He said the robber struck him on the head with the barrel of the 9mm and tossed the desk and credenza looking for more money. The robber finally seemed satisfied they had no more cash and said to "count to 100 before you even think of walking to that door."

Running him down

At the count of 20, Kobobel called 911. Then the senior citizen was out the door, asking neighbors if they saw which way the robber went. He climbed into his 1997 Lexus sedan just as his son, 47-year-old Kenneth Kobobel Jr., pulled up outside.

The son watched his father speed off in pursuit of the robber, not surprised in the least.

"He's an ex-Marine," the son said. "He doesn't put up with a whole lot of nothing."

His father remembers the next few minutes through the haze of an adrenaline rush. He said he spotted the robber in a parking lot of a strip mall on Northline and headed toward him.

"He turned and saw me and pointed the gun at me," Kobobel said.

He said the man fired at him at least once.

Kobobel rammed him with his car, but the robber jumped right back up and recocked his gun, he said.

"I hit him again," he said. "I hit him pretty good that time."

Other details sketchy

Police said Kobobel rammed the man against a metal fence in the parking lot of a strip mall near 7313 Northline, about half a block away from his business. Details about the incident then become sketchy, police said. Investigators said they are trying to determine if another vehicle besides Kobobel's also hit the robber.

Kobobel got out of his car and looked around and didn't see the man, asking residents of the nearby apartment complex if they'd seen him run by. They pointed to the robber lying nearby in the parking lot.

Kobobel, a former lawyer who lives in Spring, walked over and removed the gun from the man's reach, and saw that he was seriously injured.

"I thought it was good that I caught this jerk who'd robbed me," Kobobel said, "but what I didn't like was that this man was laying there and his life was ebbing away. I'm a Christian, and I wouldn't want to see anybody die."

Police have yet to release the robber's identity.

Kobobel, who owns the small strip mall on Little York that houses his business office, a church and driving school, said he's "emotionally tore up" about the man's death.

"I would have given him the $800 if he'd still be alive," he said. "I didn't want anybody to die on my account."

Staff writer Dale Lezon contributed to this report.

susan.carroll@chron.com