"Just for being stupid, you get to ring the bell. Please, before something freezes off of me."
"Bet you wish you had mittens now, don't ya?"
As Junior and I bandied our Mensa-level discourse back and forth, the front door swung open. I had a half-second to assume that somebody heard us coming up the steps. I say "half-second" because during the latter half, an arm clutching what looked like a wooden blackjack with a leather strap came crashing down into the middle of Junior's face. Blood sprayed from his nostrils as he lurched back, stepped on a slick of ice, and went tumbling backwards down the porch steps. Lord, it looked painful.
I took a step back from our attacker and got ready to crack somebody's skull with a straight right. Then I found myself face to face with all five-feet, two-inches of Mrs. O'Malley. Complete with pink and orange floral print housedress on.
And one shoe off.
She was wild eyed, panicked. "You leave my Ralphie alone!" she shrieked. She raised her weapon again, ready to brain me with it this time. "Don't you hurt him anymore!"
"MrsO'MalleyMrsO'Malley!!!" I leapt back, hands up defensively. "It's just us! It's Boo and Junior!
She squinted at me through lenses thicker than those used on the Hubble, but kept her hand up. It was then that I saw her weapon. It was her other shoe. She'd attacked us with one of her wooden orthopedic sandals. "Boo?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. My hands were trembling, part adrenaline rush and part hypothermia.
"Baaah-bra?" Came a voice from across the street. In the doorway facing opposite us, another housedress was standing with a steaming cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "You want me to cawl the cahps?" she yowled. Neighborly help with a Boston accent thicker than paste.
"We're fine!" I yelled back and returned my attention to Mrs. O'Malley. "We're not here to hurt Ralphie." Then I noticed that her trembling lower lip was pooched out and bloodied. Somebody had popped her one. And recently.
"I'm nawt asking you!" from across the street.
"Junior?" she asked the crumpled heap lying upside-down on her front steps.
"Guhhhhh," replied Junior.
We sat in the dining room while Mrs. O'Malley reheated some chowder and biscuits for us. Junior had a black garbage bag with ice in it pressed against his nose. The long remainder of the bag trailed up and over his head like a novelty plastic wig.
"You look like the worlds worst Cher impersonator."
"I'll make you Cher," he threatened.
I took a second. "What?"
"Shaddup. Look at me!" He lowered the bag. "Excuse me if my comebacks ain't up to par today, dickweed." His nose, obviously broken, had taken the shape and color of a small eggplant. Just above his pathetic honker sat an ugly bump with a scabbing scrape along it.
Mrs. O'Malley waddled back into the small dining area balancing two huge bowls of soup and a Tupperware container between them. "I'm so sorry I hit you, Junior. I thought you were those other men."
"What other men?" I asked through a mouthful of biscuit.
"The big men who came and took my Ralphie away." Tears welled behind her glasses, the moisture making her eyes look like two bloodshot fishbowls.
Junior and I looked at each other over our bowls. "They say who they worked for?" Junior asked between spoonfuls.
"No, they just said that they were coming to get him. That he was late."
Goddamn you Barry, I thought. "What did they look like?"
"One was big and had blonde hair the other one was heavyset and bald. The bald one hit me." She pointed at her fat lip.
I looked at Junior again, his mouth pursed tight in the same anger I felt. We knew the grabbers. The Swede and Fat Pat. Two other meatballs for hire, both of whom had brief stints under us at 4DC. We fired the Swede for being stupid.
Let me tell you, when a man is fired from a bouncing job for being stupid, that says something. He couldn't figure out how to subtract 21 years from the driver's licenses. One too many requests for Lady Googoo (or whatever the fuck her name is) on the jukebox was what clued us off that our clientele had taken a sudden dip in the age bracket.
Fat Pat was just a mean pituitary case who had the misfortune of being fat and having been named Pat. Calling him heavyset was the charity of the year. Fat Pat looked like a pink Irish blimp.
"We'll find Ralphie for you, Mrs. O'Malley. We promise."
She smiled and sniffed back her tears. "You boys really don't have to. I know my Ralphie can get himself into trouble. It's not your problem. He just breaks my heart sometimes."
"It's not a problem. We want to make sure he's all right too."
She squeezed my shoulder with a pudgy hand. "Let me get you boys some cheesecake," she said, and headed back to the kitchen.
Junior glared at me.
"What? I got chowder on my face?" I dabbed at my chin with the holiday print paper towels we were using as napkins.
"What did you promise that for? Isn't this more than enough work for two hundred dollars? Two hundred dollars that we ain't even gonna get now?"
"C'mon, Junior. She's old, she's alone, and she's scared. We're just going to make sure that those two fucktards brought Ralphie to Barry and didn't put him in the hospital."
"If they'da showed up with Ralphie already, Hard-On wouldn't have called us."
"That's my point."
Junior folded his arms across his chest. "I just can't believe you promised her. Never promise anything to nobody."
"What if I promise to love you forever?"
"Touch me and I kill you."
"Homophobe."
"I'm a you-aphobe." And before I could mock his poor comeback, "Fuck off."
"Thanks Barry, you colossal prick," I said as we stormed into his office.
"Hey. Hey!" Barry held his arms out, indicating his office and the man sitting across from his desk. "I'm with a client here!"
"Hey George," I said to his client.
"Hey Boo."
"What's the big idea sending Swede and Fat Pat over before us?" Junior sat on the edge of the desk and ruffled around the papers on the blotter. "That's not very professional of you, sending two teams on the same job."
"What?"
"Your little brother again?" I asked George.
"Yeah. Stupid-ass kid stole a car this time."
"He eighteen yet?"
"Turned last week."
"That's no good."
"You're telling me. What happened to his nose?" George swirled a finger in the general direction of Junior's ugliness.
"Got hit with a shoe."
"Oh"
"Cut it out!" Barry stood and slammed his palms onto the papers that Junior was mussing. "What the fuck is the matter with you two?"
I glared at him. "Why did you send Fat Pat and The Swede to the O'Malley's before us? We're not your fucking clean-up crew."
"First of all, they're idiots." Junior tipped over Barry's pencil holder. Pens clattered onto the floor."
Barry groaned and sighed, "Now look what you did." Then he shook his head, confused at my accusation. "Who's an idiot?"
"Secondly, did Fat Pat tell you he socked an old lady in the mouth in the process?"
Junior was reaching for the coffee cup that read World's Greatest Grandpa when Barry stabbed at his hand with a letter opener, missing his fingers by an inch. The opener stuck straight into the worn wood. "You touch one more thing Junior, and I swear to God I'll stick your hand to the desk."
Barry pried the opener from the desk and held it stomach-level to keep us at bay. "Now. Calm down." Barry smoothed his thin hair, composing himself after our mess-up attack. "Mr. Smart, would you please wait in the front room while we sort this thing out?"
George crossed his legs and leaned back into the fake leather chair. "Nah, I'd rather hear what these guys have to say."
"Yeah Hard-On. Let him hear about the kinds of guys you're hiring now to do your pick-ups."
"What guys? I hired you two jackasses. Where's Ralphie?"