“Like you were talking it out with me?” I say. “Is that what you mean?”
“I was trying to scare you,” he protests.
“Bullshit. As far as you were concerned, you were talking to a dead man.”
“You were totally dead,” Freckles confirms. “We had the plot all picked out, McEvoy. This prick wanted to shoot you himself, make his bones, like anyone even says that anymore.”
I got one guy with his head on a table and another with his arse in the air. This is unsustainable. I need an exit strategy.
“Okay, over by the window, both of you.”
“But . . .” says Edward Shea, so I crack him on the crown with Freckles’s silencer.
“Shut up, kid. Talking just gets you dead faster. By the window.”
They go, glaring and elbowing like two kids. Freckles is all mutter and bluster but he knows I could give him his gun back, put one hand in my pocket and still beat the bejaysus out of him, so he’s gonna bide his time.
The effect by the window is what I’d hoped for. Sunlight blots out their features, makes it difficult to see who’s who.
“Okay. Now drop your pants.”
Freckles has some balls, and he doesn’t want to show them to me.
“Fuck yourself, McEvoy. I ain’t going out with my pants down ’less I’m getting blowed by Jennifer Aniston.”
It’s a nice ambition but Freckles has gotta accept that it’s aspirational to say the least.
I cock the weapon. “I’ll call Jenn. You get yourself ready.”
Freckles goes to work on a buckle in the shape of the classic Playboy bunny silhouette, which I’m sure would impress the hell out of Ms. Aniston.
The one where the superstar blows the Paddy mobster.
“What about you, kid? You got any conditions?”
“Sure. Why don’t you blow me?”
All credit to the kid. Maybe he has some moxy too.
But he wiggles out of his little hipster jeans and holy shit I cannot believe it, the two of them are wearing matching underpants. White y-fronts with yellow piping.
I’ve been teetering on the brink of hysteria the whole day and this sends me tumbling over the edge. I cough through ten seconds of ragged laughter and wipe tears from my eyes, because blurry eyes when you’re covering hostiles is for amateurs.
“You gotta be kidding me. I don’t know why you guys are fighting, you have a lot in common.”
“I’ve been wearing these shorts for years,” says Freckles sullenly. “Not this exact pair.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” says Shea. “I broke into your house and stole them.”
“I don’t fucking know, do I?” says Freckles. “Who can understand kids, these days. I saw a movie the other day where this Saw guy was peeling faces. What kind of shit is that?”
Freckles is showing initiative by trying to appeal to me as a fellow oldie, but it’s having zero impact.
“Now, hold hands,” I order, stony faced. I know they’ll object, which I have no patience for, so I shoot a hole in Shea’s stool, knocking it over backward. The falling stool makes more noise than the bullet.
“Hold hands, girls. Squeeze fucking tight.”
What choice do they have? They hold hands. I wonder would they kiss, if I insisted?
The clatter brings a goon to the door. He raps gently.
“Eh, boss? Everything okay?”
“Don’t call me boss!” screams Shea, impulsively I guess.
“Sorry, Mr. Shea. You all squared away in there with the guy . . . situation?”
I wiggle the gun a little and Shea gets the message and calms down.
“Yeah, it’s all cool. Come in here, both of you. There’s a little heavy lifting to be done.”
I back up, keeping one gun on the window and the other on the door. This is the tightrope bit, keeping the balls in the air, to mix my circus metaphors. It’s all smoke and mirrors and windows. And two douche clowns outside.
The clowns walk in with that tough-guy, rolling-shoulders nonchalance and stop dead in their tracks when they catch sight of what is framed by the window.
“What . . .” says KFC.
“The fuck?” completes his partner with comic timing that would make Ferrel and Rudd crap themselves.
I feel myself waiting to see how these two would interpret the situation so I decide to jump in.
“Okay, boys. Guns on the table.”
KFC moves a little faster than I’m expecting, jinking left and diving for cover, with the result that I shoot him in the calf rather than the foot, and he face-plants into the desk, stunning himself. His partner is frozen by indecision and stands there shuddering until the opportunity has passed. His massive shoulders hitch as he begins to sob, disgusted with himself, and he takes his gun out and meekly lays it on the table. I frisk KFC and find a single pistol and a knife. I keep the knife hoping I don’t have to go through a metal detector anytime soon as I am fast becoming a walking arsenal. The gun I place on the office table.
I grab KFC’s collar and drag him to his feet.
“You better belt that,” I say, pointing to the bullet wound.
“You’re dead, man,” he says, but it’s just for show. His face is pale and he’s already halfway into shock, but he has enough motor skills left to remove his belt and tie off the wound.
When I have everyone by the window, I give them my speech.
“Let me summarize the situation. You guys are some kind of hooligans. Drugs, money, whatever, I never heard of you.”
“Mostly drugs,” says KFC, a little addled by his situation. “And we off folks and shit.”
“Great. Okay. We’re all on the same page. So here’s what happened; I got dragged into the middle of a gang dispute. Freckles here was gonna shoot the kid, and set me up as a patsy.”
KFC raises his hand. “What’s a patsy?”
I was not expecting interruptions. “It’s a stool pigeon.”
“No,” says KFC. “You’ve lost me.”
I think maybe this guy is playing me with my own dumb act.
“Are you taking the piss?”
KFC is wounded. “Nah, man. You shot me. My mind is a little fuzzy with the pain and whatnot.”
Whatnot? I like this guy.
“Okay. The deal is that Shea and Freckles want to kill each other. Is that clear enough?”
Everyone nods. Even Shea and Freckles.
“So you people have a schism in the ranks.”
KFC’s hand goes up. I do not have time for this.
“A split,” I tell him. “A split in the ranks. Okay?”
KFC leans on his bloody knuckles. “Yeah. I got it. You couldn’t shoot me in the arm? That’s my career fucked?”
“I could shoot you in the arm now. Would that shut you the hell up?”
KFC realizes that there is no right answer to this question and so wisely decides to keep quiet.
I get back to the point. “The point is that this group is not working as a unit. I don’t know who’s loyal to who, but you guys need some private time to sort it out. You know, brainstorm or make a graph or whatever. This has nothing to do with me so I’m gonna absent myself.”
Shea gets a little antsy. Probably wondering if Freckles has paid off his boys.
“Take the guns, McEvoy. You need to protect yourself.”
I shrug. “I got plenty of guns. I’m gonna leave those two on the table there. I don’t like to overstock in general. I only kill what I can eat, like the Apaches.”
Shea is sweating now. “You can’t leave me here. I’m not one of these guys.”
The kid is good as dead and he knows it. I wonder will I feel guilty about this? Probably. But if an Irish Catholic made his decisions based on guilt avoidance then he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and he certainly wouldn’t play with himself while he was in bed in the morning.