The Shine

Mostly harmless

CeCe told me that Uncle Donny the convicted pimp/possible murderer is now living in Washington State. I started calculating the 28 hour drive out there against how much gas and cash I had, when I needed to be at my next show, etc. before I realized that dumb. When you're in Wausau you handle things in Wausau. Is the saying I invented.

I used my finding spell to track Brad to the house he rents with two other dudes. I know because they were sitting on the saggy flora print couch playing a video game where vampires massacre people and blood sprays all over the place. Looked boring to me but I'm not a gamer.

The front door wasn't fully closed and when I knocked one of the couch dudes said not to let the cat out. Taking that as an invitation I came in to see their vampire pixel people going nuts in a video game mall. One of them glanced over the couch for a second and said that Brad was downstairs. Like they were expecting me.

One wall had a pyramid of white beer cans with a red label stacked against it. Above the TV was a flag with a blue sun on it. Across from the beer cans were some black and white posters of nude women. Old days pictures from when nude women were as flat as me and did ballet poses to be photographed nude instead of straddling bales of hay.

Even though Brad said he's not a wrestling fan I was halfway expecting his basement lair to be filled with replicate belts and vintage event ads and signed pictures of old timers. There was nothing like that. One side of the basement was a cinderblock bed and some hocky gear, the other was a home office space with a huge wrap around desk featuring six monitors and three different keyboards along with a dizzying array of cords in a variety of colors running every which way like a plate of dropped pasta.

Brad was on a headset arguing about shipping costs so I looked for silverfish while I waited. I didn't find any. Impressive.

When he spun around asked me what I was doing there and pointed out that he was "at work". I pointed out that lives were at stake and I really needed to talk to his uncle. He said that he would give me Uncle Donny's number in exchange for a handjob.

"Brad, I don't know you well. You're an asshole, but I think a harmless asshole. I don't think you'd ever hurt someone. Which is about as good as I expect from people sadly. I don't want to hurt you, I really don't, but this is serious. I don't know if you're on Xanax or why you're so calm now after what you saw but we need to deal with this. Your uncle murdering an innocent woman is not dealing with it. I want you to get me in touch with your uncle and I'm going to punch you in the liver until you do it."

I knew he wouldn't do it at first. No one takes threats of violence from a woman seriously. I've seen a woman pull a gun on a guy. He laughed. The only threat a man takes seriously from a woman is "I'm going to tell your wife about us".

I'm not left-handed but I've learned to throw a good left hook. That's how you get the liver. I don't know the medical details but I assume it's a large organ close to the surface with a lot of nerves. If you're into boxing or UFC you've probably seen someone go down from an accidental liver punch. I only had to do it once before. I don't know if it would save me if someone like Brian Cage decided to murder me but it works fine on the Brads of the world.

I sat in Brad's chair to wait for him to be able to speak again. One of the vampire guys from upstairs hollered down asking if everything was alright. I told him that I had punched Brad in the liver and he was lying down for a while. I told him that he could call the cops on me if he wanted but they don't usually take reports of women hitting anyone other than kids seriously.

When Brad was able to get to his knees he told me that he was studying Wing Chun. I assume that's a fighting art. I said that was nice and he needed to give me his uncle's number or I was going to punch him in the liver again.

He stared at me for a while and then spit on his own floor. He said that his uncle wouldn't talk to me. I told him he needed to call it off then. Bloody Mary was not the problem. He had a strand of spit hanging off his chin when he asked me who was the target if not her.   

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