A Foot In Both Worlds| JJ Maybank|Topper Thornton

Chapter 11: Under Duress

"And then we were right outside like this," JJ said walking over and putting his back against the wall, "And all we hear is just, bam!, bam!, bam! Knocking paint off the wall, G! From the inside. All right? And I'm just looking at him, like wait first off look at this shit."

JJ walked toward Pope, Kiara, and Evelyn shaking white flakes out of his hair all over then ground.

"That's dandruff," Kiara said.

"That's disgusting," Evelyn said at the same time.

"Okay, thank you," Pope said putting his hands up.

"Look at all that. All right? That's paint," JJ said, "At that point, I was just, like...I'm waiting for death."

"Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot us, right?" Pope asked.

"Yeah," JJ said.

"Did you get a good description of them?" Pope asked.

"What did they look like?" Evelyn asked.

"Yeah, anything?" Kiara said.

"Anything we can bring to a police report?" Pope asked.

"Burly," JJ said.

"Burly?" Evelyn questioned.

"Yeah, you know like-

"That's not very helpful," Kiara said.

"Okay, well, no, like the type of guys at my dad's garage," JJ said, "I mean, you guys know how he made cargo hides for drug smugglers."

"Yeah," Kiara said.

"Yes. No, we know," Evelyn said.

"I can tell you with full confidence guys, these boys, these killers," JJ said taking a hit from his juul and leaning up against the wall, "They're square groupers."

"They're square groupers, like narco square groupers?" Pope asked, "Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?"

"Yeah, man," JJ said taking another hit from his juul.

"You guy," Kiara said, "Not everything is a kingpin movie."

"Kie is right," Evelyn said.

"Okay so what does a square grouper look like, specifically?" Pope asked.

"You weren't there, bro," JJ said.

"Well apparently you down know what to look for," Evelyn said.

"I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time! I was under duress, okay?" JJ said, "But I can tell you...I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming...that these guys are serious, serious hombres, man."

Evelyn looked over at John B who had yet to say a word the entire time she'd been here.

"It's a heavy vibe right now, okay?," JJ said, "I'm not liking this very much."

"Why would they want the compass?" Kiara asked.

"It's a piece of shit. You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to," Pope said earning a smack from Evelyn, "No offense John B. I know it's in your family."

"The office," John B said.

"What?" Evelyn asked.

"My dad. My dads office," John B walking into the house, "He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Marchant research."

Evelyn got up along with the others and followed John B into the house.

"We use to laugh at him all the time like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, I've just kinda...I just left it as he kept it," John B said.