"And all we hear is just, 'Bam! Bam! Bam!'" We were all on the Chateau porch, with Kiara and Pope. JJ was giving them a show on what happened at Ms. Lana's. "Knocking paint from off the wall, G! From the inside. All right? I'm looking just looking at them, like-- Wait. First off look at this shit. He shakes all the paint out of his hair.
"That's dandruff, disgusting." Kiara looks in disgust.
"Okay, thank you for that." Pope grimaces.
"Look at all that. All right? That's paint. At that point, I was just like... I'm waiting for death."
"Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?" Pope puts his head in his hands.
"Yeah."
"Did you get a god description for them?" He asks. "What did they look like?"
"Yeah, anything." Kiara nods.
"Anything we could bring to a police report?" He asks.
"Burly." JJ looks outside.
"Burly?" Pope groans.
"Yeah. You know, like--"
"That's not very helpful." Kiara shakes her head.
"Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage." He continues. "I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers." his voice softens.
"Yeah, yes. We know." Kiara rolls her eyes.
"I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers...they're square groupers." He pulls out a cigarette.
"They're square groupers, like narco square grouper?" Pope looks up at JJ. "Like Pablo Escobar square groupers?"
"Yeah, man." JJ nods.
"You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie," Kiara says. JJ shakes his head, putting the cigarette back in.
"What does this square grouper look like?" Pope continues. "Specifically."
"You weren't there!" JJ yells.
"You don't know what to look for," Pope complains.
"Dude! I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time." JJ yells. "None of us were. It was fucking scary bro. But I can tell you, I can tell you by the way that Ms. Lana was screaming... that these guys are serious, serious hombre, man. It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much."
"Okay, why would they want the compass?" Kiara asks.
"It's a piece of shit," Pope adds. "You could pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to. No offense John B. I know it's in your family--"
John b interuppts him. "The office."
"What?" I ask.
"My dad. My dad's office. He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Mechat research." He starts to walk inside. We all follow. "We used to laugh at him like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, I've just kinda... I just left it as he kept it."
"Yeah, for when he comes back, "Kiara says softly. John B starts to unlock the door.
Once he opens it we go inside. "I've slept over here about 600 times and I have never seen this door open. Pope shakes his head. We start to search the room.
"Here, look." John B pulls out a board and puts it on top of a bunch of clutter. "The original owner right here." Robert Q. Routledge. 1880-1920. The compass was in the picture. Robert was in some type of uniform. "Robert was shot after he bought it." John B adds. "Then the compass was shipped back to Henry." Henry R. Routledge. 1919-1947. It was a picture of him with his wife. "He was killed in a crop-dusting accident when he had the compass. After he died, the compass was given to Stephen." Stephen W. Routledge. 1943-1974. It was a picture of him, at war. "Stephen had the compass with him when he died in Vietnam."
YOU ARE READING
JJ and a Routledge
RomanceA couple of months after John B's dad went missing at sea, a girl named Coral shows up at his door claiming to be his sister, whom he never knew he had. They soon begin living together as she exclaims her story and dives into the Pogues and their di...
