Page 65 of Double Shot

“What are you doing back here?” Brian’s voice grew a little growly and threatening again. “If you go anywhere near Goliaths—”

“No, no, man, we’re done with all that!” Frank said, his tone wheedling.

“Pro wrestling is for losers,” Beans added, pulling one of the cotton balls off his fake beard, staring down at it for a second, then shoving it into his mouth.

“We just need to lay low for a while,” Frank continued. “Pulled off a string of tasty little jobs in California. We’ve got zippers coming out of our buttholes. We’re drowning in them.”

“You’re… drowning in butthole zippers?” I wrinkled my nose.

“So now we just have to keep a low profile for a few weeks before we head back to hit the mother-lode.”

“What’s the mother-lode?” I asked, kind of fascinated by these two.

“Jeans factory down in southern Cali,” Frank told me, expression growing… weirdly lusty. Almost rabid. “What I wouldn’t give to stick my hands into those big bins of sweet, sweet, high-quality zippers right now.”

“Ah, okay.” I nodded, understanding the whole zipper thing a little better now. “So it’s a sex thing.”

“What?” Frank straightened, nostrils flaring.

“Get your friggin’ mind out of the gutter, you pervert,” Beans snarled at me, voice muffled around the cotton ball in his mouth.

“Hey,” Brian barked. “Don’t talk to him like that.”

“He’s the one making it weird!” Frank insisted, gesturing at me. “A… sex thing?” He hissed the word, sounding scandalised. “They’re zippers. Don’t sully their purity with your filthy words.”

I frowned. “Sex isn’t filthy. I mean, it can be filthy, but it isn’t automatically—”

I was cut off by Beans doubling over and coughing his guts up, spitting out bits of cotton ball all over the floor, choking and gagging dramatically. His beard fell off in the process. After several long seconds of us watching in silence, he sucked in a shaky breath, picked up the beard and straightened.

“Sorry about that,” he croaked, using the beard to wipe his streaming eyes. “Went down the wrong way.”

“Okaaay, uh…” I slowly sat down and turned toward the monitor. “So you want a room?”

Brian stiffened, turning to stare down at me uneasily. “Klaus…”

I shrugged. “They can have a room if they can pay for it. We don’t ask questions here.”

“We can pay.” Frank pulled a filthy gym sock out of his pocket. “We’re rolling in that sweet black market zipper money.”

“Why have you come back here if you’re trying to keep a low profile?” Brian asked them in disbelief. “You just fled from here. This is the worst place you can be.”

“No, nuh-uh.” Frank shook his head, pointing at him. “This is the best place. No one would ever think we’d be stupid enough to come back here.”

“But we are, so suck it.” Beans cackled, eyeing up another cotton ball from his beard with a hungry gleam in his eyes.

“We just won’t go back to our house.” Frank took a wad of cash out of the sock. “The feds are probably monitoring it. Or some historical society has already given it protected status or whatever. We’ll stay here.”

Brian grew even more tense, casting me a worried look. “Or I could just call the cops right now.”

“Brian. Brian, Brian, Brian.” Frank let out a little chuckle, shaking his head and straining his arm up to try and reach Brian’s shoulder. Brian was a giant, though, so he couldn’t quite manage. “You’ve got a little… on your… well, anyway, you’ll get it later. You don’t want to call the cops on us, my man. We’re… your friends!”

“No, you’re not.”

“Well we…” Frank looked around in desperation. “We never messed with you at work, at least! We never took your stuff or anything. We left you alone.”

“Because you were scared of me,” Brian told him flatly.

“Nuh-uh!” Beans insisted, but Frank nudged him and gave him a subtle head shake.