“I already told you to stop talking about me like I'm not here,” I said. This whole fight I had been still seated but now I stood up in full confrontation mode. I expected Fred to come at me again now that I had challenged him head on but he showed more restraint then I had ever heard he possessed. Part of that was explained when I noticed that he was glancing over at where Pat was cleaning some glasses, obviously the tommy gun had made an impression. I meanwhile paused in mid advance, unsure of what to do. I had no problem committing suicide by Barker but I wasn't to the point where I would attack a man when he wasn't looking. I'm not really the attacking sort anyway, it just isn't in my personality, it's the reason that I became a bondsman when all the boys I hung out with became gangsters.
“Let's talk this out, just the two of us, without all of the interruptions,” Fred said finally. “You obviously have a beef with me and I want to know what it is, but this isn't a good place to talk. Sawyer is a friend of mine, he'll let us talk in his office.”
“This better not be a plan to get him alone so you can off him Fred, I mean it, if he gets hurt at all I'm off the job,” Bryan jumped in.
“We're just going to talk,” Fred said. He was clearly exasperated with everyone as he motioned me to follow him. I paused for a second to look to Bryan for comfort but then I followed as requested. I had already started all of this with the knowledge I might not survive and while what I was displaying at the moment was false bravado I was still going to act like I wasn't doubting my action at all. Pride demanded that I carry through or lose serious face in the underworld where I made my money. I had noticed the door I was led to in the past, it was marked private though and in a place like the Green Lantern that meant that the less you noticed it the longer you would live. Fred apparently didn't live by this rule though because he knocked on it and was invited to enter.
“Mr. Sawyer, we're still working out the details of our plan. Do you mind if we use your office for a little while to talk?” Fred asked, his head around the door frame. The owner of The Green Lantern stood up with a friendly nod to my companion.
“You're paying me enough, besides, I need to talk to Pat anyway.” Once Sawyer was gone I had no excuse not to enter the office, though I jumped slightly when Fred closed the door. He perched comfortably on the corner of the desk while I stood like a naughty school boy in front of him. For the time being the discomfort of the situation had emptied my sails of anger.
“Now, without Bryan trying to protect you and speaking for you, what did we ever do to you?”
“Bryan had forgotten that you guys were responsible for killing Uncle Arthur.”
“Old Man Dunlap? Fred asked for clarification.
“Well my name is Jethro Dunlap,” I said. I could hear my voice going high with indignation again but this time it wasn't as assertive. More and more common sense was kicking in. “Uncle Art didn't even betray you guys to the cops, everyone knows it was some boy with a detective magazine. You killed him for no reason, he didn't deserve to die.”
“Your uncle used to get drunk and blab all over town,” said Fred. He leaned forward to speak intensely but his emotions were under control. “If he had kept a sober tongue in his head for more than a day at a time we would have never thought he was the one who had given us away. Old Man Dunlap put our lives in danger more times than I can count and I would have killed him sooner if he wasn't Mother's boyfriend. Your uncle was trash.”
To be continued...
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