On Top//Topper Thornton

six

We head back to John B's. Kie and Pope come over and JJ is having a great time telling them about what happened.

"And we were right outside like this. 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 shakes paint chips from his hair onto Pope. "Look at it."

"The house," Pope says.

Kie looks at JJ in disgust. "That's dandruff, disgusting."

Pope holds his hand up. "Okay, thank you."

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

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

"Yeah," JJ answers.

"Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like?" Pope asks.

"Anything?" Kie asks.

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

"Burly," JJ says.

"Burly?" Pope questions.

"Yeah. You know, like,,," JJ trails off.

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

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

Kie nods. "Yeah. Yes. No, we know."

"I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers..." JJ takes a hit of his vape. "They're square groupers."

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

JJ takes another hit. "Yeah, man."

"You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie," Kie states.

"What does this square grouper look like? Specifically?" Pope asks.

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

"Apparently you don't know what to look for," Pope remarks.

"Dude! I wasn't taking little mental Polaroids the entire time. I was under duress, okay? 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. It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much," JJ says.

"Okay. Why do they want the compass?" Kie asks.

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

"The office," John B states.

I look at him confused. "What?"

"My dad. My dad's office." John B starts walking towards the house. "He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research. We used to laugh at him like he was gonna find it. But now that he's gone, I've just kinda..." John B stops in front of a door. "I just left it as he kept it."

"Yeah, for when he gets back," Kie states.

"Yeah." John B opens the door.

"I've slept over here like 600 times, and I've never seen this door opened," Pope comments.

Walking in the office is a mess. There are books and papers all over the place. Maps cover the walls along with photos.

John B throws the keys down and picks up a board. "Here, look. This is the original owner, right here." John B points to a picture.