The Pogues

A Dead Rooster

"And we were right outside like this."

The Pogues found themselves in another group meeting as John B and JJ had returned from Scooter's wife's house. Cassie was sitting near John B as JJ was enthusiastically telling the group what happened. He was in standing up and hovering over Pope and Kiara, who sat on the couch and stray chair.

"And all we hear is just, 'Bam! Bam! Bam!' Knocking paint off the wall, from the inside. All right? And I'm just looking at him, like--" he stopped and put his head down, "Wait, first off, look at this shit." He began combing his hair aggressively with his fingers to have small particles fall out and onto the floor. He pointed at it, "Look at it."

Cassie giggled at his actions, making him turn and give a smile. Kiara looked at him with a grossed out look, "That's dandruff, disgusting."

He did it again when Pope stopped him, "Okay, thank you." "Look at all that. All right? That's paint. At that point, I was just, like... I'm waiting for death." Cassie rolled her eyes and scoffed.  Pope skipped over, "Oh, okay, so you saw the guys that shot at us, right?"

JJ nodded as Pope went on, "Did you get a good description of them? What did they look like? Anything. Anything we can bring to a police report?"

JJ thought for a moment, "Yeah. Burly."

Cassie did a double take, "Burly?"

JJ shrugged and nodded, making Kie roll her eyes, "That's not very helpful." "Okay, well, no, like the type of guy at my dad's garage," JJ explained, "I mean, you guys know he made cargo hides for drug smugglers. I can tell you with full confidence, these boys, these killers... they're square groupers." He took out his vape, inhaling the smoke. Cassie stood up as he breathed out a cloud, taking the vape pen and throwing it on the couch, giving a sarcastic smile.

"They're square groupers, like narco square grouper?" Pope asked, "Like Pablo Escobar square grouper?" JJ nodded, "Yeah, man."

Kiara argued back, "You guys, not everything is a kingpin movie." "What does this square grouper look like?" Pope asked again. Pope started to get fired up at JJ as his voice started to climb with stress, "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."

John B clicked open the compass and had a dazed look as JJ went on, "It's a heavy vibe right now, okay? I'm not liking this very much."

Cassie involved herself, "Okay, well, why do they want the compass?" "It's a piece of shit. You couldn't pawn it off for five bucks if you wanted to. No offense. I know it's in your family--" Pope answered as he was cut off by John B pacing, "The office."

Pope looked confused, "What?"

"My dad. My dad's office. He always kept the office locked because he was worried about his competitors stealing his Royal Merchant research," John B as the herd started following him to the back of the house, "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."

Kie nodded and reassured him, "Yeah, for when he gets back." The comment made JJ and Cassie give her a, Really? look as most of knew that John B's dad was dead, no matter how many times John B denied it. John B unlocked the white office door as Pope looked around, "I've slept over here like 600 times, and I've never seen this door opened."

The office was a mess of research and tools scattered around the room. The table in the middle was covered in books and papers as John B pulled a cork board off the wall. He put it down for the rest to see, pointing at the picture of a captain with his name on the side, "Here, look. This is the original owner, right here." "Okay. Robert Q. Routledge. There's the lucky compass, right there," Kie narrated. John B looked at her, "Actually, um... he was shot after he bought it. Then the compass was shipped back to Henry." The black and white picture held a man and a woman in the front of their house with the man leaning against the doorway. "He was killed in a crop-dusting accident when he had the compass. After he died, the compass was given to Stephen." The picture of Stephen was smaller and showed a man in a soldier's uniform with the compass hanging at his side. "Stephen had the compass with him when he died in Vietnam."