Chapter Four: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!!

"Butch Pierce."

The name didn't just hang in the air, it fell through it like a block of marble. It punched at the air like a boxer. Kicked out like a Brazilian martial artist. Chewed the air like a pitbull. Claimed the neighboring armrest in the movie theater. Bullied its way through the air. The name took up physical space in the little breakroom.

Martin could see the owner of the name. The rough, burlap skin. The brutal shelf of a face. The all white eyes like holes punched into his skull. Like a blank piece of white paper. Like somebody had forgotten to draw in the pupils. A titan. A troll. A throwback. Names are important, Martin thought.

"We have to go to the police."

Even as he said it, he felt foolish for saying it. But it was the kind of thing that somebody had to say. If for no other reason than so an actual plan could be put forth. But as he watched yet another of those quick looks pass between the Lolas, he knew that nobody was going to call the police. Not them and, he realized, not him. Lola Getz spoke.

"We would prefer to handle this...ourselves. We have an immigrant's mistrust of law enforcement."

Before Martin could ask where they were immigrants from, Lola Getz reached across the table and grabbed the package. Even though he had offered it to her earlier, Martin instinctively placed his hand over it, to keep her from picking it up. He smiled a lopsided smile and removed his hand, letting her pick up the package.

Lola Getz got up and paced the floor. It was the first time Martin noticed her shoes, Beatle boots with Cuban heels. They clicked and clacked down on the green formica. That's why she's taller than me, Martin thought.

"Mister Hollys...we were wondering...I was wondering if I could ask you a favor?"

"Okay. Ask."

"Would you be interested in some freelance work?"

"I thought you said I couldn't organize your shop out there."

"No...this would be...courier work."

"Shouldn't we try and find this Butch Pierce...find out what he's done with...your employee?"

"These tasks may be one and the same. This package should have been picked up. it will look very bad that it wasn't. And that might make it harder for us to find MacGuffin."

"MacGuffin?"

"Maddy MacGuffin, our factotum, our jill-of-all-trades, our employee...your girl with the golden goggles."

Maddy MacGuffin. Martin rolled the name around inside his mouth, his skull. He stitched it to the image of the little pixie girl with the red hair and the huge green trenchcoat. It sounded both familiar as his own name and as exotic as any of the strange language of the Lolas.

Maddy Macguffin. It was like Lois Lane and Lauren Bacall and Columbine all rolled into one. Martin's face felt flush as he thought of the number of times (after the stupid remark about her goggles) that he had snuck looks over at her, over the top of whatever book he was rereading. Watership Down. There she was making another of her origami animals. Dune. Talking with a manly drag queen in a Dorothy Gale costume. The Gunslinger. Accepting an envelope from one of a set of twin boys, while their mother screamed into a cell phone in French-accented English.

He thought about those moments and then he thought about the moment when she quoted his favorite line from one of his favorite books. Like she pulled it out of my head, he thought. He knew he would take the package and deliver it, if it would help this girl. This Maddy MacGuffin. My Maddy, he thought.

"Where does the package need to go?"

"A private club. An after hours club, The Shining Wire, on the corner of Nyx Avenue and Freya Drive. You know it?"

Martin thought about it for a second. The names didn't sound at all like any streets he'd heard of. He'd lived in town for ten years and knew it pretty well. He was about to say as much to Lola Getz when he noticed the other Lola's new drawing. A rudimentary stick figure, mostly a huge circle with an afterthought body attached. Inside the circle he saw the words: 'Freyja', 'Shining Wire', and 'Nyx'. they were written in a blocky hand, they almost looked carved into the paper. He was about to ask her about it when it occurred to him that he did know where Freya Drive was and he turned back to Lola Getz.

"Freya Drive just off of Idaho Street, right? I think I know the place, purple neon sign of a rabbit or something, yeah?"

Lola Getz smiled her Cheshire Grinch smile.

"Yes, you got it."

Martin Hollys returned his own lopsided grin.

"I've got brains, yes I have."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing."

Lola exited out of the breakroom, calling back over her shoulder.

"You will need some identification...to show you are doing some...freelance work...for us."

She returned carrying a large, greenish trenchcoat. She tossed it to him and then sat back down in her chair. It had a musky smell, old books, old leather, dust. There were patches on the shoulders but they were the same murky color as the coat, so Martin couldn't make out what they were suppose to mean. It was just like the one Maddy MacGuffin wore. Lola Getz had left her scary smile in the other room.

"Now, Mister Hollys...what hand do you write with?"

"What?"

Lola Wants spoke up again in her giggling, little girl voice.

"Southpaw."

Lola Getz grabbed his left hand and brought it closer to Lola Wants. Lola Wants replaced her crayons with a wicked, syringe shaped pen. It was like something Edgar Allen Poe would write with. Or the Marque de Sade. Martin tried to move his hand but Lola Getz held it fast, he realized couldn't move his hand at all. When Lola Wants lowered the evil looking pen to his palm, he expected a stabbing pain. Instead it tickled. Lola Wants busied herself with drawing.

"Now, Mister Hollys, what hand do you masturbate with? Mostly? Right or left?"

"Excuse me? What?"

Martin found himself giggling, just like Lola Wants. The tickling sensation spread up his left arm to the elbow. Pins and needles. Or pens and needles. He didn't want to answer but it was okay, Lola Wants answered for him. Correctly.

"Righty-tighty."

Lola Getz let her smile return a little.

"Good. It's difficult when they are one and the same."

Lola Wants finished her drawing on his left palm and stretched herself across the table to draw on his right palm. The way she did made Martin hope that she was twenty-six and not sixteen. Lola Getz moved to hold Martin's right arm down but this time he didn't struggle. The air in the room had taken on a narcotic quality. Martin just stared at Lola Wants as she balanced catlike on the table and drew on his right palm. Her body blocked him from seeing what she had drawn on his left palm but he could already make out that she was drawing a daisy-like flower on his right. It had six petals.

When she was done, she sat back in her chair and Martin could see the other drawing too. He looked at Lola Getz with a raised eyebrow.

"They will help, I'm sure, Mister Hollys."

On his right hand, in bright blue ink, a flower with six petals. On his left hand, a bullet, somehow in black ink. Under the bullet, Roman numerals. VI. Lola Wants spoke in her giggling, sing-song voice. She had returned to her crayons and pictures.

"Kiss kiss. Bang bang."

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Stay tuned for Chapter Five: Sorry, The Princess Is In Another Castle, where we finally leave the comfort of Wants & Getz and head out into the world, to find The Shining Wire.