Sometimes a Man has to Do a Thing

"You know Doug?" Marvin asked, confused at the sudden tension.

"That son of a bitch has been going around bad mouthing our recipes." The young frail Italian accused. "I thought Angelo banned you, you fucking psycho."

"Told you to knock that shit off last time." Douglas warned.

"What Son of Sam don't like the name calling?" Giovanni mocked stepping closer to the counter. "Those whores next door might be scared of you but I'm not."

"Oh shit David Berkowitz." Marvin guffawed, stepping back out of the way.

"You're food here sucks Luigi. Fuck you!" The furious bouncer snarled.

"Super Mario Brothers huh?" Giovanni flung a fistful of flour into his enemy's face. "You motherfucker!" He followed up by slinging a hand tossed pizza dough over the bouncer's head before launching himself over the counter.

Marvin stood further back and marveled at the skinny Italian's fearlessness as he got in two good licks with his rolling pin before Douglas snapped, literally clobbering him with an overhand right. The blow bounced Giovanni's head off the wall, knocking a huge hole in the plaster.

"Okay, okay he's out." Marvin said stepping in front of the cashier's limp and unresponsive body. "That was a fucking death touch."

Douglas put his hands down and exhaled the residual tension, but remained terrifying even with his face and beard coated in white flour.

Forty five minutes later, with money changing hands they were in the back of the dining area laughing like old friends. Giovanni even made his attacker a cold ham and provolone sandwich.

"You were like a fucking monkey leaping over that counter." Douglas laughed.

"I was crying when he started whacking you with that rolling pin." Marvin cackled. "But no shit I thought you were dead Giovanni."

"Nah, nah my mother hit me harder than that when I was a kid." The tough Italian laughed it off, even with the giant hematoma lumping up his forehead. "It's cool ya can't win all of them. Besides I finally caught that filthy hobo the other day and kicked his ass again. So I can afford to lose one."

"Wait, you mean Flathead Frank?" Marvin asked, pausing with a forkful of pasta.

"Yeah you friends with that freak too?" Giovanni chuckled.

"What did you say to him?"

"Nothing Marv, just told him this ain't no campground so pack it up and move along."

"Dammit!" Marvin slammed his fork down.

"Relax I think he might be with his sister, she stays not that far from here in that trailer park." Douglas offered, finishing the last bite of his sandwich.

Marvin stared at him wide eyed. "Are you on the spectrum? Why didn't you say something sooner?"

"Why are you guys looking for Frank? He bite you and you want animal control to check him for rabies?" Giovanni snickered.

Marvin just stared back at Douglas. "You got a big fucking mouth Big Red, anybody ever tell you that?"

Twelve miles away Marvin parked his Kia across the street from the trailer park's entrance. It only took ten minutes before Douglas pointed out the surprisingly husky vagrant shuffling down the curb in his corduroy slacks and patched up Tennessee Titan's hoodie, obviously headed toward the trailer park.

"Let's go tighten this sum'bitch up." Marvin mock whispered taking off his seat belt.

He had his gloved fist on the door handle and paused as he noticed a gray haired gentleman checking his mail and seemingly talking to himself while looking at Frank.

"Oh shit." Marvin groaned while watching a second man walk his corgi puppy to the trailer park entrance and mumble something into the collar of his parka. "They got eyes on him."

"So what fuck him. We need to go snatch up Donald so I can get my family back." Douglas snapped, desperation riding high in his tone. "Fuck it wait here and I'll go grab Frank real quick."

Marvin grabbed the bouncer by his meaty bicep. "Don't be careless, that move is gonna jam me up too. No way we'll get away clean."

"Then what?" Douglas angrily slapped the dashboard. "Need to get this done so we both can focus on what's important. It's been over forty eight hours and I don't even know if they're dead or alive, spent all last night throwing up."

"What are you talking about?" Marvin distractedly asked watching the undercover officers rotate to keep the vagrant in their sights.

"Samantha my wife and Sarah my daughter." The brute nearly shouted as he rapidly began to emotionally unravel. "If we gotta go grab Frank than let's go grab that greasy motherfucker. I'll twist his fucking head around with the cops watching."

Marvin turned and fixed him with his best empathetic look. "How old's your wife?" He asked gently.

"What? Thirty five why?"

"I don't know just calm down and tell me a little bit about them. How old's Sarah, she your only child?" Marvin asked, reaching into his ashtray for the half smoked blunt he started earlier.

"Sarah just turned eighteen but she still lives at home, and goes to community college." Douglas painfully recollected. "But I got two boys with this other chick nobody knows about. They live in Cincinnati, ain't seen'em since they were little. I got caught fucking around with Samantha."

"No shit?" Marvin laughed, while sparking up the blunt and pulling back onto the road, heading away from the trailer park. "Can't keep sitting here, not knowing who all is watching."

"Look I know what I've done is fucked. I've seen what happens to those girls especially when they run, that's why I'm so sick about my own." Douglas confided. "I enlisted in the military straight out of high school did a couple tours overseas, didn't see much action but what I did see just don't compare to this shit now. Had a girl get loose last year, they caught up to her in Amarillo after she ran out of money. Identified her using dental records."

"Hit this weed and calm the fuck down." Marvin suggested, pulling into the gas station two miles down from the trailer park.

"What I'm saying is how did I get here?" Douglas reflected, taking the blunt and pulling on the pungent yet relaxing smoke. "I'm not a bad guy really, just trying to get through this one life like everybody else. Now I'm hitched to a bunch of savages, spreading pain and fucking misery."

"Tempus Fugit." Marvin said, parking his SUV next to the air pump at the far end of the lot.

"What?"

"Nothing. You any good with a rifle?"

"What?"

"I'm thinking our only shot at Frank might be a full on assassination. You're closer to a killer than me so maybe you can pull the trigger."

Douglas squinted his eyes, staring at the sweating black man through the skunky haze of weed smoke. "The fuck are you saying to me Marv? I'm not Lee Harvey Oswald you fucking prick."

"Then what?" Marvin asked excitedly, snatching the blunt back. "If you want your family back we have to stop Flathead Frank from getting to court. With the police watching him the only method I see is to dead that nosy bastard. Now I know a guy who can get us a hot rifle and keep his mouth shut."

"You were just telling me to slow down a minute ago Marv, what the fuck?" Douglas laid his giant bald head back on the head rest, dizzy from the marijuana. "Let's go steal a car and wait for him to walk back to this gas station for smokes and beer or something, and run his ass over. You know how to hot wire a car don't you?"

"No you racist dumbass."

"Didn't mean nothing, all the black guys I knew growing up knew how to hot wire a car." Douglas stated, grabbing the blunt back and taking a long drag. "Man I wish Samantha was here she would know what to do."

Marvin's phone chirped alerting him of a new text message.

"Who's that?" The bouncer lazily asked.

"Guess they found you a route out of the country." Marvin said, licking his dry lips. "Says for you to be ready by tonight."

"What about Frank?" He passed the blunt back.

"I go it alone."

"Well I ain't going without Sam and Sarah, can you help me find them by tonight?" Douglas pleaded, sitting up in the seat.

"They found'em a couple hours ago." Marvin swallowed hard.

"What?"

Without another word Marvin Woodall plunged a five inch boot knife into Douglas' flabby chest. The heavy bouncer stiffened as the cold unexpected steel collapsed his lung nicking his giant heart.

"Sorry Dougie, I got my own people to protect." Marvin apologized pulling the blade out and stabbing him three more times.

Douglas Berkowitz clamped his massive hands over Marvin's but lacked the strength to stop him as he weezed and sucked for air, essentially drowning in his own blood. Without knowing why the smaller henchman let go of the knife and compassionately wiped the sweat from the dying man's brow, watching the light and all comprehension blink out in those huge frightened eyes.

Marvin sat quietly with the large hunk of meat for a minute, processing everything as he was unaccustomed to the presence of death. Donald Hughes had sent him the message that Samantha and Sarah Berkowitz were found naked in a single shallow grave on a private five acre patch of hunting property. Samantha's body was on top and sniffed out by the landowner's pair of beagles, she still had her wedding ring on.

That was followed by a picture of Daniella, Marvin's first baby's mama smoking a cigarette on her mother's front porch. There were no orders given but the message was abundantly clear that Douglas Berkowitz no longer held any value to them as a human being.

Struggling with the weight of what he had done Marvin Woodall didn't cry, he merely grew colder inside, more hollow. Donald texted him one more time. "Is it done? Are you alone?"

***

Richard Hughes feverishly tapped a few more keys on his laptop and lowered the screen just as his mother opened the door to his bedroom unannounced. Claudia was still dressed in her work clothes, a Saint Laurent pencil skirt that hugged her clearly aging yet still toned hips, paired with a Giorgio Armani silk blouse open at the throat displaying the crepey chicken skin covering her neck and upper clavicle. She was barefoot and obviously intoxicated clenching a half filled crystal tumbler, dropping heavily onto the edge of her dear child's bed with a sigh.

"I have a clerk inside the prosecutor's office and she's recently discovered that they are suddenly switching gears. Chasing after some new narrative." Claudia began, pausing to gulp down the remaining liquor in her glass. "Let's start there."

Richard was seated at a narrow desk beside his window, and he froze watching the woman he knew as mother with cautious eyes. "Mom I didn't say anything to them before you got there. They took me to the station and I immediately plead the fifth."

"Sure." She agreed stiffly, pursing her lips in doubt. "Things have never been easy for any of us, despite that we fought so hard to give you the best childhood we could. Latest fashions and electronics, you were the envy of every other child around you, even the wealthy ones."

"But at what cost mom?" Richard whined. "Strange men hanging around the house once a month, secret phone calls. I remember you yanking me out of bed in the middle of the night and driving me clear to Arkansas without any explanation."

"Don't be so ungrateful." Claudia slurred. "There were good times too."

"Yeah when I was young and confused about everything. It sucked being eight years old and waking up with panic attacks. Then I learned the truth and couldn't understand why. That's when my childhood died."

"You were old enough."

"No mom, no I wasn't." He hissed. "I couldn't even function around other kids. How could I ever fall in love and risk her finding out what I hid deep down inside? Monsters are fucking real, and two of them live in my fucking house."

"So that's what this is about sweetie, Love?" She scoffed. "Is that what you think your father and I held onto while facing mounting debt, killing ourselves to keep food in the house while we still had a house. Love was a bi-product of our struggle together, and that was even if it existed at all."

Her bitterness was sobering like a slap in his face, but Richard still left his chair and fell into his mother's arms and held her tightly. "You had too much to drink, you don't really mean that." Richard mumbled into her apple scented hair.

"Is that why you did all this because you think you're in Love?" Claudia pushed her son away, holding him at arm's length. "Our financial advisor who watches our accounts called me saying someone's been trying to hack us for the past half hour."

"Mom?" Richard began, but failed to come up with a lie.

"Where is she Richard?" Claudia demanded, holding him with her stone cold eyes.

"Where's who? Mom I don't understand, you're scaring me." He stood up and paced the room.

"You don't think I'm scared too? Son do you not realize you have killed us all?" She said, standing up as well. "For what, some whore who told you a great sob story? You gave everything your father and I sacrificed for to the authorities, that's a fact. We won't live to see trial."

"Mom I didn't..."

"Did you think that you and your whore would just steal from us and disappear?" She spoke over him. "Faceless men will track you both down now, and you will watch each other suffer and die. I hope this foolish little fantasy got you off because..." She stopped, running out of steam and tossing her empty glass against the wall.

"Why can't we all get out?" Richard pleaded.

Claudia offered her only child a look of pure disgust. "Do you know why you couldn't get into your father's accounts? Because he changed all the passwords after that fiasco in Mt. Juliet. That was the catalyst that finally broke our trust in you. A selfish little fuck up."

"Mom please. I didn't tell the police anything about you and dad." Richard began to crack. "But yes I did stage Haley's kidnapping so we can run off together. She's been through enough. That's why I had to actually convince her that night."

"So that was you in that surveillance footage?" She mused.

Richard slowly shook his head yes. "Leaving her shoe and panties behind was her idea. Not sure why, because she never confessed, but I think she reported herself missing too."

"The two of you figured it all out huh?" Claudia spat. "A simple life just over the hill financed by your parent's wealth, oh and their lives. I won't even be around to enjoy any grandchildren. I'm a little disappointed, at least your psycho friend Rachel had the balls to murder her parents with her own hands to steal their wealth. But not my offspring."

Richard felt his cheeks flush with shame. "Guess I didn't look at it that way. Never wanted to hurt you and dad but I honestly love her, what choice do I really have mom? Dad wouldn't have let her go, or let me keep her like some pet. The last girl to run off was butchered."

"So you arm the hand that will cut his throat?" Claudia asked wearily, drained of all emotion. "You've made your choice. In your father's den is a set of keys to our safe deposit box, it's not much. Maybe over two hundred thousand in cash, for fixing problems and such. The rest we keep in our overseas accounts."

"I never chose to hurt you guys." Richard offered softly, reaching his arms out for another embrace.

"Perhaps if I had chosen love things might have been different." Claudia Hughes turned and stumbled out of the room shunning her son's affections.

Under normal circumstances Richard Hughes would have been sobbing on his bed, wracked with guilt. There simply was no time he decided, finding the safe deposit keys and leaving his shell of a mother behind as he raced across town to the bank. The bank manager eyed him skeptically but finally granted him access after discovering Richard's name was in fact on the safe deposit box's rental agreement, as a contingency. After unloading the stacks of crisp hundred dollar bills into a Prada bag, He thanked the fussy bank manager and hustled the money back to his mother's everyday vehicle, a Mercedes S class.

Everything was falling into place he thought, until he stopped at the red light a block away from the bank. He looked down at his phone for a moment out of habit, just enough time for a stolen F150 pickup truck to slam into him from behind.

First thing he noticed was the taste of blood in his mouth as his brain scrambled to regain control of his body. He pushed the deployed airbag away from his face as the Prada bag full of cash on the floor swam in his blurry vision.

Locked in a concussive confusion Richard never saw the two masked men leap from the smoking pickup truck that hit him. The first man opened the Mercedes door and dragged Richard out by his collar while the second man snatched the Prada bag tucked under the front passenger seat.

No one saw the red Kia Sorento until it screamed through the intersection, not pumping the breaks until after bouncing the second kidnapper off the hood. Wasting no time Marvin Woodall was out and launching a four inch throwing knife at the first kidnapper, using a no spin technique he practiced religiously. The masked man's head snapped back as the blade found a home in his left eye socket, he was dead before he hit the ground. The second kidnapper was still trying to get back to his feet with a busted leg. Marvin unsheathed the very same boot knife he used to murder Douglas and punched it into the chest cavity of the crawling man several times, before finally stabbing him in the throat and leaving it there.

Marvin tore the bloody Prada bag from the dying man's hands, out of breath from the exertion. The entire ordeal took less than ten minutes start to finish, but was witnessed and cell phone recorded by over a dozen people. Shocked and screaming onlookers captured the murderous black man shove the disoriented white kid into his car and speed back through the intersection, disappearing over distant hills.

"Richie you good?" He shook the kid slumped over in the passenger seat as he rocketed through a quiet suburban neighborhood, desperate to get away.

"Gonna throw up." Richard moaned, holding his head.

"Not in my shit." Marvin warned, pushing him upright with one hand. "Sit the fuck up and listen."

"Why'd you hit me man?"

"Wasn't me who hit you, now listen. Tell me why your father called me an hour ago and said fuck Flathead Frank, go grab my kid."

"What are you talking about man, did you get my money?"

Marvin reached over and slapped the kid hard in the face. "I just murdered two fucking people in broad daylight trying to kill you, and I'm pretty sure your old man was sending me to do the same thing to you. Why?"

"It's all over is why." Richard flung his hands up helplessly. "Me and Haley are out of here fuck what happens to my father."

The Kia screeched to a smoldering stop in the middle of a residential street. "Say that again." Marvin commanded, jerking him closer by his shirt.

"Easy man, I'm still hurting from the accident." He tried vainly to push the henchman's hands away. "I'm assuming you saw my mother at the house and she told you where to find me."

"Yeah so?"

"Alright so I guess she didn't tell you that they think I ratted them out to the police and now their former partners are going to clean house."

"How clean boy? Erase all of us, even me?" Marvin pulled him closer, fighting the urge to bite his nose clean off.

"How should I know, I don't even know who they're sending." Richard finally pulled his shirt free. "The other thing is I got Haley stashed at a Best Western Hotel up in Pigeon Forge. Right next to Gatlinburg, where my parents used to take me on summer break as a kid, before they sold their souls and got rich."

"I know where it's at." Marvin snapped, putting the car back in drive and creeping through the neighborhood at a moderate speed.

"She told me she didn't want to go to the cops and piss off my father, just wanted to get away. That was a lie, because I'm pretty sure she reported herself missing to fuck with him. Going back home wasn't in her plans either. I told her to find a way to set up a bank account in like the Cayman Islands or something like my parents, and I was going to transfer some of their money over to us." Richard explained, looking out the window and watching the houses ghost past them. "We never wanted anybody to get hurt really. She probably thought it was no big deal another girl got loose again. They fucking stole her man, how is that shit fair? All we got is this one life, she didn't deserve to waste it doing that shit."