Who’s your man? Tommy says. Your man, Barney says. Your man what did all the paintings. Plenty of guys did the paintings, I says to him. That doesn’t fucking narrow it down much. I’m talking about your man Picatsto, Barney says. That kid is as good as your man Picatsto. What the fuck do you know about Picatsto? Tommy says to him. I know plenty, Barney says. Like what? Tommy says. Like, for instance, he painted in the wee squares and triangles. That’s what you call cube-ism, Tommy says.

I have no idea where he was getting these terms from.

Exactly, Barney says to him. Cube-ism is drawing in wee fucking squares like in the comic books. That is exactly what the point I’m saying is. That kid is as good as your man Picatsto. Then Barney shows us this picture that he had done, this picture of a guy with the head of a reindeer, it looked like, the head of a reindeer on top of his own head and with a tattooed face, and with a bow and arrow, standing on the top of this mountain, and behind him there are all these ships, like Viking warships, raised up, and floating up, into the air. Fuck me, Tommy says, but that’s better than your man Picatsto. Give me a boy with imagination every time, he says, and he shakes his head. Do you think he would draw me?

Fuck that, Barney says. He should draw all three of us. He should put us in an adventure, he says. He should make a comic book out of us. Sure, you couldn’t print half of what we get up to, I says to them. Well, we could always make something up, Barney says. A fantasy story. Or we can tell him a story from our past, something that wouldn’t get us arrested, and he can write it up and draw us into it.

What are you trying to say? I says to Barney. Have you done something legal in the past? That got a good laugh. Then we get back to the brainstorming. A bomb in the elevator, Tommy says. Think about it. Going up! A bomb in the water tank, Barney says. Think about it. Flood the fucking place! A bomb in the basement, Tommy says. Think about it. Bring it down around their fucking heads! Bomb Bomb Bomb, I says to them, that’s a fucking punk rock song right there. What degree of headcase works in a place like that anyway? Barney says. They must pay you danger money. Wait a minute, he says. Didn’t that wee bird we kidnapped work in the Europa?

I can’t remember, I says. So she did, Tommy says. It’s a fucking shame we let her slip through our fingers, Barney says. She could have been our way in. Don’t forget, Oddjob, I says to him, I was busy saving your life. That’s how she fucking escaped in the first place. Maybe we should recapture her, Barney says. Save face and get the keys to the fucking kingdom at the same time, know what I’m saying?