“B-but I saw blood!”

That kind of backtalk earned him a swift kick to the ribs. Clarence squealed in pain and curled onto his side.

“You only thought you saw blood!” Freddie G told him. “And the guy probably just knows karate or something. That’s how he was able to kill Maurice!”

“But he…” Clarence started to say, but stopped himself, lest he be beaten again. He knew he never saw Maurice take the hit, but he wasn’t about to argue with the boss.

“And now the police have the hospital surrounded!” Freddie G continued to shout. “Now where are we gonna get our supplies? That haul was supposed to last us a month!”

Clarence looked up nervously until he realized that Freddie G wanted an answer. Unfortunately, all Clarence could say was, “I don’t know.”

The answer was far from what Freddie G wanted to hear, and he let Clarence know that with several kicks to the face and gut. His fury erupted all at once as he slowly kicked Clarence out of his office and into the main garage, where the rest of the gang was relaxing. They all turned their heads up at the violence at once and stopped what they were doing. Clarence was covered in blood and bruises when Freddie G finally stopped. It was an example to all the others.

“This weakling let some hobo stop him from yanking the supplies we need from the hospital!” Freddie G yelled for the others. “Now someone’s gonna go out and find this fucker and bring him to me, or you’ll end up worse than this little shit!”

Freddie G gave Clarence one last kick to the stomach. “This worthless shit knows who you’re looking for! Find out who! I want him here, or dead! NOW!!!”

XXXXXXXX

“And this is healthy?” Clarke asked, looking at the wilted lettuce leaf on the end of his fork.

“It’s not much, I know,” Hall said. “The hospital can’t afford a lot, but I made a good deal with a local farm. It gets us through each month and the patients have something decent to eat.”

Clarke shrugged. He was too hungry to be picky. The lettuce however, made that choice harder to overcome. The dressing did little to cover the overuse of chemicals and the leaf itself was too rough. He might as well have been eating leaves off of a tree in the forest.

“Not bad,” Clarke said, reaching for more dressing.

“Liar,” Hall chuckled. “You can still taste the dirt on it.”

Clarke didn’t respond. He just poured more dressing on, then reached for the dry lasagna..

“So what brought you here to Detroit?” Hall asked. “Last I heard about you, you were spotted in France.”

“That was three months ago,” Clarke said. “Journalists found me and I decided to go change my image and slip out of the country. After spending some time in Britain, I decided to tour America for a while. Thanks to some bad decisions by your government, gang violence is up, so I came in to help.”