Pickle Pie

DROP THREE

DROP THREE

He locked up the shop and went upstairs to his apartment. He wrote a few emails, drank some cheap ouzo, then sent them to clients through the PGP encryption. It was the middle of the night but his clientele wasn’t exactly keeping a 9 to 5 job, to say the least.

He sipped some more ouzo to get a slight buzz, and then got out to the balcony. Athens looked peaceful. The view wasn’t much, just a fuzzy sky, brownish yellow from all the smog. The LED streetlamps made it worse. He was on a parallel street to Syggrou avenue. The street had a few shops, artisans like him, specialty items. Custom firearms, grips, equipment, s*x toys. Clients of the don’t-ask-don’t-tell variety. Aliases, negotiations in encrypted channels, payment in cryptocurrency.

All the usual stuff.

He had to get 10 thousand for Canvas tomorrow. He glanced at the side of his field-of-view for the time. Thirteen hours left.

Canvas, the local enforcer for Ares Defence, would swing by monthly and ask for a cut. In return, he kept you safe, mostly from himself. Canvas was a titan of a man, a tower of muscle and power. He liked to f**k guys. Two guys, in particular, his boys named Michael and Angelo. And he enjoyed long walks down at the shops, maintaining the peace, and draining the blood of his enemies to paint on his body. He liked to have one of his fuckboys paint on him with blood while he f****d the other.

Seriously, there was video and everything.

Hector had watched it while covering his eyes for most of its duration. He had to admit it was good p**n, under two conditions: One, you liked gay threesomes, which Hector did not. And two, you could somehow see past the fact that a person had died painfully to get you this lovely piece of p*********y.

And that man was about to knock on his door in a few hours.

Forget emails.

Hector got back inside and got on the encrypted app. He would make some calls and bug some people. What would they do? Kill him?

“Yeah, details are on the email I sent you. Put in an order now with a down-payment and you’ll get 50% off on ten body armours. Yeah, you might say that. Excellent. As soon as the payment hashes I’ll get back to you for the specs you want, okay? Perfect, nice doing business with you.”

He hung up. Yes! Four thousand euros. That was something.

The rest hadn’t replied, or said they didn’t need anything at this time. Hector checked the news, there was nothing about shootings, break-ins, corporate assassinations, nothing.

Damn.

Business sky-rocketed when there was something like that happening. He felt like a vulture, but what was he supposed to do? Not feel happy when a terrorist attack downtown brought in five new clients in one day?

He downed the rest of the ouzo, straight. He tapped on his table, he was amped up and had a buzz going on. Sleep? Puh. He’d sleep when he was dead.

He loaded up Canvas’ social profile on his veil and walked around his workshop.

There had to be something here that could save his a*s.

This big ‘ol riot armour? He could adjust it for the big guy. But it was bulky, ugly even. Made for maximum protection. Sure, it was intimidating, but Canvas didn’t need help in that department.

A helmet? Something with flames? What did gays even like? Flowers?

Hector giggled, the stress upon his impending death made him fuzzy, but he couldn’t stop. Nah, he pictured himself in his mind presenting a flowery helmet to the titan, then getting stomped right there on the spot into a puddle of blood, then Michael dipping his brush and wiping it slightly with a flourish.

No.

He needed something Canvas would f*****g love.

Hector stopped in front of what he called the s**t-guard. He didn’t advertise it as such, but in this street even that might be good advertising.

It was transparent armour, flexible. A chest-guard for ladies, liquid armour that transformed upon impact and could absorb a bullet shot, transparent so they could show off their physique and/or expensive underwear. Knife-proof, water-proof, comfortable. It couldn’t save you from bigger calibres but you obviously needed more padding for that. This one had a specific purpose in mind, personal protection with style.

Hector lifted it in his arms. It was tiny, barely able to cover Canvas’ left side, let alone his entire chest.

That was it! Art. He could splice it with…

Hector slapped the armour down on his work bench, sleep entirely gone, his mind sharper than ever. Impending death does that to a man. He had a few hours to work on this. He could do this. Order in a couple of parts, which would arrive by eleven o'clock…

He gripped his hammer. “Hephaestus grant me strength, I dedicate this to you as my greatest piece,” he mumbled, and got to work.