Close Protection by Riley Morgan

who liked the sweeping geometric designs of the late 1980s. The result was a mutt of poor taste and visual offensiveness. But at least they matched.
    After purchasing the curtains with Zeus’s money, they went to the hardware store to get the equipment that they needed to hang the curtains, plus a hodgepodge of other items that Ramon could use to make various improvements. The brothers disappeared immediately upon entering the store, and Ramon shook his head, silently apologizing to the poor employees of the store who would no doubt be bothered by their antics any second now.
    It took Ramon nearly an hour to fill his cart. He only needed to go through each aisle once. Last night he’d called the store with his list and ensured that he would find everything that he needed. About fifteen minutes in, there was a loud crash and the sound of hundreds of tiny metal things skittering across the concrete floors. A flustered employee walked past Ramon with a broom and a large dustpan. Ten minutes later, he heard the clatter of falling lumber, and then a sound that Ramon was unable to identify. It was, in fact, the sound of a sledgehammer being taken to a porcelain toilet.
    He finished his shopping before the brothers were able to destroy anything else, at least as far as he was aware. The cashier up front rang him up to the tune of just over twelve hundred dollars. Ramon turned around and looked at the devastation that his tagalongs had caused, and pushed the entire remainder of the two-thousand dollars, minus the cost of gas and curtains, to the cashier. When he started to remark at Ramon’s massive overpayment, Ramon raised his finger to his lips and winked. The extra money would pay for the things that the brothers had damaged, but not the added misery of the workers’ days. Still though, it was everything Ramon could do short of locking them in the truck and pushing it into the swamp.
    “That was fun,” Andris said as they walked back to the truck.
    “Yea, did you see the look on that woman’s face when she saw all those screws?”
    They both started laughing hysterically. Ramon loaded his haul into the van and climbed back into the driver’s seat. He noticed that neither of the brothers was wearing a seatbelt as he pulled out of the parking lot, and he entertained the idea of swerving off the road and into a sturdy looking tree on more than one occasion on the drive home.
    When they returned, Ramon wanted to get right to work, but Zeus called him in to talk. Ramon gave him a brief overview of the timeline that he had made for the improvements, explaining to Zeus how many hands he would need to help and when each task would be completed. Zeus was relieved to hear that the curtains would be installed first, and that use of his living and dining rooms would be restored. He wasn’t going to be happy when he saw what they looked like, Ramon thought. Or when he realizes that the TV is in Lena’s room.
    Ramon was eager to get back to work, but Zeus seemed dismissive.
    “Do you see this tattoo?” he said, rolling up his sleeve and brandishing the macabre cephalopod on his wrist.
    Ramon had seen it for the first time many years ago. Back then, it did not have as many enemies dead in the water. Nor did it have so many wounds.
    “Every spear, ever jagged tooth, every slash. They all represent people who have tried to best me and failed,” Zeus explained. “Whenever somebody tries to kill me, I add a wound to this magnificent creature. On most occasions, I also add a body.”
    Ramon wondered how many of the bodies on Zeus’s arms he knew. At least one.
    It used to be, Zeus said, that he worried about people making threats on his life. If people wanted him dead, then surely they would find a way to make it happen. But people are predictable. They take a long time to make up their minds. Zeus learned to force their hands. Wait until someone gets to the breaking point, then give them a push over the edge. They respond with