"Hey Louie, what's with this line on the stock order?" Gil asked as he walked back to his boss's office.
"Which line?" Louie grunted, managing to evoke every nuance of his New Jersey heritage with just those two words.
"The one that says 'grenades for goats.' Why would goats need grenades?"
"The guy who phoned in the order said they had a couple yahoos gallivant’n around the herd naked, wearing nothin' but goat skins. One of 'em was a monkey with a rifle and the other was a wolf."
Giil looked at his boss sceptically. He didn't doubt that Louie was repeating exactly what the customer had said--Louie never bothered with lies. Shifters could smell them on you and Louie's rat nose was better than most. No, it was the idea that the local goats' reaction to hunters would be 'get some grenades.' Rational people just don't think like that. Of course, rational people don't run around naked in a goat skin during hunting season, either, so maybe the herd had a point. That a wolf might do something odd like that was a given. There was no telling what a carnie might do, in Gil’s opinion.
"Was that your question?" Louie grunted, pulling Gil out of his reflection.
"Ah, no," Gil said as he inspected notes he’d made on the stock order form. "Our supplier said he could only get four HE grenades for the money the herd's willing to put up, not the dozen they asked for. They can get a dozen training grenades with a pack of replacement charges, or two flash-bangs and a half dozen trainers, or they can settle for the four real grenades for that price."
“Really, three hundred bucks for training grenades with spare charges? Put us down for three dozen and ask about how much for about a hundred charges,” Louie said. “I’ll call the goats and ask how they want their money to be spent, but that’s too good of a deal to pass up!”
Gil made the note on his paperwork and backed out of the cramp room Louie called an office, shaking his head. This was his black market stock order, of course. He had a normal order he placed weekly for Ratigan’s Pub, too, but Louie often wanted food supplies not on the USDA’s list of items approved for human consumption. Louie never asked for thing like live money brains or any of the other truly sick stuff humans like to eat. But he did ask for the ingredients for haggis and sheep intestines were not something he could run down to the grocer’s supply and pick up. How Louie got started into supplying arms and illegal alcohol, Gil didn’t know and didn’t want to know. He had a few black marked skeletons in his own closet so couldn’t point any high-moraled fingers at anyone else.
“Gil, the want the flash bang deal,” louie called.
“Got it!” Gil called back and added that to his list, too, then started chuckling. If the ATF ever got ahold of this stock order list, they’d have a cow. Grenades, sheep guts, and 150 proof blood whiskey. Maybe he’d add some Cuban cigars to the list just to round it all out.
