Mike winked at me. “I’m saying they mean what they mean, but they also mean more than what they mean.”
Shit. Gideon raised a brow. This chat was either full of bullshit or brilliance. I wasn’t sure which, so I kept going.
“How many things do each of the words mean?” I pressed.
“Aaaaaay!” Fonzie One said, offering me his fries. “Three! Each has three meanings.”
It all kept coming back to three. “Is that the reason there are three of each of you?”
“Of course,” Mike Two confirmed. “Many times, people need to be informed multiple times to get it. The mind can be a slow mechanism.”
“Am I slow?” I asked with a laugh.
All the Mikes giggled. “Quicker than most, but slower than us.”
“I see,” I said, munching on a fry. Tim had been correct. The fries were excellent. “Is there something I can do to be faster?”
“Aaaaaay!” the Fonzies said in unison. “Find vengeance. It might help you find your way to compassion and logic.”
“But they already…” Mike One said.
Mikes Two and Three stopped him.
“If all the clues are given, no successful resolution can be found,” Mike Two said. “Please enjoy the fries, we must be off.”
“Aaaaaay!” Fonzie One said with a grin. “Don’t sit on it. Whoa! In your heart you’re correct-amundo! The path will lead you the way you are supposed to walk. What you find will be up to fate.”
“Is it a literally path?” Gideon asked.
Fonzie patted him on the head like he was a child. “The path is never literal, Grim Reaper. You know that as well as I do.”
And on those final words all the Fonzies, Mike Wazowskis, Sullys, dwarfs and Als vanished along with Arnold’s Drive-In. We were in an empty field of wild flowers with bunny rabbits and birdies.
“Shitty Ritchie would like to share that Fonzie Three offered me his pecker!” the small idiot announced, thrilled. “I told him we have some business to do, but we’d come back for it.”
We wouldnotcome back for Fonzie Three’s pecker. Ever. Since none of us wanted to see Shitty Ritchie throw a tantrum, no one commented.
“Time for an intel swap,” Candy Vargo said. “All them dwarfs kept yackin’ about was vengeance, compassion and logic. And the freakin’ Grumpys went on and on about offin’ one’s counterpart to get the job done right.”
“Wait. What?” I asked, not following. “Are the dwarfs going to off each other?”
“Hell if I know,” Candy griped.
“The Fonzies and the Mikes spoke of compassion, logic and vengeance as well,” Gideon confirmed. “However, they were adamant that the meanings meant more than the written definitions.”
“Fascinating,” Tim said, pulling a notebook from his leather pants pocket and taking notes. “Did they happen to share the other meanings?”
“No,” I told him. “But they did say there were three. And Mike One seemed to imply that we already knew something.”
“What the fuck do we know?” Candy Vargo snapped.
“A whole lot of nothing,” I muttered, feeling helpless.
“Welp, they sure fuckin’ banged the number three over our heads enough,” Candy commented, still snappish.
Tim touched Candy’s shoulder. She relaxed immediately. “I’m sure there’s a good reason for that. The general rule is fiveto seven times,” Tim said calmly. “People need to see things five to seven times to remember them.”
“I’m going to say we saw threes way more then seven times today,” I said, helping Shitty Ritchie get comfortable on the grass. His body was so out of whack, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.
