Stiggy made good time, roaring up 75 and watching Michigan scroll southward.

He hadn't seen Sully in quite a while, but that didn't matter.

Sully's full name was Sully O'Donnell. He'd picked that name for himself-- Sully had, that is. Sullivan after some Civil War soldier and O'Donnell after Rosie O'Donnell. For real. Rosie O'Donnell. Sully had always liked Rosie O'Donnell, even moreso after her fall from grace and media troubles. Stiggy didn't know if Sully had picked a middle name.

At least, that's what he'd told Stiggy when Stiggy had asked why the fuck anyone would change their name to Sully O'Donnell. Sully wasn't even Irish.

Stiggy was the only person who knew Sully's name was Sully. Stiggy knew a lot about Sully. Stuff no one else knew.

Sully and Stiggy had worked together for a number of years, done various jobs for Rupert King. Unofficial partners, really. For several years. A house call here, a business call there. A collection, a message, delivering a gift.

Between the two of them, they'd been casual work friends. Nothing special. Familiar and reliable. A decent enough team. Then Sully had retired and moved up north. He'd settled way out in the sticks, past Traverse City in a little cottage on a small lake, intending to keep to himself and live quietly.

But Sully owed Stiggy, and he'd remember. He'd left Stiggy his new address, a phone number.

"I owe you," he'd said when they'd last parted. "But please don't fuck this up."

Stiggy tried calling the number Sully had left. No answer, but that wasn't surprising. So Stiggy hit the road, gathering the few things he'd need from his apartment and bidding it farewell. He wouldn't be able to come back anytime soon, if ever.

It occurred to Stiggy there was a small chance that the address that Sully had left him was bogus, but Stiggy needed to leave town anyway. Better to check it out. He Google mapped it, and thought he saw a familiar-looking car in the driveway.

Sully drove a pristine-condition, night-black, custom '85 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. And sure enough, it was parked in the driveway as Stiggy lurched to a stop after four hours of driving, a cloud of road dust billowing around him. Just like on Google-Earth.

Stiggy hadn't seen the Cutlass since he'd last seen Sully. The sight of it gleaming in the mid- morning sun gave him an unexpected rush of nostalgia. Forgotten memories came rushing back.

The house was a small cottage-- no basement, one story. Two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, dining space. Small but cozy and perfect for a bachelor in his late-30's to put his feet up and decide what to do with the next phase of his life. Stiggy had helped Sully move in, back in those other years.

"I've got a situation," said Stiggy when Sully answered the door. "I can't go home."

"Hi, Stiggy," said Sully. He was still in his bathrobe, a fluffy light blue one.

They hadn't talked in a long time-- several years-- and here they were, talking as if they'd seen each other the day before.

Stiggy had always thought Sully looked like a cross between Paul Giamatti and Nathan Lane, except 6 ft 4 and with a football player's frame. In other words, Sully was a big, homely dude-- he had a decent amount of muscle packed on him, all covered in a layer of flab-- with short black hair which was normally spiky and gelled but currently flat and uncombed. When he'd worked with Stiggy, he liked to wear tailored suits. He'd spent nearly all his job money on them.

"King is sending someone after me as we speak," said Stiggy.

Sully sighed.

"What did you do?"

Stiggy told him the situation, leaving out the final limey fuckface text message.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"What exactly you want me to do about it?" Sully said. "I would've thrown that shit in the trash and told them come get it."

"That's the problem," Stiggy said. "That's what I did!"

"I still don't know what you expect me to do about it."

"I met her on Seeking Arrangement," Stiggy said, nervous and fried from his travels, prattling. "I paid her 500 to spend the night with me. Or sorry, no, I paid her 450. She took the collar off when we fucked. Or I might've, I can't remember. The sex was awful. She was on her period. Totally not worth the money but you know how it is. I'd already driven around all night... She had track marks and a hairy stomach. I mean, like, legitimately hairy, like a dude, not like that cute monkey fuzz that girls sometimes have... it was like wiry pubes on her belly button... I'd never seen that before on a girl. It's like, you're in your twenties, I can understand if it's on a 40 year old, but-- "

"Stiggy. I really don't care about that."

"I need your help, Sully. I'm here, asking for your help."

Sully sighed and put a big arm around Stiggy.

"Stiggy," he said. "You don't just show up on a person's doorstep unannounced, especially if you haven't talked in forever and especially if you probably just pissed off a minor crime lord. There's a word for it... what is it? Oh, yeah—rude. Didn't I tell you to call first?"

"I did. No answer."

Sully sighed and rubbed his eyes.

Stiggy kept prattling.

"The problem is, if King's the one who actually gave her that collar, then I have a problem."

"She told you she had a dom that worked at a King's Club and you didn't drop her off right then?"

"She didn't say which club at the time."

Sully sighed again, rubbed his eyes again.

"I knew you'd be up here eventually. I just didn't think it would be for something this fucking stupid."

He stepped back inside. Stiggy noticed he was wearing fluffy blue socks.

"Come on in."

The two went through Sully's modest home. Stiggy caught glimpses of the living room with a movie paused on a flatscreen mounted to the wall, a bedroom with a large, unmade queen bed, another bedroom with a gym set. Sully stopped in the kitchen, rummaged through a bunch of drawers, found an old packet of cigarettes.

They emerged onto Sully's square back patio, unswept and covered with dead leaves. A small dinette set was in a corner. Sully and Stiggy sat down.

"King's going to go on the warpath over this," said Stiggy. "He's always hated me."

"Yeah, I doubt he would hesitate to whack your ass," said Sully, tapping the pack of cigarettes on the heel of his palm and sniffing it.

"I know. I really fucked up here. I wouldn't have made the drive otherwise."

"Does anyone else know about this? Chances are he'll want to keep it quiet."

"I don't know," said Stiggy. "There's a possibility Kenzie told someone about it besides him..."

"Why would King allow one of his girlfriends to whore herself out on a sugar baby site in the first place?"

"Maybe she was doing it behind his back," said Stiggy. "Or she's one of his, you know, lower women or whatever. I don't fucking know. You know how he is. Maybe he got off on it. He fucks everything."

Sully produced a cigarette from the pack, sniffed it, held it to his lips, hesitated a second, then lit it and inhaled.

"Hell, King tried to sexually dominate me once," he said, exhaling a thin cloud of minty menthol smoke. "I was sitting in his office and he walked over and, like, kind of leaned back on the desk with his arms over his head while thrusting his crotch into my face, looking me in the eye the whole time."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," said Sully. "I just finished the conversation and got the hell out of there."

They sat there and looked out at Sully's lovely backyard pond view. The pond was like a black mirror, and the yellow reeds and green grass glimmered in the morning sun.

"This is really nice," said Stiggy. "I've actually wanted to do this for a long time now. Come see this place. Come see where you ended up."

"You weren't supposed to come up here unless you had an emergency."

"This is an emergency."

They sat there in silence for a minute, Sully smoking and Stiggy bouncing his knee in anxiety.

Something jumped in the pond near the shore, spreading rings of gold across the black water.

"You fish in this pond at all?" Stiggy asked, pointing.

"Not here," said Sully. "There's a lake I walk to. It's nice, I just don't feel like getting up at 5 am most days to get out there."

"You catch anything out there?"

"Last time I kept catching the same two bass."

"Wow, the same two bass?"

"Yeah. Just the same two aggressive dumbasses, biting on the same fucking lure, not learning anything."

They sat there on Sully's deck, Sully's cigarette coiling smoke in the intense sunlight.

Stiggy cut to the chase.

"So can you help me?"

Sully exhaled again, the smoke mingling with the sun rays. Stiggy knew Sully was remembering what Stiggy had done for him, the one favor that Stiggy really didn't want to have to bring up.

"You can stay here for today at least," said Sully after another drag or two. "While you think of how you're going to get out of this shit."

"But I can't think of anything," Stiggy insisted, his knee bouncing like an over-caffeinated lapdog. "That's why I came here. If I could think of something, I would've not bothered you. I was always shit at getting out of shit. But not you. You're good at that. That's what I need you for. I didn't come up here to hide. I came up here for your help in solving this."

"You'll figure it out," said Sully, taking another long drag off his cig and looking out at the pond.

He looked at his cigarette for a second, then pitched it into the wet grass.

"Fuck it," Stiggy heard him grunt.