Pritchard's Pest Control: Brass Knuckles & Tattered Wings, #6

By Martin Svolgart

After a freak accident killed his wife and son, Pritchard slipped into alcoholism to drown his sorrows at a blue-collar bar nearby to avoid the dead and empty house. But then a teenage girl asked for his help, and it turned his entire existence around.

Pritchard's sabbatical as a vigilante angel has come to an end, as he steps up to take his place as captain of Papa Joe's newly claimed turf – Pritchard's home in upstate New York.

But that doesn't mean there aren't princes and princesses around. First of all, he's hiding Sally's son from the Eastern European gang, while coming to terms with the boundaries he had to cross. And his newlywed neighbors have a problem with an ex-boyfriend, who just doesn't get it.

With that gang looking for them, Pritchard can't afford anyone making ripples around them. Still, he'd never leave a pregnant woman fighting off her ex without lending her a fist full of brass to help solve the problem.

Small town life isn't easy to maintain when hunted, though, and not every prince can be kept an innocent boy forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MarLau Publishing
• Release date: Nov 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9788793966147

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Pritchard’s Pest Control

Brass Knuckles and Tattered Wings #6

Season Two

Martin Svolgart

AFTER A FREAK ACCIDENT killed his wife and son, Pritchard slipped into alcoholism to drown his sorrows at a blue-collar bar nearby to avoid the dead and empty house. But then a teenage girl asked for his help, and it turned his entire existence around.

Pritchard’s sabbatical as a vigilante angel has come to an end, as he steps up to take his place as captain of Papa Joe’s newly claimed turf – Pritchard’s home in upstate New York.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t princes and princesses around. First of all, he’s hiding Sally’s son from the Eastern European gang, while coming to terms with the boundaries he had to cross. And his newlywed neighbors have a problem with an ex-boyfriend, who just doesn’t get it.

With that gang looking for them, Pritchard can’t afford anyone making ripples around them. Still, he’d never leave a pregnant woman fighting off her ex without lending her a fist full of brass to help solve the problem.

Small town life isn’t easy to maintain when hunted, though, and not every prince can be kept an innocent boy forever.

Copyright © 2020 MarLau Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

ISBN: 978-87-93966-14-7

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

Cover design by Juan Padrón

Edited by Laura McNellis

MarLau Publishing

Denmark

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Table of Contents

Day 5

Day 6

Day 9

Day 11

Day 12

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

About the Author

Day 5

PRITCHARD HAD FINALLY found a townhouse so he could finally stop monopolizing Frank’s couch and get Tommy out of Rose’s room. She’d be home for the weekend, too, and Tommy on a flimsy mattress on the floor of the tiny living room wasn’t optimal either.

The townhouse wasn’t big or flashy. It was two stories and had the two bedrooms they needed along with an okay kitchen and living room. The neighborhood was full of young families and a few elderly couples. Cozy.

They’d emptied out the storage unit and brought the surviving furniture and stuff to the townhouse. Tommy helped out quite well. Lazy teenager or not, the boy could work.

It was beginning to look like a home, but it didn’t feel like one. Pictures usually lined the surfaces, but Pritchard had started putting them into another box as he unearthed them. He wasn’t ready to look at them every day.

Only one stood out—his and Monica’s wedding photo. Tommy had found it and placed it next to the TV, and Pritchard didn’t remove it because he didn’t want to explain how he felt too broken to be able to look at her.

But it wasn’t just because she was dead. He felt like he’d let her down because he’d gone that distance. The one he never wanted to. He’d killed someone. He didn’t know how to face her for fear that she’d be disappointed in him. It killed him that he couldn’t just sit down with her and ask her and hear her out when she helped remind him what was good about him. She’d helped him put his best foot forward before, yet now it felt like he’d taken two steps backward.

He still had the image from the broken frame that he’d picked up the night he rescued Rose. It was folded up and tucked into his wallet, yet he rarely looked at it. He merely liked that he had them with him and had the opportunity to look at them whenever he felt the need. But Monica’s constant stare from next to the TV kept Pritchard pretty much out of the living room. She’d believed he could be better, and now he was even worse off than when she’d taken him from the Kitchen to let him be a better man for her and Zack.

One step forward and two steps back, and that wasn’t progress unless the goal was behind him. Best foot forward had put him on a slippery slope, and he felt like frigging Bambi.

But he’d saved Cat. If he was ashamed of his actions, then wouldn’t he somehow be saying that he was sorry he’d saved Cat?

Of course he wasn’t sorry, but his mind wasn’t capable of looking at things that nuanced. Not yet. He even surmised that it was his still grief-riddled mind that didn’t let him look at all the perspectives and nuances. He was quite comfortable with having to come to terms with the fact that he was very good at violence early on, and he’d never mourned breaking someone’s hand for cheating in a back-room poker game or busted a few lips and teeth for trying to worm out of a debt.

But killing someone was...so final.

I’m actually pretty good at making homemade pizza, Tommy said.

Pritchard looked up from his computer. He sat at the dining table in the kitchen and tried to focus on searching for stuff for the gym. Perfect. You get to make dinner, then.

And then you do the dishes? Tommy smiled, hopefully.

Pritchard chuckled. I was always against that. If you don’t have to clean up after yourself, then you can just use everything in the cupboards and leave a huge mess.

But I do the dishes when you cook.

That’s because I’m the grownup, and I don’t make a huge mess, considering I clean as I cook, too.

Tommy rolled his eyes, grinning.

Yeah, the kid had opened up to Pritchard. His gaze had continuously cut to Pritchard’s bruised and swollen fingers since he’d returned to Glens Falls, yet he hadn’t commented.

The phone conversation with his mom and especially a later connected call with Ian via Cat’s phone, Tommy looked at Pritchard differently. He was no longer the sulky teenager who barricaded himself in his room and refused to