Please visit breakerwhiskey.com for more information or to send a message to Whiskey's radio. Breaker Whiskey is an Atypical Artists production created by Lauren Shippen. If you'd like to support the show, please visit patreon.com/breakerwhiskey.

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[TRANSCRIPTS] (for full transcripts, visit breakerwhiskey.tumblr.com

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Breaker, breaker, this is Whiskey breathing in ocean air. 

Well. Almost. I’m still about seventy miles from Virginia Beach, but I swear I can smell the salt on the air. 

The last time I was at the ocean was…god, probably a year before the- I don’t know what to call it, The Incident, whatever the hell it was. I’d gotten a lead on another job up in Boston and my contact lived out on the Cape, so I went out there to get the specs of the gig. 

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Francis Lennon, that was his name. Sorry, Francis, for shouting your name out on the airwaves but I really don’t think anyone’s listening and also, I’m fairly certain you’re dead.

Not to say I hope he’s dead or anything, not at all, just that the last time I saw Francis, he was already well into his eighties and that was seven years ago. and that’d be plenty of reason to think he might not be kicking anymore even before you add the realities of living on your own at that age in times like these…

He was a real character. Lived in this great old house all the way up in Provincetown, you know, the kind that has one of those little perches up on the top, god, what are they called…

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Anyway, he’d always be dressed in these fine shirts and fancy trousers, except he usually covered them up by wearing a dressing gown at all hours of the day, like he was Sherlock Holmes or something. I think he saw himself as a bit of an eccentric. Or he just was a bit of an eccentric. 

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You meet a lot of bizarre people in my line of work—my old line of work. Especially once I started doing the…higher class jobs, the ones that are way less expedient but a hell of a lot safer—that kind of stuff, the art, the antiquities, jewelry, whatever—weirdest bunch of people are obsessed with that stuff. And knowing everything about those particulars was never my job, so I never troubled myself with learning much about it. 

But Francis knew it all. The American masters were his specialty, but there wasn’t an art form he couldn’t talk about. And his place was just filled to the brim with it—I’m sure if I were a different person, or if someone like Harry were walking through his house, they’d be able to identify every piece. I wouldn’t doubt that his collection was worth seven figures or more. 

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Maybe that’s why he only ever invited me when he had a new lead, instead of Peter or whoever. He knew I couldn’t care less about what he hung on his walls—I’d listen when he told me all about his newest acquisition, but I wouldn’t try to…one up him, or sneak something out under his nose. 

He was a good man. An odd dresser, fast talker, and he’d put a dab of hot sauce in his iced tea, which I always thought was pretty foul, but he was kind. And I don’t know if he really had anyone. He lived in that house all by himself, and I only ever saw him…once a year at most? But I’d always go up with the intention to be out the next day and inevitably it’d turn into a whole weekend. He’d make me eat steamed clams—which I hate—and show me the new hobby he’d picked up. I think last time it was…stained glass? He’d walk along the beach and find bottles or bits of sea glass, break them down or polish them up and fit them together into some kind of pattern that he’d then solder together. 

He had three whole pieces done when I was there, and he’d leaned them against the window so that they’d catch the light, colors speckling his kitchen floor. 

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