“I don’t have a story to tell, really.”

Spitball Willie wasn’t lying, he really believed he didn’t have a story to tell.

“But, they found you… both of your arms, both of your legs. Amputated.”

“Yup,” Spitball fired back through the gap in his butter bean teeth.

“Tell me,” she pined, squeezing her (quite unprofessional) Sakura gelly roll pen, “just how did you end up in that situation?”

“Well," Spitball said, lolling back in his tatty recliner, "it was the old boys who done got me.” He tore into a mighty belly laugh! But, soon strangled it with a wheeze when he realised he was laughing alone.

“Old boys?” she asked, dryly.

“Old boys.” he replied, matter-of-factly.

“Oldd bboys?” she asked.

“Yeah, them good old boys!” Willie jammed his rusty, crusty, mechanical finger into his temple. "You know 'em," he insisted with a little foam in the corner of his lips. “Real memorable guys. Patches, Jazz-man, and… hmpphhhffff… Lil’ Kats I think it was. Or no, was it Lil’ Dogs?”

She flipped the cover of her notepad closed, aware she was underscoring a futile day.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Willie.”

The only thing this coot could help her with would be widening, thickening, and cementing that august worry line across her sweaty forehead. Hooking up the auld fella with robotic limbs was a techno-medical breeze, but gluing together 300 years of brain rot was a bridge too far.

On to the next clue...