I showed up at the office at 10am wearing my best tie (only one stain). The lawyers were coming in at 10:30. Divorce cases are the bread and butter for most PI's. If I got this contract, I'd be on easy street. As I walked up I noticed the door to my office had obviously been kicked in & there was someone rustling about in there. I drew my colt & peeked inside. There were two of them, both women. I didn't recognize them, they were too fat to be anybody I would care to know. I opened the door slowly and shot the skinnier of the two in the leg. I figured the fatter one would have a harder time running away.
"Who sent you?!" I yelled.
"I...I...I..." the fat one stuttered. The skinnier fat one just lay on the ground moaning.
"Look bitch, you've got five seconds to start talking or I start shooting you in the face, one bullet at a time!" That's when she wet herself and passed out. I pointed the gun at the woman I shot, "Start talking!"
"We're from Lyons & Goldman. We had a 10 o'clock appointment with Mr Monroe."
"We had a 10:30 appointment!!! Then why did you kick my door in?'
"It was like that when we got here. We wanted to make sure you were okay."
I patched up her leg as best I could and put a couch pillow under the other one's head. I offered Shot Girl some coffee while we waited for the ambulance, she declined.
"Don't worry, " I said, "I get shot all the time. It's not like getting shot back in the old days. These doctors today, they'll have that bullet out of you lickity-split." There was an awkward silence. I lit a cigarette. "Maybe we should go over my resume," I suggested.
After everyone had gone, I gave my office a thorough sifting-through to see if anything had been stolen. God, why do all these terrible things happen to me? The wall safe was untouched, luckily, & the gun safe was still locked & the cash box was still there & intact. The only other thing they could've been after was... oh no!... I'd had a 5lb bag of cocaine taped under my desk. I'd stolen it from the Colombians and planned to sell it to the Mexicans and hoped the Italians didn't get wind of it. The coke was gone. In its place was a bloody finger. I counted my own fingers... ten. Whose finger would they cut off to get to me? And who were They?
I knew I was going to need help. I called my pimp-friend Ronnie. "Ronnie! Ron my good man! how are you?"
"Ugh... What do you want, Gene?"
"I've had an idea for a really long time, & I think it's time you and I worked on it."
"I don't like the sound of that at all, Gene. I'm hanging up now."
"Don't make me call her," I said, leaving him no choice. "...Okay, I need five highly-trained hooker-spies by tonight."
"The only thing my girls are highly-trained at is sucking dick."
"Better make it six."
Ronnie showed up around 8 with six hookers. Two of them were Asian. We all piled into a taxi and headed down to Little Colombia, were Rico the Rat ran drugs out of his ristorante, that's Spanish for restaurant. We got out of the taxi three blocks away. Ronnie and four hookers waited a block away, while the other two hookers and I walked into the restaurant. Both girls had unloaded shotguns under their dresses. They sat us at a table and we waited for the signal.
Ronnie had the four hookers out in front of the restaurant arguing with each other. security didn't so much as flinch until the trash can came through the window. Then out came the shotguns and shrill hooker voices. As the Colombians reacted, I ducked into the back to have a quiet word with Rico. Rico went for what I thought was a gun so I shot him in the leg.
"Whose finger did you tape to the bottom of my desk!?" I yelled.
"Who are you?" he whimpered. It was then that I remembered that Rico had moved his business to a pet store downtown. I heard the sirens and decided to head out through the alley in the back. Three blocks later I caught a taxi. The two inside hookers caught up on the way. Then Ronnie and the other hookers, all mostly unscathed, met us at the car. I was a bit surprised actually. If they hadn't been there when they were I'd surely have left without them.
I told Ronnie I got what I came for and tipped him $50. He was pretty sore about the whole deal so that's cool. I never did find out whose finger that was or what happened to my cocaine. Life is full of mysteries. The next day I got a call from Lyons & Goldman. I got the contract! They said they liked my go-getter attitude. Sometimes, but not always, it pays to shoot a bitch.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Cold, Dead Case
It was nearly 3am and I was digging a hole in the middle of the Nevada desert on some hideous blue planet. I hadn't eaten or slept in almost two days. Not a drop of alcohol for eight hours. I was running on empty after that two-day standoff with Rin Chen, another Chinese mafia goon. He had barricaded himself in the bathroom of the Chinese restaurant his recently deceased uncle owned and he had my wallet in there with him.
So anyway, he was dead and I was in the process of digging his grave when I happened upon another deserted body. It had obviously been there at least ten years based on my sober analysis of the bones. I dug a foot east to find some identification and found the answer to an eighteen-year-old question: Where was Timothy Anderson?
It was my first case. I was just a kid, a teenager with no P.I. license and no business sticking my nose in a missing persons case. Timothy was the son of Vegas developer John Anderson. He disappeared after a night of clubbing with a showgirl. The cops found half a kilo of coke in his car. Sex, drugs and money... it was too much for an aspiring P.I. to pass up.
It was also the first time I met Tommy the Tooth. This was before he had his tour guide business set up. Like me, he was young, crazy and never knew his mom. Tommy and I were both regulars at MacPhearson's pub. It had whisky, slot machines and a basement with a wide variety of classy hookers, plus they didn't bother with ID. Timothy Anderson, whom I'd never met personally, also frequented the pub.
The night before he disappeared, I was at the pub, as usual, but Timothy had been at the Rio with a hot date. Per the police reports, her name was Jemma Browning. She told the cops Timothy had a few too many, got handzy with her and she made him drop her off at home. She said he drove off angrily and she hadn't seen him since. If memory serves me, she was working a show at the Stardust.
A couple of nights after the disappearance I started asking questions around the pub. That’s when I met Tommy. He’d been asking questions too, because he was aspiring to be the guy with all the intel. I didn’t know people aspired to that sort of thing. It takes all kinds. We took it upon ourselves to break into Browning’s dressing room at the Stardust.
We figured the dressing rooms would be mostly empty during the day, so we went around eleven in the morning. We met up at Stardust buffett to discuss our plans. We didn’t have any money to bribe security, so we’d have to be clever.
Getting backstage was easy, but the door to the dressing rooms was guarded by a lone, monstrous bouncer. I turned from one corner and asked him for directions and Tommy turned the other corner and tried sneaking in behind him. Fucking Tommy's foot bumped into the door as he opened it. The hideous bouncer turned to catch him and I shot him in the back with a taser. This was back when I carried a taser. It seems stupid now because women are usually the ones who carry tasers around and shoot me with them. I've never been shot with a taser by another man. I'd rather be shot dead than poop my pants at someone else's will again.
We found Jemma's dressing room and sleuthed around a bit. Jemma had a picture of herself and a wealthy older man who also happened to be on the board of directors of one of John Anderson's leading competitors. For eight months, I focused all my attention on this guy, but it turned out to be a dead end. His name was Albert Silverman. I tailed him all around town whenever I could borrow my mom’s car, I even tried to sneak onto his compound once disguised as a pizza delivery boy.
“Everyone knows Jews don’t eat pizza!” Tommy said when I told him of my failure.
“I thought it was Asians who didn’t eat pizza.”
“Yeah, Asians and Jews.”
Eventually, it was announced that Anderson and Silverman had been secretly working on a joint development deal for over a year. Apparently they’d ended their rivalry and become partners, just like Siskel and Ebert. I had to turn my attention elsewhere. Unfortunately for Timothy, elsewhere never led me down the road to solving this case.
I searched for clues around old Tim’s bones for a while and came up with nothing. All he had in his wallet was a drivers license, a picture of him with some cute blonde and an obscene amount of dirt for some reason. Dumbass. I threw Rin Chen into Timothy’s expanded home-in-the-ground and went back to my office for two beers, two shots, a steak and a nice, long nap.
I woke up at 2pm. I made myself a coffee cocktail and I walked two blocks east and waited for Tommy to roll by on his daily tour. He picked me up and we toured up and down the strip and over by old Vegas. I must confess I learned a lot of things about Vegas from Tommy during that tour. He also seems a little obsessed with Siegfried & Roy. He knew family history, dates, where and how they got the tigers. He knew things about their mansion, their fashion preferences, their relaxation techniques. He knew where they went to school and what they studied and why. He could name every car ever owned by both Siegfried and Roy. He knew where they shopped, which bedroom was theirs, what the sink in the bathroom in the master bedroom looked like. In all the years I’ve known him he’s never let it slip out.
After the tour, I told Tommy what I’d found. “You have to show me!” he said. “I need to see the body for myself.”
“It’s in an unmarked grave in the middle of the Nevada desert. That I dug while I was tired, anemic and sober. We’d never find it again.”
“Shit.” He paused. “You should have brought it home with you.”
“You think I was gonna drive all the way out to the desert with a body in my trunk, dig a hole, and bury the body just so I can drive home with a different body in the trunk?” I shook my head. “ Anyway, I got this,” I showed him the picture of the cute blonde.
“That’s Jennifer Winters. She was an intern at Channel 5 Vegas back then. Got a job doing the weather in Provo, I think. Man I had a crush on her.”
The next morning we loaded up the Buick with beer and jerky and headed to Provo. Jennifer was now working as an executive at the tv station. Tommy had gone on the computer and got all sorts of Intel on her on the way there. We parked in the station lot by her car and waited. When she came out, Tommy distracted her and I snuck up and knocked her unconscious from behind. We took her to a secluded area and made her spill the beans.
Jennifer said she loved him, but I could tell right away she was lying. We kept her alone with us for 30 hours. Finally, the truth came out: Timothy had stolen a considerable amount of cocaine from her tv station boss in Vegas, Paul Delaterre. She said he planned on using it to frame Albert Silverman so that the deal with his dad would fall through. I'm still not sure what the story is there, but she was plenty clear about who killed poor Timothy Anderson. So Tommy and I went home and made plans to blackmail Paul Delaterre. Revenge is awesome, but blackmailing someone is the greatest feeling in the world.
So anyway, he was dead and I was in the process of digging his grave when I happened upon another deserted body. It had obviously been there at least ten years based on my sober analysis of the bones. I dug a foot east to find some identification and found the answer to an eighteen-year-old question: Where was Timothy Anderson?
It was my first case. I was just a kid, a teenager with no P.I. license and no business sticking my nose in a missing persons case. Timothy was the son of Vegas developer John Anderson. He disappeared after a night of clubbing with a showgirl. The cops found half a kilo of coke in his car. Sex, drugs and money... it was too much for an aspiring P.I. to pass up.
It was also the first time I met Tommy the Tooth. This was before he had his tour guide business set up. Like me, he was young, crazy and never knew his mom. Tommy and I were both regulars at MacPhearson's pub. It had whisky, slot machines and a basement with a wide variety of classy hookers, plus they didn't bother with ID. Timothy Anderson, whom I'd never met personally, also frequented the pub.
The night before he disappeared, I was at the pub, as usual, but Timothy had been at the Rio with a hot date. Per the police reports, her name was Jemma Browning. She told the cops Timothy had a few too many, got handzy with her and she made him drop her off at home. She said he drove off angrily and she hadn't seen him since. If memory serves me, she was working a show at the Stardust.
A couple of nights after the disappearance I started asking questions around the pub. That’s when I met Tommy. He’d been asking questions too, because he was aspiring to be the guy with all the intel. I didn’t know people aspired to that sort of thing. It takes all kinds. We took it upon ourselves to break into Browning’s dressing room at the Stardust.
We figured the dressing rooms would be mostly empty during the day, so we went around eleven in the morning. We met up at Stardust buffett to discuss our plans. We didn’t have any money to bribe security, so we’d have to be clever.
Getting backstage was easy, but the door to the dressing rooms was guarded by a lone, monstrous bouncer. I turned from one corner and asked him for directions and Tommy turned the other corner and tried sneaking in behind him. Fucking Tommy's foot bumped into the door as he opened it. The hideous bouncer turned to catch him and I shot him in the back with a taser. This was back when I carried a taser. It seems stupid now because women are usually the ones who carry tasers around and shoot me with them. I've never been shot with a taser by another man. I'd rather be shot dead than poop my pants at someone else's will again.
We found Jemma's dressing room and sleuthed around a bit. Jemma had a picture of herself and a wealthy older man who also happened to be on the board of directors of one of John Anderson's leading competitors. For eight months, I focused all my attention on this guy, but it turned out to be a dead end. His name was Albert Silverman. I tailed him all around town whenever I could borrow my mom’s car, I even tried to sneak onto his compound once disguised as a pizza delivery boy.
“Everyone knows Jews don’t eat pizza!” Tommy said when I told him of my failure.
“I thought it was Asians who didn’t eat pizza.”
“Yeah, Asians and Jews.”
Eventually, it was announced that Anderson and Silverman had been secretly working on a joint development deal for over a year. Apparently they’d ended their rivalry and become partners, just like Siskel and Ebert. I had to turn my attention elsewhere. Unfortunately for Timothy, elsewhere never led me down the road to solving this case.
I searched for clues around old Tim’s bones for a while and came up with nothing. All he had in his wallet was a drivers license, a picture of him with some cute blonde and an obscene amount of dirt for some reason. Dumbass. I threw Rin Chen into Timothy’s expanded home-in-the-ground and went back to my office for two beers, two shots, a steak and a nice, long nap.
I woke up at 2pm. I made myself a coffee cocktail and I walked two blocks east and waited for Tommy to roll by on his daily tour. He picked me up and we toured up and down the strip and over by old Vegas. I must confess I learned a lot of things about Vegas from Tommy during that tour. He also seems a little obsessed with Siegfried & Roy. He knew family history, dates, where and how they got the tigers. He knew things about their mansion, their fashion preferences, their relaxation techniques. He knew where they went to school and what they studied and why. He could name every car ever owned by both Siegfried and Roy. He knew where they shopped, which bedroom was theirs, what the sink in the bathroom in the master bedroom looked like. In all the years I’ve known him he’s never let it slip out.
After the tour, I told Tommy what I’d found. “You have to show me!” he said. “I need to see the body for myself.”
“It’s in an unmarked grave in the middle of the Nevada desert. That I dug while I was tired, anemic and sober. We’d never find it again.”
“Shit.” He paused. “You should have brought it home with you.”
“You think I was gonna drive all the way out to the desert with a body in my trunk, dig a hole, and bury the body just so I can drive home with a different body in the trunk?” I shook my head. “ Anyway, I got this,” I showed him the picture of the cute blonde.
“That’s Jennifer Winters. She was an intern at Channel 5 Vegas back then. Got a job doing the weather in Provo, I think. Man I had a crush on her.”
The next morning we loaded up the Buick with beer and jerky and headed to Provo. Jennifer was now working as an executive at the tv station. Tommy had gone on the computer and got all sorts of Intel on her on the way there. We parked in the station lot by her car and waited. When she came out, Tommy distracted her and I snuck up and knocked her unconscious from behind. We took her to a secluded area and made her spill the beans.
Jennifer said she loved him, but I could tell right away she was lying. We kept her alone with us for 30 hours. Finally, the truth came out: Timothy had stolen a considerable amount of cocaine from her tv station boss in Vegas, Paul Delaterre. She said he planned on using it to frame Albert Silverman so that the deal with his dad would fall through. I'm still not sure what the story is there, but she was plenty clear about who killed poor Timothy Anderson. So Tommy and I went home and made plans to blackmail Paul Delaterre. Revenge is awesome, but blackmailing someone is the greatest feeling in the world.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
The Chinese Conundrum
I woke up in a puddle of piss in an alley in North Vegas. I’m not sure whose piss it was, mine, or the dead Asian busboy lying next to me. I felt bad for Chang, but worse for myself, I had the worst hangover of my life, and I’m pretty sure my pinky toe was broken. Never broke that one before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. I sat up and noticed it was daytime and Chang and I were surrounded by a small group of jerk kids. I thought about shooting one, but I learned a long time ago you don't fuck around in North Vegas. I stood up, brushed the urine off my coat and walked off to find my car. There was really just one person I could go to for help, Denise Deville, or Double D. She was a porn star back in the ‘90s, but she retired to Vegas and opened a nail salon. Denise was someone I trusted, someone I could count on. Plus, she was always good for a screw if you bought her a couple of drinks.
Two blocks over I found my Buick. The front end was a good deal more smashed up than usual, but she's a tough old broad and she got me to Denise's salon. This is literally the third time in two weeks I've stumbled into this poor woman's place of business smelling like a barnyard animal. It's a good thing she's crazy about me.
“Gene, you sonofabitch! I told you the last time, I never wanted to see you again!” she yelled at me. I honestly had no idea why she was mad. I’d been high on oxycontin and bourbon the last time I saw her, and it was all a little fuzzy. I paused a moment to try and recall what we’d done together. Something about a family heirloom and a pedicurist named Milly... Damn my boyish charm.
She took some convincing, but eventually, Denise came around and agreed to help me out. I needed a place to stay while I worked things out. Chang had been giving me tips on the local Chinese Mafia before he’d been killed, and they’d already be looking for me at my office. I knew lying low would only keep me alive for so long. The Chinese are a vengeful and stinky bunch of unwiped assholes and they sure can... kill a guy. I think I might have a concussion. Anyway, Double D and I were going to have to get out of town for at least a weekend if we didn't want to die in this salon.
I started packing our stuff and loading it into the Buick. Then I had to convince the lady to run away with me. I told her I was taking her out for a night on the town (I didn’t say which town). She caught on around the time we crossed the Arizona border, and she was none too happy. I knew it wasn’t the time to ask for road head, so we stopped off at a diner for a bite to eat. I figured I owed her that much.
"Gene every goddamn day with you its something crazy!"
"That's not true. What about that Halloween party last year? We had fun, didn't we?"
"That was eight months ago! Plus you still owe me three grand from that night and another two grand from various other nights of crazy bullshit you put me through in between!"
I was going to say something suave, probably and sweep her off her feet, but just then group of Chinese teenagers walked in and looked at us a little queer. I couldn’t tell if they were squinting at us, or just Chinese. As they walked towards our booth, I reached into my coat and felt the reassuring feel of gun metal. There were three of them, I’d need to be quick. But then the one in the King Kong T-shirt pointed, but not at me, at Double D.
“Were you in Cock Your Rocks Off 14?” he asked. Denise smiled and nodded and started reminiscing about her porn days. I zoned out, like I always do when women talk for too long. I found myself staring at the King Kong shirt, and suddenly realized something crucial about the case. The Chinese mafia had been smuggling prostitutes into Vegas dressed as horses, two to a costume, one might assume. This, of course pissed off the local penis repository who hired yours truly to see what weaknesses could be dug up on these bastards.
It was already known that they were bringing in new whores every Wednesday, and it is also well-known that the horses are trucked over to that side of town for the races every Wednesday. I just need a smoking gun and some rash cream and I’ve got this case licked.
It was Monday so we had two nights to lay low, but first thing Wednesday morning we were on the road back to Vegas. We didn’t talk much on the way home. Nothing sours a relationship more than a couple of nights in Kingman Arizona.
I dropped Double D off at her salon and headed to the track. I got there early so that I could examine the racing forms. I’d stolen forty bucks from Denise’s purse, and I figured after I solved the case I might stick around and pick a winner. I was debating between Lucky Flower and Who Shot the Sheriff, when a truck and trailer pulled up driven by Lu Pang Heng, an enforcer for the local triad boss, Kong Rui Bao. I laughed to myself at Lu's haircut and made my way to the stables.
Sure enough, there were hookers in there and used horse costumes on the floor. Lu came around the corner, surprising us both, and I got the drop on him, knocking him unconscious with a karate chop from my rod. I took his cell phone so Chang could translate whatever gobbledygook was hidden inside, then I remembered Chang's untimely death at the hands of Lu himself. There was poetic justice in peeing on him.
With nowhere to turn to decipher this Chinese thing, I decided to put the forty bucks on Lucky Flower to win. But first, I chased the hookers out of there with a riding crop. By the time Lucky Flower was done crushing my dreams, the gaggle of hookers-run-a-muck had drawn the attention of the police. The cops found Lu and arrested him, and I caught one of the stray hookers and headed home.
Two blocks over I found my Buick. The front end was a good deal more smashed up than usual, but she's a tough old broad and she got me to Denise's salon. This is literally the third time in two weeks I've stumbled into this poor woman's place of business smelling like a barnyard animal. It's a good thing she's crazy about me.
“Gene, you sonofabitch! I told you the last time, I never wanted to see you again!” she yelled at me. I honestly had no idea why she was mad. I’d been high on oxycontin and bourbon the last time I saw her, and it was all a little fuzzy. I paused a moment to try and recall what we’d done together. Something about a family heirloom and a pedicurist named Milly... Damn my boyish charm.
She took some convincing, but eventually, Denise came around and agreed to help me out. I needed a place to stay while I worked things out. Chang had been giving me tips on the local Chinese Mafia before he’d been killed, and they’d already be looking for me at my office. I knew lying low would only keep me alive for so long. The Chinese are a vengeful and stinky bunch of unwiped assholes and they sure can... kill a guy. I think I might have a concussion. Anyway, Double D and I were going to have to get out of town for at least a weekend if we didn't want to die in this salon.
I started packing our stuff and loading it into the Buick. Then I had to convince the lady to run away with me. I told her I was taking her out for a night on the town (I didn’t say which town). She caught on around the time we crossed the Arizona border, and she was none too happy. I knew it wasn’t the time to ask for road head, so we stopped off at a diner for a bite to eat. I figured I owed her that much.
"Gene every goddamn day with you its something crazy!"
"That's not true. What about that Halloween party last year? We had fun, didn't we?"
"That was eight months ago! Plus you still owe me three grand from that night and another two grand from various other nights of crazy bullshit you put me through in between!"
I was going to say something suave, probably and sweep her off her feet, but just then group of Chinese teenagers walked in and looked at us a little queer. I couldn’t tell if they were squinting at us, or just Chinese. As they walked towards our booth, I reached into my coat and felt the reassuring feel of gun metal. There were three of them, I’d need to be quick. But then the one in the King Kong T-shirt pointed, but not at me, at Double D.
“Were you in Cock Your Rocks Off 14?” he asked. Denise smiled and nodded and started reminiscing about her porn days. I zoned out, like I always do when women talk for too long. I found myself staring at the King Kong shirt, and suddenly realized something crucial about the case. The Chinese mafia had been smuggling prostitutes into Vegas dressed as horses, two to a costume, one might assume. This, of course pissed off the local penis repository who hired yours truly to see what weaknesses could be dug up on these bastards.
It was already known that they were bringing in new whores every Wednesday, and it is also well-known that the horses are trucked over to that side of town for the races every Wednesday. I just need a smoking gun and some rash cream and I’ve got this case licked.
It was Monday so we had two nights to lay low, but first thing Wednesday morning we were on the road back to Vegas. We didn’t talk much on the way home. Nothing sours a relationship more than a couple of nights in Kingman Arizona.
I dropped Double D off at her salon and headed to the track. I got there early so that I could examine the racing forms. I’d stolen forty bucks from Denise’s purse, and I figured after I solved the case I might stick around and pick a winner. I was debating between Lucky Flower and Who Shot the Sheriff, when a truck and trailer pulled up driven by Lu Pang Heng, an enforcer for the local triad boss, Kong Rui Bao. I laughed to myself at Lu's haircut and made my way to the stables.
Sure enough, there were hookers in there and used horse costumes on the floor. Lu came around the corner, surprising us both, and I got the drop on him, knocking him unconscious with a karate chop from my rod. I took his cell phone so Chang could translate whatever gobbledygook was hidden inside, then I remembered Chang's untimely death at the hands of Lu himself. There was poetic justice in peeing on him.
With nowhere to turn to decipher this Chinese thing, I decided to put the forty bucks on Lucky Flower to win. But first, I chased the hookers out of there with a riding crop. By the time Lucky Flower was done crushing my dreams, the gaggle of hookers-run-a-muck had drawn the attention of the police. The cops found Lu and arrested him, and I caught one of the stray hookers and headed home.
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