The Hypochondriac Syndicate

I’d spent the last half hour crawling around on my office floor with a gun in my hand. My back was sore, my knees were scraped and the fucking mouse who ruined my corn flakes still wasn’t shot. I could picture him in the walls casually munching on my cereal. Fucking rodent! I fired four shots into the wall. That’s when I heard screams from the thrift store next door. “Whoops,” I said to myself. I quietly knocked over some furniture and scattered some papers to make it look like there’d been a struggle, that should explain the shooting.

I went next door to see if anybody was shot. One of the bullets had grazed the arm of a thirty-something redhead with a great rack. Maybe not the typical way to meet a woman, but hey, who gives a shit? I went to apologize for shooting her and see if I could get her number.

Her name was Tricia. I liked her immediately and I was pretty positive that if I could get her to shut the fuck up about her bullet wound for a minute I could close the deal. I offered to drive her to the hospital in my new Lincoln Town car. She accepted. I was in.

It was a bit of an awkward ride for a few minutes before I broke the ice. "Are you from out of town?"

"I just got a job here last week..."

"Stripper?" I asked.

"Yeah. I can't believe this happened. This sort of thing always happens to me." She whined.

"Yeah. Same here. I was just sitting in my office reading a book about Machiavelli when some lowlife animals bust in and start shooting. I chased them out pretty quickly though. Happens all the time. Nice shorts by the way. What are those, cotton?"

“Polyester.”

I reached over and rubbed the fabric of her shorts between my thumb and forefinger. She didn’t protest, so I rubbed her thigh a little bit. Still no protest. “You know,” I said, “that scratch doesn't really need a hospital, just a band-aid.” She looked at her arm, which had stopped bleeding, and then smiled at me.

Two minutes later, I was getting a blowjob in an alley behind the Riviera. She did some nice things with her tongue, but she kept making this really distracting slurping noise. I pressed down on the back of her head, and the slurping noise turned into a much more pleasant gagging noise.

Afterwards, I was cleaning myself up with an old necktie and Red said, “You know, it’s funny, me meeting a P.I. I wasn’t kidding when I said this sort of thing always happens to me...”

‘Here we go,’ I thought, ‘A stripper never just sucks your dick in an alley for the fun of it, they always want something.’ I figured the least I could do was hear her out before I kicked her to the curb, literally.

She talked for at least five solid minutes explaining that she thought an ex boyfriend followed her to Vegas and had been discretely terrorising her by ruining her jobs and spreading rumors around her neighbors. She seemed a little paranoid, but that’s how a P.I. makes his money. Also she said she didn’t have money, just blowjobs and such. What’s a man in my position to do?

I went around her neighbors first to ask if anyone had been asking about her or talking about her. I talked to three people who all confirmed a man fitting her ex’s description had been telling them she was a convicted felon and to lock their doors and windows. Then I went to the club where she had recently been fired. I was there getting lap dances for four hours before I saw him at the buffet. I struck up a conversation with him about the nasty, old chicken wings. He brought up Tricia.

His name was Bill. Bill told me a long tale about how she ruined his life because he wouldn’t continue to support her crystal meth habit. She was a heavy drinker who would get abusive, then call the cops to say he’d beaten her. I really felt for the guy. But who was telling the truth? I went home to do some private investigating on them both.

After less than an hour of research, I came to the conclusion that Tricia was a horrible human being and deserved to be treated like the trash she is. I figured I’d better get in a few more blow jobs while I still could and called her up.

Tricia showed up at my office with two other strippers, Betty and Veronica. I never actually bothered to learn their names, but one was blonde and the other was a blackhead, I mean she had black hair. Turns out they were having problems with their boyfriends too, and Tricia had recommended my services. Before I even asked any questions, I pulled down the murphy bed and we had a menage a… four, I guess.

Then it was down to business. Betty and Veronica had made a sex tape with their boyfriends, Archie and Jughead, and now the boys were blackmailing them, threatening to put it on the internet. “But you’re strippers,” I said, “Who cares?” That’s when I found out that Betty and Veronica weren’t actually strippers, but real people with jobs and futures. I also found out that there was a shocking connection between Tricia’s ex and the other two guys: Each one was a doctor and had lost his license for malpractice. The girls didn't offer this bit of info. I discovered it during my routine private investigating right in front of them. I kept it to myself. Something was off. I didn't know what these chicks were up to, but I instantly regretted inviting them to my office.

I told them I had an early appointment in the morning and kicked them out. I really needed to clear my head. After watching them leave together in a taxi, I drove down to the strip for some bourbon and blackjack. I was doing great at the tables. Up about $1200. Then I lost half of it on a single spin of roulette. Fucking red!

My next step was still unclear. The smartest move would be to interview all the men individually and hear their side of the story. Or try to find internet records on how they lost their licenses. That all seemed tedious and lame to me, so I decided to focus on the chicks instead and probably bang them some more.

Since there was three of them and only one of me and I never even tried to learn those other girls' names, I was going to need some help tailing them. It also occurred to me at that time that I could have charged the other girls money if I hadn't assumed they were strippers. Damn it.

I called Tommy the Tooth for help. “I need your help Tommy, I need to find two women, one with blonde hair one with black hair. Their boyfriends are both doctors who lost their licenses to malpractice, and they both know a redheaded stripper named Tricia.”

“Tricia Reynolds? who just got fired from Crazy Tits?”

“Jesus, Tommy, how did you know?”

“I know a guy who heard a rumor. Seems that she’s been running a medical malpractice scam with two local girls and a team of hypochondriacs.”

“What’s the scam?”

“Not sure yet. But at least six doctors have lost their licenses and one hypochondriac is dead.”

Tommy gave me addresses for the two other women. He probably gave me their names also, but I must have forgotten to write them down. I decided to pay a visit to Betty, because she had the tightest pussy and made the cutest little squeals during the banging, but I’d still need help keeping tabs on the other two.

I went to bed early because I knew I would have to be at Betty's place before she left for work. I was up at 7 am. I drove out of the way to hit a drive-thru. By the time I rounded the corner near her house she was pulling out of her driveway. I was pretty pissed off because I was hoping to catch her right out of the shower. I followed her to a small office building about forty minutes away from the strip. There were nine cars parked around it. I didn't recognize any of them. Then another car pulled up. It was Tricia.

I waited around for two hours before they all dispersed. Veronica was there and a bunch of other chicks; all fat and ugly. The three girls I knew were the only good looking ones. Ugh. I decided I was going to have to follow one of the gross ones to finally figure out what the fuck was going on.

I picked the one who looked the most slutty and followed her to a McDonald's. From there she went to the emergency room. There was already one of the other women from the office there, and two more pulled in over the next hour. It was time for some action.

I drove around back and found a door into the laundry room. I put on some semi-dirty scrubs with the cap and face mask. I peeked through every door and window until I saw one of them. She was alone in a room wearing a gown.

I went in to examine her before diagnosing her as terminally ugly. She started telling me about her lady symptoms as I closed the blinds. I was momentarily mesmerized by the way her second and third chins seemed to swell like a bullfrog as she spoke. I snapped out of it and put my colt in her mouth.

“Shut your yap and start talking!” I hissed. She started trembling and pissed herself. Then she convulsed a lot and passed out. I figured, because she was fat, that she must be having a heart attack, so I retrieved the defibrillator from the corner of the room. I messed with the dials and knobs at random until the machine face  showed a pleasing display of lights. I pressed one of the paddles into each of her floppy titties, then I said, “Clear!” and zapped her

After two or three zaps, she was dead, smoke billowed from her charred tits where I’d zapped her. This case was going to be harder than I thought. I quietly left the room and went to find one of the other uglys.

Attempt number two. The second woman was already being examined by another doctor, so I leaned casually on the wall outside her room and listened. The doctor was speaking, “I’ve told you before, Cynthia, you don’t have Aids or Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and I’m not giving you any more medication.”

“Yes doctor,” she replied, “but I’m not here for that. You’ve been so nice to me, that I wanted to introduce me to my friend Tricia. I have a picture.”

The doctor took the picture. “Yes,” he said, “She’s very pretty.”

“Her number is on the back.”

Just then, I saw the last two women walking towards the pharmacy, each with a prescription. I followed them and perused the ice cream freezer in the pharmacy while they had the scripts filled. One was for a three month supply of oxycontin. The other was for a three month supply of vicodin. Both from the prescription pad of Dr Charles Ackert.

I bought a fudgesicle and and wandered around until I found Dr Charles Ackert's office. It was obvious that he had just moved into this office. No furniture or lame art or magazines in the waiting room. And a quick glance through the receptionist window showed the back office in disarray. I waited for a few minutes and saw him leaving. On his way out, the receptionist wished him luck on his date.

I followed him to a restaurant and sat at the bar. I had a great view of his table through the mirror. I had the bartender set me up four shots of bourbon so as not to look suspicious. I had pounded the shots and was sipping a coke when Betty walked in.

'Shit!' I thought to myself. 'She's had my dick in her mouth, she might recognize me.' Then I laughed pretty hard for a few seconds. Then I made eye contact with Betty through the mirror. She got nervous when she saw me, she wasn’t sure what to do. I raised my glass and nodded at her reflection, signaling her that she should go about her date.

She sat down at the good doctor’s table and smiled prettily at him. I watched. They ordered drinks, and so did I. After about a half hour, I stood up and got her attention. I nodded my head toward the restrooms and headed that way.

A moment later, Betty followed me into the men’s room and I locked the door. “What are you doing here?” she asked innocently.

“Shut your cock-hole!” I replied. “I’ve figured it all out. You and the other two cocksuckers are using your feminine wiles to get these poor saps to prescribe hard drugs to known hypochondriacs. The hypos take their fill and you sell the surplus on the street. If anyone gets wise, you just say that the doctors were fooled by the hypochondriacs and you were just their innocent girlfriends. A few doctors lose their licenses, and a few hypos die, but hey you got your profit, right?”

She stared at me for a moment, dumbfounded by my awesome detective skills. Then she stared at me a moment longer, and I began to wonder if I’d gotten it wrong somewhere. She stared at me a third moment and I was sure I must be completely wrong. I was thinking about saving face by saying that I was only joking.

Finally, she spoke, “What are you going to do? Are you going to tell the police?”

Confronting her in the bathroom was as far as I’d planned. I needed to think for a second. While I was thinking, Betty gave me a pouty look that melted my heart, sending all the blood therein to my penis.

“Fuck!” I said. “I want ten percent! And regular pussy from all three of you. And anal.”

Betty agreed, and we negotiated a sex schedule (which began there in the men’s room). Then Betty went back to her date and I went back to my office, hoping to kill that damn mouse before he ate anymore of my favorite cereal.

The Evils of Evangelicalism

I was in old town playing black jack. Gettin' played is more like it. I was down about $400 before my luck started to turn. I remember that part pretty clearly. The rest is a little hazy, but here’s what I do remember: A young couple came to play at the table with me. Young people don’t usually hang around old town. They like the glitz and boners of the strip. That was the only thing that seemed odd. Other than that they were pretty standard as far as Vegas goes; drunk, loud, good-looking, but not too good-looking. They could have put the pharmaceuticals in my bourbon. Or maybe it was the drink girl or whoever’s in the back pourin' watered-down bourbons. I guess none of that matters when you find yourself chained to a wall in a basement.

I tried to dislocate my thumbs to slip out of the shackles, but it hurt really bad so I gave up on the idea. At least I still had my pants on, I know it sounds weird, but if I get raped in a basement, I want to remember it. I decided to check my surroundings for clues. There was light coming in from a window high up on one wall. There was an old couch in the corner, flower print, worn out in places. A washer and dryer that looked maybe ten to twelve years old. A set of wooden stairs going up to a closed door. Some cardboard boxes with things like, “X-mas decorations,” written in magic marker. And there was a ragged P.I. with a migraine and a sore thumb chained to the wall. It looked like the basement of a typical suburban home.

I looked up above me and saw the bolt holding my chains to the wall looked a bit flimsy. I put all my weight onto the chains and wriggled about until I pulled it out the wall and fell to the floor. My watch told me it was about ten after six a.m., hopefully my captors were heavy sleepers. I stacked a couple boxes and busted the window to make my escape.

The fresh air was nice and cool. I crept to the street and looked back. I didn't recognise the house, address or street. 2115 Maple. I hid my chains as best I could and walked a few blocks over to a Denny's.

I ordered the grand slamwich and tried to pick the lock on my chains with the butter knife while I waited. By the time my food arrived, I’d managed to bend the tip of the knife pretty good, but still no progress on the lock. The waitress gave me a dirty look, and I decided not to tip her. In fact, I decided not to pay for my meal at all, fuck Denny’s!

After Breakfast, I found a payphone and made a few calls. The first call was to my bookie to place a bet on the UNLV Basketball game, I had a good feeling about this one. The second was to Sergeant Griffen to look up the address of the house I woke up in, I didn't give him any of the details about my captivity. The third call was to a guy I know with a circular saw and a surgeon's touch, these chains were really starting to chafe.

After a tense twenty minutes of having a convicted felon sawing at my extremities, I took a taxi to my office to get cleaned up. I had the guy drop me two blocks up and sneaked my way to the corner. There were two guys watching my place. Big, ugly guys. Well, one of them kinda looked like me. He was okay. I figured I’d murder him, then follow the other stooge back to headquarters.

I pulled my 1911 Colt and adjusted my sack. I was just about to spring into action when Sergeant Griffen pulled up between us. He didn’t see me and he didn’t notice them. Oblivious fuck. But it worked out perfectly. They took off on foot as soon as they saw him stop. I walked right past the oblivious sergeant and tailed them two blocks to their car. I got the plate number and watched them head west.

Back at my office, Griffen was waiting with some coffee, a box of donuts and some disturbing news about my captors. The house belonged to a local man named John Smithson, he was the head of the Las Vegas Evangelical Association. There was a big evangelical convention in town, and I may or may not have had sex with the daughter of a prominent Bible belt minister, and she may or may not have been roofied (don’t get the wrong idea, I thought she was just drunk, it was totally innocent).

While I had Griffen at my office, I asked him to use the computer in his car to run the plates of the guys outside my office. They belonged to a guy named Frank Wells who lived on the East side. Frank had a long list of priors, mostly violent. I figured it was time to go and make his acquaintance. I grabbed a cup of coffee and half a dozen donuts, bid Griffen good day and struggled my way into another taxi.

The Wells home was both quaint and ugly. There was a woman’s car parked in the driveway. Someone was home. I checked for dogs (none) then hopped the fence into the backyard. I crept around slowly until I heard a voice. A woman was inside and on the phone. She seemed annoyed. I found the back door and let myself in.

The woman was blonde and homely. I figured Frank would have to be home at some point, so I hid in the closet to try and get the drop on him. After about forty-five minutes there, I really had to take a dump, fucking coffee, I mean I had to take a dump before I stepped into the closet, but now it was pretty much an emergency. I couldn't hear anything so I cracked the closet door and took a peek. The bathroom was close and open.

As slowly as humanly fucking possible, I crossed the hallway towards the bathroom, gun drawn. I got within arms-reach when I heard the gasp. I stepped into the bedroom,

letting my colt give her the evil eye. She screamed and tried to run for the door so I subdued and gagged her and tied her to a chair. Then I dragged her chair into the shitter and could not hold back any longer.

The woman looked horrified, and I can’t say I blame her, the smells that were coming out of my body were truly horrendous. Maybe it was something I ate last night, I couldn't remember. when I was done, I flushed and left room. I closed the door with her inside. Then I went and sat on the couch and turned on the tv to check the basketball scores. Fucking UNLV!

I watched some more tv, then I went into the kitchen to make myself some lunch. The turkey sandwich made me a bit drowsy, so I lay down on the couch and took a nap. It was dark when I woke up, still no sign of Frank.

I went back to the bathroom, and after taking a piss, I ungagged the woman. “Where’s Frank?” I asked.

“Who?”

“Frank Wells, the guy who lives here!”

“Wells?” She seemed confused. “Frank Wells lives two doors down and across the street.”

I apologized for the mix up, put her gag back in and took my leave.

I crossed the street & hopped some fences to get to the back of the house two down. There was a lone man watching tv in the front room. I crept in through the back. It was him alright. The man outside my office. I quietly checked the rest of the house first to avoid any further bullshit from the fairer sex, then made my trademark move. I sneaked up behind the man and shot him in the knee.

"Who stationed you outside my office?" I demanded, narrowly avoiding saying orifice.

"Shit!" He cried in horrible pain. I saw him reach for something under the pillows and plugged him again.

"I'm not leaving til I get some answers and I have plenty of bullets." That reminded me, I was almost out of bullets.

"Alright! I'll talk. I'll talk. Just please... I have kids."

"Shut up about your kids already. Who sent you to watch my office?"

Frank proceeded to tell a lengthy tale about how the evangelicals were using their pull with local government to secure early release for prisoners that converted to Christianity. But once these convicts were released, they became indentured servants to the church, forced to be the muscle in a complicated scheme to outlaw gambling in Las Vegas, and also get rid of the Jews.

This of course, had nothing to do with me, they were angry with me because I “raped” a minister’s daughter. But now that I was involved, I had to find a way to stop these bastards; Vegas without gambling would be like A-Rod without herpes… inconceivable.

I had to start somewhere, and it all led back to Smithson. I knew then and there that I was going to have to Google that asshole. Maybe even destroy the man. But before all that, I was going to have to deal with the Frank Wells dilemma. I couldn't risk him warning the Evangelicals about me, but Griffen had run the plates for me and that would put me on the top of the suspects list. I didn't really want to drive out to the desert and dig a hole and so on. So I tied him up and gagged him and went over to my favorite all you can eat buffet in old town. He'd be fine for a few days.

After dinner I got myself a hotel room. Mostly because I always get diarrhea from that place and I didn't think I was going to make it back to the office before I shit my pants. I had the front desk send up a laptop and a bottle of Wild Turkey so I could get some work out of the way before I got too drunk.

I pooped, took a couple shots, then started my research. I read damn near every article I could find on Smithson and one thing stood out as an obvious weakness: his hatred for the queers. Not just him, but all the nutjobs who listen to him and sent him money. I figured I'd blackmail him with pictures of him romantically entangled with another man. First I'd have hire a queer. I wasn't going to seduce any man with my physique.

I'll be the first to admit that the gay hooker ads are scary and confusing and a little gross. But after a few more drinks…. I mean, hey, I’ve gone back door on a few ladies, really, what’s the difference? But I wanted the make sure I got the best gay, and I could hardly tell one from another.  so I called my old buddy, Sal Silvio, the Vegas clothes king.

Sal came in a hurry, and I explained the situation to him. “I must admit, Gene,” he said, “when you asked me to meet you at a hotel in the middle of the night, I hoped you had other ideas, but I do love to fuck with the Jesus freaks, so I’m in.”

“Great, ‘cause i’m in over my head with these fa… homos.”

Sal stared at me for a couple of seconds and then looked at the gay hooker on the laptop screen. “We need a gay jock, someone who can get Smithson talking about sports, keep his guard down, make him think he’s just one of the guys, and before you know it they’re going down on each other in the men’s room.”

“That really works?” I asked thinking about all the narrow escapes I must have had in sports bars over the years.

“It happens all the time.”

We spent about an hour pouring through the ads until Sal finally found our guy. It cost me $200 to get him to come over to the hotel. He said his name was Jeff. I had to make sure he was fully on board before we laid out our plan for him.

"Let me ask you something, Jeff. Suppose you're walking down the street and you come across two bars. One of them is a sports bar with a bunch of men drinking and watching basketball. The other is a gay bar with a bunch of men drinking and watching ballet or something. Which do you go to and why?"

"It depends on which one has the man who's paying me," He said as he was obviously becoming more and more uncomfortable.

"He wants you to seduce a preacher," Sal announced. I shot him a look of angered disappointment. "What!? He wants to get to the good part."

"I'm in," said Jeff, rather nonchalantly.

"Oh, well good."

We spent the next few hours hatching a plan to get Jeff alone with Smithson and Smithson drunk and horny. According to the gays, it was going to be easier than I could ever hope.

I disguised myself with a fake mustache and a pair of glasses, and we all headed down to the convention center, and started scoping out the nearby bars. We found Smithson in the fourth bar we tried, a little dive called Charlie’s. Jeff went to work his magic, and I went to the john to plant a few hidden cameras. I had a few cameras left over so I planted them in the women’s room, to prove to myself that I wasn’t gay.

I then planted myself at a dark table in the corner to watch the action. Smithson was with a group of churchy assholes, and Jeff had already wormed his way into the group. They were all talking and laughing. It was impressive to watch really, Jeff was an artist. He casually moved about the group, all the while getting closer to Smithson until he was right next to him. He then placed himself between Smithson and the group and slowly moved the two of them to a more secluded area. Smithson was alone with a gay before he ever knew what hit him. Start to finish, it only took Jeff about twenty-five minutes before he and Smithson were heading to the bathroom together.

I got excited as the bathroom door closed behind them, then I realized what I was getting excited about and got uncomfortable.

After a good ten minutes, Jeff stepped out of the bathroom looking pretty shaken. He hurried to and out the front door without ever looking my way. Mission accomplished I assumed. I waited another few minutes for Smithson to make his exit so I could retrieve my cameras, but he never came out.

I motioned to Sal to stay put then I crept into the shitter without drawing any attention. I didn't see anyone in there. I walked down the line of stalls and saw one closed. Underneath the door I could see Smithson lying on the floor. Then I noticed the blood. I grabbed my cameras and wiped my prints as fast as I could and walked out the same way Jeff did.

I walked about four blocks and found Jeff crying in the street. I picked him up and made him walk with me. "What the fuck happened in there?" I demanded.

"I thought I had him. He wanted it, I know it. We were at the urinal together and I touched him. He pulled out a gun and said he hates faggots. He was going to kill me. I had to ... I had to do it."

I was speechless so we just kept walking. I wondered how long it'd be before Sal or anyone else figured out Smithson was dead in the john. I hailed the first taxi I saw and got us back to my office. The poor fag was so traumatized he just curled up on my couch and cried himself to sleep. What a little girl, I thought to myself.

All this gay stuff had made me horny… I mean… for women. I went back to my motel room and called a lady hooker. I banged her twice then threw her out and went to sleep. In the morning, I got a call from Griffen, Smithson had been found shortly after I’d left the bar. Griffen remembered that I’d been asking questions about Smithson’s house earlier, so naturally he wanted to make sure I had nothing to do with his death. Some people are so untrusting. I gave Griffen Jeff’s name and number and told him to leave me out of it, I really was innocent this time. Well, innocetish.