by Jimmy Pudge
Claire’s face changed. She had been looking like a sarcastic bitch. Now she looked like a fucking demon. “Shut your mouth, you old man!” she said, snatching the envelope. Claire tore an end open and peered inside, dumping three cassette tapes on the floor. I read one of the cassette tapes. Milli Vanilli’s “Blame it on the Rain.”
I looked over at Groefield. “You just killed us. You know that, right?”
Claire examined the tapes as well, screaming as she kicked them to the side.
“Where is the snuff tape! What did you do with it?” She pulled back the hammer on her revolver. “Tell me right now or I’ll kill you.”
“Calm down,” Groefield said. “I’ll tell you what you want to know eventually. Just relax. If you kill me now, you’ll never find them.”
“I’m going to kill Handy if you don’t get them right now!”
I looked over at Groefield. He winked at me. What a fucking dick.
“No, you’ll do no such thing. You shoot him, and you’re destroyed. I have to check in with a friend every ten minutes. If he doesn’t hear my voice and Handy’s, everything we have on you goes to the police. Understood?”
She nodded, lowered the pistol. “Go get them for me,” she said.
“Sure,” Groefield said. “I just want to understand something first.”
“What’s that?”
“Why snuff films?”
“Because it’s easy money,” Claire said.
Groefield nodded. “How long have you been making them?”
“Too long,” Claire said.
“Hocus Pocus,” Groefield said.
“What?”
Groefield looked around the room. “Hocus Pocus.”
“What?” Claire said.
“Hocus Pocus,” he hissed. “Hocus Pocus.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Claire said.
Groefield glanced at me. I saw fear in his eyes.
“What does Hocus Pocus mean?”
She stared at Groefield. Then she understood something. “Are you wired?”
“Fuck no,” Groefield said.
“Unbutton your shirt.”
“I’m not comfortable with doing that,” Groefield said. “I’m not comfortable with my body.”
Claire shot him in the knee and he screamed in pain.
“Open you shirt.”
Groefield slowly unbuttoned the dress shirt. A long black wire, taped to his hairy chest stood out amongst the sea of pale, flabby flesh.
Claire groaned. “The police already have the tapes, don’t they?”
I didn’t respond. Groefield didn’t respond.
Claire raised the pistol, aimed it at my head. “I really thought we had something, Handy,” she said.
“You thought wrong, bitch,” I said.
“Oh shit. Hocus Pocus,” Groefield screamed.
The front door busted open, slapping the wall, a swarm of blues entering the living room.
“Drop the gun,” Fairfax said, front and center of the group.
Stegman stood beside him, looking like a goddamn lurch.
Claire shot me then, her finger pulling the trigger, the bullet sailing right through my hair, grazing my scalp.
The cops lit her up, missed several times and hit Groefield in the arm once.
Claire fell on the rug.
The cops slowly backed out of the room.
Fairfax and Stegman approached us, Stegman kneeling down and feeling the girl’s wrist for a pulse.
“My arm!” Groefield said. “Where were you guys? I said Hocus Pocus like twenty times and y’all weren’t anywhere to be found.”
“Sorry,” Fairfax said. “The HOT AND FRESH sign at the Krispy Crème across the street lit up. We crossed over, went in the building, and didn’t have good reception. I couldn’t hear you talking. I apologize. Me and Stegman, we figured we had plenty of time to get back over.”
“I can’t believe you came in without a gun,” I said. “She would have killed us in a heartbeat.”
Groefield smiled. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you know how things go down. You, you’re just a rookie kid. But you show potential. You really do. Ever think about being a PI?”
“He’s already a dick,” Stegman said, lowering the girl’s arm. He walked over to us, stepping on Claire’s back in the process.
“I don’t have a job anymore, that’s for sure,” I said. “I’m finished in the motel industry around these parts. They like to talk to each other, you know?”
“Seriously,” Groefield said. “Come work with me. I’m old, can’t get around well anymore. You, you’re young, kid. You’d make a good investigator.”
Fairfax smiled. “What the fuck, why not Handy? You can get certified by Georgia by working with Groefield, getting some hours under your belt. Maybe me, you and Stegman can start sharing details if we ever run into the same case. Seems to happen every now and then, don’t it Groefield?”
“Fuck those two bastards,” Groefield said to me. “Look Handy, you can’t trust cops.”
“It’s against the law to withhold any details on an investigation from law enforcement officials,” Fairfax said. “You trying to say you withheld information from us, Groefield?”
“Course not,” Groefield said. “I’d never dream of giving you important details so you can fuck up my case.”
Stegman looked over at me as Fairfax and Groefield starting yelling at each other. “I like you, Handy,” Stegman said. “But I still want to beat your fucking ass.”
We continued to talk for a while, even as the fire department and the EMTs arrived to survey the scene. We went into my kitchen, got a bottle of Thunderbird and took turns trying to swallow that nasty shit.
It was a good day. I was now a junior detective, and I had two inside sources in the police department. The EMTs were lifting Claire onto a stretcher, removing her body from my floor.
The cops had opened fire in my house. The couch was ruined, and there were about eleven bullet holes in my wall. Claire’s blood had soaked into my carpet. It was ruined.
But it was still a good day, even when I walked to the stretcher and slapped Claire across her dead face.
“That’s for hustling me, bitch,” I said.
Epilogue
When all was said and done, and my trailer was finally empty, I was struck with the fact that it was all over. I could go back to my life the way it was. I was happy about that for a moment. Just a moment. I realized I didn’t want to go back to exactly the way it was, I wanted something more. I thought about what Groefield said, and thought that hey, why not? I didn’t know what I should do at that moment, except that I needed to fix my crib up, it was fucked up. It took me a few days to replace the furniture, I got a nice love seat at Goodwill. I got some other stuff through Craigslist. That truck came in handy for getting the shit I needed. It was cool, I mean, I was able to make the repairs myself, after all I wouldn’t be called Handy if I weren’t. Much of the new stuff didn’t cost that much. I knew if it came down to it I was good for some dough with Ron, but he did enough for me. Had both his thumbs left and about two digits on each hand, not sure which though, truth be told kind of looks like a lobster claw man every time I look at him.
When Groefild offered me the chance to work with him I was like fuck yeah, but I thought he was just jerking me off to be honest. I went to him the next day and we talked for a little while and he laid the drama on me. I could work with him forever or until he croaked but I would never be a PI on my own if I didn’t follow the rules on how to get my own license. I thought fuck man, I just solved a murder and helped bring down a porn and snuff ring, I mean damn if that isn’t some major qualifications I don’t know what is, am I right? I thought so. But then again, my intuition isn’t what it should be. I would need to take like an 80-hour course of some kind that they got at the community college down in Macon. I mean I barely made it out of school in the first place. I mean I don’t think I’m dumb or anything. I am
lazy and have a bad attention span, but I think I can do that. The next qualification was kind of easy, I had to work for a licensed PI for two years, now that, well I made sure I saw his damn license and even checked with Fairfax if it was all legit. I mean who knows with Grofields drunk ass he could have photo shopped the sumbitch.
It seems Grofield was a cop for twenty years and was a good one from what I heard till his partner was killed and then he started drinking. It was some kind of serial case or something like that, Stegman was giving me some of the details, but they were sketchy at best. They had tracked down this suspect, not sure if he was their guy or not, and he wasn’t, but it seems he was dirty for something else, and had his place rigged, Groefiled’s partner was the first in and got blown to pieces. It was a major clusterfuck and G man blamed himself and hit the bottle. He had no kids, well not that I now of, or not that Stegman mentioned but after months of drinking his wife left. I hate all that fucked up shit that happens to people. I figured next time he was shit-faced I would cut him some slack since he had a hard time of it but I would kick his ass if it became a habit, I mean, hell, HANDY P.I. that was a future that I was looking forward too, and one that I think I would do well. And a lot was going to be riding on me working for him, though the cheap fuck wasn’t going to pay me all that much except like a per diem, so it looked like I was going to still be the low man on the scrotum pole at the Dollar Inn for at least the foreseeable future.
I took a few days off and worked on my book. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it fiction, or non-fiction. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but I did get permission from my cousin to use him in it regardless of which way I went. He wanted me to be sure I told the whole story about how heroic he was and all that shit, but whatever, I mean, there were no real heroes to be honest, just participants and victims. Hell, I felt like a victim too, and I let much of that shit happen to me because I was blinded by titties. I have to work on that but, hey I am human, and a flawed one at that, but I know my shortcomings unlike some people.
Speaking of short comings, that guy Jerome, seems that when I whacked him in the dick with Ron’s ring, I busted a couple of stitches, and infection set in. They had to amputate. That’s what I said. Amputate. His. Dick. I mean I don’t know if he pisses through a straw now or what but I know they needed to operate and remove some necrotic tissue, so who the fuck knows, he’s probably hung like a field mouse now or something.
Marcia, well she is still her fine big tittied self working day shift at the Dollar inn, and well made some green selling that key she had in her trunk. Ron took it off her hands at wholesale and made a profit. She picked up a few more hours since I cut back to eight hour shifts. So I got like eight hours to work there, about eight to sleep, eight to work with Groefield and take those classes, so I guess I would be running my ass ragged, but it would take my mind off of women for the time being. I always got into trouble with women though this last time was the worst shit that ever happened to me. Then again, if I was taking classes at the Community College, I would meet a hot young coed and damn, that would be hot, sex in the classroom. Man.
I was getting ahead of myself again. I had to work for the G man for two years and take those classes and then, pass a fucking test. I hate tests. It was some sort of State Exam that I couldn’t take until two years of working for a licensed PI and I figured I would take the classes as soon before the test as I could so it would be fresh. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but like I said, the possibilities of co-ed tang were worth thinking about.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to try to find a publisher for this piece, or self publish it again like I had in the past. I thought that this story had some potential to make a few sales, I mean not make me rich or anything but enough to get me a readership above the three or four people that I know read my other shit. I mean if it sold, I can write of my exploits down the road, if I had any good ones. I mean the potential was endless as long as I stuck with this shit. I have a hard time sticking with things sometimes, but I figure this is a new thing and I am pretty good at it, and hey, in some way I am helping people and I never thought that I would be in that position.
Speaking of positions. I thought I would take a break from writing about what happened to me and work on my magnum opus. Forbidden Pleasures on a Hot Night, Part 6. After all, I had about a dozen fans just waiting for it out there.
Want more Handy in your life?
Read on for a sneak peek at the next installment of the Handy Mann Chronicles.
THE CRYING SHAME
By Jimmy Pudge
&
Douglas Vance Castagna
Coming to Kindle and Paperback in June 2015
Chapter One
“What you doing, baby doll?” Handy Mann asked the new employee at the Dollar Inn as she swept the lobby with a push broom.
“What’s it look like?” the maid asked, sweeping the floor. “Chingala pinche puta!” she added, giving him a nasty stare. “Quit staring at my ass, fat boy.”
“I wasn’t staring at you,” Handy said, blushing as he kept his eyes locked on her ass.
“Yes you were. You’re still staring at my ass.”
Handy sighed, moving his eyes away from her grade A rump roast to his computer monitor. Sitting at the front desk on a Monday afternoon, the deadest time of day at a cheap place like this, he shouldn’t have had any problem finishing his new porn screenplay, but he just wasn’t having any inspiration.
He stared at the white space where the dialogue for his character “Fireman” should have been at, then sighed again.
“Shit, shit, fuck, fuck,” he whispered. He took a sip from his 2-liter bottle of Coke. Then he typed,
FIREMAN: (Looks at sexy ass homeowner real hard as fire engulfs the room in the background, unzips his pants, pulls his manhood out and whispers) Let’s fuck like we’re about to be burned alive, baby.
Handy reread what he had just written and couldn’t believe it. “I’m a damn genius.”
He was about to start typing the damsel in distress’ response when Hunter walked into the building and waved at him.
“Hey Handy,” Hunter said, holding a brown bag in his hand.
“Hey Hunter,” Handy said, saving his work, and then closing his laptop. Hunter was his replacement. He studied the clock; saw Hunter was five minutes early for his shift. This wasn’t good. Not at all. Any man that always came to work five minutes early was a threat to the lazy man. Handy was lazy. And Hunter, with his fucking sack lunches and beautiful white, capped teeth, was knocking at his door.
“Well, reckon it’s time to clock out,” Handy said, standing up. “You take over the Captain’s chair for awhile, Hunter.”
“Much obliged, Sir,” Hunter said, flashing his perfect smile.
“Fuck you,” Handy said under his breath, standing up and wiping crumbs off his shirt onto the desktop. He walked into the back room, waited until 6 p.m. on the dot, then clocked out.
Shit, now was when the real job began. His job at the Dollar Inn just paid him his salary and provided him with insurance. But what he was about to do, the PI work for Grofield as part of his field training experience to get his own PI certification, why this was where the true action was.
Handy rubbed his pudgy penguin hands together in excitement as he walked out of the office. The hot maid was leaning over the counter, flirting with Hunter. Handy let one go, a foul smelling one, one they could remember him by.
He walked across the street to the strip joint where he was going to put in his PI hours for the day and entered the rinky dink establishment.
“What’s going on, Handy?” the bouncer asked, taking his money at the entrance to the strip lounge.
“Not too much T-Bird,” Handy said, pulling out a pair of shades and putting them on.
“Man, why you wearing sunglasses, Handy? It’s dark as hell in this mother fucker.”
“I need to look inconspicuous tonight, T-Bird,” Handy said. “I’m working on
a case, so I’m going undercover.”
“Aw shit, Handy. Good luck, my man. And don’t be touching at the pussy this time, or I’m going to have to ban you for good, okay? I don’t feel like kicking my boy’s ass tonight and cutting him off from the only naked women he has, you feel me, baby?”
“Yeah, man, I appreciate that T-Bird,” Handy said, walking into the lounge. He took a seat at the table and a stripper in a tight top took a seat beside him. “What you want to drink tonight, Handy?” she asked.
“Nothing tonight, Lucy,” he said, his eyes roaming her chest from behind the dark lenses of his dollar store shades.
“You know you got to order at least one drink. House rules,” she said.
“Fine,” he said, “I’ll take a Jack and Coke.”
“Ten dollars,” she said.
“Fuck,” Handy said, pulling a roll of cash from his pocket. Looking at the money roll, one would think Handy Mann a rich man. But this was completely untrue. In fact, Handy did what any good hustler would do, take thirty one-dollar bills, stick a twenty behind them, then fold them up and clip them together.
Lucy snatched the twenty from his hand as he extended his largest bill to her.
“Want any change?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’ll strip down naked and dance on your table for twenty minutes if you let me keep the change.”
“Okay,” Handy said, deciding to be generous. “I guess that’s acceptable.”
Lucy took off her clothes and danced on the tabletop for about an hour before the mark came in. Handy recognized him instantly from the photograph Groefield had shown him. He was about five-foot-five, hair completely shaved from his head, glasses, and a small upturned nose that made him look piggish. Handy was glad to see him. He’d already spent his week’s paycheck on Lucy in an hour. She had his entire money roll, plus forty dollars had been added to his tab…plus he still hadn’t gotten that mandatory ten-dollar drink yet.