Dead Friends Don't Lie (Jake Hancock Private Investigator Mystery series Book 6)

by Dan Taylor

  Under normal circumstances, Andre would be cast by Julie in the caring grandpa role, comforting a woman way too young for there to be any sexual chemistry. But by the time Andre arrives, Julie should have drunk most if not all of the wine. And if it’s dissolved, which it looks like it almost has, Julie will be, to herself, inexplicably horny and attracted to the white-haired, caring man caressing her hand, as the wine is laced with a pharmaceutical-grade aphrodisiac. Tetrahydrate Phoraxtriphosphate, the same stuff Chinese scientists give to pandas to make them realize they should skip the first date, banter, and foreplay if they want to ensure the continued existence of their species.

  The dose I’ve put in the bottle of wine is enough to cause a mass lesbian orgy at a convent, and should be more than enough to make Julie see Andre as a more than worthy object of her unusually strong sexual desire. In short, Julie’s panties will be so wet at Andre’s wrinkled-hand touch, she’ll be in Andre’s limousine, kissing his old face off, before the barman has time to collect her wine glass. By the time the drug’s effect has worn off, Julie will be lying in Andre’s king-size bed, thinking she’s had the most passionate sex of her life, and also thinking that the marriage proposal Andre promised me he’ll make isn’t such a bad idea, with him being ridiculously rich and all. With any luck, when she says yes, she’ll be thinking of the life Andre can provide for her and John and Joe, the extravagant wedding Andre’s disposable income can afford, and the five vacations a year she’ll be able to go on.

  The only thing that could go wrong is if Andre doesn’t manage to perform, both in his role as the consoler and surprisingly firm and athletic lover for an older guy.

  After Andre’s confirmed her marriage proposal acceptance, I’ll make my call to Cole, stage my kidnapping of his children, and get Megan back.

  I glance down at the bottle, seeing that the aphrodisiac has dissolved. I then go to call the barman over, so I can explain my dilemma regarding the forgotten flowers, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  30.

  I TURN AROUND, and totally play it cool when I see who it is.

  “Julie, what the hell are you doing here so early?”

  For some reason, I glance down at my watch. Twenty-two minutes early.

  What type of woman arrives so early for a date? The type that leans in, seemingly to lightly kiss you on your cheek, but goes for the earlobe instead.

  She lets go, takes in my appearance while raising her eyebrow, and then asks the obvious response to my question: “What do you mean? You’re here already.”

  “I am…” I think fast, and think of the first restaurant cliché my panicked mind comes to. “But I was just checking that the restaurant didn’t give us a wonky table. You know, the ones with the short leg that would bug the hell out of me the whole date.”

  She frowns. “By the bar?”

  Shit. She’s right.

  “I meant I checked it, and that thing’s sturdy.” I remember I’m holding a wine bottle in my hand. “And now I’m choosing the wine. You can never be too careful when it comes to choosing wine. Some restaurants give shit bottles an inflated price, tricking unsuspecting customers into thinking they’re buying the good stuff.”

  She looks at me funnily, suspicious, then says, “That’s mean.”

  Gavin or Travis must’ve overheard me, because he arrives a second later, and asks me, “Would madam like to taste the wine now?”

  “No,” I say, like a bullet out of a greased pistol.

  But before Travis leaves, Julie stops him. “Like hell madam wouldn’t.” She takes a seat on the stool next to me and slides one of the glasses closer to him. And she should probably look at me instead of the barman when she says her reason for overruling my decision. “John and Joe have been busting my balls all morning.” And then, still looking at the barman, “Twins are great and all, but they can be real assholes sometimes.”

  The barman looks up from pouring her wine, and humoring her, says, “You have twins?”

  “Yeah, they’re in daycare,” Julie replies, nonchalant.

  As though in response, Travis stops pouring, so that the amount he’s poured her is little over two fingers.

  Julie raises her eyebrow, glances at the glass and then the barman. Says, “I didn’t say when, cowboy. Pour me a glass like you’re not the one paying for it.”

  Julie winks at me.

  He does, bless him, and then goes back to emptying the dishwasher.

  Julie swigs it like it’s PowerAde as she peeks over the rim of the glass at my T-shirt. She looks at the glass after draining half of it, frowning, and then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Says, “Is this supposed to be the good stuff?”

  “The second least expensive.”

  She shrugs again. “Why are you wearing a T-shirt with a cartoon character on it for our date?”

  It’s not just any cartoon character. It’s SpongeBob SquarePants. But she’s right to question my wearing it.

  I try my luck. “I was planning on going back and getting changed, after I’d made sure everything was perfect on this end.”

  “Aww, that’s really sweet of you, Jake!”

  I get up. “So now that I know it is, I’ll see in you what? Twenty-five minutes?”

  “The hell you will.” She gets up, grabs the bottle and wine glass in one hand—quite the feat—and then starts pulling me by the wrist in the general direction of a table she’s not sure is ours. “I’m not letting you get away that easily. Anyway, I think it’s cute you’re pretending to have an interest in cartoons.” She stops at the first one she comes to. “This the sturdy one?”

  “As a matter of fact, it is.”

  She sits me down and then takes the seat opposite, placing the bottle and wine glass on the table.

  John and Joe must’ve really kicked her ass this morning, as she goes to pour me a glass of wine without my glass being there. She stops just before the wine starts to flow, then says, “You forgot your glass, silly.”

  “I’m good.”

  “You’re good?”

  “Yeah.”

  She glances over at the bar. “Then why did you get two glasses if you weren’t going to join me?”

  “Really good question.”

  She frowns. “It is. Does it have a really good answer?”

  “All really good questions do.”

  “So?”

  “I was thinking club soda for me.” I wrack my brain, again coming to a restaurant cliché. “I got two glasses just in case one of them had a fly in it.”

  “Like a salad?”

  “Exactly like a salad.”

  She leans back on her chair, drapes an elbow over the corner of the backrest, and looks at me funnily. “Are you okay, Jake? You seem distracted.”

  I am distracted. I’m thinking of a way to get out of here while ensuring that she sticks around until Andre gets here and before the aphrodisiac kicks in. With my looks—even though I’m wearing a T-shirt with a goofy-looking sea sponge printed on it—and as horny as she’s likely to get, getting out of here when she’s peaking would be like escaping from Alcatraz using only a wooden spoon.

  “So what is it?” she asks.

  “I forgot something at my apartment.”

  “If it’s flowers I don’t mind.”

  “It’s not flowers.”

  “Oh.” She thinks again. “A box of chocolates?”

  “Do you really like those?” Enough to let me slip out for twenty-five minutes?

  “I do but my blood-sugar doesn’t.”

  “Then no, it’s not.”

  “Then what is it?”

  I lean in, whisper, “I was kinda hoping it would be a secret.”

  “Ooo, now I’m intrigued.” Julie must’ve been the kind of kid to drug her parents with Grandma’s tranquilizers so she could sneak into their bedroom to shake the Christmas presents they had hidden under their bed, as she starts thinking again, trying to ruin the surprise. She snaps her fingers when she comes to her next
guess. “I got it! And fuck me sideways, Jake, you’re really keen, aren’t you?”

  “Am I?”

  Her hand creeps next to mine and starts making circles on the back of my hand as she bites her bottom lip. I like neither signal. Then she says, “Is it the kind of gift you might present to a lady after dessert?”

  My semi-erect but still impressive penis?

  Ohhh… now I get it.

  Still whispering, I say, “You’re on the money. Lots of it… The gift cost lots of it. And it isn’t a pearl necklace, but something that definitely wouldn’t fit around your neck.” Smooth.

  She stops making circles and takes my hand in hers, says, “Jesus, Jake. I was kind of expecting it to happen, but it’s still surprising now that I know it’s going to.”

  “You were?”

  “Great minds… right?”

  Great minds… think of the same crazy thing?

  “Right,” I say. And for some reason I chuckle. She does too.

  Anyway, it’s time to leave, to get the non-existent engagement ring from my apartment.

  I get up to leave, telling her I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, but before I can leave the table, a strange look develops on her face. Her face has gone redder than a baboon’s ass, like she might have stopped breathing, though the opposite of that is true: She’s breathing like she’s just sprinted a marathon. I glance at her chest, see that it is equally as red. Her eyelids drop to half mast, and she looks at me like she possibly wants to kill me.

  Then she says, “Did I tell you how sexy you look in that shitty T-shirt?”

  “Okay, Julie, save that for when I get back.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “How about we just skip lunch?”

  “And miss out on…” I glance at the menu standing up in the middle of the table, which is open at the starters page. “The duck liver pâté and toast?”

  “Fuck the duck. Let’s go to the bathroom, now. The disabled person’s one, for the extra space.”

  Shit. She’s peaking.

  There’s only one thing to do, and it’s not going to be pretty.

  Three minutes and twenty-three seconds later I come out of the disabled person’s bathroom, the collar of my SpongeBob SquarePants T-shirt ripped, my fly zipper irreparably damaged, and Julie waiting on the toilet seat, heeding my advice that she should wait a couple minutes before she comes out.

  I make a quick getaway, before Julie is ready for round two and comes running after me.

  And before Travis or one of the customers spots that my jacket is missing one of its sleeves.

  31.

  AS I’M DRIVING back to my apartment, I phone Andre, his landline. I don’t have his cell number.

  After about twelve rings, his butler answers. “Andre’s residence, Timothy speaking.”

  “Tim, I need you to get Andre, and fast.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s not here.”

  I sigh. “Then why didn’t you just say that instead of saying you’re afraid you can’t do that?”

  “When you receive a distinction from butler finishing school, let me know, and then we can talk shop.”

  “Can you get a message to him?”

  “By what means?”

  “By any means necessary.”

  “That was my way of saying getting a message to him is almost impossible when he’s out. He doesn’t carry a cell phone. He says screens will ruin this generation’s eyesight. I suppose I could send a carrier pigeon after him.”

  I think a second. “Who’s driving him?”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “It’s Jimothy, Andre’s second butler.”

  “And does Jimothy have a cell phone?”

  “He does.”

  “And do I have to explicitly ask if you can give me the number?”

  “You do.”

  I sigh again. Speaking to this guy is like getting The Donald to admit he’s racist.

  “Are you really going to make me ask a second time?” I say.

  “I wasn’t aware you asked a first time.”

  I jump through his hoop, letting him know he’s a moron in my tone.

  “I’m not at liberty to give you that information,” he says.

  “Do you know where Andre’s going?”

  “He said he’s going out to buy a new wax jacket.”

  “Wrong. Andre’s going out to get the first bit of pussy he’s had in years, and by you delaying giving me Jimothy’s number, you could fuck that up for him. If you like buttering Andre’s toast and starching his shirt collars for a living, I suggest you drop the act.”

  He gives me the number and then wishes me a good day.

  I dial Jimothy.

  “Andre’s car, Jimothy speaking,” he says upon answering.

  It’s the same guy. I swear to God.

  “This is Jake Hancock. Can you put Andre on? It’s an emergency.”

  “I abide by Californian state highway laws, Mr. Hancock.”

  “What’s that—”

  “That’s Jimothy’s way of saying he’s using the hands-free kit and that you’re on speaker, Jake,” Andre says, interrupting. “What’s the emergency?”

  “We’ve got a situation.”

  “I gathered that from the word emergency.”

  “And that’s my way of saying maybe it would be more prudent to have this conversation when you have Jimothy’s phone next to your ear.”

  A couple seconds later, Andre says, “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Hancock?”

  “The goose is nearly cooked. You need to get there earlier than planned.”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Mr. Hancock?”

  I need to play this cool. Andre doesn’t know I drugged her. He probably wouldn’t be morally against going through with it if he knew that fact, as he had no problem with putting a souped-up pacemaker in my chest to keep me quiet, but I think it’s best if he doesn’t know she’s going to be pharmaceutically manipulated into going to bed with him.

  “Your blind date of sorts, she got there earlier than expected,” I say.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was there, making sure everything was in place. That the table wasn’t wonky, that the wine she’d be drinking while ‘waiting’ for me was a good one.”

  “Okay. Why is that a bad thing?”

  “Well, she saw me, for one. I made up some lame excuse about having to change before our date started proper.”

  There’s silence a second. “I still don’t see what the problem is.”

  I’m thinking Julie’s low-hanging fruit at the moment. Any guy could walk in there, pick a line from his Fifty Pickup Lines, Guaranteed! from his Kindle to say to her, and be invited to play Subbuteo with her nipples before they’ve even exchanged pleasantries. Andre needs to get there to be her shoulder to cry on before some actor or equally handsome man picks that fruit.

  So I say, “She’s all alone in an L.A. bar, dressed like a slutty princess.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “It is if some beefcake spots her, decides he wants a side salad with his steak for lunch.”

  “That’s equally likely to happen now as it was when you formulated the plan. What’s changed?”

  “I didn’t factor in how she’s dressed. I was thinking she’d come smart-casual, but she’s dressed like—”

  “A slutty princess?”

  “That’s right. I’d already described her. Yeah, you need to get there, and fast.”

  “But don’t we need her to have realized you’re not showing up for your date?”

  “We do. Good thinking. Send me an SMS when you’re outside the bar, and then I’ll send an SMS to Julie, canceling. You should either find her at the table I reserved or coming out, in tears. Then it’s time for your ‘Whateve
r is the matter?’ routine. You got it?”

  “What’s an SMS?”

  “It’s what people use instead of carrier pigeons in the modern day. Ask Jimothy what it is.”

  But Jimothy interrupts, “I don’t know either.”

  “Damn it, Andre. I thought I wasn’t on speaker phone?”

  “I had no idea how to turn it off.”

  I sigh, and then say, “Hold on a minute.” I compose an SMS, writing, “This in an SMS,” and then send it to Jimothy’s phone while still on the line. I hear the beep, and then a couple seconds later I hear Andre say, “Ohhh, I get it now.”

  “So we’re good?” I ask.

  There’s silence a second. “I’m a little nervous, Mr. Hancock.”

  “About what?”

  “I haven’t been on a date in decades. What if she rejects me?”

  “She won’t.”

  “But what if she does. This feels an awful lot like a last-chance saloon.”

  “Believe me, even a one-armed batter could hit a homer with this pitch.”

  “Huh?”

  Remembering Andre’s British and that he doesn’t understand American sports metaphor, I say, “Even a one-legged soccer player could smash this one over the goalposts, Andre.”

  “I don’t think you quite understand soccer, Mr. Hancock.”

  “Sure I do. The goal is to get the ball in the net, sure, but wouldn’t you be equally impressed, scratch that, even more impressed if a one-legged soccer player could hit that same ball over the crossbar?”

  “I hate to say it, but there’s a little logic to what you said there.”

  “You got this, Andre. Remember what I said: only be a shoulder to cry on as long as it takes to dry her tears, and then it’s time for Seduction Stage Two.”

  “I remember it as though you said it yesterday.”

  “That’s because I did… Okay, I see what you did there. But still, I’d feel better if you could recite it to me.”

  “Seduction Stage Two involves making semi-sexual physical contact, maybe lightly brushing my thigh against hers or taking her hand in mine, in a non-grandfatherly way, to make my intentions not clear but muddy.”

  “Right. The idea is for her to think you’re an older guy who’s seducing a younger woman for the first time and isn’t fully committed to it, not to come across like an old pervert whose favorite pastime involves dressing solely in a trench coat and jogging sneakers and taking strolls through the park.”