by Jack Kilborn
“Yes. Yes I am. I’m all things to all people. And to show you how cool I am, I’ll let you read an exclusive excerpt from Shaken, the latest Jack Daniels ebook, coming out October 26, 2010.”
“I’d love to read that. But I’d also love to show my gratitude for your help.” She leaned over my desk, her lips almost touching mine. “Are you man enough to handle me, Harry McGlade?”
Should Harry kiss Avid Reader? If so, click here.
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“It’s just me and you, General Tsao. But I think I’m man enough to handle you.”
I dug in.
The first two bites were putrid.
The next two bites were absolutely fucking revolting. It tasted like someone crapped a dead rat onto a rotten cabbage and then puked on it.
My eyes were watering. My stomach was turning flip-flops. My tongue wanted to kill me, then itself. I had the dry heaves, and the shakes, and my sphincter puckered.
I could barely finish the last three bites. Then my door opened, and a man walked in. An old, bearded, frail-looking man who had one of those old person humps on his back, making him look like a question mark.
“Are you Harry McGlade? I’m Haknort. J. Andrew Haknort.”
“The poet,” I said.
He raised a bushy old eyebrow. “You’ve heard of me?”
“Of course. You’re the most famous poet in the room right now. But I thought you were dead.”
“You’re thinking of William Shakespeare.”
“Oh yeah. Of course I am. Have a seat, Mr. Haknort.”
He sat across from my desk, his vertebrae crackling like a bag of chips. “I hear you know a thing or two about the Nook, Mr. McGlade.”
“I know lots of things. What have you got in mind?”
He reached into a tattered old satchel and took out a sheaf of papers, tossing them ontp my desk. “I just wrote a children’s book. I want to make it available for Nook. But I need help creating the cover art, and I need someone to format it and assist me in uploading it to pubit.barnesandnoble.com.”
“Carl Graves does all the cover art for J.A. Konrath. You can reach him at [email protected]. He charges about $300 per cover.”
“I’ve seen his covers. They’re terrific. But how about formatting?” the old man asked.
“I use a guy named Rob Siders. He can do the formatting, and also help you upload the document.”
“What does he charge?”
“I’ll let him answer. Rob?”
Rob came out of my broom closet, where he waited 9-to-5 everyday in the hopes someone would come to me asking a Nook formatting question.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Haknort. Thinking about adding your book to the Barnes & Noble Nook Store but don’t know how to start? Frustrated with converting your Microsoft Word file or PDF to a Nook-friendly format by yourself? I can help. My name is Rob Siders and I’ve been designing and creating ebooks for the better part of a decade. I can save you time and hassle by getting your source document to play nice with Barnes & Noble’s Nook format. Less time plus less hassle equals more time for you to focus on marketing and selling your ebook. Reasonable rates. Thorough work. Satisfied when you’re satisfied. Visit my webiste at www.52novels.com and let’s talk about your project.”
“Thanks, Rob. Back into the closet with you. And don’t touch anything while you’re in there. I paid eight bucks for that broom.”
Rob nodded, then headed back to his hidey-hole.
“Well, Mr. McGlade, I’m certainly impressed. Thank you for your help. Would you like to take a look at my children’s ebook? You’d be the first one to see it.”
“What’s it called?”
“Ninnie-the-Poop Visits His Friend Jiglet.”
“Ninnie-the-Poop? That sounds a lot like—”
“It’s nothing like that at all,” Haknort interrupted. “It’s a completely different name, and it qualifies as a parody, which is fair use under international copyright law.”
“I see,” I said, somewhat dubious.
“You wanna read it, or not? It’s pretty offensive, and not for everyone.”
I wasn’t sure. On one hand, I liked offensive children’s book parodies. On the other hand, my stomach wasn’t feeling so hot and I needed to make a thunder-box deposit.
If Harry should read Ninnie-the-Poop, click here.
If Harry should run to the bathroom, click here.
I was hungry. Damn hungry. So I plunked the weird yellow thing onto the old Chinese food and gobbled the whole mess up, holding my nose so I didn’t have to smell it or taste it. Even so, it was like eating a sweaty gym sock stuffed with maggots, rotten meat, and pig dung, with a hint of sesame oil.
When I finished licking the box clean, I logged onto Facebook to get some quality Combville time. Then she walked into my office.
This woman had it all. Legs. Eyes. Elbows. A big head of blond hair that for some reason I wanted to comb. She wore a plain blue dress, and had a white bonnet on her head, which was unusual for Chicago. Actually, it was unusual for pretty much everywhere.
“Are you Harry McGlade? The private investigator?”
I nodded, still tapping the COMB button on my screen. Fifty-six thousand more strokes and I’d get a virtual gold coin. When I earned ten coins, I’d be able to buy a different color comb.
“My name is Lula. Lula Coleslaw. I need your help.”
I looked up from my computer screen and scratched my neck. This all seemed very familiar.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You ask me to take your case, but I keep playing Combville. Isn’t that how it works?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re Amish. You want me to prove your husband is cheating. I get abducted by aliens, your husband kicks my ass, I pop into a lot of J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn books, cracking bad jokes, and then I wind up dead several times. Right?”
“It’s a hallucination,” said General Tsao. “You have sever food poisoning, and you’re hallucinating.”
“Prove it,” I challenged.
“A moment ago I was an Amish woman, and now I’m a Chinese General with chicken feet.”
He wiggled his chicken feet.
“So this whole Choose Your Own Damn Story thing was a hallucination due to eating spoiled food?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” he said. Then he began scratching and pecking at the floor.
“Huh. How about that.” It made as much sense as anything else. “So what happens next?”
General Tsao laid an egg, then sat on it. “You throw up, pass out, crap your pants, and the cleaning lady discovers you wallowing in your own mess and calls 911.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“I’m lying. You die.”
“Oh. Well, that sucks. I never even solved the mystery, though.”
“There was no mystery,” Lulu said. Apparently General Tsao could morph back into Lulu at will. “I was working for a land development country. I pretended to be Amish, then I hired you to disrupt a peaceful community of God-fearing pacifists, knowing that with your inept fumbling around you’d probably destroy their entire settlement within a few days.”
“Yeah. That sounds like something I’d do.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“Do what?”
I burped, and a piece of my stomach lining came up in my mouth. I swallowed the piece, figuring I needed it.
“Will you help me, Mr. McGlade?”
“Hmm?”
Combville had once again captured my attention. Damn these repetitive, boring, addictive Facebook games. Why did I even bother with Facebook? And why did I only have five Facebook friends? And why were they all jerks?
I kept combing.
“Will you help me?” she asked, apparently still in my office.
“What? Oh. No. No I won’t. I’ve got too much to do right now. B
ut check back in a few days.”
Sadness fell across her face and she stood up, turning to leave.
“Wait,” I said. “Are you on Facebook?”
“No. We shun modern technology, Mr. McGlade. My Nook doesn’t even have 3G.”
“You mean it’s only WiFi?”
She nodded, sadly. I felt for her, but I had to be firm on this. “Sorry, tastycakes. I’m really busy.”
“Please, Mr. McGlade. I really need your help.”
“Let me think about it again.”
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If he should keep playing Combville, click here.
“I’m man enough, baby,” I whispered. “I’ve got so much testosterone, I have to shave the bottoms of my feet. You might get pregnant simply by standing so close.”
Her soft lips parted. So did mine.
Then I puked bathroom sponge all over her face.
Avid Reader politely ran off, gagging and swearing. But I knew, as soon as she showered, she’d be back.
Five hours later, she hadn’t come back.
It didn’t matter, though. I had my Nook and my ebooks to read. Who needed anything more?
The end.
To return to the previous section, click here.
To restart the adventure, click here.
Phin showed Herb Benedict and me the mud lines on the carpeting in the hallway.
“He must have wheeled in a gas canister on a hand truck,” Phin said. “Stuck the tube under the door and filled the bedroom. That’s why he didn’t wake us up when he abducted Jack.”
“So he’s a doctor?” Herb asked. Herb was Jack’s partner, a fat guy with a fat head. He was jotting things down in his notebook. “He has access to anesthetics?”
“Not necessarily,” Phin said. “You can get nitrous oxide—laughing gas—at any welding supply store. When I woke up, I had a metallic taste in my mouth that could have been nitrous.”
Herb blinked at me. “What?” he asked.
“Every time I see you, you have another chin,” I told him.
Herb scowled. “Have you taken your pill today?” he asked.
“What pill?”
“Your shut the fuck up pill.”
“Funny,” I said. I thought about asking him if he took his appetite suppressant pill, but I already knew the answer.
“Guys, stay focused,” Phin said.
Herb gave me a lame glare, then turned back to Phin. “How did he know when you went to sleep?”
“He was watching the house. Or maybe a listening device.”
“I’ll check for bugs,” I said. “I brought my spy gear.”
I set a metal suitcase on the floor and opened it up, spilling contents all over the carpet. One of the items that rolled away was a sex toy.
“That’s spy gear?” Herb said, pointing at the pink dildo.
“It’s got a listening device in it. I swapped it with a woman’s vibrator and put it in her desk drawer, trying to catch her cheating on her husband.”
“Did it work?” Phin asked.
I frowned. “I got the switches mixed up. All I recorded was three hours of bzzzz-zzzz…oh god…bzzzz…oh my god…bzzzz. I should have put a camera in it, too.”
“You’re an idiot,” Herb said.
“And you’re a miracle of evolution,” I replied. “Somehow a sea cow grew limbs and learned how to talk.”
Phin stepped between us. “Harry, put away the dildo microphone. Herb, unclench your fists. Do either of you have any idea who could have Jack?”
Herb let out a slow breath, then shook his head. “Not so far. We normally get alerts when someone we put away gets out. All the major ones are still in there. Got a few baddies who were up for parole recently, but they were all denied.”
“Were there any cases Jack was working on before she quit? Any open cases?”
Herb’s brow crinkled. “Only one. But it couldn’t be him.”
“Harry? Were you and Jack working on anything?”
“Nothing big.” I picked up a slim black case with an antenna sticking out of it. “Bug detector,” I said. Then I held it next to Herb, said, “Beep beep beep! Crab lice alert!”
Herb shoved the device away, then got behind me and roughly pressed me up against the wall. “You keep it up, and the next thing your magic dildo is going to record is you going pbbthhhh when I shove it up your—”
“Enough,” Phin said, pulling Herb off of me. “I will personally kick both your asses if you don’t cut this shit out and focus. Harry, have you noticed anything weird lately? Strange phone calls? Emails?”
“There is the one guy, keeps emailing me, telling me I won the Nigerian lottery. I’m thirty percent sure it isn’t legit.”
“Seen anyone hanging around the office? Anyone following you or Jack?”
I had a flash of memory. “Actually, there was this one guy. A few days ago. Spooky looking mother. Black, greasy hair. Pale as the sickly, white underbelly of a morbidly obese sea cow.”
“Where did you see him?”
“Outside the office. Just standing on the corner, staring up at our window.”
“Did Jack see him?” Phin asked.
I closed my eyes, thinking. “No. She was on the phone with a client. I was playing Farmville—I just earned enough from my turnip patch to buy a tractor—and I noticed him down there. Checked again a few minutes later, and he was still there.”
“What did you do then?”
“I plowed my field in like one tenth of the time. That tractor is epic.”
Farmville was fun, but it wasn’t as cool as Combville.
“Did you go down and talk to him?” Phin asked me.
“Naw. When I checked again, he was gone. Hey, how come we aren’t Facebook friends?”
“Because I’m not on Facebook,” Phin said. “I actually have a life.”
“You should get on there, and friend me, and then send me fuel for my new tractor.”
Phin backed me up against the wall, much like Herb had a moment ago.
Hey, easy buddy,” I said.
“If you kill him,” Herb said, “I’ll call it suicide in the police report.”
“You’re not taking this seriously, McGlade.” Phin spoke softly. “Someone has Jack. We need to stop screwing around.”
“Relax, Phin. How many times have we been in this situation? So many times, we already know how it’s going to end. It’ll be a close call, but me, or you, or Tubby the Talking Manatee here will save her at the last possible second. That’s what always happens.”
“Strangle him,” Herb said. “We’ll make it look like auto-erotic asphyxiation.”
“Check the house for bugs, Harry,” Phin ordered. “And don’t say another goddamn word.”
Phin released me. I smoothed out my rumpled suit and said, “When I win the Nigerian lottery, I’m not giving either of you a penny.” Then I turned on his bug detector and walked into the bedroom.
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To start the Amish adventure over, click here.
Ninnie-the-Poop Visits His Friend Jiglet by J. Andrew Haknort
(with apologies to Milne)
One fine day, Ninnie-the-Poop, or Poop for short, was walking through the Thirty-Eight Acre Wood to visit his friend Jiglet, who lived beneath the Big Ash Tree. Poop was singing a song to himself that went like this:
Oh how nice to be a bear!
Without a worry or a care!
The sun is out, the sky is blue!
So little time, so much to do!
Poop sang this song to himself, over and over and over again, when all of the sudden he realized he’d walked much farther than he’d intended.
“Oh bother,” said Poop. “I really fucked up this time.”
So he (he being Poop) sat down under a small elm tree to contemplate his position while he smoked some crack cocaine.
That shit fucked him up, but good.
He was about to
light another rock when he saw his good friend Eyesore, the old gray donkey, walk by.
“Hallo, Eyesore,” said Poop.
“Blow it out your ass, faggot,” was Eyesore’s reply.
Poop frowned.
“Did you lose your tail again, Eyesore?” asked Poop.
“No,” said Eyesore. “I just found out I have prostate cancer.”
Poop laughed and laughed at his silly friend.
“Don’t worry, Eyesore. I can fix you.”
Eyesore spit out a big loogie and gave Poop the finger.
“That rock has fucked up your very small brain, Poop,” said Eyesore. “You can’t fix me. I’ve got a tumor up my ass the size of a casaba melon.”
So Poop pulled out his 9mm and shot the old gray donkey between the ears.
The back of Eyesore’s skull blew off, and a stream of blood flowed out of his forehead like a fountain.
Eyesore fell to the ground and convulsed.
“There!” said Poop. “I fixed your ass good!”
Then Poop got on his way again.
Poop wasn’t walking for very long when he ran into his friend, Winchester Probin.
“Hallo, Winchester Probin,” said Poop. “What are you doing there?”
Winchester Probin had a hammer and some nails.
“Hallo, Poop! I’m nailing Bunny’s ears to this tree.”
“Oh, hallo Bunny!” said Poop. “I didn’t know that was you under all that blood. How are you?”
Bunny didn’t answer. His mouth was stapled shut.
“So what are you up to, you silly old Bear?” asked Winchester Probin.
“I was going to Jiglet’s house, but I got lost. I’m so angry I could fuck broken glass.”
“That’s too bad.” Winchester Probin said. The small boy picked his nose. “Would you like to stay here and play with Bunny and me?”
“No thank you,” said Poop, rubbing his ass in recollection of the last time he had played with Winchester Probin.
“Can you watch Bunny for me while I go get my propane torch?” asked Winchester Probin.
“Sorry, no,” said Poop. “I must be going.”
“I never loved you, you fucked-up little cocksucker!” cried Winchester Probin, reaching out to grab Poop.