Scrambled Hard-Boiled

by E.R. White, Jr.

  * * * * *

  Both men froze on the bed for a split second and looked at me like startled deer. Whippy then let out a squeak like a rabbit makes when ran over by a car and rolled over into the space between the two beds. His boyfriend reacted with a nasty little snarl and made a dive for his pants lying at the foot of the bed. That’s when my survival reflex kicked in.

  I didn’t know if he had a gun hid there—and I wasn’t about to turn tail and run only to be shot in the back by a naked faggot.

  I stepped into the room, pulled out my gun and slapped him in the head with it. The guy fell into a naked heap by the TV, stunned. I hurriedly slammed the door shut and told Whippy to shut up while I tried to figure out what to do next.

  My perfect performance as a P. I. had turned into a bust in a less than ten seconds.

  I made a quick survey of the situation. Whippy sat on the floor between the two beds, nude and whimpering. The other man was slowly coming to his senses and was warily eyeing my gun and me. Both men’s clothes lay intertwined on the floor at the foot of the beds. The lights were on and the bedside radio was now playing a Sammy Davis, Jr. selection. I stood there with gun in hand, and camera slung around my neck. First thing was to make sure mine was the only gun in the room. I quickly picked up their clothes, all the while keeping my gun trained on the gas-station attendant. Whippy wasn’t going to be a threat, I could tell.

  A quick search of the clothes resulted in two sets of car keys, a couple of wallets and a folding knife. The knife belonged to the gas-station attendant. I threw the clothes into the far corner, pocketed the keys and knife. I tossed the wallets on the unused bed.

  “I know you,” I grunted as I pointed to Whippy, “but I don’t know your friend’s name.”

  I looked at the grease monkey. He just stared at me.

  “His name is Zeke, and please don’t hurt us,” mewed Whippy.

  “Zeke, you got a last name?”

  Zeke just looked at me. He was a stringy, skinny bastard. He had a narrow face, close-set eyes, brown hair and was sporting what was known in those parts as a “farmer’s tan.” His ball cap was stained with sweat and there was grease still under his fingernails. He made no attempt to hide the hate in his eyes.

  I didn’t like the look in his eyes, so I suckered punched him with the pistol again.

  I was beginning to feel better.

  “I’m asking again, what’s your last name, Zeke?”

  I know I could have looked in his wallet, but this was a dominance game I was playing, and I needed to establish who was boss here. Just like Ernie taught me.

  “Stanley—Zeke Stanley.”

  “Well, Zeke Stanley, do as I say and no one will get in trouble.”

  Then, with complete sincerity Zeke said, “We weren’t doin’ nuthin’!”

  I laughed, “Nothing!? You stupid son-of-a-bitch, this is North Carolina, asshole. It’s illegal to screw your wife in the ass much less the neighborhood grocer. So let’s cut out the bullshit—okay?”

  I turned to Whippy and started to tell him to get dressed when he said, “Tamara sent you, didn’t she? She wants to break our pre-nuptial agreement doesn’t she?”

  Pre-nuptial agreement? I was beginning to smell a rat, and the rat’s name was Sandy Milton.

  I looked at Larry a second. I needed to have a talk with him, but I didn’t want to worry about the redneck. Keeping my gun pointing at Zeke, I glanced into the bathroom to see if there were any windows. There weren’t.

  “Zeke, go into the bathroom and shut the door. Don’t come out until you’re told to.”

  “Fuck you, I ain’t going in there.”

  I grabbed the glass ashtray next to the TV and threw it on his head.

  Zeke went down, Whippy moaned, and I said, “Bathroom, now.”

  He crawled in and shut the door.

  I turned to Whippy, who was shaking like a leaf.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, but I want you to answer all my questions. Who knows, we might be able to come to an understanding.”

  He shook his head up and down.

  “First, get on the bed and cover yourself, then tell me about this pre-nuptial agreement.” This was the Seventies, remember, and while I had heard of these types of agreements, this was my first time ever to deal with one.

  Whippy got on the bed and pulled the covers around him. After a composing himself for a few seconds, he started to speak.

  “It’s simple. I made Tamara sign an agreement before I married her. I mean, it’s not like we loved each other. We were using each other for cover, so it’s not like it was a real marriage, you know.”

  Now I was confused.

  “Cover?”

  He looked at me strangely.

  “I assumed you knew. We’re both gay. It’s not the easiest thing hiding this, you know. People were beginning to talk about me. I haven’t even told my parent’s about my homosexuality. Only a couple of my friends know. So when one of them, Sandy, mentioned to me at the country club that he knew a lesbian who might be willing to marry me and give us both cover in exchange for a monthly allowance, I guess—well—I figured it’d be easier than openly acknowledging my homosexuality. It would kill my Mom and Dad to find out.”

  Sandy…Sandy Milton. I was stunned. I’d been played like a sap.

  “So, this—Sandy. He introduced you to your wife?”

  “Yes, she seemed like quite a nice young lady at the time. She said she was gay, like me, and wanted to hide the fact from her family in Atlanta. I insisted, however, that my attorney draw up a pre-nuptial. Our plan was to stay married for a few years, then divorce. This would give me a plausible front in later years. We both agreed that we would be married in name only. Christ—I’ve never seen her nude!”

  He paused to catch his breath, then continued.

  “We eloped to Las Vegas, got married and set up a home in Gastonia. Mom and Dad were thrilled of course, but lately have been asking about grandchildren.”

  “That might be a problem.”

  Larry nodded his head.

  “Yes, I suspect this is what triggered this. I mentioned this to her and suggested that we might want to go ahead and start the divorce. I don’t really want children and realize that it’d complicate what I thought of as a fairly straightforward business arrangement. I guess—I guess Tamara wanted more.”

  “This—Sandy, he isn’t perhaps Sandy Milton the lawyer, by any chance?”

  This startled him a second but he said yes.

  “Sandy and I have known each other since High School. We really didn’t become good friends until five or six years ago…,” his voice trailed off.

  “Did he draw up the pre-nuptial by any chance?”

  “No, Sandy said it was a waste of time. I had my corporate lawyers do that. In fact, I just talked to them a few weeks ago about exercising the agreement.”

  It was then I saw the first hint of anger and awareness in his eyes.

  I was already ahead of him.

  I sat there with a mixture of anger and sheer admiration for what Sandy Milton had done. Five years! He’d been plotting this for five years! It was probably just one scam of many this guy had pulled, but the sheer foresight, the patience, the audacity of it all made me pause in awe. Admittedly, Whippy’s insistence of a pre-nuptial agreement had thrown a kink in the scheme, but that’s where I’d come in. A greedy, ambitious, young gumshoe that acted first and asked questions later, if ever.

  I suspected Milton planned to stay in the background the whole time. He’d arrange for Tamara to have another mouthpiece, of course. There was no way he was going to get publicly involved in this divorce, especially since he was ostensibly a friend of the family, had acted as matchmaker and was currently carrying on an affair with the supposedly lesbian wife.

  I could see it now, the surreptitiously mailing of the photos to Whippy with the understated threat of exposure. Allow panic to settle in for a few days. This would then be followed by the demand that
the pre-nuptial be abandoned in favor of a greatly enhanced settlement in exchange for silence.

  That’s how I would do it.

  When it’s all said and done, Sandy would probably get a piece of the pie or even marry Tamara. The worst-case situation for me was that the Milton and Tamara merely extort Larry for a larger living allowance than was currently provided and persuade him to drop the divorce action altogether. Just keep on as before, albeit for a lot more money.

  No divorce, no settlement, no additional fee for me.

  There was nothing I could do to prevent it or cash in on it. I looked at Larry and realized that he’d figured out the situation too. He was angry, hurt and close to tears.

  “That bitch,” he hissed. “She and Sandy set me up, right?”

  I just looked at him, but he knew it was true.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way we can come to an agreement so you would destroy those photos, is there?”

  He knew the answer before he even asked the question. There was no way I could back off now. I was in too deep. Of course, I could have agreed to hand over the photographs to Whippy once he paid me an exorbitant fee. He was rich enough to outbid Milton any day. But that was blackmail and I couldn’t take that chance. He might change his mind and have me arrested later. Yes, Milton had played me for a dupe, and if I didn’t cough up these photos to him, there would be no money for me at all. If, out of pure spite, I refused to give the pictures to him, he was a big enough lawyer to ruin me professionally by spreading the word I was unreliable.

  No, Sandy Milton had me by the balls.

  Oh well, let’s make the most out of a bad situation, I said to myself.

  “Let’s see how much money you got on you.”

  I reached over and grabbed the wallets off the other bed. The first one I opened turned out to be Zeke’s. There were five bucks in it. I took the money and tossed the wallet in the corner. I opened Whippy’s and there were seven c-notes, a couple of twenties and some ones. I took it all except for the ones.

  “Here’s the deal. Today is Friday. I’ll hold off turning over the photos till Monday. That is as much time I can give you to get your ducks in a row with your lawyers.”

  I waved his cash in front of him, “This will cover for the favor.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him that the place where we get our photos developed was closed Saturday and Sunday, so Monday was the earliest I could get the film processed.

  “But I need for you to leave me at least a hundred to pay Zeke.”

  He slapped his hand against his mouth as soon as he had said it.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him. Then it hit me, and I started to chuckle.

  Zeke was a pro and Whippy was paying for his services.

  I didn't bother to ask him how one goes about inquiring of your local mechanic if he rents himself out for sex. I had decided to get out of there and didn’t want to spare the time.

  I shook my head, “Pay him later, you know where he works.”

  By now poor Larry had turned beet red all over.

  I got up to leave and asked Larry what car Zeke drove. He said it was the red Camero parked outside the door. I gathered up their car keys and clothes.

  “I’ll leave everything in the front seat of Zeke’s car. Nothing personal, but I don’t want anyone to come after me. This will slow you down enough to where I can leave without either one of you hopping in a car and following me.”

  I banged on the bathroom door and informed Zeke of what I was doing. All I got in return was a muted “Fuck you” from him.

  I opened the door, turned to Whippy.

  “Remember, Monday, that’s the best I can do.”

  I left the room and shut the door.

  I walked over to the Zeke’s Camero, opened the door and tossed all the clothes and both sets of car keys in the front seat. I then remembered I had Zeke’s knife in my pocket. I left it sticking in his right rear tire. I dropped off the passkey at the front desk, stiffed the druggie his extra twenty bucks, got in my car and drove off.

  I was home in about an hour.

  I called Ernie up first thing Saturday morning and told him the whole story except for the 700 bucks from Whippy. What Ernie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He was at first pissed about me getting caught, but that was forgotten as soon as he heard how Sandy Milton had used us for his dirty work without giving us all the facts. He seriously doubted we would see any money after our initial upfront fee, but he agreed Sandy had played it perfectly and there was nothing we could do about it but give him the pictures on Monday. He was just a too powerful and influential lawyer to mess with.

  I remember going out and getting real drunk that night then nursing a hangover at home all day Sunday. I got up Monday morning feeling fine, made some coffee and went out to get the paper. I turned on the TV to watch the local morning news.

  All they were talking about was that the heir to the Whippy Supermarket fortune had blown his wife’s head off with a shotgun late Sunday night, then had turned the gun on himself.

  I was numbly sitting there when Ernie called. He informed me that the police were making the rounds of all the local detective agencies. They were looking for the tall, blond hair, blue eyed private detective who was mentioned in Lawrence Whippy’s suicide note.

  Chapter 8