Randy's Husband and Other Problems

I hate goddamned fucking kids on goddamned fucking skateboards. They're all assholes who don't give a flying fuck about anything except showing off the latest trick they've learned to do from other fucking assholes on skateboards. They wouldn't bother me if they stayed in one of those skateboard parks, but they don't. They think the sidewalks belong to them.

I wish helmets and pads had never been invented. It's fun to watch them when they fall down and bust their ass. It would be more fun if they really got busted up a little when they do. Maybe then they'd develop some common sense. At least a cracked head would weed out the biggest assholes, for a while at least.

They're a real pain in the ass. They seem to think everybody walking down the sidewalk should get the hell out of the way when they go weaving back and forth from one side to the other. This little asshole whizzed by me just as I stepped out the door of Phil's Package Liquors with a new bottle of scotch. You shouldn't have to look both ways when you step out of liquor store, so I didn't. His backpack caught my arm and caused me to drop the paper sack with the bottle.

Now, nobody sells twelve-year old scotch in a plastic bottle. That would be like painting a Cadillac with dog shit. Twelve-year old scotch always comes in glass bottles, really nice glass bottles. If you drop a glass bottle, it breaks. That's what happened, and my forty-five dollars worth of twelve-year old scotch splashed all over me, the sidewalk and a particularly hot little brunette who happened to be walking by.

She was pissed and called me a stupid jerk. I was pissed too, and I yelled at the kid on the skateboard.

"You fucking asshole. I hope you crash and break your neck."

The kid stopped, turned around, grinned, and gave me the finger. The hot gal was using a tissue to wipe the scotch off her pantyhose and told me she thought I should buy her a new pair.

I thought about saying I'd do that if she let me take the old pair off and put the new pair on, but I didn't. Twenty years ago, I would have, and she'd probably have smiled and blushed when she said, "no, thank you", but not today. People are so goddamned sensitive about everything these days, she'd probably have had me arrested or something. That's OK though. I never liked pantyhose on a woman anyway. Nylons and a garter belt are hot, especially if they're black, but panty hose...well, they hide every thing I like to see and they're an absolute bitch to get off a woman.

Instead, I went back inside Phil's and bought another bottle of Glenfiddich. When I came out that time, I did look both ways. I was hoping the kid would come back so I could trip his ass. He didn't though. That pissed me off again.

I was still pissed when I got back to my office. It was only four in the afternoon, but I figured a couple fingers of Glenfiddich might help, so I wiped out the jelly jar on my desk with my shirttail and popped the cap on the bottle. A couple swallows later, the smooth, smoky taste took away a lot of my pissedoffedness. After another, I was almost back to normal. My ex claimed my normal is what most people call being a bastard, but then she was a raving bitch. Besides, my job requires being a bastard most of the time.

I'm a PI. For those of you who take great pride in abbreviating everything with two or three letters when you text, that stands for "Private Investigator" and not some bullshit you just made up in hopes it'll make some internet dictionary someday. We used to be called "private dicks" too, but I suppose "dick" isn't what they call "politically correct" today. That's a damned shame. I liked being called a private dick.

Some of the subjects of my investigations have had other names for me. Still do, too. Those names aren't politically correct either, but that doesn't seem to stop them from using them. I guess it depends on if you're the one doing the offending or if you're the one who thinks they're being offended.

Anyway, I've been a PI for about thirty years now. I learned my trade right out of high school when PI's were real investigators. We didn't have computers or cell phones or GPS units in our cars back then. We relied on our skills and our experience with just how fucking stupid people can be in order to do what our clients asked us to do.

It took a lot of walking and a lot of talking to people with some scams thrown in to get people to show us what we wanted to know. None of us back then ever really broke the law. We just stretched it until it squealed. When I used to do skip traces, it squealed pretty loud sometimes.

I rarely do those anymore. They pay pretty well, but they're a bitch. Skips will do about anything to avoid going back to jail, and that includes causing a lot of pain to the guy trying to take them there. It may surprise some, but the women were the hardest to find and the worst about scratching and biting. Every woman should have to register her purse as a deadly weapon too. The goddamn things usually weigh a ton and they hurt when they hit you.

I do use some of that new technology now. I have a cell phone with a GPS map program, and I traded my old 35mm camera for a Nikon digital a few years ago to save the cost of film and developing time. I use both, but mostly I use my head like I've always done. I don't have to remember which buttons to push to use my head. All I have to do is think.

I lit a cigarette before opening the mail I'd picked up off the floor in front of the door. Before you start, I already know, so shut the fuck up. Hell, after all the TV commercials and billboard ads, a blind and deaf moron would know by now that smoking is bad for you. Most people would say drinking a double scotch at four in the afternoon is bad for you too. Thank God I don't live in California. Everything is bad for you there except maybe snow peas and water and they've probably just not gotten around to testing them yet.

What I figure is living is bad for you. If you live, you're going to die. I, for one, would like to spend the time before I cash out by really living, not by trying to do anything and everything to postpone that event. There are too many people who didn't smoke, didn't drink, ran a mile every day and watched every single calorie they ate who died in car crashes or had heart attacks before they were forty. I don't have any desire to lay in bed in a nursing home either, although if the nurses had nice tits and asses and let me have a feel a couple times a day, it might be tolerable.

No, I figure when your time's up, it's up, no matter what you do.

So, lets just come to an agreement before I go on. I'll take care of my business and you take care of yours, well, unless I'm investigating you. If I am, I'll soon know more about you than you do. I'm fifty one, and if I don't know what's right for me by now, nothing you say is going to change that. It'll just piss me off and I'll tell you to go fuck yourself. That'll piss you off and we'll never get anywhere.

The only thing in my mail that day was a handful of subpoenas and summons from a couple law firms I work with. Unless you've gotten one, you probably don't know what one is or how you get it, but when a lawyer needs you in court, he'll get a subpoena or a summons, and somebody has to deliver it to you. I'm one of those somebodies. It's one of the ways I make my money besides investigating and that's a good thing considering today's PI market.

There are a couple high-priced PI firms in the area that use all the latest technology in their investigations. If your lawyer thinks he has a good case, meaning one he can settle out of court for at least a few hundred thousand or get the millions he'll sue for if it goes to trial, the high-priced firm gets the job. They'll hand your lawyer a report filled with video clips and digital photos on a computer disc or flash drive, and a detailed record of their investigation on fancy paper in triplicate for about the price of a nice used car.

If the case is iffy, I get it, though I don't get a lot of those. I understand though. Lawyers are just looking out for their bottom line so they won't take cases that don't show promise of generating enough income they can buy a few more custom-tailored suits and maybe that new, red sports car they've been drooling over.

Usually I get what I had in my mail -- some sort of notification to a person they have to appear in court. I deliver the notification in person. It doesn't pay quite as well as investigating -- only a couple hundred each -- but it pays my office/apartment rent and keeps me in cigarettes, scotch, and frozen dinners.

I do get some walk-ins from time to time. Usually they're people who would rather as few people as possible know about their problem or people who would rather have that nice used car instead of a fancy PI report. Since I'm the only one in my office and my fees aren't all that high, that attracts some people.

None of the subpoenas or summons looked interesting and I had a couple weeks to serve them, so I tossed them back in my in-box and took another sip of scotch followed by a drag on my cigarette followed by another sip of scotch.

My world started getting a lot better after that, well except for sex. That hadn't gotten any better no matter how much scotch I drank or how many cigarettes I smoked. My sex life dried up a year before my ex divorced me. That was eleven years ago.

I did try to find an agreeable woman once the old ball and chain was history, but I was forty at the time and women that age are looking for "friendship that may lead to more as we get to know each other better and find there's a connection". At least that's the way they put it in their profiles on the dating sites.

See, I'm not technologically illiterate after all like you're thinking. I own a computer and I use it, and not just for dating sites and on-line auctions. There are a couple of porn sites that are pretty damned good. A guy does what he has to do.

I was just looking to get my ass laid, not sign up for a live-in woman who would try to change me into her idea of perfect. I finally gave up after I met up with one and told me she wasn't that kind of woman. I apologized for thinking that she was out to get herself fucked just because she had most of her tits hanging out of the neck of her dress and when she bent over her ass cheeks showed. That got me slapped in the face and I decided no piece of ass was worth getting my own ass hauled off to jail if I slapped her back.

I was sitting there contemplating my plight when my office door opened and a redhead about forty-five walked through the door. She'd probably been good looking when she was thirty, but like some women, her face hadn't aged very well. She had that sort of look that happens when a woman's face loses skin tone and the fat that gives her round cheeks and full lips goes away. She wasn't ugly by any means, but she wasn't going to have to choose which fashion magazine to pose for either. Her long hair was pretty neat though.

The rest of her had fared pretty well over the years. Her T-shirt fit tight enough I could make out the embroidered decoration on her very well-filled bra, and her jeans, the kind with holes all over them, fit really tight to a pair of slender legs and an ass that was maybe a little wide, but still one I'd have loved bumping with my belly.

I asked the woman how I could help her. Her voice was kind of harsh.

"You're a PI, right?"

"That's what the sign on the door says."

"I can fucking read, asshole, but you don't look much like a PI. I want you to prove my husband is fucking around on me."

"I can do that if that's what he's doing, but I need some information first. Have a seat."

She sat down, fumbled in her purse until she produced a pack of cigarettes and an expensive looking lighter, then stuck a cigarette in her mouth and flicked the wheel on the lighter. She almost had the flame to the tip when she stopped.

"You mind if I smoke? Looks like you are."

I shook my head.

"No, go ahead."

The tip of the cigarette glowed red as she inhaled. The smoke trickled from her mouth as she spoke.

"OK, what do you need to know?"

"Your name for starters. It helps to know who I'm working for."

"I'm Randy Lake and don't fucking smile because I've already heard it a fucking million times. I'm not that slut porn star. I stripped for a while before I got married, but I've never fucked any guy in front of a camera."

"Well, you have to admit your name is pretty distinctive."

"Are we gonna talk about my goddamn name or about what I want you to do for me?"

I figured she could be a real bitch if she wanted to because she was already making a good start, but at least it was easy to understand what she said. I kinda liked that.

"OK, what's the problem you want me to solve for you?"

Randy didn't beat around the bush like some people. She took another drag on her cigarette and then exhaled as she talked.

"My goddamned husband is fucking a divorced woman who listed her house with him. That's when he's not fucking his secretary. I want you to get me enough proof I can take his ass to court and take all his money."

"What leads you to believe he's doing these things?"

"He owns a real estate business and he listed the woman's house a couple months ago. Since then, he calls her every other day and talks to her for at least half an hour."

"How do you know that?"

"I know because he has her number in his cell phone and that's what his call history says he does."

"He let you see his cell phone?"

She grinned,

"Oh hell no, but I'm not some dumb-ass blonde like his secretary. I peeked when he put in his password one day. Honestly, you'd think he'd pick something with more imagination than "big tits" but that's what it is. I looked while he was taking a shower and her number is there and he hadn't deleted any of his calls to her or hers to him.

"His secretary's home number is there too. He doesn't call her very often, but then he sees the bitch every day. I know he's fucking her too. His office closes at five and it's only a ten minute drive from our house, but some nights he doesn't get home until almost seven. He always says he's just working late to get ready for a closing or to submit a loan application, but we oughta be rolling in cash if that's the case."

"Maybe that's what he's trying to do, make more money. How are your finances?"

"We're doing OK. I don't drive a Mercedes like I'd like to, but I get a new SUV every year. He gets a new car every year too. All told, I think we're worth about a million, but that's not enough for as many houses as he claims to be closing."

I'd tried to offer her some suggestions as to why her husband's actions seemed suspicious for a reason. More than once, I'd investigated a supposed cheating spouse only to find out there was nothing going on. The complaining spouse didn't believe me and a couple times I got stiffed on my fee. Randy seemed to have a counter for my suggestions, so maybe there was something going on. I gave her one last out.

"Well, Mrs. Lake, I'll look into it for you. My fee is three hundred a day with two days in advance. If I don't find anything in two days, I can keep looking or you can decide you're satisfied. If I keep looking, it's another three hundred a day payable at the end of each week."

My fee schedule usually scares off people who aren't sure, but it didn't scare Randy.

"Do you take checks or do you have to have cash? I can do either one today."

"I'd really rather have cash. I can take a check, but I won't start anything until it clears and the money is in my account."

Randy stubbed out her cigarette and then dug into her purse again. After piling a bunch of her crap on my desk, she finally pulled out a wallet. She unzipped it, thumbed through three different sections, then pulled out six, hundred-dollar bills and tossed them on my desk.

"Here you go. Now catch the bastard for me."

I kept Randy there until I got her cell phone number, her husband's name, their address, the address of his office, his auto make, model and license number and the name and address of the woman who's house her husband, Bill, had listed. Randy asked if I didn't want a picture of her husband, and after digging in her purse again, tossed one on my desk.

When she walked out of my office, her ass cheeks had that great little up and down rock that really grabs my attention. I was thinking it would probably be great to see those cheeks naked, even better to give them a little squeeze or three.

I could have driven to her husband's office that afternoon. It was five and if he was boinking his secretary, they both might still be there, but I thought better of it. I like my scotch, but I have a rule about drinking and driving. I do one or the other, but not both on the same day. It's one of a few rules I have to keep myself on the mostly straight and usually narrow path. I also don't fuck married women, though I've had the opportunity, and if I come across something that's truly illegal, I always call the local police station and give them all my information. Those rules keep me on good terms with the cops and keep me from getting shot by a husband who's short on understanding and long on protecting his ego.

Instead, I tossed a frozen dinner in my microwave and poured myself another two fingers of scotch. After dinner and a movie on TV, I hit the sack.

I did take that drive the next morning about ten. After I drove by Randy's house, I figured her financial situation was a lot more than just OK. Most houses in the affordable range in town don't have a tall, wrought iron fence all around them and they don't have a four-car garage and sit on a five acre manicured lawn.

The other woman's house was a nice house, but not great. I didn't see any cars in the drive so I guessed either Bill was at his office or this wasn't his day to fill in Marjorie Downs, so to speak.

His car was parked in the lot at his office. Randy didn't know what kind of car the secretary drove, so I parked across the street at a strip mall and wrote down the make, model, and license number of every other car in the lot. I'd come back a little before five to see who got into what car. There would probably be more than one woman because selling real estate seems to be a popular career for women, but if one stayed past closing time and was a blonde, it was probably the secretary. I'd follow her home so I knew her address too.

I did a little more driving before going back to my office. I'd asked Randy if there were any other places Bill might go from work. She gave me two. One was a sporting goods store. Randy said Bill liked fishing and sometimes stopped off there to buy stuff for a weekend fishing trip. The other was a titty bar on Eleventh. She said if Bill was selling industrial properties, he sometimes took potential buyers there for drinks and a little fun so they'd be more willing to work with him instead of another agency.

I knew of the titty bar from another investigation. It was an OK place. By that I mean they had security in place and as far as I knew there had never been any fights or any girls who got mauled during a lap dance. It was also advertised as the place to go if you wanted to see big tits and when I went in I found out that was true.

The girls weren't particularly pretty, but they'd wobble their big knockers in your face once you paid them for a lap dance. I didn't ask for a lap dance. I was watching a guy to see if he did, and besides, if some broad is gonna push her big tits in my face, I want to give them a squeeze or two. That would have gotten me thrown out on my ass. Most of the tits looked like they'd been helped along with silicone anyway. I like my tits soft, not hard.

I figured since "big tits" was Bill's phone password, he probably wasn't taking clients there. He was going there to have some fun when he wasn't poking his cock in Marjorie or his secretary.