A Twist Of Noir 200 - Keith Rawson

WHAT WE PRAY FOR - KEITH RAWSON

Originally published at Crooked in February 2009

And here’s the money shot!

Tits and ass, genital-to-genital contact, and luckily, his target wasn’t all that hard on the eyes. Not exactly porn star quality stiff silicon Double D tits and airbrushed perfection, but definitely a higher quality than the usual fatty sagginess you typically expect from middle-age targets. This was what Devin Holman and his colleagues lived for. There wasn’t any of that Sam Spade shit involved in P.I. work. Yeah, that’s what you got into the business for at first. Most of the jackasses—Holman included—who became private investigators got into it because they read too many crime novels growing up, thinking that they’d be chasing down murderers, international jewel thieves, foreign secrets agents—all that Dashell Hammett bullshit. Reality check. Cops chase real crooks, CIA chases spies and international jewel thieves, well, those bastards don’t even fucking exist.

No, P.I.s chased down pussy hounds and bored housewives; they ran background checks for ruthless multinational corporations on new potatoes to plant in cube farms. He remembered those days. His first year at Tillman & Associates, he rode formica, shifting through credit reports, drug test results and minor criminal records. He’d watch his colleagues coming in from all-nighters trailing the negligent spouses; the horny housewives and husbands and wished it was him out on the street. Surely being on an observation was more exciting than getting tension headaches from reading blinking computer print eight hours a day. Wrong, very wrong.

How long ago was it when old man Tillman sent him out on his first observation? Eight years ago? Nine years ago? Shit, Holman couldn’t even remember the case. He was sure that it was just some traveling salesman getting his dick wet when he was out of town. Maybe the wife grew suspicious of his business trips and hired the firm when she came down with a dose of the clap or a bush full of crabs. Whatever. All the cases, all the observations, they all blended into one big flabby fuck session after so many years on the job. And all you truly cared about was the money shot, the moment when the clothes came off and hopefully the drapes were left open wide enough so that you could snap off a couple of tightly focused shots and you could go home and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Which was what was so great about this particular observation, it was only 9 o’clock and here was Mrs. Sam Miller stripping down to her God-given glory and getting ready to spread it to a man that wasn’t her husband. Mrs. Miller was the soon-to-be former trophy wife of a retired dot.com hotshot who was actually smart enough to get out and walk away with close to a billion stuffed in his bulging pockets before his intellectual property took a shit like all the rest. But, like most multimillionaire computer geeks, Miller was true to the stereotype and he married the first piece of trim that spent more than five minutes paying attention to him. The problem with Mrs. Miller is that she came to the marriage with a whole shitload of baggage. First off, when Mr. Miller met her, she was a stripper dancing at a club that Mr. Miller used to frequent with out-of-town clients and investors. Mrs. Miller was Mr. Miller’s favorite pole climber and he shoveled thousands of dollars into her g-string before he built up the courage to buy a three-carat ring. Mr. Miller wasn’t a stupid man, though; before the I DOs, Mr. Miller had the future Mrs. Miller sign a pre-nup. Mrs. Miller had no problem with it. It was a fair agreement that treated her right in case the two of them divorced. That is unless she fucked around on Mr. Miller, which, of course, she would never do.

Ten years into the marriage, apparently Mrs. Miller had never stepped out on her geek in shinning armor, but suddenly Mr. Miller started noticing Mrs. Miller’s behavior changing ever-so-slightly. Nothing that you would call out of the ordinary, just little things: hushed cell phone conversations, mysterious errands and shopping trips where she wouldn’t come back with anything from the mall. And, of course, the disturbing lack of sex in their marriage. From a physical standpoint, their marriage had always been a primal, animal thing. But for over six months, the sex had dwindled to a few awkward encounters and. two weeks ago, Mrs. Miller straight up refused his advances. That’s when he decided to sick Tillman & Associates on Mrs. Miller.

At this point in his story, Mr. Miller, the pathetic fuck, broke down in big snotty tears. Holman hated this part of the job. He wasn’t a priest, for Christ's sake, he wasn’t there to comfort the client and soothe their little emotional aches and pains. He was there to track the target and catch them doing what they weren’t supposed to be, so the client could avoid handing a huge divorce settlement. But, as his years on the job had taught him, it was better to attempt to give some form of sympathy; the referrals Mr. Miller might bring in if Holman did his job right could possibly keep him in Fat City for years to come. So he offered the snotty blubber pot a tissue and did hid best to assure Mr. Miller that Mrs. Miller probably wasn’t stepping out on him.

Yeah, right.

Holman expected the Miller observation to go on for weeks. Women are, by nature, a very secretive bunch, and when they don’t want the men in their lives to know something, they can keep it buried deep for years, sometimes decades. And when it came to having an affair, women were meticulous in their behaviors. Unlike men, women were extremely discrete. They shifted patterns, never meeting at the same restaurant, bar or hotel room twice. They’d park their cars in mall parking garages under the guise of spending yet another day shopping and cab it out to their true destination. One of Holman’s first street observations lasted nearly a month because the wife he was trailing seemed to have cars stashed all over the city and the only way he managed to finally catch her on film was that she made the mistake of having her boyfriend pick her up at the primary residence.

But Mrs. Miller completely surprised him on the first day of ops. She left the family home midday, dressed down in workout clothes and carrying a gym bag. Her first stop was an upscale gym, complete with gates and security guards semi-lethally armed with tasers. No access, so Holman parked a block away from the entrance gate, sipping coffee and listening to the police band on his scanner. Fortunately, the club had one way in and one way out, so there was no way he’d lose sight of Mrs. Miller’s Silver Beemer. He spotted her again three hours after she entered, no workout gear this time from his vantage point. They rolled along in 5 o’clock traffic, Holman sticking three or four car lanes behind at all times. They were headed in the opposite direction of the Millers' mini-mansion. She finally pulled into the parking lot of a chain sports bar called The Spot.

She stepped out of the car in full come-fuck-me gear: lose-fitting, low-slung skin-beige dress that was a near perfect match for her own bronze skin tone. Her long blonde hair was loose and feathered like some '70s poster girl sex goddess. She finished off the outfit with black Armani shades that seemed to cover half her face and pale brown suede calf-length boots. Holman nearly came in his pants as he watched her near-perfect ass roll gracefully with a well-practiced bump and grind with each step she took towards the suburban bar.

The bar was apparently a brief pit-stop and she strolled out with a man of undetermined stature fifteen minutes later. He kept his appearance well-concealed behind his own enormous pair of wrap-around shades, an LA Dodgers hat pulled low over his forehead and his body wrapped in what appeared to be a floor-length suede overcoat. Holman smelled golf hustler, a wealthy woman’s man-whore. The fugitive couple piled into Mrs. Miller’s vehicle and drove a couple of miles down the road to a Denny's, with an hourly rate motel next-door.

Holman couldn’t remember the last time he’d broken an observation down in less than 24 hours! Jesus, either Mrs. Miller didn’t have clue her husband was having her followed or she just didn’t care and was thinking her sport-fucking as a possible exit strategy from her marriage. After a quick snack of deep-fried garbage, the couple headed to the motel’s front office, rented a ground floor room and headed inside, politely groping each other. They left the dusty vertical blinds open for the entire world to see, and most importantly, for his camera to catch live and uncensored in lifelike digital glory.

Holman zoomed the lens a full ten to catch a righteous shot of Mrs. Miller, hands flat on the window ledge, bent over, back arched, slightly sagging but still close to perfect tits bounce back and forth threatening to smack her right on the chin as the golf hustler banged away from behind, still sporting shades, hat and trench coat, his hands roughly gripping her tanned shoulders for extra thrust. Holman’s heart felt like a cement mixer on overdrive. This shit was hot and it reminded him how long it had been since he’d last been laid. Fucking ages. The couple switched up positions, Mrs. Miller’s ass now planted on the window ledge, her firm calves parked on the mystery man’s shoulders. The hustler had Mrs. Miller’s back pinned against the window, his hands moving between rubbing her tits to running his fingers through her thick hair.

Holman had more than enough shots to send Mrs. Miller back to the day shift at some greasy strip bar but he couldn’t take his eyes off the show and was entertaining idea of unzipping and rubbing a quick one out. The masked man leaned in close, his hands sliding around Mrs. Miller’s neck, kissing her like he was trying to swallow her whole. Suddenly, he slammed her head into the motel window hard enough to cause the glass to spiderweb. The motherfucker’s hands were around her throat. He was choking her down, and not in your typical erotic asphyxiation style; he was straight-up trying to kill her.

Mrs. Miller’s fingers went straight to the hustler’s face and she started trying to claw at his eyes. Holman was convinced that he was witnessing a possible murder. Tillman & Associates policy when witnessing a possible act of violence was to call the proper authorities, wait for 5-O to roll in and assist in the investigation as a material witness. But, if he followed protocol, chances were the cops would show up way too late to stop the current situation. His only chance was to step in and stop the attack.

Holman bolted from his ride. The room was a good hundred yards away and he moved as fast as his two hundred-fifty pounds of deep-fried bulk would allow him. Jesus, he felt like he was going to drop of a coronary before he even hit the door. He’d count himself lucky to have enough energy to stop trench coat guy from choking the rest of Mrs. Miller’s life out of her body. Fucking A! This shit was awesome; this was straight up fucking Sam Spade/Mickey Spillane shit!

Holman hit the door with every ounce of his weight and momentum. He was almost surprised how easily the lock popped opened. As soon as Holman was inside the room, he turned on Mrs. Miller’s attacker, his eyes huge and hot breath ripping in and out of his lungs.

What the shit?

For the first time since the beginning of the observation, Holden got a good look at Mrs. Miller’s fuck buddy. The guy was an absolute fat ass, a blimp, and he kind of looked a little like Mr. Miller. Hell, just not a little, a lot. Holman turned his attention to Mrs. Miller. He’d expected her to be unconscious, at death’s door. She wasn’t. She was laughing like a little girl, her hands covering her mouth, her pale beautiful blue eyes shining with something not quite like happiness. Holman didn’t have time to react as the fat bastard smashed something hard and flat against the right side of his face. He crumpled to the floor and then lay flat on his back, the fat asshole standing over him gripping a thick crystal ashtray in both hands.

Holman’s eyes were heavy and he felt like every bone in his face was shattered and moving around with a life of there own. He couldn’t believe what was happening.

The fucking creep standing over him and getting ready to cave in his skull was Mr. Miller and the weeping tub of guts he half-heartedly attempted to comfort a few brief days ago had the biggest cock he’d ever seen.

Holy Christ, that thing had to be at least a foot and a half long.

These were Holman’s final thoughts.

*

Tammy Miller laid flat on her back, sweat-drenched and smoking, an annoyed squint creasing her brow.

“You know, honey,” Tammy’s husband Sam called from the bathroom, “we really should send Zach Tillman a nice Thank You basket.”

“Fuck, Zach Tillman. He should screen these guys a little more carefully before he sends them out.”

Sam stepped out of the bathroom, gently patting his thinning mousy brown hair dry with a cheap motel room towel. Sam truly wasn’t much to look at. He was at least one hundred pounds. overweight, practically blind and had some of the worst back acne Tammy had ever seen. But he was a wonderful husband, who indulged his wife’s every whim, including occasionally letting her screw recently-deceased Private Investigators. Plus, his cock could easily be classified as one of the Eight Wonders of the Natural World. That helped out a lot.

“You know, honey, Zach can’t exactly ask for guy’s penis size on a resume. Besides, the last two were far from disappointing. And at least this guy stayed hard until you were finished.”

“I know, sweetie,” she said as she stood up from the bed she’d been laying on and ground out her cigarette into what was left of Devin Holman’s skull in one smooth motion, before wrapping her arms around her husbands neck. “But, Jesus, look at him. He can’t be more than five, six inches tops, and my fingers did most of the work.”

“I know, honey. But you still had fun, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And you know, I was thinking about what you said the other night. Maybe it is time we throw a woman into the mix?”

“Oh, you’ll love it, baby!”

“I’m sure. But I’m thinking lubrication’s going to be kind of a problem. I don’t think I can get some woman as worked up as you do with these guys.”

“Yeah, but maybe Zach has a lesbian on the payroll that he wouldn’t mind getting rid of."

“Yeah, maybe. It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

BIO: Keith Rawson is a little known pulp writer who lives in the alkaline desert wastelands of southern Arizona with his wife and very energetic three-year-old daughter. His stories have appeared in such publications as Plots with Guns, Pulp Pusher, CrimeWav.com, Bad Things, Powder Burn Flash, A Twist of Noir, Beat to a Pulp and many others. You can find him most nights dicking around on either Twitter or Facebook, or stroking his already over-inflated ego at his blog Bloody Knuckles, Callused Fingertips.