Suckers - Jack Kilborn [40]
Or I could knock on the front door and ask what’s up.
“What’s up?” I asked when the front door opened.
Since I’d seen him yesterday, Ken had gone from half a sunburned face to a full sunburned face. The smell coming from his house was real bacon, which sure beat the smell of fake bacon, which my mother used to make out of soy and library paste and brown Crayons.
“Who are you?”
“Housing inspector.” I flashed him my PI badge, too fast for him to read it. “I’m here to check for gas leaks. Are you leaking any gases?”
“No. Can I see that badge again?”
“I smell something. Are you cooking in there?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Is it bacon?” I smacked my lips. “I love bacon. I read somewhere that you could shave with bacon. Rub it on your face raw, and it lubricates better than shaving cream. Have you ever heard of that?”
“No.”
“I tried it once. Closest shave I ever had. But I got an E. Coli infection and they had to remove eight yards of my large intestine. Can I come in?”
“No. Hey, you look kind of familiar.”
I flashed an aw shucks grin. “I get that a lot. I’ve made a few videos. You might know my screen name, Sir Dix-A-Lot.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Ever see Snow White and the Seven Blowjobs?”
“No.”
“Robin Hood, Prince of Anal?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The Empire Strikes Scat?”
“Maybe you should come in. I may have some gases for you to check on.”
I nodded, stepping into his humble abode. It was no surprise he let me in. Fast talking is one of my special skills. That and being able to swallow pills. If I had a super power, it would be the ability to swallow a whole handful of pills at once. Big pills too. None of that baby aspirin crap for babies. I secretly hoped that one day I’d get cancer, and the doctor would prescribe me a lot of pills, and he’d tell me to space them out throughout the day because there were so many, but I’d tell him no need to and grab the whole handful and swallow them up right there while he watched, amazed.
That’s what I was thinking about when Phil hit me in the head with the hammer.
I awoke from a terrible dream that I was trapped in a coffin with an inhumanly large-testicled man, to the terrible reality of being tied to a chair in some freak’s basement.
Said freak was standing over me, staring.
“You’re awake,” he said.
“No I’m not.”
I shook my head, which caused a spike of pain. My left eye stung, and I looked down my nose and saw some dried blood on my cheek. The freak still held the hammer. He waved it in front of my face in a way I’m sure he thought was menacing, which actually was pretty menacing.
“Yes you are! And I know what you want! That whore hired you!”
“Which whore? I know a lot of whores.”
He poked me in the chest with the hammer. “She hired you to spy on me! To find out what secrets I had hidden in my parent’s house! Well, now you’ll be privy to those secrets, Mr. Private Eye! Because I’m going to show them to you!”
I checked my bonds, noted he had used the same clothesline he’d purchased at the hardware store. The knots were tight, expert. My legs were bound as well, tied to the steel chair legs of the steel chair, which was made of steel. The basement was unfurnished, concrete floor, I-beams and joists exposed in the ceiling, menacing curtains sectioning off the area we were in.
“Got any aspirin?” I asked. “Some asshole hit me with a hammer.”
“Silence!”
“And can