For the next part of my stop on The Escapist Blog Tour for Duckett & Dyer: Dicks For Hire by G.M. Nair, I have this nifty excerpt. Enjoy!
It was dark outside by the time he left. Michael couldn’t see his watch, but it was definitely around 9:30. He walked down the street past a row of cars, neatly angle parked. At the end sat Michael’s 1982 Mercury Zephyr, a car that he lovingly referred to as “the Garbagemobile.” The otherwise red car had a canary yellow passenger’s side door that failed to function since its previous owner had opted to weld it shut for undisclosed reasons. Still, the trunk worked well enough. Michael thumped his fist on the corner and it popped open, allowing him to toss in his laundry. Or was it clothes, now? When did your laundry stop being “laundry” and become “clothes”? When you folded it? When you brought it home? Or when you put it in your dresser? Michael enjoyed this pointless line of questioning brought on by the euphoria of his potential date with a beautiful woman, as it distracted him from overthinking about said date.
Michael slammed the trunk shut and turned to find the crazed blue eyes and wild hair of an entirely different, entirely angrier woman who had definitely not been there a second ago. He jolted backwards and tumbled onto the asphalt. A jeep whizzed by his head at what felt like 50 miles per hour, but was probably more like 5.
“Oh my God! What the hell, lady?” A situation in which panic was natural. Michael almost felt at home.
“You’re Michael Duckett!” The woman declared in a voice so far from Terri’s melodic tones, it would need a GPS to get within striking distance.
“Uh . . . yeah?” was all he could muster. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”
“I need your help!” She seemed less interested in his questions than her own agenda, whatever that was.
“You need . . . my help?” Michael pulled himself to his feet by leaning on the Garbagemobile’s rear bumper, which shuddered against the rusty nails holding it on. “For what?”
“I saw your ad. I need to hire you. It’s urgent.”
“Sorry. My ad? I think you have the wrong guy. I’m not for hire.” Michael brushed himself off and, being certain his life was no longer in any significant peril, took stock of the situation. He sidled past the woman, who was wearing medical scrubs beneath the folds of a long brown coat, and onto the sidewalk. If she had escaped from a mental hospital, killed an orderly, and stolen his clothes, that would explain the scrubs. It was a bit of a reach, but not an unreasonable conclusion given the circumstances.
“I have a case for you,” she said. Her eyes had a cold fire behind them that complemented the harsh red lipstick that popped against her dark olive skin. She would have been beautiful if she hadn’t been completely off her rocker.
“Yeah, a . . . nut case,” Michael winced. Another joke that didn’t land tonight, but there really wasn’t much time to workshop it. “Lady, I can give you bus fare or . . . uh . . . whatever you need. But I’m pretty sure you have the wrong person.”
“No. I definitely don’t. You’re the detective!” Despite her manic motions, the woman’s frizzy, curly blast of bright blonde hair refused to move very much.
“Detective? What the hell are you talking about?” Michael inched toward the door of the Garbagemobile. “I’m not—”
The woman slapped her hand on the door, blocking his escape. With her other hand, she removed a smartphone from her purse and thrust it at him. “I recognized you from your photo.”
Michael left the smartphone in her hand and awkwardly scrolled down with a single finger. It was not often that Michael got to use a fancy smartphone. His own was an elderly flip affair with a creaky hinge. The screen on this one was brighter and boasted a higher resolution which allowed the bold black headline to leap out of the bright white background in all-caps, silently yelling at him:
“MICHAEL DUCKETT AND STEPHANIE DYER – PRIVATE EYES FOR HIRE – NO CASE TOO TOUGH, NO CASE TOO CRAZY – REASONABLE RATES – ANY TIME DAY OR NIGHT.”
It was a simple internet classified ad—the Hail Mary of desperate schlubs seeking used leisure suits or unlikely missed connections. Below the headline was a picture of him and his oldest friend – and roommate two years running – Stephanie Dyer, standing side by side. It was cropped to focus only on their chests and heads, so Michael couldn’t place where or when it had been taken. Stephanie was making overenthusiastic gun fingers at the camera, while Michael seemed aloof in an attempt to appear cool. It had not worked.
My thanks to Escapist Book Tours for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the novel) they provided. The opinions expressed by me are honest and my own.
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