Ch. 1
I was still working out of the third floor office in the Hammett Building on Chandler Blvd -- when there was any work. On this particular Friday morning Velda and I were in the inner office. The office had a couch that had seen more action than the crack whores down on the corner, a filing cabinet with a coffee maker on top, a closet hiding a john and a sink, a visitor's chair, a desk, and my swivel chair.
Nothing turns me on more than watching Velda suck my dick. Her Cupid's bow mouth opens into a wide O; her eyes widen too; her rosy cheeks flush more deeply; her tongue works at the underside like a beckoning finger. If you've ever seen one of those wildlife documentaries where a snake dislocates its jaw to swallow a feral hog you have a rough idea what her face and neck look like when my private dick bottoms out in her throat.
Velda's boobs must be counted with the world's natural wonders, which makes the bra that holds them up an engineering marvel on par with the Golden Gate Bridge.
Ever since the Back Door Angel case there'd been less dick-sucking and titty-fucking around the office, because my enthusiasm for anal activity was renewed. If there's anything more exciting than seeing Velda's boobs precede her beautiful face into the room, it's watching her bushel-basket of apple bottom leave.
At the moment she wasn't going anywhere. She was on her hands and knees, up on my desk like a mountain goat on a hillside. I was sitting in my desk chair with my face between her asscheeks and my tongue plunged into the back door to her heart.
"That's it, Rick, tongue-fuck my butt --"
She was cut off by the jangling of the bell on the outer office door. Velda's still agile; she got to her feet and jumped off the desk, her skirt falling to cover her pillowy posterior as she headed for the door. I tried to wrestle my trouser snake back down to size, but quickly gave up and just strangled it under my belt.
Velda's ass-juice dried on my face like aftershave as she reopened the door, admitting our first client in weeks. The client was a small, neat, demure looking young woman, little more than a girl, with primly smooth brown hair, expressionless eyes, and a small thin-lipped mouth. Think Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but without the energy. Or Beth in Little Women. No one ever looked less like Lizzie Borden.
"Mr. Mallet?" Her voice was high and girlish, like Betty Boop. If you told me she was a high school freshman, I'd believe you.
"Yes, I'm Rick Mallet." I rose to take her hand, and offered her the visitor's chair. "And you are?"
"Caril Holan. Mr. Mallet, I'm in terrible trouble, and I don't know where to turn. Can I trust you?"
"Ms. Holan, I do honest work for $200 a day. You can trust me to do my best and keep my mouth shut. Beyond that, I don't know until you tell me more."
"I guess I have to trust someone. I've come here from Kansas to find my brother, but I don't know where to start looking."
"The police have more resource for finding a missing person than any one-man detective agency, Ms. Holan."
"I... I can't go to the police. Paul wouldn't like the police knowing his business. He might be fine -- I'm so afraid he's not -- He sent a postcard a year ago-- " She dug into her handbag and pulled out a dinged-up card with the classic "GREETINGS..." image on the front, and a few scrawled lines on the back. "I just have to find him."
"I'll see what I can do."
She left the postcard, a photo of her brother, her contact information, and a check for $1000 from the account of Herb and Karla Holan at the First National Bank of Manhattan, Kansas.
Velda saw her out. When she got back I was looking at the photo: a thin-faced, high-cheeked young man with heavy dark eyebrows, wavy hair, a narrow nose, fuller lower lip than his sister, and a well-defined chin.
Velda studied me while I studied him. Then she spoke, "You better be careful on this one, Rick. No one is as innocent as that girl is acting."
"C'mon Velda, we all were...once."
"I know you, Rick: you see big hair, big boobs, and a big butt, and sure you get horned up, but you keep your head. It's the stick-figure women that don't turn you on that take advantage of you."
"I'll take that under advisement," I said. But I didn't. I grabbed my fedora. "I'm headed down to the cop shop to tap Honey Bunce for some info. We'll see if Paul here is in the system."
"Tap Honey's butthole is more likely," Velda's voice followed me down the hall.
Ch. 2
At City Hall Plaza, some kind of protest was going on. I could see signs proclaiming "Nothing About Us Without Us," "Slut Walk," "Decriminalize Sex Work," "Sex Work is Work," and "A Blow Job is a Job" (I'd never seen that one before). As I got closer, I saw my old friend Th' Gina Packer at a microphone on the steps, haranguing the crowd and waving her famous bat, the baseball bat she shoves inside herself in her act, over her head. I swung around the crowd and went into the police station.
I had a tray of coffees from the Big Drip. Deacon Washington was on desk duty. I offered him one.
"Thanks, Rick. Who you need to see?" He took a sip, "Damn, that's the good stuff. Why's cop shop coffee gotta suck so bad?"
"Honey Bunce."
"Be cool going in and out, brother. Most a th' force is happy about what you did for us with the Johnsons, but Pete Wax has some friends around. See if you can keep your head down and get in and out without having to hurt anyone."
I could've slipped down a side stairway to Honey's basement office, but I'd brought a coffee for my old partner, Miles Harder, so I made a quick detour through the squadroom. Nobody confronted me, but Miles wasn't around. I left the coffee and went down to see Honey.
When I entered her office, she looked up from her computer and smiled her thousand-watt smile. "Rick!" She jumped up -- you could hardly tell, she's so short -- and bopped around the desk to give me a hug.
I offered her one of the coffees. "I think I remember the way you like it," I said. "Hot, black, and sweet, just like you." She said it with me, but finished with "me."
She was wearing her hair bleached, straightened and pulled into two tails at the sides of her head with big red bows. I had a good view of it, because her head only reached about to my belly button.
I'm pretty sure Honey distracted whoever measured her when she applied to the police academy, and stood on tiptoe to meet the height requirement. She had ample distractions to work with. Her boobs were like two Goodyear blimps loosely tethered beneath a tight top with a plunging neckline. You could set a champagne glass on her ass and not spill a drop, until she started walking; she rolls so hard you'd think you're at sea. Think Nicki Minaj only rounder, and you have a sense of Honey. She had on a short skirt that had to travel so far to get over her hips that it had nothing left to cover her thighs with.
"You look good enough to eat, Honey," I said.
"I hope you're hungry, Rick, 'cause I'm a full portion of comfort food."
"I see that! Nice outfit, Hun."
"Oh, yeah. I'm in plainclothes now."
"There's nothing plain about those clothes."
She cranked the smile up to a thousand watts again. "Rick, I hear you're back on the A-team. I got a hole that's hungry for some of your back door lovin'. Whattaya say?"
