My name is Dan Donnelly. I used to be a cop. Then I worked in security. Wanting to be my own boss, now I'm self-employed as a private investigator, a small, small businessman. I retain some connections from those previous jobs, including a detective sergeant and a newspaper reporter. I am 42, with a 44" chest, and 6' 1". Running and working out add muscle bulk to my size. I have thick brown hair in a shaggy cut and blue eyes. Women variously regard me as a hunk or a hulk. "Hulk" works in providing security. "Hunk" helps in dealing with the fair sex. When I'm working, I usually carry a.38 in a shoulder holster under some kind of jacket.
My cop friend, Detective Paul Hardy said,
"You look like a thug, at the very least, like a bouncer. You do strongarm stuff. You can blend among thugs and break laws, advantages we don't have."
"Don't be so modest! I've seen and you've seen, cops who look like thugs and some who have a loose interpretation of laws."
Paul looked like a suburban matron's idea of a policeman. He was big, strong and clean-cut. He had a nice blonde haircut, not too short or too long, usually wore a sport jacket; he rarely took it off, rolled up his sleeves, and glared like the third degree.
My office is an unprepossessing 40 square feet on the third floor of a one of the oldest, shortest buildings downtown. I can't afford a secretary, or I'd play Mike Hammer and engage a Velda lookalike. Yesterday, a fine mid-summer day, two clean-cut gentlemen in their thirties offered me a job to provide security, as a bodyguard to their candidate for Congress.
"Since when does a candidate, not the incumbent, for the House need a bodyguard?"
"There have been death threats. Two of his volunteers, a boy and a girl, were roughed up while trying to distribute campaign literature on the street."
"Wilson's been elected four times. A lot of people like his liberal policies, and he has a lot of financial support. What's your candidate, Tim Herald, offering?"
"He's a reform candidate, moral reform. He was an evangelical minister. Now he feels a calling to politics."
"Can he pay me $400 a day, plus expenses, assuming he doesn't dip into campaign donations?"
"Mr. Herald has his own money."
"I'm not very religious. Maybe we should meet before deciding."
"We are authorized to invite you to their home for supper at 7 this evening, if that is convenient for you."
The Heralds' home was in an affluent suburb. I was not surprised by the white exterior and colonial style pillars supporting about 6'of overhanging red roof. The house was 2 1/2 stories. Was the one-half story the servants' quarters? We were greeted, not by a butler, but a maid in a black, knee-length dress with white frills on the cuffs, neckline and hem. She didn't have a maid's cap, though, or black net stockings. I'd want a French maid look.
I was led to the entrance of a spacious living room, where Herald and his wife, Penny, greeted me. Tim Herald was taller than I and thinner. At 51, he looked rather distinguished with his black hair streaked with gray. Beside me, he definitely looked elegant.
Penny's hand was small and soft. She was a petite blonde, with her shoulder-length hair pinned up for the occasion. Her solid light blue knit dress clung just enough to show how shapely she was, the hem was just far enough about her knees to suggest beautiful legs. Her heart-shaped face, small, upturned nose and large, sky-blue eyes made a picture of innocence. She looked at least ten years younger than 46. Who needed a French maid with a looker like Penny for his wife?
They sat on a sumptuous leather couch and I in a wingback armchair. Penny crossed her lovely legs, watched her hem ride up, thought better of it, uncrossed them and tried to pull the hem down. I hate when women do that, as if I were a lecher, mentally undressing them, but her little ceremony led me to imagine how she did look naked.
Penny put me at ease when she requested a martini. Her cheerful manner and that she soon forgot where her hem was implied that this would not be her first alcoholic beverage of the night. I requested Scotch on the rocks. Herald walked to a small bar in an alcove to make the drinks. He had a sherry, dry.
"Are you married, Mr. Donnelly?" Penny asked.
"No, but I have a woman friend."
"We have two children, both away in college."
"You hardly look old enough. You must have needed your parents' consent to marry."
Penny laughed.
"Honey, Mr. Donnelly is making a good impression, at least on me!"
At dinner, Penny had a glass of wine and one more for the couch, where she dozed off in front of the TV. Herald and I remained at the table to discuss details of my job.
"Do you think Wilson's involved?"
"I don't know. I want you to find out."
The next day, I called my source at the newspaper, Ed Farber, what he had on Herald.
"What's in it for me?"
"A six-pack of your favorite beer and dinner on me at your choice of restaurant."
Leaving security in the hands temporarily of the two guys who had offered me a job, I met Ed that night, in the restaurant. He brought copies of his small file on the Heralds.
"He's a born-again, Christian fundamentalist. As neophyte politician and an incipient theocrat, he can count on the evangelical vote and other Puritans, but this is a liberal town. His campaign is small potatoes. Why would an elephant want to stomp a mosquito? His wife is a lush, but that's not newsworthy."
At the campaign office, I met the boy and girl and said I'd chaperone them. They returned at their usual time and their usual place on the sidewalk, but near an alley. I stepped into the alley. After about 20 minutes, along came a pair of eyesores, a short, pudgy guy with a blonde crewcut and a lanky guy with black hair in a ducktail.
"Hey, I thought we convinced you kids to get lost! I guess we need to have a private talk."
The goons ushered the kids into the alley. I hit the tall one across his throat with a karate chop. He gurgled and fell against a building.
"Hey, Chubby, if fat were muscle, you might look tough!"
"Who the hell are you?"
"Nemesis!"
I punched him in the belly and he doubled up. Then I grabbed his collar and booted him flying out over the curb.
"If I see you two around here again, I'll get angry!"
The next day, I called my friend on the force.
"Is there anybody connected to Wilson who might be over-zealous, like a religious fanatic or gangster?"
"Wilson has a tenuous relationship with Mike Henry, a donor of some ill-gotten gains. Henry isn't stupid enough to make a sanctimonious reform candidate into a martyr, though."
I checked in at Herald's office to report. He looked down at his desk, rustled some papers, and said,
