Stan Manuel's the name, I'm a private investigator and yup, my office girl and all my friends call me "Stan the Man". You can call me Stan.
I once did a job for a retired admiral. He wanted me to find out who his wife was having an EMA with – sorry, that's my shorthand for extra-marital affair. Turned out it was the guy who used to be his flag officer here at Pearl, on Oahu. That's Pearl Harbor for those who don't know their history.
Well, the admiral was so grateful he not only paid me my fee, plus a nice little bonus, but he also gave me a gift. It's a pair of Russian binoculars. Seems the admiral was once stationed up in Anchorage, and the Russian navy called in on some goodwill visit.
"They're basically good guys," said the admiral, "but they drink a helluva lot too much vodka." Anyway, the admiral's Russian equivalent gave him this pair of binoculars as a parting gift.
"You got any use for these, son?" the admiral had asked me. He called everyone under the age of 60 "son", but although I was 36-years-old at the time, I didn't mind. I liked the old codger, felt sorry his wife was cheating on him.
"Sure could come in handy some days, admiral," I said and he thrust them into my hand.
"And don't think that 'cos they're made by our friends the Russkies they ain't any good," said the admiral. "When they overran Germany at the end of the war up in Europe, they grabbed a lot of experts from the Carl Zeiss Jena workshops. That's why they make such goddam good glasses, if you'll pardon my language, son."
Well, that was a couple of years ago and they've sure come in handy since in my particular hobby. And in my line of work, but more in my hobby. But they're big bastards - crikey those Russian sailors must have been ironmen just to lift them above their shoulders, so I had a tripod made of beautiful Hawaiian koa wood for them to stand on.
They now stand just on the edge of my lounge, inside from the lanai, looking out across the valley from my 20th floor apartment. And very useful equipment they are too! Because of a lot of the ladies who live in the posh houses way below my place aren't exactly careful about being careful, if you get my drift.
Still, a lot of them have secluded, beautiful big homes. We're talking millions, fancy big places a 20-minute drive from downtown Waikiki. And I don't suppose they'd ever think that little old me, more than a mile away can count the number of pubic hairs on their pussies as I perv on 'em through my trusty Russkie binoculars.
I'd just finished a long, boring inquiry for an international yachting skipper whose wife was having affairs with studs all over town. It involved long hours of observation, so I was taking a week or so off.
This afternoon I was sipping on my mid-afternoon mai tai, sitting on a bar stool which was perfectly placed for me to look through the binoculars without having to bend. You spend a lot of time perving – er, looking, through these things you need to be comfortable.
As usual I was doing my scanning of the properties across the valley in the nude. I'm 38, as you've probably worked out, but speaking of "working out" I go to a private gym just 10 minutes away and I've got a body that's almost as toned as when I was a Navy Seal.
I'm six foot, I'm tanned, I've got a shaved head and I'm eight inches of manhood down there, uncut and shaved, too. I don't like a mass of pubic hair sprouting around the edges of my thong. I am, according to women like Miranda, my office help, a "hunk". Hey, who's gonna argue?
So anyway, there I am, sitting naked on my bar stool, sipping on this mai tai – and I only drink one a day, but I do it as a sort of nod to my adopted home, I've tasted better drinks – and I came across this vision as I scanned along the back gardens of the properties about three-quarters of a mile away.
I damn nearly missed her. You see, she was lying on a dark-brown coloured beach towel on this recliner and her body was so beautifully, deeply, richly tanned, her figure and its great tan sort of melded into the brownness of the towel.
But I flicked back and saw that I was looking at the most magnificent specimen I'd come across in months! Usually it was an array of ladies of a certain age, as the French have it, who have pot bellies, sagging tits and sloppy thighs and who do nothing for me, or youngies aged anywhere from their late teens to their early 20s, who do nothing for me either.
I'm 38, I fancy people in the same sort of age range. Don't know about you, but to me that means anything from around 30 to 45, give or take a year or so, depending on that certain something. You with me?
So to get back to Ms Magnificent, she was a stunner. Till she stood up I didn't have an idea of what her height would be, but it looked as if her legs were long, although the angle I was looking at her from wasn't the best to judge that. Her belly looked toned and taut, although – again – the angle and the fact she was lying down meant she would look flat there till she got up.
She had superb breasts, though, and that I could tell without seeing her stand up. She was sitting in the recliner, her back was almost straight and her breasts were pressed upwards, the nipples large and almost black, the areolae around them almost black too. Although I was pointing my bins directly at her, I'd estimate them around 36 inches, give or take.
She had long, lustrous black hair. She wasn't the prettiest woman I'd ever laid eyes on, but she had deep brown eyes – yup, these binoculars are
that
good – and she was attractive in a hard sort of way. I guessed she was part-Hawaiian, although she might have been foreign. Either way, local or an import, she was Grade A "fuck me" material.
During my perving – let's not beat about the bush any more, eh? – my cock had stood up and I was now stroking my hard-on, which was seeping pre-cum in what the porn writers call "copious quantities".
I kept the binoculars trained on this marvellous vision, who was lying back relaxing in the warmth of the sun, sipping from time to time on a long glass on the table beside her. It had chunks of ice in it, plus a wedge of lemon floating on the top. Gin and tonic, vodka, possibly.
Then, to my delight, she stood up and stretched on tip toe. Fuck, was she great! I'd estimate her at around five 10, supermodel height, anyway, and her legs were those of a supermodel's. For the first time I got a look at her pussy, as she stood with her feet wide. There was a small patch of deep black pubic hair on her mons, then I could see her pink pussy lips peeping out from the darkness of her crotch.
But then she turned on her heel and, displaying a sweetly kissable pair of cheeks, she walked swiftly into the house, taking her drink with her. I locked the binoculars into position so when I needed them later they'd be perfectly targeted, then went to my street map of Honolulu.
From the map I found two streets which could have been the address of Ms Magnificent. Then I checked through the binoculars again. Her house had a tiled roof, lightish sort of brown, and a distinctive red-painted edging on all the woodwork. Next door on one side was a sort of old-style Colonial mansion, to the other a two-storeyed modern monstrosity.
I went down to the basement and climbed into my battered old Datsun. In my kind of work there are cars that you don't want remembered, and there are cars that you want people to think "Hey, this guy's arrived!" That car I did not want this evening.
I drove across the valley and selected what I thought was the most likely of the two streets and as I cruised down at an "I'm just looking at the lovely houses" sort of speed, I came across Ms Magnificent's abode. I noted the number, 1080, and drove home. I did absolutely nothing to arouse any suspicion.
Back home I called up my database and dragged a file which is very useful in the private investigation business. It gives the details of ownership of every property on the island, the owner's occupation, whether it's freehold or leasehold, land size, and so on.
The first snag in my hunt turned up. The property was registered to a Dr Marcus, someone or other, and his occupation given as "retired". I needed to do some more research. Calling up the white pages, I found the good doctor's phone number, with the matching address, and dialled it. "This number has been disconnected," a metallic voice informed me.
My next job was simple. I took an advertising brochure from the pile of mail that had arrived this afternoon, and chose one glossy pamphlet plugging cruises out of Victoria, British Vancouver. Crap about glaciers, whales and great food. I found an envelope which it fitted into perfectly, then inserted the envelope in my trusty old IBM. I typed: "The occupier, 1080."
Inside, I put a sheet of A4 which I printed out from my word processor: "From the occupier at 1030, opened in error, sorry." The typeface was my good old Apple Mac's New Times Roman, millions like it. I didn't even bother to wear rubber gloves while handling it because the chances of her being suspicious about it were almost non-existent and, anyway, if I was spotted "posting" it in her letter box, it would look pretty darned strange if I was wearing rubber gloves!
Now you may wonder, why I was going to all this bother to find her name? Well – that's obvious, of course. I wanted to get her name to get her number to give her a call. But why did I want to call her? Simple. I wanted to get into her pants.
And, of course, you'd be curious as to why I wanted to do that. My actions could be extremely risky for my licence if she complained to the authorities. She could report me for obscene calls, or making a nuisance. If the cops could trace me, it would be not only embarrassing, it would mean goodbye to my licence.
So, why bother? Well, it was a bit like that Limey mountaineer, Irvine, Irving, one or the other I think, who was asked why bother climbing Mt Everest. He said: "Because it's there."
That's my answer. Because she was there. And besides, it was the thrill of the chase, or in this case, more precisely, the hunt.
I'm not exactly a monk in my sexual behaviour, I get around, I sleep around. But I wanted Ms Magnificent. That's why I wanted to talk to her. To charm her. To get into her panties. Of course, when I spoke to her I might go off her. She might sound like a whore. She might not, though.
Hell, she was probably married. Or had a partner. More research was needed, so I poured my first Grey Goose and tonic of the day and resumed my perch on the bar stool. It was now getting on for 6.30 in the evening and the sun was slipping its rapid way beneath the horizon. Inside 1080 the lights were on.
She was watching TV, drinking from the same glass, there was no one else in the house. I checked on her a couple of other times, loving the way her simple black dress hung around her fantastic figure. She cooked herself a steak on a large, all-mod-cons barbecue in the yard by her large pool.
She sat in front of her television, ate the steak, a baked potato and a green salad, and drank a bottle of red wine – not even the Russian binoculars could make out the lettering on the label – and walked steadily into her bedroom, stripped naked – what a body! – climbed into bed and the lights went out around the house.
The next morning, I got Miranda, my office help, to check to US Post about the time she could expect a mail delivery in Ms Magnificent's street. She explained she was looking after the house for a friend and was expecting some important papers and wanted to be there when it arrived.
Some 10 minutes before the mail was due to be delivered in the street I checked Ms Magnificent's home and found the place closed up. No sign of her.
About five minutes before the mail, I walked down to the basement and climbed into the car I wanted to be seen in. It was a blazing, fire engine red Ferrari. No, not shades of Tom Selleck. This Ferrari was a front-engined Daytona. Very rare, very stylish. This afternoon, though, if I was to be seen I wanted to be seen as someone who had "arrived" and could have come from the street.
I entered Ms Magnificent's street just in time to see the little blue US Post van driving out of it. I gunned the Ferrari to 1080, climbed out of the car and went to her large letterbox. It was set in a large brick wall, but the mail was still stuffed in the box opening.
