When you have only street smarts, and no academic credentials whatsoever, there is a real dearth of high paying jobs that are open to you. However, I do have something else besides street smarts going for me - I'm six three, two forty pounds, can bench press 450 pounds, and have a year's training in Brazilian jujitsu. Perfect qualifications for a bounty hunter/soldier of fortune. The only problem, at least for me, with bounty hunting is that it is either feast or famine - plus I don't handle money real well.
When some really sketchy looking guys were willing to front me $50,000 for a job I suddenly forgot how low-life they looked and seriously considered it. It seems that some diamonds that they owned had been stolen.
"Why not go to the cops?" was my obvious question.
"No cops Rick man; you do job for us or not; when diamonds come back, we add $200,000 more," a really ugly big guy who didn't speak English real well said as he waved a stack of hundreds that he swore amounted to fifty grand.
"OK; let me know what you know about who might have taken them," I replied after I counted out the dough.
"Bad people. Jimmy Grant and three-four thugs he work with," was the reply.
"If you already know who took them why not get them yourself?"
"No one - mean every one - scare shitless of Grant; why we ask professor like you, Rick man."
"You mean 'professional?'" I chuckled.
"Yeah - professor like you," the big ugly guy responded.
"OK - but I also want expenses since I have to hire a computer dude to do some research and get my SUV all tricked out."
"How much?"
"Probably another $25,000; I'll take $5,000 now for my research, non-refundable," I said counting out 50 hundreds and then handing the rest of the stack of C-notes back to the big ugly dude. "I'll know by tomorrow if I'll take the case, in which situation you give me the other $70,000 down payment."
"Deal. Give to you next day - get to work, Rick man," the big ugly guy replied, handing me a card with two cell phone numbers and an email address on it, as he and his two grungy little buddies scurried out of the barn that I used for my office with his cash stuffed in an oversized fanny pack.
I had my computer-geek cousin Bertram find out everything about Jimmy Grant that he could. Bertram is socially inept - hell, he probably got the shit kicked out of him at school every day with a pussy name like "Bertram" - but really good with computers. He loves me because I treat him like a hard-ass rather than the pussy that he is, and call him "Hot Shit" instead of Bertram.
"Here's four grand, Hot Shit. I want everything there is to know about Jimmy Grant and his associates by ten tomorrow morning," I told Bertram in his mother's - my aunt's - basement, keeping $1,000 of the non-refundable advance for myself for my trouble.
Bertram's eyes got as big as saucers -with that cash he could involve a few of his geek buddies and if he worked all night - which he loved to do since he had no social life - could get it done. "Sure Rick, you bet; see you at ten a. m." he virtually giggled he was so bubbly.
When I went to Bertram's lair the next morning at ten to ten he, and one of his giddy geek buddies, had a whole ream of stuff for me. I didn't like what I was reading. Jimmy Grant seemed to be one hard-nosed son-of-a-bitch. Although he was good-looking, he had evil eyes and a permanent snarl on his face, had skidded around the law beating raps his entire life, although there was an outstanding Nebraska petty theft warrant, and more importantly, one for armed robbery. He also associated with four big ugly mother-fuckers who looked like they ate nails for breakfast, and all of whom seemed to have a fascination with guns, and one of which had an outstanding Nevada warrant for assault, and two had outstanding Oregon warrants for extortion, as well as long criminal records.
"Where'd you get all this great stuff, Hot Shit?" I asked Bertram as I was leafing through it.
"I got my sources, got my sources," he giggled, mirrored by his little geek buddy.
After twenty minutes I was pretty sure that I was going to decline the diamond-retrieval job when I came across something that might change my mind. "Who the fuck is this?" I asked Bertram, pointing to the photo of a woman hotter than a Carolina Reaper chili pepper (if you don't know what that is, look it up; this ain't no Scientific American article).
"Grant's main squeeze," Bertram chortled.
"Got any other photos of her?" I asked.
"Thought she might interest you," he chortled again, pulling out two 8 x 10 glossies from the bottom of the sheaf of papers.
I've had my share of pussy, but given my lack of sophistication and intellectual acumen most of it has been low to medium class pussy. The woman in the photos was the highest class pussy that interested me that I had ever seen (prissy pussy isn't my thing; I go more for the Gina Carano and Ronda Rousey types). Some college dude probably wouldn't go for her looks, but she looked perfect to me.
She had jet-black shoulder length hair, black eyes, a gorgeous face made up in a slutty manner, and what appeared to be a couple of half-inch scars on it. In the most cock-inflating photo she was dressed in Daisy Duke shorts with a bare midriff and skimpy top which highlighted her big tits. He legs were long - hell they looked six feet long, and muscled, as were her arms. With low heels on she was as tall as Jimmy.
"How big is this Grant guy?" I asked Bertram, hoping that he didn't see that I had tented my pants.
"Six one, one ninety," Hot Shit shot back.
That would make her, without heels, about five eleven to six feet tall, one hundred thirty five to one hundred forty pounds. I could already taste her cunt on my tongue.
"What's her name?"
"Don't know her real name - Jimmy calls her 'Killer Bambi.'"
"Did you hack into Grant's credit card and bank card and cell phone activity?" I asked Hot Shit while still mesmerized by the photo of the bitchin' broad.
"Got is all right here? And the cell phone data for his main stooge, Bret James, too," he snickered, reaching for another pile of papers.
By noon that day I met with the big ugly dude - finally got his name, Chan Chan, reallcutesy, huh? - and accepted his $70,000 advance. My SUV was already being modified in a buddy's body shop, including by adding totally run-flat tires. After getting the money and some more contact information from Chan I went to my arsenal and picked out the pieces that I needed, with plenty of extra ammo.
***************
Since Jimmy probably was certain that he was stealing from crooks and not legitimate business men, he wasn't as careful as he should have been. I trailed him to a cabin in the badlands of South Dakota less than twenty four hours after starting after him. Using illegal cell phone tapping equipment that Bertram had scored for me about eighteen months back, I knew that he, his four thugs, and Killer Bambi would be there for another two days or so while he made arrangements to fence the diamonds. I started planning.
