Lee Hacklyn 1970s Private Investigator in Pumping Irony: Lee Hacklyn, #1

By John Leister

New York City.

 

Barney Neville, the owner of American Fitness Inc., hires Lee

to investigate the murder of bodybuilder/actor, Gunther Hoffman.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Leister
• Release date: Jul 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223648086

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

There are few things in life more exciting and life-affirming than a first date.

And there are even fewer things in life more demoralizing than a first date gone FUBAR.

We all know what FUBAR means, right, Dear Reader?

Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

Her name was Ellie and she was what my not-so-dearly departed father would have described as a tall glass of water.

She was a Berkeley student and vacationing for the summer with a gaggle of her girlfriends.

Ellie and I had met last Sunday night at the Escape theatre in Times Square, during my, ahem, seventeenth viewing of Star Wars.

No bloody episode number.  No bloody sub-title.

Just plain old Star Wars.

I had no guilty feelings about such an indulgence.

It really was that kind of a movie.

That is to say, one of a kind.

It has a beginning, a middle and an ending that’s uplifting, satisfying and emotionally rewarding.

Best of all?  Nobody’s related to anybody!

The bizarre revelation that Luke and Leia...SPOILER WARNING...are blood relatives, is, for me, an open wound that will never fully heal.

Perhaps I exaggerate.

Ellie was sitting next to me.

All it took was a little eye-contact and BOOM, we were brazenly engaged in foreplay.

So.  What went wrong?

Our first and last date was at Coney Island.

It was July and it was sweltering and it was lousy with tourists, locals and every kind of riff-raff imaginable.

I sure wasn’t crazy about amusement park rides, but Ellie loved them, so I bit the bullet and willed my vomit to stay put.

It was dusk and we were holding hands and we were walking towards the shoreline.

I had about as much faith in the creaky boards under our feet as I did those rickety rides, run by people whose faces belonged in mug-shot books.

Under the boardwalk.

Under the boardwalk?

Rick, what are you doing?

What does it look like I’m doing, Brainiac?

The air stank of skunk.

Some boys were laughing.  A girl was whimpering.

I drew my bestest friend in the whole, wide world, Mr. Browning.

Ooh, you make me live now, honey!

Ellie squeezed my hand and said, Lee, it’s nothing.  It’s just some kids, horsing around.

I went into fight-mode and said, There’s a pay phone.  Call the police.

I fucking detest the police.

Of course, you do.  You go to Berkeley.

CHAPTER TWO

With my cape flowing behind me, like a river of justice, or so I liked to imagine, I leapt off the boardwalk and landed feet first on some sand.

There were three boys, sixteen or so.

They