SMELLS LIKE BULLSHIT

Chapter 12
As I wait for Pauly, I look around the “office”. It is clear this was a slapdash effort to look like a legitimate business. The trim around the floors and doorways were close but didn’t match exactly, you could see tape edges in the drywall, and an occasional brush mark. Someone bid this job really cheap, or Pauly did the job himself as he sampled the stock. I feel the receptionist’s eyes on me, as I turn and catch her looking at my crotch.

“See something you like Doll” I said laying down my best glimmer of the pearly whites. She grins the grin of a naughty vixen, mini Vance struggles to get a look.

“Can I touch it?” she asks?

“Touch it?” I reply, “Baby you can, touch it, kiss it, stroke it, rub it, grip it until it turns colors be my guest.

She looks back down and runs her tongue over her perfect lips, wetting them slightly. Mini Vance is starting to really pay attention, and I see her eyes dart over to my left thigh as she catches the slight movement in my pants leg.

Confusion sets in.

She says…”It’s so big and shiny”

Shiny? What the hell is she talking about? Mini Vance hasn’t surfaced yet.

Then I remembered the .50 jammed in my waist band…shit.

“Oh that. Sweetie, Vance would love to show you that as well.” I take a step forward - a door opens behind her, as I hear another open behind me. A trap! I quickly draw both guns, and back up until I am against the wall, aiming at opposite ends of the room. This is not good. If I cap someone, even if I just wound someone it might frighten or turn off this Polynesian Princess. If I need to shoot someone and hesitate... damn, why can’t women resist me? I wonder if the Desert Eagle is even loaded?

The man at the door behind my receptionist must be Pauly, he looks like a Pauly. When he sees me pointing the .50 at him, an angry frown covers his already threatening mug. Then his expression changes to “what the fuck.”

I notice that he isn’t really even looking at me or the hand cannon. I quickly look to my left and see why. Standing there, frozen, with a startled look on her face was the cleaning lady. I lower the 1911, then the .50. The cleaning lady lets out a loud sigh, clutches her chest with one hand and grabs her cart with the other. “Sorry ma’m, Vance didn’t mean to scare you.” She just stood there staring at me wide eyed, and breathing heavily.

“Put away the hardware, before you hurt yourself.” Pauly had moved to the receptionist’s desk and was staring straight into my skull. “Youse the one who wants to talk with me?”

“Yes sir, but Vance won’t take up much of your time”

“Vance better not take up my time, I have a dinner date and a craps game to get to.”

“This way.” Pauly turned to walk toward the door. I glanced at the receptionist. She was looking at me with her big, soft, brown eyes. I smile. She slowly winks, and lightly licks her upper lip. A shudder races from my ears, through my shoulders and down to my loins… She would have been worth getting shot.

“Shut the fuggin’ door” Pauly says, with just enough Jersey accent that told me he wasn’t long out of the Garden State. I step into a small office and shut the door behind me.

I extend my hand and say “Vance, Vance Manion Private Eye and Personal Strength Coach”

Pauly looks at me somewhat puzzled, and grips my hand in what I could only believe a vice would feel like if some crazed gorilla on steroids and crank were manning the controls. I give it my all so I wouldn’t look like some sissy from homoville, but I could feel the bones in my hand starting to grind together. He releases my hand quickly and the blood rushing back into it was almost as painful as his grip. Pauly sits down behind the desk and motions to an empty chair.

“So Vance Manion what can I do for you? You looking for a job? I seem, to have an opening in my distribution department”

“Vance has a job, but I would like to ask you about that opening, how exactly did the position become ‘open’?”

“Well Vance, let me tell you a secret, never go into business with family, sometimes it works and sometimes, well sometimes your brother catches you groping his crush and puts two in your chest in broad daylight. Know what I mean?”
I paused a little shocked…did Pauly just solve the shooting for me? What is his part in this? This guy is talkative, how much more will he tell me?

“Let Vance get this straight, the two Samoan brothers worked for you? And the dead one was your distribution guy?”

“That’s right Sherlock,” Pauly replied.

“You guys are the liquor distributor right?” I asked.

“I spoke to soon, Sierra Minerals, does that sound like liquor to you?”

“Vance noticed that there were no tax stamps on your client’s liquor bottles.”

Pauly leans forward in his chair, cocks his head, looks at me and asked, “Who’s paying you to give a shit?”

“Vance can’t say, client privilege”

Pauly leans back and opens his desk drawer, and the next thing I see is my sawed off shotguns twin aimed squarely at my face. “I asked you nicely, and now I’m telling you…who da fuck you working for?”

Irrefutable truths about being unemployed.

I have been gainfully unemployed for a month now and whereas I am not ready for polyester and paper hats I can do that when it becomes necessary for a cash flow. But I have been observing a lot of really weird things that I didn’t see while I was busy working.

Running errands; you would think that once 9am rolled around the streets would be a tad more empty. But I realized that I was not the only person trying to take advantage of down time to run errands. Did you know that old people come out in DROVES during the 9am to 2pm daylight hours? Well they do and they drive worse then they do on Sunday. At least on Sunday they have an agenda, go to church, go have breakfast at Denny’s, maybe Perkins depending on when their social security check has come in, and then head home to watch the game on TV while napping until 4 when they get up and eat dinner.
During the week they have a vague idea what they are doing, but they can’t seem to make a decision and they spend the majority of their day clogging the streets while driving in what I believe to be random concentric circles, because they haven’t organized their coupons good enough to make a comprehensive shopping, social club, coffee clutch, agenda and have to back track a lot. This isn’t too bad if you live in a town of 40K people, but when you live in a sizeable “city” this creates a metric ass load of trauma for the regular people who are just trying to get shit done.

Spending Money; I never realized how much money it cost me to go to work. I got paid on the 6th and I still have ½ that check left. And yes I have curbed some spending but not all of it. I used to blow through my checks like monopoly money. Gas, Lunches, snacks, bullshit that I thought was necessary, I find out that not only is none of it necessary, I am also being more green, by not driving as much and reducing my carbon footprint.

Honey-do List; I have got more done around my house in the last month then I have gotten done in the last 3 years. It is awesome. AND the bonus here my wife is LOVING all of the bitchen things I have completed.

Being Healthy; Yes it is true, lack of work makes you healthier. Gone are the days of fast food and canned crap. Now I do some real cooking with real food and it is healthier, and better for me. I also spend a HELL of a lot more time in the basement moving heavy weights around, preparing for the old guy invitational power lifting tournament.

Meditation and contemplation; Having some “spare” time in my day has allowed me to do some deep thinking, and life affirming contemplation. What do I want to do with the next 50 years? How long will it take some company to realize that what I have to offer them no one else has, and they will be missing the boat if they don’t hire me? Where did all of these dirty girls come from that are all naked in the interwebs? They weren’t around when I was in my teens and twenties, where the fuck did they come from?

Facebook is a TOOL; Yes that is right, facebook isn’t just a nice toy that you can keep track of friends and family or answer a seemingly endless string of top 5 lists, you can actually use it to do business. For instance yesterday I hooked up a friend with another friend so he can get started on buying a new house and if my house hunting friend says he was referred to the agent by my Wife, well she gets a referral bonus….25% of the real estate agents commission….which in California, depending on the house could be $4K-$9K…..not so bad for chatting to old chums on the FB (that is what the cools kids call it)

There are a lot of other things that I have noticed but if I tell you know what the hell would be the incentive to come back tomorrow?

Vance is about wrapped up, so look for the exciting ending coming soon!

I now leave you with a picture I took in Wisconsin back in Feb. This guy built this for what I can only assume is for parades and photo shoots.