The Skeleton Key.

Vincent Chan sat behind a very large Rosewood desk talking on the Phone. "Yes Mrs Lim it's all true your husbands having an affair with another man." he said exasperated by this exceedingly annoying woman. This was her, what? Hundredth call since he met with her to tell her that her husband was not having an affair with her best friend but with her best friend's husband. Rule #1... Never, Never, take cases from Dames. "What's that Mrs Lim? Yes, yes everyone has one or two skeletons in their closet. I promise you that all the files and videos pertaining to your case will be destroyed as soon as you pay the rest of your bill." He hung up the phone, opened the bottom drawer of his desk, took out a bottle of single malt and a glass, poured himself a large measure of golden solace, leaned back in his chair and said out loud, "Lady you have no idea what a skeleton in the closet is until you've seen mine."

Vincent leaned over and picked up the japanese puzzle box on top of his desk and with a series of precise sequential moves within the mosaic pattern of the box released the locking mechanism. He tilted the box depositing an antique brass key on to the dark green blotter pad in front of him. He sipped the smokey malt with it's hint of dried fruit and chocolate and reflected on how much his life had changed since the discovery of this key. How was he to know when he agreed to the terms of his uncles Will that he would become the guardian to a Skeleton hidden in the closet behind the elaborately carved screen across the room. Not just any skeleton but a magical one that in all likelihood is his own grandmother. He thought that he was inheriting his uncles detective agency and a hundred grand a year trust fund.

He thought he could sit on his ass and read his way through his uncles extensive collection of crime fiction... maybe even try to write one of his own. A hundred thou a year was more then enough to meet his needs. He didn't need to go out and look for business, all he had to do was to keep the agency open and never sell or abandon the agency. That was the agreement. Then he discovered the closet door behind the screen. The door was locked so he searched everywhere for the key only to find it lying within a recess carved into the frame above the door. Up until then his life was simple, uncomplicated. Once he opened the door and found the skeleton and the letter, his life was no longer his.

Lassiter shouldered his way through a wall of cold air. The 'No Name Bar' was his second home and the booth at the back by the pay phones was his office. He took an early retirement from the police force after kneecapping a child molester he was in the process of arresting. Officially it went down as an accident and he was allowed to leave with a full pension and the accolades of his fellow officers. Chico spotted Lassiter enter through the blinding light and recognized him by his disheveled attire and his ever present grey Stetson hat.
"You have no messages" Chico said while pouring out a cup of coffee that was made at least four hours ago and only Lassiter would drink. "Does that mean your going to hang around here all day and be a royal pain in my ass." Chico took messages for Lassiter's Private Eye business because the flea-bag hotel that Lassiter called home refused to provide him with the courtesy.
Another reason that Chico offered him this indulgence was because Lassiter had changed his life. Instead of arresting him Lassiter had busted him in the mouth and took him to an all night diner for coffee and an almost fatherly talk about the long ugly road he was about to go down if he didn't change his ways. He was a three time visitor to the system and he knew that he would have served time if Lassiter had arrested him. For some strange reason, a reason that chico can't even fathom to this day he took Lassiter's advice and walked a different path. Under this cops hard rough exterior there was something that cared.

3WW The Wicked Sister

Cali paced on 8" stiletto thigh high boots, back and forth before the naked man hand-cuffed hand and foot over a large padded cylinder that resembled a pommel horse. She wore a Nun's hat and Wimple that framed her handsome face. Green cat-eyes set in deep inky sockets and carmine lips that glistened over stark white teeth like blood on a porcelain sink. In her right hand she carried a long black riding crop that she snapped with a rhythmic pop between the click of her steel tipped heels on the concrete floor. she looked down at the pathetic lump of guilt before her, waiting for deliverence, for absolution. Three hail marys and a stoke of her lash. To think not so long ago he was her arresting officer and she was at his mercy.
"So Lassiter, we've been naughty and we want the Wicked Sister to punish you. Didn't anyone ever tell you that when you wallow with pigs, you should expect to get dirty? Of course they did, but that's not your problem is it? You problem is, it excites you. The more you mix and mingle with the under belly of this city the more it makes you feel alive and that's not how the good Sisters of St. Mary's brought you up. That's not the way a respected member of the community and Officer of the law should behave and now you want to be punished." she ran the riding crop up his inner thigh and stopped just below his ball sac.
"Your excited Lassiter. You are not here for pleasure but for penance and you will not feel the kiss of Cali's leather until you soften to the expectation of your upcoming pain."
Lassiter's skin felt like it was covered with millions of ants and his stomach was a quivering hill of antivity. He knew that she was just as excited as him. He knew that it was all about control with her and in the end she would lead him into temptation and he would sin again.

Scandal Down the Road.

He knew she was trouble the moment he seen her climb down from Big Ed's Kenworth.
Big Ed had phoned him from Texas telling him he had a new Mama and he had better get the house cleaned before he got home and here she was coming up the drive wearing a pair of neon yellow Capri's that looked like they been sprayed on and a foam green camisole that was better suited for the bedroom.
Justin figured that she must be at least six feet tall seeing that she came up to big Ed's shoulder, him being Six foot six and all plus she wasn't wearing high heels just a pair green rubber beach sandals.

The pair of them came through the door giggling and laughing like a couple teenagers and stopped abruptly the moment they spotted Justin leaning up against the kitchen counter drinking a cup of coffee. "Justin say hello to Reba, your new Mama and I expect you to give her the respect due to her as my wife."
Big Ed must have picked up on the fact that he was less then happy at the news of his fathers getting hitched so soon after his mothers death.
"Oh, Hush big ED I'm sure we are going to get along just fine and threw out her hand; "Call me Rebel, everyone does!" Justin had to admit that Reba was a real beauty. Thick red hair that tumbled down her back in curls like water over river rock, dark green eyes, full red lips framing the whitest, straightest, teeth Justin had ever seen. There was so much of her to take in at one time, she wasn't pretty in a girlish sense but handsome in a worldly sort of way. He wondered what strip club Big Ed met her in and when because it's been less then a month since his mother passed away. Kind a short period of time for two people to meet and fall in lust with each other, even for someone as shallow as Big Ed
Justin reached out to shake her hand, stealing a glance at her large breasts bursting out of the camisole like two dolphins breaking the surface of a foam green sea.
Reba gave a sly smile and seized his hand. "Why, looky here, if he doesn't have the same big strong hands as his daddy!"
Justin got to see more of his stepmother over the next week due to Her well timed accidental exposures. "Goodness me I just can't get used to having two men in the house. I'm used to walking around naked a Jaybird."
He had taken to sleeping out in his car because of the noise the two of them made at night and the sweet smell of sweat and sex permeated the house and clung to his nostrils like sap on a tree. It was too much for a 17 year old to stand night after night. One thing was for sure, Rebel was more then a match with Big Ed in the sack. She always looked fresh as a daisy in the morning while his father looked like he went six rounds with a wildcat.
He was sitting behind the wheel early Sunday morning nursing the tail end of a joint when she came out of the back door and hip swayed her way to the passenger side door. She wore flimsy white silk nightgown with large pink and yellow orchids. He could tell she was wearing no clothes on underneath and he kept getting glimpses of her milk white thighs and the dark moist cleavage between her breasts. God how he hated her. He hated the bitch for destroying the piece and quiet of his home. The home that he was brought up in by his real mother. A home that was full of love and kindness of a mother who protected him from the drunken rages of his father.
He dreamt of stabbing this Rebel bitch over and over. She was always naked and when he awoke he was always aroused.
"Open the door honey, I want to talk to you"
Justin reached over and released the door lock and turned to confront her when she got in the car.
She got in and sat facing the window so Justin could see her naked breast though the opening of her housecoat. She turned, crossed her legs, reached out and took the joint from Justin's hand and then proceeded to take a huge hit from the spliff and handed it back to him. "Christ that's good shit, you'll have to get mommy some of that, but don't tell Big Ed he doesn't approve. Beer and Whiskey are his poisons. I prefer weed, makes me horny as hell." She put her hand on his knee and looked into his eyes; "Honey I never meant to chase you out of your own house. I'm trying to convince your father to spend some money and fit out the basement into your own apartment with a lock on the door and everything...that's in case you don't trust me."
Her hand slid off his knee and up his thigh, her long red nails grazing his growing member causing him to jerk in his seat. She turned and got out of the car, leaned in with the same sly smile on her face she had when she caught him on the first Day looking at her breasts. "When your ready come in and have breakfast. I've whipped up some bacon and eggs, pancakes, toast and coffee. A growing boy like you needs to eat, besides after smoking all that weed you must be starving." she paused for a minute and added, "Your Daddy is heading out on the road again this afternoon. He'll be gone a week and he wants you to remain in the house while he's gone. He wants you to protect me, besides I hate being by myself."
"Should I lock my door at night?" and she turned and walked back to the house

Chester Loves Mae

Karl Heinz sat with his size 12's up on an antique oak desk in the back room of Mystery Ink, a used bookstore he bought off his uncle Charles after he retired from the force. The bookstore dealt mainly in used Mystery and Suspense novels, but a few months back on the advise of his young helper, Leroy Brown he started to stock more Graphic novels and modern fantasy literature. True to leroy's word, he started to see an increase in young adults frequenting his store and a significant increase in sales. Not that he considered that to be a great thing because his main goal when purchasing the shop was to sit on his ass and read every novel in the place. He had more then enough money from his pensions to live on and only bought the business because it would give him something to do and along with the detective agency that he ran out of the back room serve as tax right offs. As far as he was concerned he had paid more then his fair share of taxes over the years.

He was debating with himself whether it was too early in the day to start drinking when the bell on the shop door announced that he had guests. He assumed it was one of his old cronies from homicide or leroy skipping school for the third time this week.

He reluctantly put his feet down and made to get up from his chair when Mae West walked through the glass bead curtain, fur stole and all.

"Pickle! Where have you been? You don't come around and see Mae anymore. Are you angry with her?"

Some wit whom he has long forgotten the name of, back when he was a Rookie cop started to call him 'Pickle'...being that his name was Heinz and all and it stuck with him for more then 30 years. Everyone called him Pickle even the perps like Chester Latour. Chester was a female impersonator over at 'The Gilded Cage', a Gay bar on west 49th.

"Well if it isn't 'Chester the Molester', How are they hanging or have you got them tied up between your legs under that dress?"

"Pickle...that's not nice, you know I didn't start that incident, I told you 'Give a man a free hand and he will try to put it all over you.' besides 'It takes two to get one into trouble.'

Chester did Mae West at the Cage. He knew all her famous one liners and to look at him/her on stage you would swear to God that Mae West had re-incarnated in front of you. "You look good Mae. How can I help you?"

"Shamus, do you still carry around a big pistol in your pants now that your not a cop? I need you to go around and discourage a former lover that just can't let go."

"And you want me to go there and threaten him with a gun?"

Who said anything about a gun, I just want you to take all those muscles over to his place and tell him to leave little ol' Mae alone. All discarded lovers should be given a second chance, but with other women. I'll pay the going rate or if you like maybe we can work something out. I used to be Snow White but I drifted."

"Sorry Angel but I'm as straight as an arrow."

"I'm no angel but I spread my wings a bit."

Ok! Ok! I give up leave me his address and I'll see if I can put a damper on his ardor. It will cost you 100 beans and that's all. No funny stuff. Go back to your cage and lay those lines on someone who cares. Why are you dressed up like Mae outside of work. Don't you like yourself?

"Your right Shamus, I don't like myself, I'm crazy about myself."

"Yeah whatever! see in you the funny papers."

Ms West put the number of her jilted lover on his desk along with a crisp 100 and turned and worked her hips toward the curtain when she stopped looked over shoulder through her blond wig and said; "come up and see me sometime because when I'm good I'm very very good but when I'm bad I'm better" and walked through the glass bead curtain. "Don't forget to bring that big pistol when you come she shouted as she closed the door."

Karl reached down and opened the desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of 'Jack,' "No need for debate, it's definately time for a drink."