by Derek Haines
‘Well, mine isn’t so exciting. Just finding out where people live. Boring stuff.’
‘My name’s Karen,’ she said and waited for David’s returned introduction.
‘David. Nice to met you Karen.’
‘I finish here at nine, if you feel like a drink later,’ she said, and surprised David with her boldness.
‘Sure, that’d be great,’ David accepted without a second thought.
‘Ok. I’ll meet you out the front of the motel at about nine fifteen. Oh, I better get your order to the kitchen,’ she said with a smile and walked away.
David sat at his table, waiting for his dinner to arrive. He wondered what had prompted her to invite him for a drink so quickly. Had it just been the mention that he was a private investigator? Surely not. Thinking back to his times with Steve, he began to wonder what it was that motivated women. Or more precisely what it was that attracted them to certain men. As his dinner arrived, served with a smile by Karen, and a bonus eyeful of cleavage, he decided that as he hadn’t been able to come up with an answer in over forty years, it was far too late now to expect a revelation. Better to just accept his luck and see what happened.
Finishing his dinner, he returned to his room at eight thirty. Expecting no more from Karen than a few drinks and conversation, he nevertheless made sure anything that could identify him, including his journal and scrap book were secure in the lid compartment of his suitcase. Just in case he was lucky enough to have her in his room later, he locked the zipper with a small pad lock.
At ten past nine, he walked to the footpath in front of the motel to wait for Karen. Looking at his watch at nine twenty, he was starting to think he’d been stood up. With his attention caught by a disagreement between two men on the opposite side of the road, David was startled when Karen playfully pointed a finger in his back and said, ‘Don’t make any sudden move Columbo.’
‘Don’t shoot, I’ll cooperate.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Karen whispered from behind him into his ear. He turned to find she had changed. Gone the white knotted shirt and short black skirt that’d caught his attention so readily. She was dressed casually in a pair of blue denim jeans and a knitted sweater. Her plaits had been brushed out and her straight blonde hair now fell over her shoulders. David wondered at the sudden change from the tart she appeared to be in the restaurant, to the simply attractive woman she was now.
‘Were shall we go?’
‘There’s a bar just down the road. A short walk,’ Karen suggested.
‘Fine. Lead on.’ After a pause, he couldn’t help his curiosity at her changed appearance.
‘Was that your work uniform you have to wear?’
‘No. I just love being a cock teaser! I sit around an office in a business suit all day. So boring. I do this job three nights a week because a lot of men stay there and I just like showing off a bit,’ she said quite openly.
‘So you invited me for a drink to tease me a bit more?’
‘No! I asked you for a drink because I wanted to know more about what a private investigator does. I’ve never met one before.’
‘Oh, it’s boring really.’
‘Do you have a gun?’
‘Nope. No gun.’
They walked in silence to the bar, found a table and ordered their drinks. Over a few drinks David finally convinced Karen that his investigator job was just looking for where people lived and worked. For clients such as debt collectors, or people just looking for family members who may have either left in an argument or just forgot to contact someone.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ he said after explaining how boring and mundane his job was.
‘Sounds just like my job. Does that make me a PI as well?’
‘If you like. You can add that to your list of qualifications on your CV.’
‘It’s getting late,’ Karen said after a pause. ‘Would you walk me home? It’s not far.’
‘Sure.’
After finishing their drinks, they left the bar and started to walk back past the motel.
‘It’s only about a ten minute walk.’
‘No problem.’
It was a small block of flats that Karen led David towards. He stood with her as she looked for her keys at the front security entrance.
‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘How could I refuse?’
Karen unlocked the door, and they walked the three flights of stairs to her flat. She opened the door and invited David inside. She gestured towards the lounge room to the right of the entrance and said, ‘Make yourself comfortable, I’ll fix some coffee.’
‘Thanks,’ David said politely.
He looked around the room as anyone does when left alone in a stranger’s home. Trying to get a feel of who this person was. Modestly furnished in pine, neat and clean, with small touches of flowers and delicate ornaments and trinkets. Magazines on the coffee table were all women’s magazines. A few framed photographs near the television looked like they could possibly be her parents.
Karen returned after fifteen minutes with a tray of coffee and mugs. She’d changed again and became a tart for the second time in the evening. Complete with pony tails.
‘Changed again?’
‘Are you complaining?’ Karen asked, with a look of faked disappointment as she sat on a sofa opposite him.
‘No. No, not at all.’
‘Well, I did tell you I like to show off. And be a cock teaser.’
‘At least you’re honest about it. More than I can say for some.’
‘Don’t you just hate closet sluts.’
‘I’d never thought of it like that. Maybe that’s how I should categorise my ex wife?’ David said with a grin. He wondered if Karen had been someone else’s wife.
‘Are you a woman hater?’
‘Maybe. Are you always so blunt?’
‘Only when I want to be. Does it offend you?’
‘No. It’s rather refreshing. An honest woman. A novelty in my life.’
‘Are you an honest man?’
‘Is there such a thing?’
‘So what’re you hiding?’
‘An entire life,’ he answered, and wondered why he was answering her questions.
‘I can understand that. Life can be a fucking shit, can’t it? And so fucking boring. I sit in an office all day. Little Miss fucking Perfect. All my life I’ve been Little Miss Perfect. It’s got me nowhere. Just here. A boring job, boring city and a boring life. My husband pissed of with his secretary and left me with huge debts, the arse hole. Typical of a fucking man.’
‘So why the tart act?’
‘It’s my own pleasure. I enjoy it. Do you think I’m perverted?’
‘That’s for you to answer. It’s your life. Do what you like with it.’
‘You’re an angry man David. You’ve a lot going on inside your head.’
‘And so do you.’
A silence fell between the two of them. David sipped his coffee and wondered what was in this woman’s head. He’d never met a woman like her. There was a selfish cat like attitude, and he had a feeling she had claws. But she intrigued him. He sat silently as she undid the knot of her shirt, and bared her breasts. She just stared at him as she fondled her own nipples. After some time she uncrossed her legs and exposed her clean shaven crutch to David. She hitched her skirt up and masturbated herself to orgasm. As she came down from her self induced pleasure, she looked at David.
‘If you were expecting a fuck you’ll be disappointed. I told you I was a cock teaser. Men shit me. But feel free to pull yourself off. I love to watch. Or are you too shy Columbo?’
David sat silent. Waited. Watched. Then obliged.
He left a little after two, and went back to his motel. ‘What a fucked up woman,’ he thought to himself. ‘Can’t say she wasn’t honest.’ She was one fucked in the head bitch, but when he thought about it, he decided he quite liked her. If for nothing else than for her honesty. She had terrific tits a
s well.
The next morning David woke late and cursed himself for sleeping in. He had a busy day ahead of him. After showering and dressing, he had breakfast and then looked in the phone book for the address of the electoral office. He had work to do.
Justice
Back at his motel by one o’clock, he rechecked his list. There were still a number of blank spaces where he needed information. On his neatly written list of forty seven names, he had columns ruled and headed, home address, office address, home phone, office phone, mobile, fax, mail. For most of the list, he was happy with a home address and telephone number. But for the names of those where he’d placed a hand drawn red star, he wanted as much information as possible. At the top of his list, his ex wife; he just needed her work address. For his last two entries, the Chief Justice and the Attorney General it was blank. He realised he’d set himself a huge task. A task not dissimilar to the work of a private investigator that he’d told Karen so boldly that he was. Instead of waiting until he had all the blank spaces filled, he decided he would start the admission of punishment on those he could deliver immediately.
Starting with those who were sentenced to a written caution, he proceeded to produce his cautions. On a plain piece of red paper, he wrote with the irregular printed handwriting of a child, his message.
‘Dear………,
For the life you have led, and the suffering you have caused, you shall live a long and miserable life. Unless you make changes to your ways, and alleviate the suffering you cause to people you know, you will suffer, after your painful and slow death, an eternity in the savage depths of hell. I know you very well.’
David continued to produce the required number of cautions. Once finished, he started on the blank space he had left near the first word, Dear. Each name, Christian and surname, he then spelt out by cutting letters from a newspaper, and gluing them into position. As each letter was personalised, he folded the letter and inserted it into a plain envelope. With great care, David addressed each envelope, printing neatly with the use of a ruler. Then, in his red journal, he made a note of the delivery of the first caution to each person who was to receive a letter and then affixed a stamp to each envelope. Once he completed them all, he counted them. Twenty-eight. Then banded them together with an elastic band, and placed them on his bedside table. His work complete for the day, he looked at his watch. Seven thirty. He left his room to have dinner in the motel restaurant.
The waitress who took his dinner order was far less entertaining than Karen. It didn’t bother him. He hadn’t bothered asking Karen for her phone number. When he left her place the evening before, he’d decided she was too fucked in the head. He wouldn’t accept another invitation. While he was waiting for his dinner to arrive, he took a road map from his pocket. Studying it carefully, he put a circle around Bateman’s Bay. This would be his destination for tomorrow to post his letters. Once he finished dinner, he went back to his room, watched television for a while and then slept soundly until his alarm woke him at seven am.
David arrived back at his motel in Canberra at five thirty in the afternoon after completing the first small part of his plan. He wished he could be a fly on the wall when his letters arrived at their destinations. Opening his red journal, he gave thought to what the next part of his plan would be. The entries marked for a sentence of ostracism, of which there were seven, would be his next sentences to carry out. After some thought, he decided he’d start on them tomorrow morning. David turned on the television to watch the news then went for dinner.
Finding a seat near the window of the restaurant, he read the folded menu sitting on the table and decided on the fish. As he waited to be served, he looked out the window, but into space, as he considered the sentences he had yet to carry out. Nothing mattered to David now, except the completion of his mission. He liked to think of what he was doing as a mission. His mission in life. To repay those who had cheated him of his life.
‘Lost in your thoughts Columbo?’
David didn’t move his stare from the lights outside the window, but he replied to the voice of Karen.
‘And what are you today?’
‘Still a cock teaser,’ she leaned towards him and said in a whisper so no one else could hear. ‘Are you still a PI?’
‘Yes of course,’ he said as he turned his attention from the window to Karen.
‘Have you found out all you need to know?’ she asked.
‘No. Far from it.’
‘Maybe I can help.’
‘Help with what?’ David asked almost coldly.
‘Information. Isn’t that what you’re looking for?’
‘How could you help? You don’t know what I’m looking for,’ he snapped.
‘You told me you were looking for information about where people lived.’
‘So?’
‘So, I have access to all sorts of information like that.’
‘I’ll have the fish. Grilled. With fries and salad.’
‘Meet me for a walk later. Nine fifteen,’ she said before walking back to the kitchen. Fifteen minutes later, Karen returned with his meal. She placed in down in front of David.
‘There you go Columbo. Choke on the bones.’
‘Are you always so pleasant?’
‘Yes. Always. I’m a savage man hating bitch. Just like you’re a woman hating bastard.’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Beautifully!’ she laughed as she walked away from David’s table.
David didn’t talk to Karen again in the restaurant. He finished his meal, signed his account and left. It was just after eight when he returned to his room. Sitting looking at his journal, and looking at the blank spaces, he contemplated if he should accept Karen’s invitation. Could she make his task a little easier? Could he trust her? Was she really his opposite? Was she like him? She certainly possessed an anger David sensed was similar to his own. She also seemed crazy. Was that a weakness or a quality? He sat and contemplated his answers. At nine fifteen he left his room. Karen was waiting on the footpath.
‘I thought you’d stood me up Columbo?’
‘I was going to.’
‘So what changed your mind?’
‘I want to find out how fucked in the head you really are.’
‘Is this a quality you look for in your women?’
‘I don’t look for women.’
‘So why did you come tonight?’
‘I want to find out what fucked your head.’
‘Is it important?’
‘Only if you want to help me with some info. I don’t want anyone normal helping me.’
‘Walk home with me?’
‘Do I have to wank for you again?’
‘Probably.’
Karen went through the same routine as the previous night David visited her flat. She went to make coffee, changed from her casual clothes, and returned with the coffee. She altered the routine slightly by adding a bottle of brandy to the tray along with two brandy snifters, and she’d dressed herself in only a short red skirt and red beret.
‘So who’re you tonight?’ David asked her as she sat down opposite him.
‘I’m a cheap hooker. Do you think you can afford me?’
‘Probably not,’ David said with disinterest.
‘Great!’ she said enthusiastically.
‘Why great?’
‘Well, all you’ll be able to do is window shop,’ she said with a wide smile.
‘Who do you hate?’ David asked seriously.
‘You,’ she said instantly.
‘Anyone else?’
‘Just the whole fucking world and every mother fucking man who walks upon it!’
‘Anyone else?’ he asked again with a wry smile.
Karen sat with a thoughtful look for a moment. A single finger on her lips to emphasise her thought process. David looked at her, waiting for her to say something. Her eyes gave no hint of what she was thinking.
‘Where do you live?’
‘I don’t.’
‘What? You don’t live?’
‘That’s right. I simply exist.’
‘Are you wanted by the cops?’
‘No. I’m not wanted by anyone,’ David said, and realised how much truth was in his answer.
‘Why Canberra?’ she continued her questioning.
‘No reason. I’ll exist somewhere else next week.’
‘Who’re you looking for?’
‘How many more fucking questions?’ David asked sharply, starting to lose his patience.
‘Have I made you angry?’
‘Yes. You’re a nosey bitch.’
Karen smiled. ‘What does it matter? Your life’s over isn’t it? You’ve given up. All I want to know is what you intend to do before you die.’
‘Who said anything about dying?’ David snapped angrily.
‘David. Or whatever the fuck your name is, you’ve got death written all over your face. It’s in your eyes. There’s not a single cell in your entire body that has any feeling. You’re dead already. You just have something you want to do before you get buried.’
‘And what makes you think you’re such a fountain of wisdom? You can’t even decide who you are. A woman, a slut, a whore? I suppose you’ll be a dyke tomorrow. But tonight you’re a fucking oracle.’
‘Who are you gonna kill David? Who are you gonna kill before you die?’ Karen shouted angrily as she stood up and pointed her finger at David to emphasise her question.
‘You’re insane!’
‘Yes I am. Just like you Dead Man,’ Karen said seriously.
‘Have you got a pen and paper?’ he asked Karen. She walked out of the room and returned with a small note pad and pen for David. He wrote two names on the note pad and handed it back to Karen.
‘If you’re so fucking smart, get me the address and phone numbers of those two arse holes. Home and office. You’ve got three days.’
Karen looked at the names and started to laugh.
