No Hitmen in Heaven: An Explosive Crime Thriller (Jake Hancock Universe Thriller)

By Dan Taylor

No Hitmen in Heaven is a fast-paced, explosive crime thriller set in the same universe as laugh-out-loud Private Investigator Jake Hancock. We hope you enjoy it!

What would you do to get to paradise?

Killing is a business, even if it’s a messy one.

Hitman Blake Elvis only has a few more kills to make before he retires on a remote island off the coast of Thailand. He’s killing for his wife, who was maimed in an auto wreck, to give her the life she deserves. But getting out of the game without cuffs on his wrists might not go like clockwork, not if retired FBI Agent Bob Lamb has his say, or “going straight” mob boss Jimmy Balbone.

Cue Peter Hammersmith, a movie producer who went all in on a major motion picture flop, and now he can’t even afford a pool guy. He hires Blake Elvis to “whack” his aunt, whose apartment on Hollywood Boulevard he pays the mortgage for. The hit should be simple. In and out.

But when a neighbor knocks on the apartment door, the hit takes a curious turn, and Blake finds out making it to paradise isn’t as simple as buying a plane ticket.

No Hitmen in Heaven is the story of one man’s need for redemption, another’s inability to let go of an obsession, and one gangster’s loose definition of the term legitimate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dan Taylor
• Release date: Aug 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463753866

Dan Taylor

Dan Taylor is the crime fiction author of the Jake Hancock P.I. series. He has lived in Oslo, Norway awhile and speaks the language fluently, though it’s hit-and-miss whether he can understand what you’re saying. Oh, and he still hasn’t learned to ski yet.

Book preview

No Hitmen in Heaven

Dan Taylor

Copyright © 2017 by Daniel Taylor

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Bob Lamb is especially a work of fiction. I mean, come on…

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the fine ladies who took their time to read early drafts of No Hitmen in Heaven. Your feedback helped mold the final draft more than you could ever know. Thanks to beta readers Victoria, Sandra, Beatrice, and Tammy. Your enthusiasm is much appreciated. And thanks to you, Elaine, you eagle-eyed proofreader you. But if you spot a comma in the wrong place, it’s totally her fault.

And finally you, Siri, the person who read this book first and loved it. I need a confidence boost from time to time.

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Thanks for taking a chance on my writing.

Dan Taylor

1.

It never surprises me how plain-looking the people are who hire me to kill. Take this guy, for instance. Peter Hammer. Looks like he might be an accountant, if we weren’t sitting by his pool high up in the Hollywood Hills. Looks like he never punched another guy in the face, let alone come close to killing someone himself. But here he is, telling me he wants me to whack his aunt. His word.

There are just a few details to go over before he gives me the green light. Again, his words.

Will it hurt, Mr. Logan? he asks.

I take a sip of the virgin cocktail he made me, thinking the view might be pretty if not for the leaves floating in the pool. Then I say, Your aunt’s death will be as painless as I can make it.

It isn’t an answer at all, but he sits there, thinking about it. Or maybe he’s thinking about something else. Like he needs to hire a new pool guy.

Then he looks at me, says, How will you—you know—do it?

It’s better for both parties if I divulge as little information as possible about the method.

Right. So, I can look and sound surprised as possible when the police let me know.

I was thinking so that he doesn’t back out. In my experience, which is plenty, a guy who makes sure said virgin cocktail sits on a coaster might be the type to back out if he can picture putting a bullet in his aunt’s throat with a Beretta.

But instead, I say, Yeah, sure. Good thinking. Act surprised.

He sits and thinks a second. Goes to say something. Hesitates. Then spits it out: Mr. Logan, I want you to know that I love my aunt dearly. This is simply to be humane. Aunt Margaret dearest hasn’t been herself the last five or so years. You know how it is.

I do a little background work on clients and their targets before we find ourselves sitting by their pools, discussing the ins and outs, and let me tell you, Mrs. Margaret Hammer is fresh enough after her sixty-seven years to try out for a varsity wrestling team. And mentally? She’d kick my ass in a spelling bee.

The humanity he alluded to can be measured in zeroes. Three. The number the equity for her apartment on Hollywood Boulevard has gone up by, the mortgage of which Peter pays like a good little boy every month.

Peter Hammer made a bad investment on a film that should’ve never been made in the first place. By all accounts King’s Return was a hell of a film. The sequel, denoted by the addition of 2 to the title, not so much. Movie goers, apart from the cult home-viewing crowd, don’t appreciate ironic titles. At least my background work informed me.

But that wasn’t the biggest mistake he made. He needed someone to go in on the investment with him.

Add in one wise guy trying to go straight by building property and making inadvisable movie investments, and two insistent, roided-up muscle heads to Peter Hammer’s family dynamic, and suddenly he’s talking of humanity.

But who am I to question the man’s definition of the word?

I’m a hired gun. The best.

So, I say, I understand. People get old, and sometimes someone has to make a brave decision.

Right. A brave decision.

I have a few details of my own to acquire before I go through with it. I ask, Your aunt, does she ever keep any firearms on her person?

No.

Cans of mace, a knuckle duster?

I don’t think so. I’ve never asked.

What about in her apartment? A samurai sword, even if it looks solely decorative?

"Oh, you won’t be doing it in her apartment. She comes to clean on Wednesdays. I figured you’d do it then."

I give him a look, but not in response to what he thinks, as he says, "What? Aunt Margaret enjoys the exercise."

I take a sip of my cocktail. It’s disgusting.

Then I say, Doing it in your apartment is a no-go.

Why not?

It’s becoming clearer why Peter Hammer was one of the bozos who helped green light King’s Return 2.

I say, It’s in my interest as your hired gun to keep your culpability as non-existent as possible.

That’s very kind of you.

It’s not kind, Mr. Hammer. I only think of myself, which for you, in this situation, just so happens to mean keeping you off the persons-of-interest list. Detectives, even of Dukes’s caliber, tend to make connections between—I don’t know…—the circumstances in which someone was killed and bad movie deals made by the victim’s nephew, especially if said victim just so happened to be killed at her nephew’s apartment coincidentally on the one day of the week she’s scheduled to clean it.

He’s taken aback. How do I know? He’s taken his gaze off my glass’s proximity to edge of the coaster for the first time during my turn to talk.

He says, How do you know—

About the bad movie deal? The same way I know about the decorative katana sword hanging on the wall above your bed. Which is weapon sharpened. I have sources, Mr. Hammer. And FYI, you should probably get a decent decorator to hang that thing with drywall screws.

Eyeing him above the rim of my glass, I watch him carefully. There it is. He’s biting his nails. Ten minutes from now, I’ll be riding in a cab, either with the Manila folder lying on his bed I also spotted while he went potty, or having wasted my time with another late-thirties male who flirted with the idea of having a family member whacked because of a bad investment.

He’s thinking about humanity again.

When he’s finished, he says, I don’t suppose I could just hire you to take out the goons that are pressing me for the cash, as well as that other goon?

There’s a tiny, teeny problem with that scenario.

What?

That other goon is my boss.

Shit, he says, then gets back to thinking. Probably that my sitting here, as opposed to some other hired gun, isn’t a coincidence. Then he says, Her apartment won’t work. She lives on the tenth floor.

I’ll make it work.

How?

I’ll take the elevator.

Not that. I mean, won’t you want to get in and out without anyone seeing you?

That’s precisely why I’ll take the elevator.

I don’t get it, Mr. Logan.

That’s the fourth time he’s referred to me as Mr. Logan, and it’s irritating me—but clients tend to remember a name like Blake Elvis. How he says it—drawing out Logan—is grating on me. As is explaining the logistics of how I’m going to take out his aunt. But I understand he needs some reassurance. It’s a good sign, as irritating as it is, as long as the reason behind it is not wanting to get caught, as opposed to looking for reasons to back out.

I take another sip of the cocktail, and wonder if Peter Hammer wouldn’t mind my making a homeopathic remedy with it and the pool water.

Then I say, On a day we’re yet to decide next week, the scheduling of which will be your-aunt dependent, Mrs. Hammer will be getting a furniture delivery. You’ll phone a couple days before, letting her know you’ve bought her a present. A cuckoo clock. Aunty like cuckoo clocks?

I guess.

You guess?

Sure.

You’re sure she likes cuckoo clocks?

She’s never owned one. But I don’t think she’d mind having one in the apartment.

Let’s just say it’s a cuckoo clock for now. A delivery guy, yours truly, will get buzzed in by the awaiting Mrs. Hammer. Like clockwork. I’ll wheel that hunk of junk—which will be a shade over six-feet tall, my height—through the lobby, into the elevator, not allowing any of the residents to get a good look at me. And then after I’ve placed it ‘in the corner over there,’ I’ll make all your problems go away with Mr. Balbone. Pending a police investigation, of course. But Mr. Balbone is a patient man, as long as he knows his money’s coming.

Right.

Am I right in assuming Aunty Margaret has a jewelry box?

She does.

Then that’s what I’ll take, to make it look like a robbery. Upon being asked by LA’s finest, closest any of the residents will get to spotting anything suspicious is some delivery guy, which, in an apartment building, is about as noteworthy as going into a gas station and finding crap still floating in the toilet bowl.

We sit there for a minute, not saying anything. If I had to take a guess, I’d say Peter