Lee Hacklyn 1980s Private Investigator in Self-Help, I Need Somebody...: Lee Hacklyn, #1

By John Leister

New York City. 1985.

 

Lee has a new job:  he's Chief-of-Security for Motivational Speaker

and Best-Selling Author Robert Nathan.

It's a full-time gig that comes with two things

Lee's never had before:  medical and dental benefits.

But it doesn't take long for all hell to break loose.

We all have people in our past who are less than enamoured with us.

But most of them don't want to murder us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Leister
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201804510

Book preview

NEW YORK STATE.  1985.

CHAPTER ONE

Are you happy with your life?

I looked up from my book, The Collected Cases of Dick Tracy by Chester Gould, a bonus present from a former client, Flynn McIntyre.

I glanced at the page I was reading.  Flattop had just taken a slug to the face.  Holy Moley! 

Those old comic-strips were entertaining, but they were serious business, too.

I took my feet off my desk, closed the book and stood.

I said, I wouldn’t exactly place that question in the ice-breaker category, but I recognize you and I guess you just can’t help yourself.

He smiled.  And he was so tall, he created a shadow on my desk akin to the mothership from Close Encounters.

Looking up at him hurt my neck.

His name was Robert Nathan.  I discovered him, late one night, while channel-surfing, although we didn’t call it that back then.  There weren’t enough channels to justify the surfing metaphor.

Infomercials were becoming a thing.  They were usually thirty-minutes or so and they promoted products that were often unintentionally hilarious, like knives that could cut Superman’s skin, pillows that unfolded into beds, like Transformers, drink this green slop twice a day and you’ll lose thirty pounds in a week, take my real estate seminar and you’ll be a millionaire by Tuesday, if you don’t, you’re a loser and God hates you.  For real.

Robert Nathan was a motivational speaker.  People gave him tons of money to state the obvious and insult their intelligence, if they had any to start with.

Nathan wrote a book called The Second Letter of Success is U.  Catchy.

It was a best-seller.  When you walked into a bookstore these days, it seemed at though that was the only book they were selling. 

There were tapes.  There was merchandize, like T-shirts and motivational coffee mugs.

Nathan was taller than the tallest Harlem Globetrotter, the only basketball team I’m familiar with.  He was slim and dashing, almost as handsome as me, but perhaps I’m biased.

His smile was so wide, it reminded me of Cesar Romero as the Joker from the sixties Batman tv series.

He wore a leather jacket, a blue casual shirt, black jeans and white Adidas running shoes.  Size King Kong-Wide.

The New York Mets ballcap was a nice touch.

Man of the people.

CHAPTER TWO

When I saw his infomercial for the first time, I thought I was watching a Saturday Night Live skit.  Nathan was in a studio interviewing Real Estate Magnate Allan Youngman.

Nathan and Allan had similar childhoods.  Poor upbringings, broken families, foster homes.  Bullied at school and socially outcast.

They shared stories of how they believed in themselves and willed themselves to rise above their circumstances.   

Youngman had a knack for turning unused plots of land into five-diamond hotels.

When I saw that informercial for the first time, I thought Nathan was a shameless huckster.

Yes, I’m happy with my life.  And I’d be a lot happier if you sat down before gravity pulls you towards me and I wind up a pancake.

He laughed.  It sounded warm and genuine.  I stood and we gave each other the glad-hand.

I said, I’m Lee Hacklyn.

Bob Nathan.  I guess you’ve seen my infomercial.

Sure, a bunch of times.  I like what you have to say, I mean, it’s all stuff I knew when I was five years old, but I guess it’s nice to be reminded, from time-to-time.

He sat and said, Can I tell you something?  I’m nervous as hell.

I find that hard to believe, Mr. Nathan.

Bob.

Lee.

Lee, your reputation precedes you.  Does it ever.  When I told my...oh, you’ll laugh when I say this...team...that I was coming to see you, the reactions I received covered the entire emotional spectrum.  My girlfriend, Gloria, told me I’m crazy.  Greg Lock, he’s Vice-President of Nathan, Inc., thinks you’re an American hero.

I laughed and said, I’ve been called worse things.

My agent, Sabrina Foster?  She thinks you’re an out-of-control, vigilante assassin who thinks his private eye license is a license to kill.

She’s in good company.  The D.A. completely agrees with her.

CHAPTER THREE

I lit a Blue Buzzard and asked him, Are you in some kind of trouble?

How would you feel about working for me on  an ongoing basis, as my Chief-of-Security?

You have my undivided attention.

The door to my office was open.  I head the elevator doors in the hallway slide open.

A man stepped out.

He wore dark sunglasses and a scarf that covered the bottom half of his face.

He was thin and garbed in a black trench-coat.

A slouched fedora sat on his head.

Holy Moley!  It’s the Invisible Man!

Down, Bob!

He put his feet on my desk and pushed himself, and the chair he was sitting in, to the floor.  Claude Rains pulled a fucking shotgun out of his inner, trench-coat pocket.  Too slow.  Didn’t this turkey do his homework?