Lee Hacklyn 1970s Private Investigator in Give To The Greedy: Lee Hacklyn, #1

By John Leister

New York City. 1974.

 

Lee is hired to investigate corruption at a celebrity telethon by

a telejournalist named Meg Noth.  Shorty after hiring Lee,

Meg is killed in a car bombing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Leister
• Release date: Jan 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215188118

Book preview

Queens, New York City.  1974.

CHAPTER ONE

In the Big Apple of the 1970s, crime was more out of control than the mold in my bathroom.

I really ought to do something about that.

Movies like Dirty Harry and Death Wish, and their knock offs, not to mention kung-fu movies with well-defined heroes and villains, were all the rage.

Joe and Jane New York needed an outlet for what they perceived as a justice system the coddled criminals and left victims feeling like fools for taking time to report a crime that guaranteed nothing more than paperwork and paychecks for men in suits, who benefitted from the evil that men do.

Like lawyers, for example.

I was twenty-six.

Last year, I received my private investigator’s license.  Oh, boy!  Until then, my life was going nowhere fast.  My army 4-effed me, due to my asthma and the cops wouldn’t take me due to my mouth-ma.

I wound up working security jobs and did some time as an armored car driver.  After closing a few insurance-fraud cases as an off-the-books and under the counter investigator for a sleazy private security company, I’d discovered my calling.  In the sense that it was something I enjoyed doing and I seemed to have a knack for it.

When I was a boy, I liked to draw, but when puberty hit me, like that lightning bolt that turned Billy Batson into Captain Marvel when he said, Shazam, I shot up like Ant-Man into Hank Pym; a strapping, six-foot tall young man at thirteen, the tallest freshman at my high school, and I was taller than most of my teachers, which amused me and seemed to terrify them.

Best of all?

Girls started to notice me.

I was okay at sports, and probably could have been a star athlete, but I never had any emotional investment in them.  Not a lick, but the jocks accepted me; and the nerds liked me, too, because I stood up for them, but I would never admit to any of the cool kids that I liked comic books.  So, I put down my pencil.

I abandoned my dream so I could hang out with people I never see anymore.

Do I regret doing that?

Sometimes.  On the other hand, a lot of good people would no longer be among the land of the living if I hadn’t.  And a lot of bad people would still be alive.  And were the alive today, a lot more good people would be dead.

And being a real-life hero is a lot more satisfying that drawing make-believe heroes.

For me, anyway.

I don’t watch the news much.

It seems to me that the people who run it prefer to report the darkness of the world over the light.

Hell, if aliens came to Earth to study us, and their conclusions were solely based on what they saw on the news, they’d report back to their home planet that all human beings were nothing but lunatic, murdering savages.

Every once in a while, I’ll see an uplifting story about a guy who does something heroic, like run into a burning school bus and save a bunch of kids.

Reporters tend to ask the same asinine questions over and over again; they seem to me like they’re the world’s least creative so-called professionals.

Here’s a timeless classic, in this context:  Do you feel like a hero?

I keep waiting for someone, anyone, to say, Yes, yes, I do.  Thanks for asking.

Instead, it’s always something like, Oh, I just acted on instinct.

Sounds like heroism, to me.  If your instincts are fear-based, they might lead you to hide under your blankie all day.

The villains of the world don’t like when you and I feel good about ourselves.

They feel threatened; they shouldn’t.

They should feel inspired to lose their assholery and reach towards something brighter.

But instead, it emboldens them to crush our spirits, if they can and if we let them.

Do I feel like a hero?

You bet, I do.

I’ve thrown myself into harm’s way more times than I can remember.