Lee Hacklyn Private Investigator in Papa Wolf, Mama Wolf, Baby Boy: Lee Hacklyn, #1

By John Leister

New York City.  1979.

 

In 1960, a Global Airways B-36 crashed into the Himalaya Mountains.

There was one survivor.  A baby boy named Louis Pine.

In 1969, Lou is discovered by Life Magazine photographer Cordell Reed and his wife,

Linda.

They adopt him and raise them as one of their own.

In 1979, Lou is serving a life sentence in Attica for a crime he didn't commit.

Cordell hires Lee to prove his innocence.

 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Leister
• Release date: Nov 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215232231

Book preview

NEW YORK CITY.  1979.

CHAPTER ONE

I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Hacklyn, but you owe the Federal Government sixty-four thousand dollars.

Well, that’s the $64,000 answer.  The penniless question is, how do you expect me to pay it?

I was at the Internal Revenue Service Assistance Center in Lower Manhattan.

Assistance to an early grave, I think.

The man sitting across from me was Buck Ng, a thin, balding, unhappy, officious and vertically anxious not-quite-man who embodied Henry David Thoreau’s assertion that most men lead lives of quiet desperation.

This was a guy who’d spent a significant portion of his high school years, stuck inside his own locker and he never really got over it.

He was grinning at me from ear-to-ear.

His teeth were so white, they were giving me sunspots.

He chewed on the eraser of a pencil and said, You have ninety days to pay the full amount.  The penalty for failing to meet this deadline could result in serious prison time.  Most judges these days are very harsh on tax-evaders, Mr. Hacklyn.  You won’t be serving with fellow white-collar criminals.  You’ll be serving with cutthroats and rapists.

His bespectacled face was slick with sweat and his clapsed hands were squeezed together so tightly, it looked like he was performing an isometric exercise.

I asked him, Are you in some kind of trouble, Mr. Ng?

No, but his voice quavered.

His intercom buzzed and his body spasmed so violently, his glasses fell to the floor.

He pressed a button and said, What is it, Rosy?

There are two men here to see you, sir, and they’re not on the schedule.  They say their names are Mr. Chip and Mr. Dale.

She giggled.

The sweat beads on Ng’s face were fruitful and multiplying.

I asked him, "Is there