Being a man of low moral character, Vic Musket enjoyed betting on the occasional prizefight, and the more lopsided the victory, the better. But he rarely had the kind of scratch that would get him into betting on the casino bouts, leaving the weekend drifter matches as his venue. There you could fix a match by buying the loser a few drinks beforehand, unless of course he was irish. Booze was like spinach was to popeye for the micks, and that hard lesson cost him seventy bucks one time. But dry out a hard drunk and he couldn't drive a car, let alone win a fight. So when the papers reported about the in ring death of boxing legend "Green" Jack Feeney as related to a seizure from alcohol withdrawal, everything seemed to add up. Until the mob came knocking at Vic's car door.

The rapping at the window interrupted a pleasant dream about sodomizing a young filipino prostitute, and left Vic wondering if his wet clothes were due to sleeping in a car at noon during a heatwave or the combination of pissing himself and a wet dream. He gathered his senses and noticed a greaseball guido in a suit trying none too hard to disguise his mob connections standing outside. He gathered himself and followed the man into a nearby alleyway that served as Vic's office to either discuss business or get stabbed. Truth be told, Vic would accept either.

"We need you to look into Feeney's death last Saturday, Vic" the man said with a disgusted look on his face, possibly from the stench of the makeshift alleyway latrine. "One of my guys had a deal with him to throw the fight, and we think somebody fucked with our play and took him out."

"But if he was supposed to throw the fight anyways, what was the fix? He lost, didn't he?" Vic asked with a confused look.

"Whatchoo talkin about, Vic? If a guy fuckin dies in the ring it's a no contest. And we lost out on over 50 grand here! Somebody was messing around. We know Feeney wasn't fighting dry. He was shitfaced two nights before the fight at one of our clubs!"

Apparently the rules in sanctioned matches are a bit different than in the drifter bouts. In those fights a win by death paid out double. The guido didn't like being questioned, and was poking his finger in Vic's chest hard. He might be the first guy to get away with that, too.

"Alright, but what's in it for me? There are whores around here that rely on my business."

The man shook his head in disbelief at Vic's statement. "You tryin to be cute, Musket? You owe us over ten grand in bar bills at our clubs! You think we're paying for this job? Consider it a favor that we let you work it off instead of dropping you in a river somewhere!" The guy had a point.

"Alright, alright. I will get to the bottom of this, you know I will. Just clear the debt and open my tab back up in the club and we're square." Vic said as he pushed the man's finger away from his sternum. "Just tell me this, what did the autopsy say?"

"That's whats so fucking fishy. There was no autopsy. Feeney's broad said he was off the booze for a full week, and when they tested his blood he was clean, so the bitch had him cremated."

Well, at least there was somewhere to start. Vic pulled a half-full flask of whiskey from a sopping wet pocket and took a drink. The boxer's wife must have known he was still drinking, so her lies made her a prime suspect. Getting on the wagon certainly could kill a drunk like Feeney, Vic knew that from the way he felt after a long nap, let alone the week of sobriety his wife was claiming. But a hasty cremation was suspicious. Vic knew many dead irishmen, and right now his body should be sitting in a box on a bar somewhere having songs sung over it, not in a fucking jar.

Vic parted ways with the greaseball and headed off to one of his contacts to learn more about this shifty broad.

Excuses are like assholes. Everybody's got one. But when it comes to powerful men lying about sex, their excuses are giant, bloody prolapses that they drag around like bulbous vestigial tails. And when such powerful men want their name cleared they pay men like Vic Musket. A private detective with ethics as questionable as his choice of street whores.

Senator Jim Gallant of the garden state of New Jersey was facing serious allegations of illicit sex with some high-end escort, the kind of scandal that has been overcome by countless politicians and would seem to pose no threat beyond the cost of a skillful PR representative and an embarrassing news interview or two. But there had to be more to it, considering the serious look on the face of the staffer sitting across the table from him.

"Before we begin, detective Musket, I want your assurance that anything we discuss with you will not leave this room. We are willing to pay you quite handsomely for your discretion..." the well-dressed man looked shocked when Vic interrupted him.

"I won't tell about your dirty secrets if you don't tell about the mess I am about to make in that executive bathroom, mister." Vic Musket stood up and began marching toward the slightly ajar door at the back of the conference room.

"But detective, I will have to show you to another restroom, that toilet is out of order." the man said with a slightly panicked look on his face.

"No problem. I can use the sink." was the unwelcome response, Vic not even slowing his stride.

The man darted in front of him before he could touch the doorknob. "Excuse me, sir, but I will have to insist! I cannot allow you to defecate in the Senator's bathroom sink!"

"Do I look like the kind of animal that would shit in a sink?" Vic asked, leaning in to make a point. "It's 10:30 in the morning, and I haven't thrown up all the whiskey from last night. I haven't eaten in two days, so I assure you there won't be any plumbing problems. Now step aside!"

The sweet stench of booze was all the evidence the man needed to apologize and step aside. And after a few minutes of loud retching with the door wide open, Vic returned to the table. "Like I was saying, we can pay you handsomely for any information that might clear the Senator's good name in this matter. $20,000 if the evidence is good enough to make the problem go away."

The figure had Vic's full attention. "Give me the details" he said, "and get the money ready. I don't take checks."

The well-dressed man ran through a powerpoint presentation that explained everything. The Senator was accused of patronizing an escort service, and the glorified prostitute didn't have the good sense to keep with the age-old tradition of amnesia concerning her clientele. She was threatening to come forward with a story of receiving three full hours of cunnilingus from Gallant's famous silver tongue just three days ago, and wanted a sizable portion of the Senator's upcoming campaign fund or else she was talking. The voters wouldn't find this so unpalatable, pun intended, except for one fact. The escort was a hermaphrodite. The thought of a political candidate going down on a whore was one thing, but they wouldn't be able to shake the image of him wearing a flaccid penis on his face like groucho glasses in time to vote for him. Not even in Jersey.

"Do you have a picture of the whore?" The man called for a secretary to bring in a laptop, and upon delivery brought up an old mugshot of the culprit. A grin widened across Vic's face.  "Can I meet with the Senator? Is he here?" Vic asked.

The man was perplexed and it showed on his face. "Detective, the Senator is a very busy man, and I am not..." but he was cut off for the second time by a voice from the doorway.

"I am here, Musket. Whatever I can do to clear my name, just ask." The tall, gray haired Senator seemed sincere. And cleanly shaven.

"Well I have only one question for you. Do you shave with a blade or an electric razor?" Vic asked.

The two men in suits shared a confused glance. "A blade, every morning. It's the only way to maintain a clean appearance now, with the high definition cameras, and such." Said the Senator.

Vic stood up. "Then I know you are innocent. Pay me and I will be on my way."

"Not so fast, detective. We need irrefutable proof to keep this woman from speaking up. You aren't getting a dime until our lawyers are satisfied there is no further political threat here." The well dressed man remained unconvinced.

"It's quite simple," Vic began "the good Senator is clean shaven, not a blemish on his face, the picture of trustworthy modern American politics. He shaves with a razor daily, a clean shave that leaves his facial pores open and exposed, yet he bears no sores on his lips. Get that 'woman' tested, sir. 'She' has a bad case of herpes, and any man freshly shaven with a blade would look like we went down on a wasp's nest after pleasuring her."

"But I don't understand," the Senator muttered, "how can you tell she has herpes from the picture on the laptop?"

"Simple." Vic replied, taking a flask out of his inside pocket. "Because I gave them to her six weeks ago." By the time the lawyers had contacted the woman and explained the new developments, she recanted her story and Vic's briefcase full of cash was prepared. Plenty of money afford any number of exotic escorts, even one born with the kind of tackle that gave men like him plenty of options.



The End.

“When interrogating someone, they say you can tell if a person is lying to you by how they look into your eyes.  A good liar makes deliberate contact, thinking that an unflinching willingness to expose themselves to scrutiny lends them credibility.  But someone who is truthful is desperate for you to believe, and it shows.  The one trying too hard is the one you should trust, and the ambivalent subject is almost always deceiving you.”

A pale, sweating man in a bathrobe sat at card table in a smoke-filled and light-deprived room.  His nervous breathing was the only sound audible over the ringing of ice in a whiskey glass, dancing from the unsteady hand that held it.

“I think it’s all bullshit.”  He began again after a deep drink.  “There are no tricks of the trade, and the great detective doesn’t have some super-human insight to impress the studio audience with.  I get my answers every time, the old fashioned way.  With a promise of violence.  And I always keep my promises.”

Detective Vic Musket drank the last from the glass, then dumped the two ice cubes on the table between them.  “Take the ice.  You’re gonna need it.”  He said, pulling a small claw hammer out of the left front pocket of his filthy overcoat.

“For fuck’s sake, Vic.  I’m not the one who shit on your car.  My dumps come out of tubes these days.  I couldn’t make a proper log like that if I tried.”  The sweating man swung open his bathrobe to expose a small, crooked penis and a colostomy bag strapped to his leg.  Looks like this bitch isn’t in heat after all, thought Vic.  There were only so many people it could be.  Someone young and slim enough to climb atop his vehicle without denting the hood, but someone large enough to leave an NFL sized shit draped across the seam between the roof and the windshield.

“Sorry, Bill.  I haven’t done you right in the past, and you seemed like the logical culprit.  And, uh... sorry about the problems with your shitter.”  The man relaxed and swung his robes shut, albeit a little too slowly.  “No worries, Vic.  Help yourself to another glass of my whiskey, then get the fuck out.”

“I’m not done with you yet, Bill.”  Vic said, pouring himself another glass.  “When I walked through your kitchen I noticed two empty cans of creamed corn.  The same kind of corn that peppered the length of that log on my car.  But you couldn’t have left it there... Or could you have?”  Vic stepped closer to the man, yanking his bathrobe open again.  “But when you showed me the bag I noticed it had been leaking.  I thought the odor was due to your poor housekeeping, maybe a dead pet, but the small brown stain on the inside of your white bathrobe told another story.  A colostomy bag is a disposable item, for obvious reasons, and if used properly is a clean receptacle.  But yours has been tampered with.  And as a man who spent a lifetime as a plumber, you seem to be the type who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty.  Come on Bill, what kind of depraved fool hand-forms his own diseased shit into a makeshift log just to vandalize another man’s car?”  He held up the claw hammer once again.  “A very sorry man, indeed.”

Vic Musket climbed into his car with a whiskey glass, but no hammer.  Whatever he left in Bill’s apartment was evidence now, but he had been careful not to leave any prints.  Some might call his actions overkill, but his car was his home.  He ate there, drank there, and slept there, and any man who would desecrate his only possession deserved the harshest punishment.  He drank the last of the booze and tossed the glass over his shoulder into the backseat, where it landed without a sound.  How strange, Vic thought.  As far as he could remember, his backseat was always filled with empty bottles.  But where he expected a crash, he heard nothing.

Striking a match, Vic leaned into his backseat to see.  But where last night there were only bottles, there now laid a bedding of discarded corn husks.  Then it came flooding back.  The tequila, the drunken driving on the countryside, the cornfield he raided before making his way back to the city with an overwhelming pressure in his guts...

Vic was two blocks away before he heard the ambulance arrive.