Page 1 of Nightcrawler

Chapter One

TRIGG

I stretched out in bed, feeling every day of my thirty-six years, not surprised to feel the soreness in my muscles which was always present after a long day and a hard workout at the gym. My shower had relaxed me, and I was almost ready to sleep. I had a big day tomorrow, but I couldn’t resist snatching up my tablet and searching for my favorite book review site, scrolling until I found what I was looking for.

Book title: Sunset over My Hammie

Author: Devon Clarke

Publisher: Self-published

Genre: MM College Boys short story

Review/rating by Nightcrawler: DNF <2 stars

Synopsis:

A torturous retelling of college life at a small university in Florida, relayed via sexual encounters among a group of frat boys who appear to be drunk twenty-three and a half hours a day, seven days a week.

My Review:

This collection of stories is told in first person by various drunk college men engaging in numerous and sundry sexual situations which happen all over the campus at a small Florida university. These men seem towant to relate their encounters to one-up the other men in different houses within the Greek system on campus. They include everything short of non-con, although I’m not really sure about the one from which this less than appealing title is drawn.

It appears during this encounter, taking place during a kegger—go figure—that the school mascot was stolen from its pen only to be brought back to the frat house where he became the subject of a circle jerk resulting in an angry pig and three men with wounds. Apparently, none of these excuses for mankind could see straight enough to notice the pig wasn’t a pig at all, but a boar with tusks, and not the university mascot, but a control subject from the school of animal husbandry.

That’s it. The entire plot of this short story seemed to be about a pig being covered with college boy jizz and then fighting back the only way the hairy, pink guy could. There may be more to it, but after five chapters, throwing up in my mouth three times, and the description of squealing which will haunt my dreams possibly for life, I had to DNF this bitch.

My advice to readers…don’t do it. Even if you’re intrigued by the title as I was while scrolling the newest releases of questionable indie authors, don’t pick this puppy up and crack the pages. Take it from me and pass on this one. As it is, I’m going to need therapy, brain bleach, and possibly my own beer bong by Chug Buddy.

I chuckled as I closed the window to Bestreads and set it aside, shaking my head and no doubt wearing a sappy smile. The smile gave me an uncomfortable feeling, so I immediately dismissed any joy I’d felt from moments before. I didn’t smile.

Not in real life.

Not outside the walls of my bedroom but lately, I’d really begun to enjoy trolling the site to see if Nightcrawler had posted another review. He always seemed to make me…laugh. I shuddered, dismissing the very idea of being happy. I’d begun following the reviewer when I’d spotted his thoughts on a book I’d been contemplating buying three months ago. Amused by his often-hilarious reviews of debut indie authors, I’d immediately pressed the follow button and haven’t been disappointed since.

I set an alarm for four a.m. before putting everything aside and heading to the bathroom. My wood floors were cold on my feet but then again, it was November. I took a piss and went back to bed. I needed a good night’s sleep if I had any chance of beating Raven Mathis to my bounty in the morning. The fact is, it was becoming harder and harder to earn a nickel since the man had started working for Grayson, Mallory, and Simms. The insurance company was big—one of the largest of its kind—and unfortunately, the Manhattan-based firm paid their recovery agentswaytoo much money. Hell, that opinion was probably shared by most bounty hunters who picked up work from insurance companies, not only here in L.A., but across the country.

I shut out the light and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, remembering my first run-in with the tenacious recovery agent. Jamie had called me the minute his efforts to locate the fugitive had paid off, and I’d set things in motion, lying in wait for Lyle Trench. The slippery bastard had somehow managed to elude every skip tracer and bounty hunter out there ever since being identified as the thief of the Mulberry diamond. Unfortunately, for me as well as everyone else on Trench’s tail, the massive insurer cast a wide net, letting everyone on the street know what the reward would be once the diamond was recovered. Theyeven had their own guy on Trench’s trail, a man employed as a recovery agent…which is how I’d literally run into Raven Mathis.

Six months ago

I staked out the Capitol Records building where Trench had been granted an appointment with a record producer at eight a.m. It’d taken Jamie nearly a week after seeing the reward post with all the salient details of the theft and the massive bounty for the diamond’s recovery to learn that Trench thought of himself as the next great recording star. Over a decade ago, Trench had somehow gotten through the initial audition on American Idol and had been sent to Hollywood by a panel of judges who had encouraged him to follow his dreams of stardom. Maybe he was—orhadbeen—talented back then.

What did I know about music? I still listened to an 8-track which had come with my truck and an old Bee Gees tape I’d found at a yard sale when I wasn’t listening to Donna Summer. What could I say? Before—when my parents had been alive—I’d learned how to “Do the Hustle” with my mom and dad in our living room and watched tapes from a wedding where my father moved exactly like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

I quickly put those memories of a happier time out of my mind and picked up the file lying on my truck’s passenger seat, flipping it open. I scanned Trench’s vitals one more time. While using the stage name Angel Gabriel, he’d failed to advance after that first audition on the show and TV fame had eluded him.

Trench hadn’t moved back home to Akron, Ohio after his defeat, though. He’d spent twelve years chasing his dreams on the streets of Hollywood, acquiring a healthy heroin habit along the way, before he’d robbed Charlotte Mulberry. Ten days ago, he’d robbed the Beverly Hills socialite as she stepped out ofher bank after collecting her diamond to wear at a party she’d planned on attending.

As it turned out, he was a crappy thief, but luck had been on his side that day. Blurry traffic camera images of a man local street people identified as Trench, caught him running away from the scene of the crime.

Trench had been arrested and then released when the charges were dropped due to the quality of the images and a lack of evidence even though Mulberry had fingered him in the theft, insisting he’d knocked her down and stolen her jewelry. Detectives couldn’t find the Mulberry diamond valued at a cool half million dollars even though they’d checked all Trench’s hidey holes. The best they could do was charge him with a minor assault, but because he’d somehow been blessed by the stars and avoided a criminal past, he’d been released on bail. Considering he’d been an IV drug user for years, this seemed impossible, but it was true. Jamie had checked and the best he could come up with were a couple of shoplifting charges over the past ten years…both dismissed.

And yet still, the diamond had been stolen, Mrs. Mulberry had pointed fingers at Trench, and there was a substantial reward for its return. Staring down at a picture of the diamond pendant, I whistled. A half million dollars seemed like a lot of money for one diamond. And I absently thought about the reward the insurance company had posted…10 percent of the appraised value…which was why everyone in our business and their brother was on the trail of this particular recovery. The thief wasn’t worth anything to a bounty hunter but the stone everyone suspected he’d hidden someplace, sure as hell was.

It had taken Jamie—whom I considered the best skip tracer in the business—four days after Trench’s release to learn which record producer had granted the junkie fifteen minutes ofFaceTime. In a town as small as Hollywood, California, I knew it was hard to get a meeting with a legitimate record producer without a name or a huge social media presence unless you were represented by a legitimate talent agent. Trench was not.

By the time he’d finally secured that meeting, the stage name of Angel Gabriel was long forgotten by a town which seemed to specialize in forgetfulness. His angelic looks which had matched the name many years ago, hadlongago been washed away on a sea of intravenous drugs.

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