Zack Jones: Private Eye

EXCERPT:



I had a lot of time to kill, so I took one of the cases of beer out of my car, threw it up onto my shoulder, and walked over to Brian’s apartment. I knocked, and the peephole darkened as he looked out at a perfect view of my middle finger.



He opened the door slowly. “Hey, what’s that?” He pointed at the beer on my shoulder.



“Beer, idiot,” I said. It was getting heavy, and I wanted to put it down.



“Beer?” he said. “You’re bringing beer? I mean, you’re not just coming over to drink all of mine?”



I tried to force my way in, but he blocked the doorway like a furry building.



“Wait, Zack,” he said, grinning. “This is a historical moment – where did you get it?”



“I bought it,” I hissed, my shoulder was starting to ache.



“With what?”



“Money.”



“From Bernie?”



“No!”



He scratched his head.



“Get the hell out of the way!” I rammed by him and let the case of beer down onto his kitchen table.



“Why don’t you put it in the refrigerator?” he asked.



I glared at him, rubbing my shoulder. His eyes glinted merrily. I carried the beer to the refrigerator and shoved it in, right on top of a pizza box, taking one for myself.



“Where’s mine?” he asked, as I came back to take a seat at the table.



“In the refrigerator,” I said. There was a deck of cards on the table, so I shuffled them and dealt two hands of five cards.



“You squished my leftover pizza!” he complained, and he huffed back to the table with a beer, scowling.



Then he remembered something. “Oh yeah, where’d you get money?” He picked up the cards I had dealt for him and rearranged them.



“Five card draw,” I said, ignoring his question. “One-eyed jacks are wild.”



“What are we playing for?” he asked.



I looked up from my hand, which by luck contained a one-eyed jack and a couple of aces. “I got a job. Want to play for money?”





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