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eBook Category: Mystery/Crime
eBook Description: As if Stanley Hastings didn't already have bad luck, in his first case the guy he was looking for was found dead and Stanley was accused. But he got out of that one. What were the odds of it happening again? In Stanley's case, apparently very high. Now Stanley must fight to clear his name when the NYPD accuses him of another murder. This gunless, gutless P.I. must solve a case that even New York's finest can't. Is it time for Stanley to find a new line of work?

eBook Publisher: e-reads, Published: 1989
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2001

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Parnell Hall's Stanley Hastings Series

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [716 KB], eReader (PDB) [211 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [215 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [192 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [202 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [233 KB], hiebook (KML) [556 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [244 KB], iSilo (PDB) [175 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [221 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [248 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [298 KB]
Words: 70213
Reading time: 200-280 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

I don't look for it.

I know some people thrive on violence and action and mystery. I don't. You see, I'm not a real private detective. Not really. I'm an ambulance chaser. I work for the law firm of Rosenberg and Stone. I spend my time driving around New York City in my beat-up Toyota, signing up clients who have called in response to Richard Rosenberg's TV ads. Technically, that makes me a private detective, and that's where the trouble comes in.

You see, sometimes people want to hire me. And the thing is, I don't want to be hired. That's because the people who want to hire a private detective usually have a distorted view of what a private detective really is. The reason, of course, is television. The minute you say the words "private detective," people always think of some macho guy with a gun who has shoot-outs and car chases every week, and who always stays two steps ahead of the cops (who are always slightly dumb), and who always manages to solve murder cases that have the poor cops baffled.

In real life, of course, the reverse is true. In the few murder cases I've been involved in, I've always been a few steps behind the police, and they've always turned out to be smarter than I was.

Yeah, I've been involved in some murder cases. And, believe me, I didn't look for 'em. And solving them was not my idea of a good time. Hey, I'm not a movie hero--I'm just a fortyish old fart with a wife and kid to feed, trying to scratch out a living the best I can. The only reason I work this job for Rosenberg and Stone is I don't seem to have the brains or the gumption to find myself anything else. That, and the fact that in theory the job is supposed to be flexible to leave me time to write. Somehow it never does. Or, at least, I never manage to get anything written. The fault, dear Brutus, probably lies not in my stars but in myself, that I am an underling.

At any rate, I don't crave adventure. My idea of excitement is miraculously finding a babysitter and taking my wife, Alice, out to the movies, preferably (my preference, not hers) something fast-paced, funny, unsubtitled and with no redeeming social value whatsoever.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Hell, I'll go on anyway. The fact is, I don't carry a gun, I never punched anyone in my life and I don't even do surveillance.

And I'm not particularly brave. That is an understatement. In fact, in the murder cases in which I've been involved, my greatest act of heroism to date has been not pissing in my pants in tense situations. So if urine retention were the only requirement for bravery, I guess I could pass, but if there are any other criteria, count me out. See, if you wanted a recommendation from any of the policemen with whom I've been involved, I'm sure you could get one: "Stanley Hastings? Oh yeah, that's that chicken-shit asshole."

So, as I say, I don't look for it. And I must tell you, as I drove up the Grand Concourse in the Bronx on that sunny September morning to interview Jesus Pagan, who had fallen on the stairs in his building and broken his leg, the last thing in the world I was expecting was murder.