Dicks and Dumptrucks

Speaking on the phone is a big part of my day and one of the people that I speak to on a fairly regular basis is the secretary for a large corporate events company, she sounds bubbly, blonde, and flirty. If I had to guess I would say she was in her late twenties, early thirties, but I'm not even going to try because the last time I fell for the voice on the phone I drew the short straw.

She too was a secretary and worked for a friend of mine, a private detective called Jerry. I used to make bugs (electronic listening devices) for him among other things, which when ready he would come to my shop to collect. I had been speaking to his secretary Sarah for over a year but had never met her, we became very friendly and our conversations became more risqué and suggestive to the point where I just had to do something about it or look a fool.
One Friday afternoon driven by lust I shut the shop early and made my way across town to Jerry’s office. It took some finding tucked away in a dingy side street and to be honest it was little more than a big cupboard stuck between lots of other big cupboards. But eventually I found a door with the words G. Davies, private investigator stencilled on it, just like in the Mickey Spillane novels. I was impressed.

I had always imagined that Jerry's secretary would be a long legged, stocking clad, crimson lipped, blonde, Veronica Lake type lady oozing sex and desperate for a man. I knocked on the door and waited. The door opened and there stood a short legged, shell suit clad, curly haired, three hundred pound, dump truck, definitely oozing, and without a doubt desperate for sex.
Her eyes travelled from my feet to my head, lingering for a while around my crotch, before saying in a voice that I knew well, "What can I do for you". Faced with this my nerve left me, I stuttered, "Oh I'm just dropping these of for Jerry, could you give them to him please" I pushed the small parcel towards her. “Are you David from Visual Electronics” she said, not waiting for an answer she grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. “Jerry won’t be long, come in and wait” she motioned me to sit down on an old leather couch, “would you like a drink” I sat on a high back chair near the door, “I really don’t have the time,” I said falteringly. She hauled her huge bulk over to a filing cabinet in the corner of the room and looked over her shoulder at me, “Oh come on, there is always time for a drink” her face cracked into what might have been a smile and she winked knowingly. “Coffee” I said, my voice sounded very week and thin.

She threw her head back and laughed, “it will have to be either lager or Guinness, the boilers on the blink”. It was then that I noticed the bald spot on the back of her head. “Not for me, I said, I have to drive back”. She poured herself a drink and perched her fat arse on the edge of a very wobbly desk, she attempted to cross her legs but only managed to spill some of the drink down her shell suit top, which was already covered in what looked like ink, and gravy. “Jerry has told me all about you, he said your one of the hardest men he knows” she let her tongue touch her bottom lip. I wasn’t sure if this was an attempt at being provocative, or that she was just mopping the Lager froth away. “I like hard men” She said breathlessly. Just then the door opened and in walked Jerry, he seemed surprised but glad to see me. I told him the reason for my visit and we chatted for a while before I made my exit. As I hurried down the corridor I promised myself I would never fall for a voice on the phone again, and touch wood so far I haven’t.

Jerry was an intelligent, but very unlucky guy; he invented a security vetting system that was stolen from him by a Magistrate who was supposed to be providing the finance for the venture. Another time he found a loophole in the international law governing the embargo on Cuba, but the villains who were helping him put his plan into action disappeared with over a million pounds and he was left with nothing.

The last time I saw Jerry was on a Thursday night, he called at my house to drop off a couple of security devices he wanted me to repair. He arranged to pick them up on the Monday, when he left he seemed happy enough and was excited about a new contract he had acquired with a fairly big company in Manchester. So it was with surprise and sadness that I learned he had driven up to Blackpool on the Friday night to a caravan he kept there and committed suicide. He was found with his feet in a bowl of water and an electric flex jammed in his mouth. There was no sign of the gold jewellery he always wore even to bed. Poor Jerry, unlucky in death too.