Lenny Parker, PI / roadie / metalhead is back in a new serial. He’s my slightly more humorous version of the PI. He doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing and sure as hell isn’t the martial arts master my Noah Milano is.
For the other parts of this story click here.
TWO
Casey updated Lenny about her new
love, Jenna while they were in his Dodge Ram. They were heading for Jenna’s
place. Jenna, last name Collins, had a job at a local sex shop. Turns out Casey
met her there, shopping for a strap-on. Lenny had stopped feeling shocked about
Casey’s openness about her sex life. The conversation had turned to if Casey
had someone to use it on and before you knew it they were at the back of the
shop doing the nasty. Eat that, Penthouse Forum. They discovered they had more
to offer each other than just pure lust, like the same crude sense of humor and
a fondness of riot grrl bands and
medieval poetry.
“Did she ever mention something to
you about not liking San Diego, or her work?” Lenny asked Casey.
“No. She loved her job. She just
liked meeting all the freaks and embarrassing the housewives who shopped there.
She wasn’t thinking about leaving. I know what you’re suggesting, Len. But she
didn’t just leave on her own accord. There’s something wrong.”
“Okay, okay. But most often when an
adult disappears she usually turns up after a few weeks, drunk, broke or in
love with someone else.”
“This is not one of those causes,
okay?”
“Sure.” Lenny pointed ahead. “This her
place?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. Let me park and we’ll have
a look over there.”
Lenny parked the Dodge next to a
battered Volvo. Together with Casey he walked over to the apartment complex. It
had three stories, white balconies and walls painted red to mask the fact the
building was pretty old.
“You don’t have a key, right?”
Lenny asked.
“If I had a key I would have gone
over to have a look myself, don’t you think? No, I need your fancy PI
lockpicking skills.”
“I’m actually not very good at
that. I’m not Magnum, you know?”
“You can always put some of your weight
against the door.”
“Hey! Stop picking on me about my
weight!”
“Pick locks, not on Lennies,” Casey
chuckled.
A young woman with pink shorts and
a black tank top moved past them on rollerblades, over to the apartment’s main
door. A blonde ponytail stuck out from her white cap.
“Quick, let’s move in behind her,”
Lenny said.
Casey wiggled her eyebrows. “Not a punishment.”
Lenny shook his head in despair. Casey was so much worse than even most men he
knew.
Walking as fast as they could
without looking suspicious they moved to the door. Just before the young woman
could close it, Lenny put a foot against it.
The woman looked behind her,
missing the sound of a closing door. “Oh, hi. Didn’t see you there.”
“No worries,” Lenny said. “Nice weather
for some rollerblading, right?”
The woman smiled. “Absolutely. I
haven’t seen you before here, are you new?”
Casey put an arm around Lenny and
kissed his cheek. “Yeah, we just moved into our little love nest here.”
Lenny was caught a bit unaware by Casey’s
act but had to admit it didn’t feel bad to get a kiss from his beautiful friend.
“Yeah. We’ve got a friend living here as well. Jenna Collins, you know her?”
“Jenna? Good looking girl? Lots of
tattoos?”
“That’s her,” Casey said.
“Yeah, I’ve run into her every now
and then. She usually tries to get me in bed when she does. Some people have
been complaining about the loud music she plays.”
“That sounds like her as well,”
Casey agreed. Lenny wondered if it bothered her that her girlfriend tried to
pick up women in the apartment building.
The young woman took off her rollerblades,
quite a balancing act. Lenny was a gentlemen and offered her a hand as she did.
“Haven’t seen her in days, though. Maybe she’s on holiday or something? You
know about that?”
“No, haven’t heard about that,”
Casey said.
“Well, I’m going to take a shower. Sweating
my ass off. Nice to mee you folks,” the woman said. “I’m Tiffany.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Lenny
agreed.
“For sure,” Casey said.
They watched Tiffany go up the stairs.
“And what a nice sweaty ass it is,”
Casey said.
“I guess you have no reason to be
mad at Jenna for trying to pick her up,” Lenny told his friend.
“She probably just wanted to arrange
a trio.”
“Right, probably. Well, that was
the first door. Now let’s head over to the second.”
The two metalheads went up the stairs
to the third floor where Jenna’s apartment was.
