Read Caper for Free Online Page B

lion’s cage is most likely to be Claude.”
    Doesn’t that seem like a wonderful premise for a series of jokes? Short, clean, excellent setup, perfect payoff. The reason the routine never got anywhere was “The man climbing into the lion’s cage is most likely to be Claude” was the only one I was ever able to come up with.
    I know, I’m digressing horribly. The problem is, I didn’t want to face the situation. Because, once again, my do-good, white knight nature, coupled with my horny as hell raging hormones, had allowed my client to seduce me, without the benefit of actual sex, but to lure me coquettishly into something that in my heart of hearts I knew I shouldn’t be doing.
    I would be following little Lolita on her journey from school. Which was kind of like a trip to Vegas. If she went home with her girlfriend, buzzers and bells would go off, lights would flash, gold bars would line up, and the slot machine would spit out two hundred dollars.
    If she hopped into a car with somebody else, I would be mugged and dumped in the gutter.
    Unlike Vegas, I wasn’t betting a long shot. Surely, the odds favored her going home with a friend. However, there was a chance, albeit a small chance, that she wouldn’t.
    I needed an umbrella.

13
    â€œI NEED A M ICKEY F INN .”
    Fred Lazar looked at me like a total stranger, like he’d never seen me before. “I don’t think I heard you right. In fact, I’m sure I didn’t. Why don’t you come in and try again.”
    â€œYou got to help me, Fred. I’m in trouble.”
    â€œAnd misery loves company, so you’d like me in trouble too.”
    Fred was a stocky guy with a broken nose and a bulge under his arm. As much as I didn’t look like a private eye, Fred did. Fred was the guy who got me into the private eye business way back when. I hadn’t seen him much since then, for which he was grateful. Fred always regarded me as colossal fuckup for whom negligence work would be just about the limit of my expertise. At the time, he had been happy to steer me into a job that he didn’t want.
    â€œI don’t know what you’re up to, but slippin’ someone a mickey is what happens in films. You always get in trouble when you work from films.”
    â€œThis is a little different.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI’m already in trouble. I’m trying to get out.”
    Fred tried to keep from asking, but it was too damn hard. “Why are you in trouble?”
    I told him the story. He didn’t look pleased. “You want to drug a teenage girl?”
    â€œI don’t want to drug her, no.”
    â€œThen why are you even considering this?”
    â€œI’m not going to let some pervert on Viagra use her body for target practice.”
    â€œA noble sentiment.”
    â€œWhich means I gotta get her away. The problem is, she won’t want to come.”
    â€œPoor choice of words.”
    â€œGet your mind out of the gutter. She won’t wanna go, so how can I bring her home?”
    â€œThat is a problem.”
    â€œUnless you wanna come with me. I bet you could take her.”
    â€œSorry. Not my style.”
    â€œSo I need a mickey.”
    â€œYou know what a mickey is?”
    â€œYeah. Chloral hydrate. I had it once for an EEG.”
    â€œYou had an EEG?”
    â€œYeah. They give you chloral hydrate to make you sleep.”
    â€œWhy’d you have an EEG?”
    â€œSee if anything was going on.”
    â€œWhat did it show?”
    â€œUnremarkable brain.”
    â€œI could have told you that without an EEG.”
    â€œYeah, I know. Can you get it?”
    â€œChloral hydrate?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThis is a bad idea.”
    â€œI know that. You got a better one?”
    â€œNot off the top of my head.”
    â€œSo, it’s either chloral hydrate, or you come with me.” I shrugged, spread my arms. “Your