Suckers - J.A. Konrath

air guitar, broke an air string, put on a new one and spent a minute air tuning it, and then decided
on my approach.
I could put on my ghillie suit—a mesh shirt and pants with real and fake grass and shubbery
sewn into it that I ordered from PsychoSniper.com—and then slowly belly-crawl across the
lawn, traverse the fence using a carbide steel bolt cutter, inch my way into the backyard, creep up
the porch in slow increments stopping often to pretend to be a potted plant, trick his surveillance
system by recording a loop from his outdoor camera and feeding the playback into the main line,
drill into his door frame using a cordless screwdriver to disable the burglary alarm sensor, pick
the pick-proof Schlage deadbolt, and sneak inside his house using my Invisible Voyeur
NightVision Goggles, which I bought at CautiousStalker.org.
Or I could knock on the front door and ask what’s up.
“What’s up?” I asked when the front door opened.
Since I’d seen him yesterday, Ken had gone from half a sunburned face to a full sunburned
face. The smell coming from his house was real bacon, which sure beat the smell of fake bacon,
which my mother used to make out of soy and library paste and brown Crayons.
“Who are you?”
“Housing inspector.” I flashed him my PI badge, too fast for him to read it. “I’m here to
check for gas leaks. Are you leaking any gases?”
“No. Can I see that badge again?”
“I smell something. Are you cooking in there?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Is it bacon?” I smacked my lips. “I love bacon. I read somewhere that you could shave with
bacon. Rub it on your face raw, and it lubricates better than shaving cream. Have you ever heard
of that?”
“No.”
“I tried it once. Closest shave I ever had. But I got an E. Coli infection and they had to
remove eight yards of my large intestine. Can I come in?”
“No. Hey, you look kind of familiar.”
I flashed an aw shucks grin. “I get that a lot. I’ve made a few videos. You might know my
screen name, Sir Dix-A-Lot.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
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