Rude Awakening: An Adonis Jones Mystery (Part One)

Don't you just hate it when you wake up with a nose-full of last night's blow? I prefer a glass of fresh orange juice and an espresso before my first bump of the day, thank you very much. But we don't always get what we want, I suppose. And as I was soon to learn on that glorious September morning, a much bigger mystery than how I slept with all that snow up my snout was about to come lunging my way. Crawling out of my four poster bed, I necked the glass of water on the nightstand and fished a spare aspirin from the tasty crevice of my navel. Willy was still sleeping off last night's ravishing, and I decided to leave him to it; he deserved a lie-in after everything I did to him!

It took me a while to stumble down from the bedroom to the kitchen, partially on account of the rather mansion-esque size of my home and also because of my hung-over zigzagging. It was only when I eventually reached the kitchen doorway that I came to realise two things:

Firstly, that the rather distracting thwick-thwack I'd heard all the way down the stairs originated from the fact that I'd forgotten to throw on my morning thong and kimono. Secondly, that there was what appeared to be a dead body sprawled rather decadently over my marble counter, legs akimbo, rigor mortis evident in every extremity. And I mean every extremity; much like Virginia Woolf's young Orlando at the debut of his adventures, there could be no mistake as to his sex. Sex... that reminded me of something.

“Willy,” I called out in what has been described by many as a handsome baritone, “come and look at this.” Willy Wolfe, my partner in crime solving and most-time lover, appeared presently in the doorway beside me.

“Cripes,” he said, and whistled. “What did we get up to last night?”

“Sodomy, for the most part,” I replied, “but I don't recall any stiffs other than our own.”

“Neither do I,” Willy's right hand instinctively went to my groin for comfort. “Well what do you suppose we do?” He asked after a moment's gentle squeezing.

“Get the coffee on,” I suggested, “and then I imagine we'd best call the police.”
Willy nodded his agreement and filled the coffee pot with three scoops of breakfast blend. After a hot, stimulating cup, and some more furtive fumbling on the part of Willy, I felt up to making the call. While we waited for the law to arrive, my housekeeper Tatiana let herself in the back door and jumped straight into a bout of hysterics at the sight of the poor bugger straddling the toaster. I knew though, that her distress came not from being in the same room as a dead body (she was from the deadliest of Russian gangster stock, after all), but from the prospect of cleaning up after one.

I calmed her down with a sound slap and a hot cup of coffee, and shortly after she was her usual self, swearing in her mother tongue and smoking like a chimney. I don't doubt the shot of vodka I slipped in her coffee helped somewhat.

No sooner had we finished our beverages than the doorbell rang; Beethoven's V for Victory. Not today, old boy, I said to myself as Tatiana rushed to let the police officers in. And who should she lead back into the crime scene? None other than Roderick Sexton, my old rival from the days when I was in the force, not to mention my former bum-chum.

“Long time no see, Don,” he grunted, casting a critical cop eye over the corpse on the counter, and an even darker glare over Willy's flawless, uncovered torso. “Obviously you've kept yourself busy.”

“I'll say,” I shot back, wrapping a muscular arm around Willy's broad shoulders. “But the dead guy's nothing to do with me. He was there when I woke up.”

“A likely story,” Roderick scribbled something in his knob-jockey notebook, then glanced at Tatiana. “I take it she's legal?”

“Of age and she has a passport, if that's what you mean,” I said, tired of this already.

“I can make you come and break your legs at same time.” Tatiana smiled sweetly. God bless her, she probably thought she was helping. Roderick evidently didn't know what to make of this exquisite creature, so he turned his attention to the corpse.

“Do you know who this is?” He exclaimed after seconds of inspection. Willy, Tatiana and myself all shook our heads in unison.

“It's Carl Van Der Wood,” Roderick said, as if it meant something. “Of the London Van Der Woods!”

“That means nothing to me,” I told Roderick, to which Willy whispered “Vienna” and the two of us giggled. I'm sure Tats would have joined us in a good old chortle at the copper's expense but the pun in all probability went over her head, bouncing off the Iron Curtain.

“You don't seem to understand how serious this is,” Roderick fixed me with his stony eyes and my cock twitched at the memories. “The Van Der Woods are an incredibly wealthy, powerful family. If this is murder, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say it bloody well is, then somebody stands to gain a lot of money from his death.”

“Cripes,” Willy uttered again.

“Cripes indeed,” Roderick echoed, then turned to me. “It appears that whoever killed young Carl here had a view to framing you, Don. Someone with a heck of a grudge. And I wouldn't even like to start compiling a list of your enemies. Just your disgruntled ex-lovers take up half the Yellow Pages.” I smiled and nodded; a slight exaggeration, perhaps, but largely true.

“Am I to be grateful,” I asked, “to not be a suspect, then?” 

“You're not ruled out quite yet, but I doubt even you would be arrogant enough to kill the male Paris Hilton and expect to get away with it, let alone stupid enough to leave the body on your kitchen counter.”

Possibly the closest I'll ever get to a compliment from Roderick Sexton; it was almost enough to make me blush. Even back during the time when I was in him nightly, we'd never been on what you might call cordial terms.

“Do we know how he died?” Willy asked, a pertinent question that brought my mind back from its erotic reverie to the situation at hand.

“No blood or guts to speak of,” Roderick murmured, leaning in closer to examine the naked Van Der Wood. “Bruises on the throat, though, so strangulation at a guess.” He let out a low whistle at the sight of Carl's now defunct wedding tackle, and I silently agreed with him; such a pity, such a waste. 

“Wait a minute,” Rod said after another moment, “what's this?” He slipped one hand into one of those rubber gloves (that took me back!) and extracted something from just underneath Carl Van Der Wood's bottom. A business card.

“The Cooch Club,” he read aloud. “Never heard of it, have you?”

“I danced there for while,” Tatiana said. “It is bad, bad place.”

“I bet it is,” I turned to Willy. “Time to get dressed, Willy; we have work to do.”

This was definitely a case for Adonis Jones & Co.

~

To Be Continued...