A Touch of Danger (Archie Lemons #2)

  I turned and swung the shovel at Brad but he was able to get his arm up and block the blow. He turned and ran off towards the house.

  I had Elise to worry about.

  They were both down in the hole, Gibson still crying out in pain like a bitch. Elise was underneath him and not moving.

  "Stay down, Elise!" I yelled and I brought the shovel down on to Gibson's head. He stopped moving, but I had slipped in the mud and fallen onto my back.

  I crawled back to the edge of the open grave and reached for Elise. She was still face down and the hole was steadily filling up with water. I crawled to the front and reached for her head. I was able to grab a little chunk of her hair and pulled, making sure to not slide right in with them. The ground was ridiculously slick.

  Elise finally looked up.

  "Gibson is unconscious on top of you but Jackson got away!" I yelled down to her. "I need to get you out of here!"

  "I can get out by myself! You go get Brad! Be careful!"

  I got back to my feet and ran towards the house. I went inside, called 9-1-1, and quickly told them my location and my situation then left the receiver off the hook and headed back outside. I saw no trace of the movie star. I decided I would help Elise instead, since the cops were on the way. I walked back over to the grave where Elise had finally rolled Gibson's dead weight off her and gotten to her feet.

  "I'm going to need your help to get out of here. It is way too muddy for...Archie! LOOKOUT!!!"

  I turned just in time to see Brad Jackson pounce on me like a cat on an injured bird. We both went down (to the ground, perverts!) and were wrestling. Again. We rolled along the wet and muddy lawn until we reached the rocks at the base of the cliff. We each landed a few good punches but were unfazed by them. He managed to work his way on top of me and slam the back of my head into the soft, muddy ground beneath us. It still managed to leave me momentarily dazed. I had to be careful. I knew we were dangerously close to the edge. Lightening lit up his face again and I was able to see the pure rage that filled it. He was out for blood.

  I brought my knee up hard into his groin and he relaxed the grip he had on me. I tried to roll him off but I lost whatever little traction I had on the ground. I felt water flood underneath me and we both spun a quarter of a turn until we fell a few inches on to the rock below. Any false move now would prove deadly for the both of us.

  I brought my head up and was able to connect it with his broken nose. His body flew backwards and he began to slide off me. He grabbed hold of my waist and pulled me downward with him. I only had a small footing and a handle on the rock above. I think Brad was dangling.

  I tried to shake him loose. I wanted him to fall.

  The storm continued to rage and for the first time that night, I could hear the huge wave crashing against the rocks directly below us. The combined sounds were nearly deafening.

  Water was pouring off the side of the cliff onto my face.

  "Get the fuck off of me!" I yelled.

  "Help me, man! Help me!"

  "Fuck you! Let go and die with a little bit of dignity, Pretty Boy!"

  I was losing my grip. My right thumb was dangling from my hand, completely worthless to me, and if I couldn't shake Brad off of me we would both fall. I only had a few seconds left. Water continued to drain on me and the rocks I was clinging to became slipperier and slipperier. I felt my grip loosen. I was going to fall.

  "Hey Brad!"

  "What?!"

  "This pirate walks into a bar and he's got this huge ship's steering wheel around his johnson, right...The bartender asks 'Hey, did you know you have a steering wheel sticking out of your crotch?' Pirate looks up at him and says 'Yarrrrrrr, it's drivin' me nuts!"

  My plan of him loosening his grip during hysterical laughter and falling to his watery grave had failed. Crap. I looked up to search for another rock to cling to. Lightening flashed from somewhere in the distance and I saw Elise standing over me... Holding a gun.

  She laid down on the rocks and leaned over towards us.

  "You have two choices, Brad!" She yelled. "You let him go and take your chances on the fall or I shoot you in the top of your head and end your miserable existence for sure!"

  "No wait!" he yelled.

  "You've got three seconds!" Elise yelled down at him then began counting. I didn't know if she had the ability to kill someone.

  "One..!" she yelled.

  "Wait wait! I have money!" Brad pleaded. "Let me up! We can discuss business! I'm motherfucking Brad Jackson! I AM A MOVIE STAR!

  I found a little bit of firmer footing and I braced myself for the worst. I was able to look below me and see Brad desperately hanging out.

  "Yeah!" Elise yelled. "Well, that’s a wrap, bitch!" She pointed the gun at his arm and squeezed the trigger. I’m pretty sure the bullet shattered his elbow, causing him to release his grip on me and fall into the angry waves below. We lost all sight of him.

  Elise dropped the gun, grabbed hold of me, and helped me back up to level ground. We didn't hear the sirens but flashing lights of the police cars lit up the night sky from the front of the house.

  We were safe.

  I hugged Elise like a vice-grip and we both fell backwards into the mud.

  “That’s a wrap?! Are you kidding me, Elise?!”

  “What, no good?”

  “No good?! It was amazing! How did you come up with that?!”

  “Glad you like it.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. We laid there in each other’s arms until the police reached us.

  36.

  We both were transported, via ambulance, to the nearest hospital, where I was treated for my bloody hand and broken thumb. Elise just got a check-up from the bump on her noggin and was released back to the police who accompanied us there. After the hospital, we went to the police station to answer some questions.

  It wasn't until late the following evening that we were allowed to return to our motel. We had ended up sleeping in the hospital, not really on purpose, though. We were just exhausted, and didn’t want to make our way through the media circus outside. After we awoke, was when we were escorted back to the station. And even though we were cut loose, we were asked to stay close for another few days. We agreed; anything to speed this up and put it behind us.

  They found Daniel Mayweather's car in the police parking lot, of all places. It was Captain Gibson who had driven it away from Brad Jackson's house the night before. I'm sure he had intentions on ditching it later, but didn't have time right then. He took it to his work, switched cars then came to pick us up.

  When Gibson is released from the hospital, he will have a lot of explaining to do. And as far as I knew, people were searching for Brad, but I hadn't heard one way or the other if they found him or what became of him.

  While I was getting my hand attended to, I had asked an officer outside my room to call Detectives Anderson and Enzite back home, and fill them in. I thought if there was any doubt in the minds of the Pismo PD, my boys back home could clear it up for them. It seemed to work well.

  Two officers took us back to our motel, then left to go fetch our car for us, which was still parked by the cliff. When it was returned, the full size spare tire was on it. So polite, those officers.

  Two seconds in the door though, Elise called Jamie and begged her to bring the kids back. She told her she would pay for anything she needed and absolutely needed to see them right now. All she told her was our new motel and room number. She wouldn't even explain to poor Jamie why, making her wait the entire car ride over before divulging in our fun-filled night. Jamie said they would leave first thing in the morning.

  Sadly, both of our phones didn't survive. They're lost and may never come back. We shared a moment of silence for them before collapsing back onto the bed, and both letting out a huge sigh of relief that it was over.

  "Hey," I said, "what do you say we hit the Drive-In tonight? It was the one
thing I wanted to do on this vacation."

  "What's playing?"

  "I don't know. Does it matter? Who cares?"

  "Yeah, I guess not. Alright, I'm game."

  We hopped in Elise's car and headed off for the Sunset Drive-In, ten miles away in San Louis Obispo. We were pleased to see the double feature was a good one.

  We backed the car in, popped the hatch and got comfy together. We were both asleep before the coming attractions were over.

  When the horns of nearby cars woke us up when both movies were over, we drove back to the motel and fell on our beds. We both slept until we were awakened, this time, by the sounds of children's loud voices outside the door. They were here.

  Elise got up and opened the door to Jamie and two smiling children...and one apathetic, lazy dog.

  Happiness.

  Epilogue

  It's been a couple months since our wonderful and relaxing beach vacation, now. It’s November eleventh, me and Marianne’s anniversary, actually. It’s a tough day for me, but I’ll survive. Oh! You'll never believe this, though, but they actually found Brad Jackson. Alive! He apparently had a clean fall into the ocean and managed to get on top of a large rock and wait for rescue. His elbow was shattered and he had a broken leg. Other than that, he was fine. Psychically, I mean. He is currently in jail facing trail for two counts of murder-one and several other felonies. Boo-Hoo for him.

  Speaking of jail, Emma Ricks is no longer in hers, all thanks to yours truly. No ego here, right?

  But seriously, after we returned home, I called the defense attorney I had done some work for a while back, Chester P. Combs. Doesn’t that totally sound like an amazing lawyer name? Anyway, I told him the story and was planning on hiring him, but he took the case pro-bono and ran it all the way to stardom. Emma got her retrial, Chester got famous, and now they’re working on suing the city for millions. I hope she gets it. Maybe then she could get her disgusting freak hands fixed.

  When Captain Gibson came to, I heard he sang like a canary. Ratting out anything and everything in a pathetic attempt to save his own ass. It didn't work. That ass is currently getting reamed in the California State Prison near Lancaster. Those inmates sure do hate cops.

  I'm nervous about Brad Jackson's upcoming trial, though. I wish I had enough faith in the system that someone who is so obviously guilty might actually be found guilty. But, as OJ continued his golf game, Casey Anthony kept partying down and R. Kelly gets to keep peeing on underage girls, I'm not holding out too much hope.

  Oh well.

  Some exciting news though. A certain major Hollywood studio has shown interest in buying my story. If that comes through, the money would help Elise and me a great bit. I'll keep you posted on that. Imagine that, though. Archie Lemons: Superstar!

  As for Elise, she took three months off. I wasn't actually sure that she would ever return to the job, but after a while, I could tell she missed it. She asked to come back and I, of course, welcomed her. I need her far more than she needs me.

  So here we are now, on this wet and chilly November afternoon, walking from the parking lot, through the lobby and into our new, new office...on the bottom floor of the tallest building in Bakersfield.

 

  AFTERWORD

  Well, there you go friends! A Touch of Danger! Yes, I really did get the title from a random name generator on the internet. And yes, I am aware of how stupid it is. Thanks. Ha!

  Anyway, with this book I feel I took a giant leap forward. I reread it and still genuinely like it. There are so many obscure references littered throughout this thing that I seriously wonder if there is another person on the planet who can pick them all out. Why, oh why, does my brain retain the most worthless of information? The world may never know.

  I wrote this book in a very short timeframe, I think maybe six weeks or so. After finishing Darkness Once More I was totally stumped for an idea. The week it released, I took my family to Shell Beach to get away for a while and relax. I was actually looking through those Wall-E binoculars when I said something like, "Man, wouldn't it be cool to witness a murder while looking through this thing, like in Rear Window or Body Double or something?"

  Heyyyy, wait a minute...and with that, I was back in the hotel room typing away notes on my trusty iPad.

  With Darkness, I dealt with some pretty serious tones and themes and with this one, I really just wanted to have a good time. I'm way more concerned with making people laugh than with doling out some drama, so I really upped the laugh factor this time out. Hence, all the stupid references, shitty band call-outs and general whackiness involved. I really love this book.

  The original title was going to be either Archie Lemons: The Not-As-Good Sequel, Archie Lemons and the Horrible Case of Sequelitis or Archie Lemons and the Sophomore Slump, in regards to sequels always sucking. (No, not you, Empire or Dark Knight...) My original idea didn't involve a real celebrity, though. In fact, I had completely forgotten about my original idea until a few weeks ago when my friend and fellow autism parent Tiffany, took a picture with this horrrrrrrible Edward-from-Twilight lookalike. That's when my memory came flooding back to me that the original killer was one of these wasted, pathetic lives. The celebrity impersonator. Is there any lower form of human life? I think at the bottom it goes; Rapist, then Child Molester, Celebrity Impersonator, then maybe, Murderer. Seriously, can't stand these guys.

  Anyway, the original story was for the killer to be a Brad Jackson lookalike and all kinds of whacky shenanigans would occur and Archie would end up being accused of stalking the real celebrity and so on and so forth. It would have been pretty damn funny and I still have some notes and jokes saved up, so maybe I'll use them at another time. The thing that changed my mind was the more and more I started thinking about the sequel connection, I realized this would be my one and only chance to really dump all over Hollywood.

  With all the sequels, remakes, reboots and re-imaginings being shit out lately, it seems like Hollywood has all but given up. I know for a fact there are plenty of great, original screenplays floating around out there (hell, I even wrote one), but it seems like no one is willing to take the risk. Apparently, people want the same shit over and over and over again. The want every joke and every plot thread to be spoon fed to them. They want every character beat and every action to be as familiar to them as their old blankey, and it sucks.

  So, with that, I took to the idea that this book would be a parody, of sorts. A loving, hate letter to Hollywood, to try and do something a little better. That is why Archie and Elise end up tied to a chair again. The same situation over and over; the people demand it! And of course, an actor would be the one to execute the plan. Someone who is so goddamn familiar with remakes and reboots, of course he would take what happened the last time and reboot. Change one tiny detail and this time it is a successful sequel. Ohhhhh, but this time Elise is tied to the chair with him. Oh, this time the nerds are in paradise. Oh, this time they're in Thailand. Oh, it's still not safe to go in the water. Oh, this time he's a boxer instead of a basketball player. Two-hundred-million-dollar blockbusters! Ha!

  I really hope all that stuff came across in my writing. It's really what I was setting out to do, and if I don't mind saying so myself, I think it turned out pretty clever.

  There weren't too many parts in this one that got edited out. Nothing like my next one, Stroke of Genius, where entire chapters were given the boot. I think I had more stuff about the horrible Twilight ripoff Hunky Vampires. I remember Archie going on and on about how awful it was and pointing out plot hole after plot hole. But honestly, it's like beating a dead horse by this point. Twilight sucks. We get it. Move on. Haha, sorry nerds.

  I'm thinking it's time to poke a little fun at 50 Shades of Grey next. Seriously, have you read that shit? I never in a million years would have thought something that bad, and that horribly written would ever make it to print. NEVER! Aside from the subject matter, that paper would have gotten at
least a D- in any junior high classroom in the country. And that's only if the teacher just felt bad for the fat little girl who turned it in. Terrible. Geeeeez.

  Anyway, that's it for now. I'll be back at the end of Stroke for some more rambling tidbits of worthless, meaningless crap. Until then, my friends, be excellent to each other.

  -Grant Fieldgrove

  12/02/12

  Thank you to all my friends and family who have supported me throughout my little writing adventures. You are all very much appreciated, as are all the people who read this book. It means so much to me and I cannot thank you enough.

  Special thanks to my wife Julie and son McClane for whom this book is dedicated.

  Thanks to my mom and dad.

  Also, thank you to Lisa for being my agent, Melissa for championing my first book all around, Karlee for never laughing at my jokes, Katie for always laughing at them and everyone else who offered me kind words, including my friends, in-laws, and family.

  And thanks to Carl for the Gonzo nipple joke!

  Oh, and thanks to YOU!

  …

  And Lily, my dog!