And all and all it’s a decent living. Note here of course dear reader, that I’m using the adjective as it applies to monetary as opposed to moral terms. But it’s not an easy trade, and it’s not without its risks. I’ve had my nose broken twice; my ribs fractured, and I’ve had plenty of close encounters with automobiles that came speeding out of nowhere. More times than not though, I could figure out who did it. And then of course, all of the dirty little secrets would come out – and in living color. I’m sure I’ve been the cause of numerous divorces over the years, as well as terminations of employment and plenty of fraud convictions. But that’s how you keep people honest. Again, the lesson: pay up.

And if you think I’m a slime; at least I’m a slime with good manners. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is John Sharp and I’m thirty-seven years old, twice divorced and have been at this game now for about ten years or so. It all had begun quite innocently – and you might admit – quite honestly as well. I had started a small soda distributing business and was struggling. But like all chasers of the American dream, I was hopeful as well. But it seemed that one of the people I had partnered with decided to stiff me, figuring that I had neither the time nor the money to fight him in court. He was correct about that, but had not counted on the fact that I happened to know about a questionable personal injury lawsuit he was trying to collect on. Let me tell you; those cases of soda are heavy – twenty-two pounds apiece – and you don’t move them around so easily if your knee is damaged beyond repair as he was claiming.

I brought this same bit of information up to Mr. Edwin Goldberg, my associate’s ambulance-chasing attorney. Old Edwin knew right away that I had his client – and more importantly, Edwin’s thirty-three percent – by the short and curleys and he quickly cut a deal. He would pay me all of the money his client owed me - plus interest - if I would sign a lien agreement against the settlement of the case. Smart guys those attorneys; by signing this agreement, I now had a vested interest in seeing the case settled successfully. In other words; I had to keep my mouth shut if I ever wanted to see any of my money.

And so I stayed mum and dumb, the case was settled and I got my money. I realized right then and there how easy it was to profit from all the bad people in this world. A month later, I was out of the soda business for good and as they say, on to bigger and better things.

It was a beautiful March day in Los Angeles, the kind of day that made people up and move here. And I started out my day as I always did by visiting my local post office and checking my PO box to see who was current with their tithing and who I had to lean on. I used a re-mailing service in Texas to forward my mail to this address, thus insuring that none of my marks knew my address, phone number, E-Mail address...or even my first name. Lesson number one in the business of keeping secrets: Keep them better than the other guy.

There were three envelopes in the box when I opened it. Each had been addressed to the re-mailing address along with my account number on the bottom. I made a quick mental note of the three return addresses and knew whom they were from. One was my cut of another settlement lean for a scammer who had claimed his back was injured lifting a crate of eggs in a supermarket. Another lesson dear reader: Don’t go out line dancing when you’re trying to claim a damaged lumbar.

The second was from a garment factory in downtown LA that kept in servitude any number of illegal immigrants toiling away to make the designer labels that you might be wearing at this very moment. They were on the hook for five bills a month if they wanted to keep their sweatshop humming along. It wasn’t a lot of money considering the amount of business that they did, but I suspected that I wasn’t the only one putting the pinch on them and didn’t want to break them by getting too greedy.

The third was just a classic extra-marital affair between two co-workers. Both had marriages and good jobs to lose in the local aerospace industry and their twice weekly lunch time trysts were setting them back a couple hundred apiece to keep the compromising pictures of them from becoming public domain.

I closed and locked the PO box door and stuffed the envelopes into my coat pocket. I never opened the envelopes or counted the money while I was here, but I could tell by the thickness that everyone was behaving.

I got into my car and began heading up to Beverly Hills and to the offices of Dr. Walter Karch, a plastic surgeon of legendary repute. It was said of the talented Doctor that ninety percent of the beauty on the silver screen belonged to him. He had a fabulous home in Belair, a condo in Hawaii, a membership in the Riviera country club and a trophy wife that was always one step away from cleaning him out. In other words, he was my kind of man - a man with a lot to lose.

My appointment was for nine-thirty and I arrived - as I always did - a little early just to check things out. The good Doctors office was a gorgeous setup on the eleventh floor of a fancy address on Wilshire Blvd. The reception area was spacious and replete with plush carpeting, framed artwork and a leather sofa the size of a small battleship.

The only person present when I strode in was a receptionist seated behind a large desk that appeared to be coca-bola wood. She was a brunette in her late twenties or early thirties, comely, green eyed and with a set of breasts the good Doctor might have tossed in as a signing bonus.

“Good morning,” she chirped pleasantly as I approached.
“Nate Howard to see Doctor Karch.”
She consulted a leather bound appointment ledger for a brief moment and then nodded.
“You’ve never been here before,” she stated as much as inquired.
“No, I haven’t”.
She handed me a clipboard with a form attached to it.
“You’ll need to fill this out.”
I smiled and nodded, moving away and towards the leather sofa. I sat down and let its plushness envelop me, feeling as one might in quick sand as I slowly sunk in. I started filling out the form as I always would in this situation: bogus name, bogus address and phone number, bogus stated intention of my visit, etc.

I was about three-quarters of the way down the form when the door to the hallway clicked open and two more patrons stepped in. Both were men in there thirties, tall, thick and dressed in suit coats. One man was wearing dark sunglasses and didn’t remove them when he walked in. They both eyed me nervously for a moment or two and then the one with the sunglasses made his way over to the receptionist. He leaned over her desk and they had a muted exchange of which I couldn’t pick up a single word. All of this time, the other one stood where he was, alternately glancing around and then looking at me warily. If I didn’t know better, they acted like two guys ready to rob the place. But the receptionist didn’t seem alarmed and acted as if it were no big thing. She smiled to the one in the sunglasses and nodded. He moved away and the two of them took seats opposite me and continued to act cagey. I went back to my magazine and played nonchalant.

In a minute or so I heard the ring of a telephone at the receptionist’s desk and she picked up a sleek handset. She said a couple of words, hung up and then looked over to me.

“Mr. Howard. The Doctor will see you now.”
I tossed down the magazine, stood up and left the two characters behind me. As I was passing by the receptionist desk she instructed me to make a right as soon as I entered. The examining room was the first door on the left, she said. I nodded and pushed through the heavy door. It was showtime!

The interior of the doctor’s examining room was similar to many others I had been in. The only difference was it was very bright and had several mirrors mounted here and there. While I waited for the Doctor, I pulled the manila envelope from inside my coat pocket, removed the contents and refamiliarized myself with the particulars of the situation. It was always good to be as prepared as possible with times, dates, etc. without having to consult anything. It kept the cards in your hand.

I reinserted them into the envelope and a few minutes later Dr. Walter Karch MD stepped into the room. He was shorter then I remembered him but it was him all right; the same dark hair going gray, the same slight mustache, the extra pounds around his midsection.

“Good morning,” he said brightly before picking up the clipboard and consulting it.
“Good morning doctor.”
He skimmed my bogus form quickly and then set it down, his eyes moving up to my face, studying it.
“So you’d like to get some facial reconstruction Mister Howard? Your nose in particular?”
“No,” I said flatly. “And that’s not my real name.”
Instantly there was a change of focus in his eyes… terror, panic.
“I…I keep no drugs in this office,” he stumbled. “And no money either!”
 “I don’t want drugs Doctor.” I removed the envelope from my coat and handed it to him. “I just want your help in keeping these out of the public eye.”

He accepted them shakily and took a deep breath before opening the envelope and pulling the pictures out. He barely looked at them and then shoved them back in. He looked like a balloon whose air had been let out. I had seen the look many times before. People almost expect their dirty little secrets to be discovered sooner or later.

Inside the envelope were several pictures, stills I had printed off of a videotape I had taken about a week ago. It was shot on a small side street that abutted Hollywood Boulevard. Young male prostitutes cruised this street looking to solicit  takers in their form of sexual pleasure. Doctor Karch happened to be one of these clients and I spied him as he rolled to a stop in his nice shiny Lexus. I zoomed in on the plate to capture the numbers, then taped the whole episode from start to finish. I have a person that works in the Department of Motor Vehicles who’s running a scam issuing ownership documents for stolen vehicles. Besides leaning on him for a couple of notes a month, I also expect perks from him every now and then – like traces on vehicle plates. By the next day I knew where the doctor lived, worked and played. After that it was simply a matter of printing the pictures, deciding a price and making my appointment.

“How much,” he said finally?
“One thousand,” I said, and noticed his face brighten ever so slightly. Then I hit him with,  “... a month.”
He sank again.
“That’s twelve thousand dollars a year,” he protested!
I smirked. “That’s right doc. Less than you pay for your Riviera country club membership. Maybe even less than Tiffany pays to get her nails done.”

That last part stung him. By letting him know I had tabs on his club affiliation and on his wife, he knew the cards were all mine. He sighed in defeat.

“Starting when?”
“Today,” I said and then handed him a card with the name, address and account number of my remailing service. “Then, starting on the first of each month, mail the check to this address and this account number.”

He took the card and studied it gravely for a long moment. Finally, he sighed and nodded.
“Let me get you a check,” he said gruffly and left the room, closing the door behind him.
I smiled at the ease of this one and popped up onto the examining table as I awaited his return, noticing for the first time that there was music playing in the speakers overhead. The volume was very low and I had to strain to make out the tune. I heard something else though; muffled voices in the hall, then, footsteps in the hall – multiple sets. Something didn’t feel right and I began to get worried.

The door opened just then and the doctor stepped back in. Following close behind him though were the two characters from the waiting room. Their expressions were grim and I jumped off the table.

My feet had just hit the floor when the one with the sunglasses shoved me back into the table. The other one shut the door quickly. Then they both reached into their suitcoats and the hardware came out: Glocks, each equipped with silencers and each capable of pumping massive amounts of lead into me faster than you could count. Sunglasses put the tip of the silencer right against my nose.

“We understand you are giving the doctor troubles.”
His accent was thick and either eastern European or Russian, pronouncing the “we” as “ve”.
I said nothing. These guys knew the score - they were mob!
“The doctor is doing important work for us and cannot be distracted by such things,” he said.
The one with the goatee slid over and reached into my coat. He pulled out not only the envelope with the pictures but my wallet as well. Great! Now they knew my name and address. If they didn’t kill me today, this squeeze and maybe many others would have to go bye-bye.

“Where are the other pictures,” goatee demanded to know?
“At…at my apartment,” I stuttered.
“Where else,” sunglasses said? “We know how these things work. You have more sets and another location.”
I nodded slowly, the tip of the silencer against my nose, moving with me.
“Storage container,” I admitted. “In Westchester.”
The two looked at each other and nodded. The guns were slowly withdrawn and reinserted into their coats – though sunglasses kept his hand in his breast pocket.

“We go now to apartment,” he said.
“Okay,” I said and we left, goatee in the front of me and sun glasses in the rear. As we walked past the doctor he gave me a little knowing smirk. It stung me because I recognized that look – I had given it to him just a few minutes before.

The ride over to my place was quiet and uneventful. I rode in the back of the big black Mercedes with sunglasses as goatee drove. At the apartment the two men were all efficiency and thoroughness. After giving them another set of photos they weren’t about to trust my word and quickly tossed my apartment, easily finding every hiding place I had and with it every bit of dirt I had on my squeezes. They also took all of my cameras, notebooks and every CD-R and DVD-R I had.  Goatee even disassembled my computer and removed the hard drive. I was a business in the process of liquidation. If I lived to see another day, I would have to start all over.

Satisfied with their cache, sunglasses turned to me.
“We go now to storage container.”
I nodded and we left my apartment the same way we entered: one in front of me, and one behind me.
On the drive over to Westchester goatee got on his cell phone as he drove. The only Russian words I know are vodka and babushka so it didn’t make much sense trying to understand what was said. It did seem however that he was taking instructions from someone and that these two guys were merely the underlings for someone much bigger. The thought did not give me much comfort.

The combing through of the storage container went as efficiently and quickly as my apartment. These guys were pros and we were in and out with everything of import in under ten minutes. With the door slid down and locked, sunglasses turned to me.

“We have one more stop,” he said.
He nodded to goatee who went around to the Mercedes and popped open the trunk.
“In trunk,” sunglasses commanded.
“What,” I said incredulously!
He reached into his coat and pulled the Glock out just enough for me to see the butt end.
“Dead or alive,” he said flatly. “You get in trunk.”
I stood there for a moment looking at the two of them. There was no way out and I knew it. Resigned, I climbed into the trunk. It closed with a loud thump that hurt my ears.

I guessed that we drove for about forty-five minutes. It felt and sounded like freeway at first, followed by surface streets and then finally some winding roads. I had the sensation that we were climbing and I guessed that we were somewhere in Malibu or Pacific Palisades

When we finally stopped and the ignition was switched off, the trunk lid was opened and I was helped out by my two new pals. We were inside a large residential garage with the roll-up door already closed. A Cadillac Escalade was parked next to our Mercedes and beyond that a Porsche.  I was led by goatee through a door and into the main house.

Without even seeing the whole thing I got the impression that it was massive. The ceilings were at least fifteen feet high and everything about it – doors, windows, moldings - were large and oversized. The style was a garish baroque with lots of glitz and gild. Antique furniture and fancy artwork graced the living spaces. The place was more museum than home. Goatees led us across the parquet floor of a huge den and then through a side door that opened into another room.

I stepped through the doorway and the transformation was shocking. While the rest of the house screamed of luxury and conspicuous consumption, this chamber was Spartan and all business. White walls so pure and bright they hurt your eyes. A tile floor polished to lapidary smoothness. Overhead lights you could land a plane with.

But there was a diabolical reason for all of this sterility I was soon to discover dear friend. For what was in the room told more of its truth than I wanted to know: stainless steel counter tops, cylinders of compressed gas, medical monitors, and smack dab in the middle of it all – an elevated flat bed covered in a drab green sheet. This was a damm operating room!

Before I could even begin to fathom it all, another door opened and in stepped my old buddy Dr. Karch. He was gloved up, masked, and dressed in pale gray surgical scrubs. I couldn’t see his mouth but his eyes were scrunched up in the corners and I knew he was smirking at me again.

In the meantime sunglasses had pulled out his cell phone and punched in a couple of numbers. I heard a phone somewhere else in the house ring a couple of times before stopping. When it did, sunglasses said a few words into his cell then handed it to me.

“Hello,” I said warily.
“Mister Sharp,” the voice on the other end said to me. “So glad you could join us.”
The voice had the same Russian or east European accent, but it was an old voice, thick and raspy, a voice made harsh from a lifetime of smoking.

“Yeah, sure,” I said.
“You see lots of things in your profession mister Sharp – lots of things you should not see. And this is problem for me mister Sharp – big problem.”

“Look,” I said, trying to state my case. “I was just trying to squeeze this guy a little bit. I don’t know you, I don’t know what you do, nor do I care to know you or what you do. You have all my stuff now. Just have your two goons let me go and I swear I’ll go away and cause no more problems for you…or for the doctor.”

“This, unfortunately is something I cannot do mister Sharp. Doctor doing important work for me – very important work. I am afraid I cannot take chance”.

Important work, a plastic surgeon; I could guess what this was all about. This guy probably had the FBI, the CIA, Interpol and everyone else looking for him. The good doc was going to use his talents to give him a new identity. How did I step into this!

“You have my word”, I said, wondering as I said it how good my word would be to anyone – especially this character. “You’ll never see me again. I’ll even leave town if you want”!

I could hear my own voice start to crack, tension, fear in it. This guy could probably sense it as well. He was probably used to terrifying people.

“In due time mister Sharp. First, we have little business to take care of”.
I swallowed hard, fearing what this “little business” was.
A few seconds later, the connection was lost and the phone went dead in my hand. I pulled it away from my ear and stood there just looking at it. I could hear my own rapid breathing and saw my reflection in the display screen. I was pale and ghostly looking.

Just then, goatee pulled up behind me and grabbed me roughly around the midsection, pinning my arms to my sides. I lost the strength in my arms and the cell phone fell out of my hands and dropped to the floor. Sunglasses kicked it out of the way and grabbed my shirtsleeve, roughly ripping it open and exposing my bicep.

I began to struggle, trying unsuccessfully to squirm out of goatee’s Herculean grasp as I saw the doctor stepping slowly towards me. In his hand was a syringe filled with some kind of fluid. He removed the safety cap and depressed the plunger slowly. A small amount of liquid squirted from the needle. I began to scream just as I felt the sharp pain of its penetration into my arm. My body began to feel warm. Things began to spin. As bright as the room was, it began to grow dim. My peripheral vision closed in like a tunnel, shrinking down from all sides. Then…then...

*               *               *

It’s been almost two years since that fateful day, a day that changed my life for the worse...but also for the better. I’ve gone straight now – legit. I work as an investigator for a big insurance company. And I’m doing quite well thank you. After all, who would know better than yours truly how to spot a scam or a fraud or a lie.

I never met the malefactor of my current disposition – that day or ever since. I never knew his name, or what he did, or whatever became of him. All I knew is that I came to in a field in the hills above LA several hours later, my head throbbing and my shirt spattered with blood. The only calling cards left for me by his goons were a small make-up mirror and a note. The note read quite simply; “Mr. John Sharp – now you will see less.” The reflection of my face in the little mirror confirmed this: I was seeing less from that point on in my life – fifty percent less if you’d like to know the math.

And so, if you ever give cause to warrant the attention of a insurance investigator in the course of your life, an investigator with the odd habit of never removing his sunglasses whether he is indoors or not, you just might know my name.  I’m John Sharp: street smart insurance investigator and former blackmail artist. AKA: One eyed Jack.