goodreads – Joe Cabello

Hello!

So many exciting things are happening right now with Scrote One, my Star Wars Parody, and my compilation of short stories (free on Amazon right now!), but I’m sick of promoting. It’s time I give an excerpt from something I’m working on.

It’s about a female private investigator named Riz Raru. It’s based off of a teleplay I wrote, but I think it works better like this because I was able to add a ton of more jokes. Let me know what you think!

It had been my first case in a long time where a civilian hadn’t ended up dead, and the first case in an even longer time where I hadn’t been the one to kill the civilian. Even that might not be true, since I tend to conveniently forget those types of details. It works really well for plausible deniability, but mostly I’m just forgetful.

My name’s Riz Raru. I’m a special cases private investigator, which means people all over the world hire me to help them investigate the cases no one else will take. Like cases about aliens, conspiracy theories, or ones that expose beloved celebrities as rapists. I’m just your typical gumshoe, and sometimes gumsandal in the Summer.

I can also see ghosts, so there’s that… but they can’t see me, and I can’t interact with them or anything, so some would say it’s not very important at all, or that it’s just a marketing tactic to make the cover look more interesting. I’m always told that if I didn’t lie so much about other things that they might actually believe me about the ghosts, but I tell them how much I like lying, which is often one of the only true things I say in the conversation.

I’ve always had a bit of a sixth sense… for justice. People may call me a little crazy, reckless, or a danger to society, but I’m just a normal girl who solves the unsolvable.

And sees ghosts.

And I’m also searching for the man who killed my parents.

RIZ RARU in…. The Case of the Sticky Fingers

It all started when I was born… but there’s a lot of boring stuff in between that and the interesting stuff, so I’ll just cut ahead.

The interesting stuff all started when I was tailing one John Drexel just outside the Japanese restaurant on 9^th street, or it might have been 3^rd street. Let’s split the difference and say… 3^rd street. The restaurant was called Sushi Go, which isn’t important unless you want to order from there. I suggest the orange chicken.

Drexel delicately picked up his Shih-Tzu, cradling it in his arms, and then entered the restaurant. The dog must have felt like a baby does when it’s picked up like a dog.

I glared at him through my car window as he walked in, looking like the cockiest prick I’d ever seen. He looked so damn cocky I spent extra time glaring at him and ended up getting a parking ticket. After a couple minutes of trying to convince the parking attendant to take back the ticket, which resulted in a shouting match lasting several more tickets, I got out of my car and followed Drexel inside.

The restaurant smelled like a restaurant, so everything checked out there, but there was still the Drexel matter to take care of. I tiptoed through the lobby and shushed the hostess before she could speak. I shushed her again as she was trying to keep quiet, just because. I flashed her my badge and my gun. I thought about flashing her my boobs too, but it would have just muddled the message.

I told her to call the cops, then put in an order of orange chicken. I continued into the restaurant, palms sweaty, nervous about not ordering anything for me and the cops. It felt rude.

In a private room, Drexel ate his bowl of rice one grain at a time, like a real asshole, as I barged in with my gun pointed right between his eyes. If my investigative work was half as good as I thought it was, that’s where his brain would be, just like mine.

“Stop right there. I know what you did,” I said, fearless and brave, since I was the one with the gun and all.

He patted his lips with a napkin and smiled. “And you would be?”

I threw him my badge. He inspected it and smiled. “This is a toy.”

“You damn right it is,” I said, “I’m Riz Raru. Special cases investigator.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve heard of you, Ms. Private Investigator. You solve the unsolvable cases, don’t you? And here you’ve solved mine. Bravo. So, you’ve figured it all out, have you? How I’ve been diverting power from the city center to operate my secret underground factoring, manufacturing my own polysynthetic weapons, and selling them to the Russians for vast amounts of money. Good work- “

I cut him off and told him that what I was referring to was that he didn’t clean up after his dog. He questioned why I would pull my gun on him for that. I told him I’ve pulled it out on someone for a lot less.

His face turned as red as a baboon’s ass after a spanking, and before it too. He stood up quickly, “hah! Well, it doesn’t matter why you came here. Since I revealed my plan to you, you won’t be leaving with your life!”

He drew his gun on me and I was suddenly regretting not checking him for a gun, or not bringing a bigger gun, but it wasn’t long before he learned that you can’t pull a fast one on old Riz Raru. The cops burst in with their guns drawn, leaving Drexel wishing he would have pulled a slow one on me.

The chief of police asked what the hell was going on. I asked him who the hell he was. He said he was the chief of police. I told him that I thought the chief of police wore some sort of head dress. He said that was an Indian chief, and I told him “oh, right.” While this was happening, Drexel almost got away, but the other police officers (who were wearing head dresses) caught him.

I told the chief that Drexel had a secret underground factory for photosynthesis with Russians and weapons or something. I asked Drexel what it was again, since he was so good as explaining it, but he was too busy fuming. I told them that it would just be easier if they checked under the city center for the photocopiers, or whatever.

After a while they thanked me and told me that, “no, for the second time, you can’t shoot the dog.” I reminded them that the dog was technically a bad guy. They told me that just because someone’s a bad guy doesn’t mean you can execute them. I told them I knew a few bad guys who wished I would have known that a couple weeks ago.

The cops were starting to ask questions so I figured it was time to go. Since I didn’t get any money off the case, I was in desperate need for a new gig. Or just a big bag of money. I would have preferred that. I headed back to the office hoping there’d be a gig waiting for me, but not before I took one important stop.

The Kresnik Files is FREE for the next couple of days. Check it out and give it a review.