The first week of the month was Boris the pug’s personal trip through purgatory.
That was when he and Jonny sat behind their battered desks in the Jonny & Boris Detective Agency and faced the only criminals in Van Nuys they couldn’t outsmart—unpaid bills. They came in thick as flies on a corpse. Rent. Electricity. Office coffee. Ammo. Tailor. And a polite but increasingly threatening letter from a fellow who specialized in repossessing shoulder holsters.
Boris pawed through the stack with a sigh that rattled his whiskers.
“We’re the best gumshoes in the Valley,” he muttered around the cheap cigar clenched between his teeth. “So how come every month we’re choosing between paying the electric company or the guy who sharpens our bullets?”
Jonny leaned back in his chair, boots on the desk, tie crooked like it had given up on life.
“That’s the mystery of capitalism, partner.”
Right then the intercom buzzed like an angry hornet. Rosie’s voice crackled through, smoky and sweet with just enough New Jersey to put gravel in the vowels.
“You got a client, boys.”
Jonny didn’t look up from the bill that said FINAL NOTICE in letters big enough to be seen from space.
“Can it wait, Rosie? We’re busy deciding which creditors we can survive disappointing.”
There was a pause.
Then Rosie said slowly, “You’re gonna want to see this one, boss man. She’s a knockout.”
The effect was immediate. Jonny’s boots hit the floor. His tie straightened. A framed photo of his girlfriend Linda vanished into the desk drawer like it had witnessed a crime.
“Send her in.”
The door opened.
And in walked trouble wearing red.
She moved slow, like molasses trying to crawl back into the jar. The kind of slow that made a man forget his name and remember only his bad habits. The short strapless dress she wore was doing the Lord’s work trying to cover territory it had no business defending, and the high heels pushed her long legs up into the stratosphere like those inflatable tube men outside a used car lot.
Jonny was hooked before she took her second step.
She perched herself on the edge of his desk like she owned the place.
“How can we help you, Miss…?”
“Jane Public,” she said.
Jonny scratched his chin. “Public… Public… That rings a bell.”
Boris didn’t even look up. He was busy sweeping the unpaid bills into the wastebasket with one paw.
“Your father is disgraced City Councilman John Q. Public,” the pug said calmly. “Scheduled to face the hangman’s noose in a week. Shouldn’t you be visiting him before they drop the trapdoor?”
The brunette stiffened. “My father is innocent, Mr. Pug.”
Boris lit his cheap stogie. “Of course he is. I knew that the minute I read the first newspaper story. Problem is convincing the Van Nuys Police Department… especially since most of them are drawing a second salary from the mob.”
Jonny leaned forward with the grin that had gotten him slapped in twelve different counties.
“We can convince them.”
Boris nodded.
“Two hundred and fifty dollars a day plus expenses.”
Jane’s face fell. “That’s more than I make in a month. I work as a flexibility trainer and a lingerie model.”
Jonny wiped a bead of drool from his chin. “We offer special payment plans for dames like you. Just give me your spare key and I’ll stop by your apartment every night to update you on the progress of the case and engage in a few hours of violent anal sex.”
The poor girl looked like someone had asked her to swallow a grenade.
“B-but… I’ve never been with a man.”
Jonny waved a hand.
“That’s okay, doll face. Neither have I.”
Half an hour later she was gone.
Jonny jingled the spare key in his pocket with a satisfied grin.
“I’ll be visiting her humble flat at midnight,” he said. “Strictly professional.”
Across the room Boris dumped the wastebasket back onto the desk with a groan as the unpaid bills cascaded out like confetti at a bankruptcy parade.
“Great,” the pug muttered. “Another pro bono client.” He flicked ash into an envelope marked OVERDUE. “Looks like I’ll have to sing another sad song to the repo man to keep him from repossessing our shoulder holsters again.”
Jonny chuckled. He walked across the office and tossed Jane’s key into a fishbowl already filled with a dusty mountain of identical keys. Then he opened the drawer, took out Linda’s photograph, and gave it a gentle kiss before setting it back on the desk.
“I hear you, partner,” he said. “But sometimes you gotta find out how low a client is willing to go before you decide they’re worth helping for free.”
He picked up the phone and dialed.
“Now you work on the bills,” Jonny said. “And I’ll call the Van Nuys Chief of Police and ask him how much of the dirt we’ve got on him he’d like us to give to the newspapers… before he releases our client’s father.”
Across the desk Boris sighed.
Another case.
Another crooked city.
And not a single bill paid.