Category: Beautiful Babes

Murder at the Ballet

It was the kind of night Van Nuys polished its shoes for. The annual arrival of the Robert Vestal Ballet Company always drew the city’s top hats and bottom lines—bankers with waxed smiles, councilmen with wandering eyes. Slumming among them were two guys who usually worked the alleys instead of the aisles: Jonny and Boris. They didn’t belong to the upper crust, but they’d bought tickets anyway. Tonight wasn’t about culture—it was about Dévyon DuMon, an old friend from Paris, cleared by their legwork when a Dali masterpiece went missing and everyone needed a villain with good posture. DuMon danced like a gardenia-scented hurricane, all jitterbug and perfume, too sweet for the detectives’ taste—but the Bro Code said you show up for your pals, even if it means five hours of tights and tragedy.

They were well into hour five when the ballet took a hard left into hellfire—DuMon leaping offstage in some double-cabriole heroics to save his lover Andromeda from Cerberus or damnation or whatever the program said. Jonny and Boris had been trading naps when a gunshot cracked the air like a bad alibi. The house gasped. A scream followed. Then Robert Vestal himself staggered into the lights, a fresh bullet signature stamped on his forehead. He tried to say something—“DuMon… DuMon’s to blame”—and then he folded, bleeding into the boards that had made him rich.

The detectives were onstage before the applause could die. Boris went to work, eyes sharp, mind sharper. Jonny did what Jonny did best—offered comfort to the two hottest ballerinas in the vicinity in the hopes of getting a three-way going later that night. Too late for Vestal. Boris checked his watch to mark the time of death just as DuMon pirouetted back onstage, blissfully unaware. That’s when Victoria Page, the prima ballerina and Vestal’s lover, broke like cheap glass. “He did it!” she screamed. “Dévyon hated Bobby from day one—ever since I told him I wouldn’t touch him while Bobby was still breathing!” The crowd buzzed. Boris shut it down with a look. “Everyone’s a suspect,” he said. “Including Jonny and me.” Then his gaze settled on DuMon, hard and cold. “But I’ll admit—right now, it sounds like you pulled the trigger.”

Happy National Ballet Day!

The Big Winner

Gentleman Dave slid the pot across the felt like he was pushing a coffin into the ground. “Time to take a breather,” he said, his voice worn smooth by a thousand bad beats. Boris raked in the chips, but Jonny didn’t notice. His eyes were glued to the doorway, where trouble had just put on heels and walked in wearing a smile that could bankrupt a saint.

“That’s Davida Bourland,” Dave murmured, dealing the cards like last rites. “Queen of the Strip. Looks like a payday, plays like a funeral. Don’t sweat it, though—your stack wouldn’t catch her eye. But your pug? He’s right up her alley.”

Davida’s radar locked on Boris and she drifted over, all silk and smoke, a shark in a Gucci handbag. “Hey, big spender,” she purred, lashes fluttering like alibis. “I know a few places where money disappears real nice.” Boris gave her the once-over and thought about a certain cat back in Van Nuys—the kind of pussy you don’t trade in for cheap thrills. “Take a hike, sister,” he said. “You’re barking up the wrong dog.”

Davida smiled like she’d already won and reached into her bag, pulling out a Milk-Bone like it was a loaded gun. “Shame,” she said. “I’ve got a whole case of these at home. Gets awful lonely.” Boris cracked. Gentleman Dave caught Jonny’s eye and flashed a grin that had seen too many endings. “She knows every angle, pal. Keep your eyes open. Your friend just sat down with the deadliest player in the joint—and the house always remembers.”

Happy birthday to our friend Davida Bourland!

Heaven Knows, Mr. M.

Boris and Jonny got the summons like a bad hand at a crooked table. Rufus T. Firefly’s office smelled of panic and cigar smoke, and the Dictator for Life was pacing like a man who’d misplaced his spine. “I’ve got sour news, boys,” Firefly said, voice cracking like cheap shellac. “You fled here to dodge that lunatic Donald Trump, and now he’s kicking down our door. The orange windbag’s declared war on us for our helium reserves. As if he didn’t already sound ridiculous every time he opened his mouth.”

Boris cocked an eyebrow and scratched his jowls. “I thought our spiritual ringer, Sister Ana of Armas, handed him her Nobel Peace Prize to keep his beady little eyes off our goofy gas.” Firefly snorted. “The man’s got the memory of a three-day-old gnat. He forgot. That’s why you’re here. Boris, you take the northern front and try not to get us all killed. Jonny—your job’s heavier. Sister Ana is the soul of this tin-pot republic. She breathes, we breathe. You get her south to our friends. It won’t be pretty, but you’re the only mug I trust to pull it off.”

Jonny opened his mouth to protest the partner split when the door swung open and the good sister walked in. They’d heard the hymns about her kindness and charity, but none of them mentioned she was built like trouble with a halo slapped on top. Boris clocked it instantly—Sister Ana froze when she saw Jonny, her angelic face melting into the same hungry look every Van Nuys tramp gave his pal when she’d already picked out the motel. The pug had seen that look a hundred times. It always ended the same way—wrinkled sheets, bad decisions, and regrets that didn’t last past breakfast.

Cruise Nurse

The pleasure ship’s infirmary looked like a crime scene where the weapon was cheap liquor and bad judgment. Passengers were draped over cots and trash cans, retching like they were trying to cough up their souls. Perry Gordeaux, the baby-faced pre-med working the voyage as an assistant medic, wiped his brow and shook his head. “That’s what happens when you guzzle chocolate martinis till dawn,” he said. “Even Doc Merlin went down swinging. I handed him our last barf bag five minutes ago.”

“I’ve never known Doc to drink,” said Jennifer Brooks, the ship’s head nurse—tall, gorgeous, and built like trouble. “But with him out cold, it’s just you and me holding this circus together.” She lowered her voice. “Lucky for us, Boris Pug is a passenger. Not licensed, but he knows more medicine than anyone with a diploma. Unlucky for us, that means his owner Jonny M. will be sniffing around. So forgive me if I keep my back to the wall—he’s got wandering hands.”

She barely finished the sentence before fate kicked in the door. Boris and Jonny were suddenly there. Jonny flashed Jennifer a grin that belonged in a police lineup, already making her skin crawl, but Boris was all steel nerves and cold logic. “Our last port of call was Freedonia,” the pug said. “Did any of the passengers engage in anal sex with a proboscis monkey?”

“Probably a few dozen,” Jennifer said, swatting away Jonny’s creeping hand. “That’s the main attraction.”

Boris’s eyes darkened. “This isn’t simple alcohol poisoning. All that monkey business brewed a virus mean enough to crack the world wide open the moment we dock anywhere civilized.” He paused. “I might be able to cook up an antidote. Long shot. But to get the key ingredient…” He looked at Jennifer. Then at Jonny. “You’ll have to merge bodily fluids. The old-fashioned way.”

The infirmary groaned. The ship rolled. And somewhere out at sea, the end of the world cleared its throat.

Boris of the Yukon

The snow came down like a bad alibi, thick and merciless, smothering the Alaskan night while old Merlin paced his cabin atop a hoard of gold, counting it and cursing the world. The fire cracked. His voice did too. “The Lord sees you,” he snarled, scripture dripping from his tongue. “He sees the men staring at you with lust in their hearts.”

Nancy—too alive for a dead place like this—smoothed the short white slip she wore and met his glare without blinking. “Who do you blame for that, Dad?” she said. “You dragged me into this frozen nowhere where the ratio’s five hundred men to one woman. If you ever looked up from praying, you’d see every guy within ten miles already thinking it.”

Merlin answered the way cowards do. He shoved her out into the storm, slammed the door, and let the lock speak for him. Snow soaked silk. Cold gnawed bone. Then, through the howling white, came the clean ring of sleigh bells—and out of the blur emerged a dog sled pulled by the one creature mean enough to laugh at a night like this. Boris of the Yukon was coming fast.

Happy Sled Dog Day!

Miss Jonny Pal

The big moment finally slunk into the room like a bad debt. Under the hot lights, the entrants in the Miss Jonny Pal Beauty Contest squirmed in their postage-stamp bikinis and duct-taped dreams, sweat shining like cheap varnish. Jesse Merlin—once a golden-throated crooner back when jukeboxes still mattered—lurched toward the microphone. Alimony had chewed him down to the bone, and now he paid the tab by hosting carnivals like this. He blinked, steadied himself, and tried to sound sober. The “Jonny Gals,” as the socials had christened them, traded one last round of razor-edged glares, smiles sharp enough to draw blood.

Merlin cleared his throat and sang out the verdict. “Pussy Cat.”

The room froze. The stage went quiet enough to hear hearts misfire. The judges hadn’t crowned a silicone siren with a smile bought on credit—they’d handed the gold to a common alley cat. An alley cat who just happened to be the girlfriend of Boris Pug, second in command of the Jonny Pals and a permanent fixture in Van Nuys. The sash swallowed her whole, a sunburst of satin ten sizes too big, while her influential canine beau bathed her with that famous tongue of his. Out front, the lovelies’ eyes went red. Whispers slithered through the crowd. The word “fix” made the rounds like a loaded gun, and the also-rans decided right then they’d prove it.

Sharp-Dressed Sinners

Hack watched the vampire horror movie Sinners with Boris and Jonny and didn’t like what he saw, in part because the bloodsuckers were all hayseeds dressed in rags. Hack longed for the day when movie vampires wore white tie and tails and opera capes, so he wrote this rip-off of the Ryan Coogler flick and recast the vampires as European aristocracy wearing formalwear from circa 1930. It was Hack’s way of making brutally murdering someone by torturously sucking the fluids out of their body classy again.

Jonny & Boris Meet Sam Spade

Hack wrote this to commemorate the passing of Humphrey Bogart, who died 69 years ago today. In truth, the constraints of the Production Code in force at the time wouldn’t allow them to use the scene in The Maltese Falcon where the femme fatale has to take off all her clothes to prove she didn’t steal a $1000 bill in the 1941 Bogart film. But it is in the novel and the 1931 pre-code version so Hack plugged it into this book because we’ve had a stressful morning. He even made Natalie Wood the character to cheer us up that much more. Hack can be a nice guy when he wants to.

Soup For You

By the time the trio finally made it to the front of the line at the soup place, Jonny felt like he’d made some headway with Elaine. But Boris’ perpetually ravenous belly was focused on only one thing: lunch. The middle eastern proprietor starred down the pug with an intimidating glare that would have overwhelmed anyone else, but Boris’ only master was his stomach. “We’ll have three large mulligatawnies and make it snappy!” The man was unmoved. “Who brought this animal in here? Dogs are not allowed on the premises. Whoever it belongs to, take your mangy creature and get out! No soup for…”

Before he could finish his catchphrase, Boris leapt over the sneeze guard and delivered a kung fu kick to the insolent server’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the floor. While he laid there in a daze, Boris put him in the dreaded Ninja Death Grip so that if the pug increased the pressure of his paw even a fraction of an inch, the soupmaker would be meeting his maker that day.  “I said we’ll have three large mulligatawnies, and it will be your pleasure to give them to us on the house.”

Jonny threw his arms around Elaine protectively because he’d witnessed this scene enough to know that if the Soup Nazi was foolish enough to resist, there would be blood spouting at least six feet in all directions. The sultry beauty returned the grasp with the firmness of a woman whose blood was about to boil over with passion. She looked at Jonny with a red-hot intensity, and he replied with the smug grin of a man who knew that he was about to spend the afternoon between tangled sheets.

Happy birthday to Julia Louis-Dreyfus!