My Rage Belongs to Daddy

As Jonny lay helpless in the webbing of his sex swing, staring down the blue-black eye of the pistol she’d just slid from her garter, the room smelled of cheap perfume and bad decisions. It hit him then—this wasn’t just another luscious dame chasing a bedtime story about a roll in the hay with a famous detective. Her voice trembled, but the muzzle didn’t. “Your incompetence killed my Daddy,” she said, tears bright as broken glass in those beautiful eyes. “You let him face the hangman’s noose for a crime he didn’t commit.” Revenge had a pulse, and it was thudding in his ears. She was about to pull the trigger when fate padded down the stairs on four short legs—Boris, on his third midnight snack—who let loose a flying judo kick that sent the gun clattering like loose change across the floor.

They both remembered the case like yesterday, back when they were flatfoots pounding a beat and believing the badge meant something. They’d had the goods on the real killer—a big shot tucked into the Van Nuys comptroller’s office—but the department took care of its own in those days. Evidence went missing, reports got rewritten, and the noose tightened around James Cleveland: decent man, community pillar, father to a baby girl who’d grown up feeding on the cold diet of injustice. One look at her anguished face told Jonny and Boris the truth they couldn’t dodge anymore. The past had come calling with a loaded gun, and it was time to reopen the case—this time with the lights on and no favors owed.

Revenge of the Monday

Sunday bled out slow and sour at Casa de Jonny, like cheap liquor seeping into an expensive rug. Jonny, Linda, Boris, and Pussy lounged in obscene comfort while Pinion the butler performed the last rites of Christmas—stripping the tree bare, needles biting through his tuxedo trousers, sap clinging to him like a bad memory. He dragged the dead pine half a mile downhill to the dumpster, its branches clawing the pavement in protest, before returning to serve Champagne, catnip, and pug food with hands that still smelled of resin and defeat. Inside, the air was warm and golden, heavy with luxury and self-satisfaction. Outside, something watched. Pinion felt it in his spine, a cold finger tracing tomorrow’s date.

They ate like royalty on the edge of a cliff. Lobster tails flew, laughter cracked, bubbles hissed in crystal flutes as Boris snorted happily and Pussy rolled in narcotic bliss. Pinion’s unease earned him nothing but mockery. “There’s nothing out there, Pinion, you idiot,” Jonny sneered, beauty and cruelty sharing the same smile. “Go get us another bottle of Moët & Chandon Imperial Vintage 1946 from the wine cellar.” As the butler turned away, dignity straightened but fear stayed hunched, he caught it again—a hideous green blob skittering behind a cypress, moving wrong, like a thought that shouldn’t exist. He nodded and obeyed, because that’s what servants do when the world pretends it’s safe.

The cellar steps groaned beneath Pinion’s shoes, each one a countdown tick he could almost hear. He knew then what Jonny didn’t: looks, brains and excessively large penises don’t stop Mondays. They arrive anyway, wet and hungry, dragging the week behind them like a corpse. The green thing outside wasn’t just flesh—it was inevitability, slime wrapped around the calendar. Pinion tightened his grip on the bottle and squared his shoulders in the dark, alone with the wine and the truth. If anyone was going to slow the dread creeping toward Casa de Jonny, it wouldn’t be the laughing gods upstairs. It would be the butler with pine needles in his cuffs, standing between Sunday and the thing that came next.

The Green Dress

Hack was mystified when Jonny admitted that the nauseatingly upbeat Mary Tyler Moore was his first celebrity crush, so Jonny showed him the MTM episode You Try To Be a Nice Guy in which Mary befriends a hooker who designs an iconic green dress for her. As soon as Hack finished masburbating, he sat down and wrote this novel.

Happy heavenly birthday to the great Mary Tyler Moore!

The Pug of the Baskervilles

Jonny and Boris pushed through the warped oak door of the Portly Pug, boots and paws dragging half the road in with them, the stink of travel still hanging off their coats like bad decisions. Sir Henry was nowhere to be seen, which told Jonny everything he needed to know about the night ahead. He went straight to the bar, elbows down, eyes up. “Room for the evening,” he said, voice flat as a dead river. “For me and my pug. Indoor plumbing if you’ve got the luxury.” The barkeep looked Boris up and down like he was appraising spoiled meat and snorted. “You’re welcome enough, sir,” he said, polishing a glass that would never be clean, “but that animal’ll have to sleep in the next county—assuming he makes it that far.” It was usually Jonny who got turned away on sight, but Boris didn’t blink. He calmly laid down more cash than the place had seen since the last war. “And what does that buy us?” the pug asked. The barkeep barely glanced at it. “Two pints,” he said. “Before you move on.”

They took their ales to the darkest corner, where the light went to die and the locals watched them like a slow fuse burning. Boris slid on his brass knuckles under the table, smooth and quiet, preparing for the kind of hospitality that left bruises. That’s when a voice cut through the tension like a razor through fog. “Don’t mind them,” it said. “They’re just superstitious.” They turned to see Lisa the barmaid, the only soft thing in the room, looking at Jonny like he was the answer to a question she’d been asking all her life. “They grew up on stories,” she said. “Tales of a monster. So when your little friend walked in, they thought the devil had finally clocked in for a pint.” Jonny frowned. Boris cocked an ear. “What monster?” the pug asked. Lisa blinked, genuinely surprised. “Why,” she said, lowering her voice, “the legendary pug of the Baskervilles.”