Category: Cadaver

Historic Filipinotown

Jonny watched the Packard fishtail down the alley, exhaust coughing like a dying bullfrog, the blonde bombshell behind the wheel shrieking at her sister/daughter/niece/second cousin in that high-strung way that made every vertebra in Jonny’s spine beg for mercy. She’d been nothing but trouble from the moment she waltzed into the agency flashing those baby-blue peepers and waving a retainer check big enough to pave over her neuroses. But it was Jonny’s ex-partner on the force—a tall drink of nitroglycerin whose slow burn around him could’ve been detected by airport security—who made the next move. She raised her service piece for a polite little “stop or I’ll shoot” communiqué… only the communique went rogue, zipped through the dawn haze, and rearranged the dame’s golden noggin into something resembling a seven-layer dip left too long on a picnic table.

When the smoke cleared and the three of them gathered round the wrecked beauty, Jonny felt a jig bubbling inside him like champagne in a thin glass. She’d been a headache, sure, but sweet saints of the city, what a dish. He’d even bragged—loudly and to anyone within earshot—about the time he’d done the horizontal hula with her. Now, with her skull looking like a Jackson Pollock study in red, he couldn’t exactly break into a victory Charleston in front of gawking bystanders clutching their shopping bags and moral expectations. Jonny’s face needed to broadcast “tragic remorse,” but his soul was performing a conga line, and that was a tricky two-step to pull off without coaching.

Luckily, Boris knew his partner’s heart was made of equal parts confetti and ratchet straps, and he’d taken precautions. From the shadows stepped a lone trumpet player—Boris’ doing—blowing a low, mournful note that told Jonny exactly what emotion he ought to paste across his mug. With the horn’s wail guiding him, Jonny mustered up a look of deep, operatic angst while privately debating whether to stream some trashy reality show or the latest Bill Burr standup special on Netflix that night. Boris padded close, laid a steadying paw on his partner’s shoulder, and whispered the words that deepened Jonny’s fake grief just enough to fool the crowd and maybe, just maybe, fool himself.

“Forget it, Jonny… it’s Historic Filipinotown.”

Another Notch in her Bedpost

Boris the pug stood under the flickering streetlamp, his trench coat collar turned up against the chill and his flat little muzzle buried in the evening edition. The headline screamed “KILLER SEDUCTRESS STILL AT LARGE,” and the dago-print ink was still wet enough to smudge on his paw pads. He’d been tracking the story for days—some doll-faced angel of death drifting through the city’s dingiest gin joints, batting her eyelashes at the kind of mugs nature had already punished, then capping them between the peepers the moment they thought they’d hit the jackpot. According to tonight’s sheet, she’d just punched two more one-way tickets to the Great Beyond and slipped clean through the fingers of the boys in blue. Boris felt his tail twitch. A sultry murderess with a taste for hopeless saps? Yeah… that was exactly Jonny’s brand of trouble.

The pug snapped the paper shut and tossed a glance down the boulevard, knowing instinctively his partner was out there somewhere making eyes at the wrong woman. Jonny had a history of tumbling headfirst into a dame’s dimples and asking questions only after the funeral arrangements. Boris could almost smell disaster creeping on the breeze—sweet perfume laced with gunpowder and heartbreak. He broke into a trot, muttering under his breath. If this killer cupcake was half as good at playing the love-and-lead routine as the papers made her sound, Jonny was already on her dance card. And Boris needed to reach him before she decided to end the song with a bang.

Meanwhile, across town inside Jonny’s favorite watering hole—a joint where the barstools leaned like retired prizefighters and the jukebox coughed up sad saxophones—fate was already rolling snake eyes. An angelic devil in high heels sauntered in, all curves, confidence, and the kind of smile priests warn you about. Brigid O’Shaughnessy. Jonny took one look and felt his heart hiccup; she was the most luscious dame he’d clapped eyes on… at least since yesterday afternoon. As he nursed his virgin piña colada and rehearsed a dozen suave greetings he’d never say out loud, she marched straight up to him and purred, “My name’s Brigid. Let’s go back to my place.” Jonny thanked the heavens for his generous slathering of Hai Karate aftershave—liquid courage for the romantically doomed—and in less time than it takes a bartender to blink, he was following her out into the night, utterly unaware he was strolling hand-in-hand with the headline Boris was racing to outrun.

The Blackest Widow

Hack claims that this novel is based on a real woman he knew who would murder any man after having sex with him once. His publisher John Kane has admitted that he knows the woman and that she’s been married for 30 years to the same man by whom she has three children and that Hack made up the lie to explain why he refused to have sex with her when, in reality, it was she who refused to have sex with him. It’s a pretty good book though, with a nice subplot about a lonely clown.

Jonny & Boris Meet Columbo

Like everyone, Hack loves the old Peter Falk mystery series Columbo. But also like everybody, he couldn’t help but notice that the titular police detective solved his cases on the most slender of evidence that not only wouldn’t hold up in court; it likely wouldn’t have made it to trial. Especially since his suspects were all super-rich glitterati who could afford the finest in defense attorneys.

But the show was always fun, so we forgave it its sins. Hack’s work, by contrast, is never fun so Columbo’s methods run into a brick wall of reality and by the book’s end, he’s been kicked off the force and is serving time for violation of his defendants’ civil rights.