Category: Crime

Murder on the Greyhound Bus to Barstow

Jonny didn’t answer right away. He just struck a match on the toe of his shoe and lit a Lucky like he was auditioning for a cigarette ad. The smoke curled around his head like a noose waiting for the right neck. He looked out the window as the bus lurched forward, Van Nuys shrinking behind them like a bad alibi. But as Boris beheld the uncomfortable expression on the faces of the other passengers at their arrival, the little pug knew that the presence of a famous detective team wasn’t welcome. All of the travelers seemed out of place for the journey ahead: a sexy Hollywood movie star who brought six months’ worth of luggage for a three-hour bus tour, a washed-up pitcher in the majors who was trying to squeeze out one last season in the Barstow Winter Rookie League, a gorgeous heiress who every newspaper in the country was looking for since she disappeared to elope with the fortune hunter her billionaire father hated. Everyone on the bus had two things in common; a backstory which made their presence implausible and a noticeable shudder when they saw Jonny and Boris take their seats.

The only one who seemed happy that they were there was the obnoxious and mysterious bigshot that everyone on the bus had a grudge against. One look at him and it was Boris’ turn to shudder. He turned to Jonny and whispered, “there’s going to be a murder on this bus today…and they’re going to expect US to solve it.”

Cat Scratch Fever

It was three in the morning, the hour when the streetlights flicker like dying stars and the only things awake in Van Nuys are the rats, the sinners, and the poor mugs paid to clean up after them. Jonny M. swaggered onto the scene like he was arriving at a Hollywood premiere rather than a sidewalk soaked in yesterday’s blood. While he kept himself occupied tossing charm grenades at the gorgeous lady cop assigned to the case—Officer Jane Law, the kind of knockout who could stop traffic and maybe even a raging bull—Boris crouched over the mutilated stiff with an expression that would curdle fresh milk. The little pug detective’s face had never exactly been a picture of joy, but tonight it was uglier than a politician’s promise.

Boris didn’t need more than a glance to know what he was looking at. The deep lacerations ripping across the victim’s torso weren’t the work of some dime-store switchblade or a hopped-up mugger with brass knuckles. No—these were the calling cards of something far more primal. Razor-sharp claws. The kind only an angry tomcat could wield with enough fury to send a man to meet his maker early. The pug lit a cigarette, letting the smoke curl around his thoughts like a lazy fog creeping over a cemetery gate. He was just reaching for his magnifying glass when Jane Law strolled over, heels clicking like a countdown to doom.

“You can put that toy away, Boris,” she purred. “We’ve already got the culprit.” Boris looked up, squinting through a ribbon of smoke, and saw her holding a pair of heavy steel shackles. On the other end of them stood a sexy tomcat in a little black dress, wide-brim hat, and eyes wide with terror. But this wasn’t just any feline femme fatale—they’d dragged in Pussy, Boris’ own girlfriend. His Camel hung from the corner of his mouth as he took the longest, slowest drag of his life. This wasn’t just another corpse on just another crooked night in Van Nuys. This was a frame-up, and unless Boris could crack the case wide open, Pussy was headed straight for a date with the hangman’s noose.

Sleuth School

The Van Nuys Boarding School for Hot Virgin Girls, ages 18 to 22 had been desperate to add a little grit to their spotless campus. So when they started a detective course, they hired the only duo in the Valley whose reputations were bigger than their caseloads: Jonny M. and his pug partner Boris. The moment Jonny walked into the lecture hall in his trench coat and henna-dyed beard, every student sat up straighter. Gidget the All-American surfer, Judi the wholesome blonde triple-threat, Wednesday the gloomy goth who never blinked… they all watched Jonny with a starry-eyed intensity that could melt the varnish off a file cabinet. It wasn’t detective work they were interested in—it was Jonny. Three times their age and dumb as a post, but with a bulge in his wrinkled slacks that was all they could think about.

Boris noticed the way the class hung on Jonny’s every word, sighing at the way he flicked ash from an unlit cigarette or shuffled evidence folders with a weary hero’s grace. The girls couldn’t concentrate worth a nickel, and the syllabus was going down faster than a getaway car on Sepulveda. So Boris, being the brains of the agency and the only one immune to Jonny’s accidental charisma, marched himself into the filing room and dug up a case cold enough to freeze the whole classroom’s hormones where they sat. The unsolved murder of Robert Vestal—a butchered body, a trail of dead-end clues, and a mystery that had gnawed at the agency for months.

Jonny remembered the case like a bad scar: every alley, every witness, every lead that crumbled like cheap chalk. But Boris slapped the file down on the desk and announced to the class that this would be their final exam. Suddenly the room’s dreamy haze sharpened into something electric. The girls straightened in their seats, pencils poised, eyes alert. For the first time they weren’t imagining Jonny as the hero of their perverse daydreams—they were imagining themselves as heroes alongside him. And with Jonny’s grit, Boris’s brains, and a classroom full of would-be investigators hungry to prove themselves, the Robert Vestal case was about to get hotter than it had ever been. They were hunting for a killer waiting to be caught… assuming he didn’t catch the hunters first.

Romeo’s Closing Night

Actors’ Day in Van Nuys was supposed to be a harmless holiday—parades of washed-up thespians, discount makeup at the drugstore, and free coffee for anyone who could quote Hamlet without stumbling. Jonny M. and Boris the pug had finally scored something rarer than a fair fight in this town: a night off. They even had tickets—actual paid-for tickets—to see the legendary tragedian Jehoshaphat Merlin give his 5,000th performance as Romeo with his ramshackle traveling Shakespeare Company. Merlin was eighty-three if he was a day, with more wrinkles than a bulldog and a voice that shook like a cheap neon sign in the rain, but the crowd came anyway. Folks didn’t watch Merlin for Romeo—they watched him for the ham. And he served it thick, with gravy.

Juliet was played by the stunning blonde starlet Juliet Valentina, a woman so beautiful she made the moon look overpolished. Acting, however, was not one of her gifts. She couldn’t “cat her way out of a paper bag,” as the critics liked to say, but no one cared—as long as she kept glowing like she’d been dipped in stardust. The rest of the company tried to claw their way through the performance blind, because the only light on the stage was the follow-spot glued to old Merlin’s face. Everyone else lurked in total darkness, save for Valentina, who shimmered on her own like some celestial stage prop. It was the kind of theatrical disaster only Van Nuys could love.

Then the night cracked wide open. Merlin had just launched into one of Romeo’s longest soliloquies—something about love, death, or maybe indigestion—when a gunshot ripped through the auditorium. The old actor staggered, gasped, and collapsed in a heap of brocade and bravado. The stage went pitch black. A collective scream rose from the audience. Then, just as abruptly, the house lights snapped on and the curtain dropped like a guillotine. The theater manager trotted out, sweating like a sinner in church, and announced that the great Jehoshaphat Merlin was “indisposed,” the show was cancelled, and refunds were “not an option in these difficult financial times.”

But before the stunned audience could finish booing, a final message drifted from behind the curtain—Merlin’s voice, weak yet unmistakably theatrical, requesting, “If Jonny and Boris could please come backstage… to investigate an urgent matter.” It was the old showman’s last line, and he delivered it with all the pomp he had left. Jonny looked at Boris. Boris looked at Jonny. Actors’ Day had turned into murder night, and it looked like the Jonny & Boris Detective Agency was clocking back in.