Category: Detective

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.

Devil in the Dark

The day broke like any other on the cracked sidewalks of Van Nuys, with Jonny M. up before the sun, pan-searing a pound of Japanese A5 Wagyu for Boris’ breakfast like it was a ritual carved into stone. The aroma drifted through their shabby apartment like a promise life rarely kept. Boris sat at the table in his tailored dog-sized robe, paws folded patiently, looking like a pug monk awaiting enlightenment—if enlightenment came medium-rare. Jonny fetched the mail while the beef rested, thinking only about coffee and the rock-star sparkle of his girlfriend Linda. But stuffed between the bills and ads was a note that froze his blood. A threat, aimed straight at Linda… and at Pussy, Boris’ tomcat dollface. Someone out there wanted vengeance, and they were done playing games.

By the time the Wagyu hit Boris’ bowl, the two detectives were hunched over the letter like archeologists brushing dirt off a curse. The note was unsigned, but the streets whispered names whether they wanted to or not. Johnny Rocco, big boss of the Valley mob, who still held a grudge after Jonny and Boris shut down his numbers racket one summer so hot the sidewalks sweated. Big Tim, Rocco’s muscleman, whose fists were smarter than his brain by a narrow margin. Bro Joe, Jonny’s older and uglier brother whose success as a junior ranger superstar couldn’t dim his jealousy of Jonny’s spotlight that made Cain look like a pacifist. Even “Labin”—the notorious lesbian duo given the moniker by the tabloids—still steamed after Jonny politely turned down their invitation to an “experimental three-way” that would’ve made a sailor blush.

The list of enemies stretched longer than a Van Nuys bar tab on payday, but one thing was clear: whoever wrote that note was aiming for the heart, and they had no qualms pulling the trigger. Jonny folded the paper with the kind of care you give a live grenade. Boris dabbed his jowls with a napkin, eyes sharp, breakfast forgotten. Love was their weak spot, sure—but it was also the reason they fought harder than any hired gun or jealous brother ever could. If someone wanted a war, they’d get one. And Jonny M. and Boris, detective legends and lovers of the dames who’d stolen their hearts, were already lacing up their boots for battle.

Rainy Day Romance

The rain came down like a busted fire hydrant on Ventura Boulevard, turning the night into a shimmering smear of headlights and neon. Jonny M. and Boris had been nursing lukewarm coffee on their fifth hour of stakeout when the sky cracked open and dumped a month’s worth of water on Van Nuys. They sprinted for the nearest shelter—the crooked awning of the Meet Cute Boutique, its pink lettering flickering like a dying heartbeat. By the time they skidded to a stop, Jonny smelled less like a hardboiled detective and more like a wet dog named Boris, and Boris smelled like something that would make a wet dog file a complaint.

Out of the watery haze stepped a vision with long black hair plastered down her back, glasses fogged to milky ovals, and a white tank top and denim shorts soaked so thoroughly they left no secrets to the imagination. She laughed—an easy, musical sound that didn’t belong in a neighborhood where most laughter came in the form of a threat. She introduced herself as Chloé, talking fast and bright, telling Jonny and Boris—though mostly Jonny—about her wild life, her dreams, her disasters, her scrapes with luck both good and bad. Jonny listened like a man hypnotized, nodding along like every word she said was a gospel he’d been waiting to hear. By the time the storm tapered off into a lonely drizzle, he was halfway to picking out baby names.

But Boris… he wasn’t sold. Something tugged at the back of his mind, a splinter of recognition he couldn’t dig out. That night he shook himself dry, curled into his trench-coat nest, and tried to sleep. Instead he bolted awake in a cold sweat, heart pounding like a tom-tom drum in a cheap jazz club. He suddenly knew where he had seen that smiling face framed by long black hair: on a wanted poster thumbtacked to the bulletin board at the station. Chloé. Wanted for murder. And Jonny, poor fool, had fallen headfirst into her story—without once noticing the blood on the last page.

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.