Category: Holidays

The Dressers

The highbrow crowd in Van Nuys—fur coats draped over hollow hearts—had already written Jehoshaphat Merlin’s obituary in permanent ink. Eighty-three years old, a bullet lodged in his skull, he’d gone down mid-soliloquy while playing Romeo like time had forgotten him. It should’ve been a perfect curtain call. But death took one look at Merlin and passed. The old tragedian clawed his way back, and when Jonny and Boris dragged his longtime dresser Robert Vestal, his would-be killer, to the noose, Merlin repaid the favor the only way he knew how—by announcing another farewell. King Lear, Van Nuys Performing Arts Center, World Theater Day. The faithful few came crawling back, clinging to the myth like it might still breathe.

Jonny and Boris didn’t trust the invitation, but they took it anyway. They figured maybe the old buzzard had discovered gratitude in his second life—maybe a handshake, maybe a couple of comp tickets if the planets lined up just right. Instead, they got Merlin in his dressing room, marinating in greasepaint and ego, wrapped in velvet like a relic that refused to stay buried. His voice rolled out in that baritone of his, stretching words until they nearly snapped. A “luminary” like him, he said, needed protection in a cesspool like Van Nuys. Since Vestal swung, he couldn’t keep a dresser longer than a fortnight. So he offered the detectives a job—valets and bodyguards, no extra pay, no gratitude, no illusions.

Boris gave it a moment, head tilted, the way he did when he was trying to find the upside in a bad deal. He said it might be worth a shot—two weeks in show business, keeping an eye on a company that had been taking potshots at its leading man all tour long. Merlin didn’t like the tone. Said he was a harsh master, the kind that broke men and called it discipline. Seventy years serving Shakespeare, and no one had ever met his standards. Then he lowered the boom, voice turning soft and deadly. He promised them one thing: after two weeks in his employ, the two miserable souls who despised him most in the entire company would be Jonny and Boris.

In Van Nuys, that wasn’t a warning. It was prophecy.

The 13th is a Friday

Jonny knew the day was cursed the moment his morning Scotch missed his mouth and soaked his brand-new shoulder holster. A man can forgive a lot, but wasting good Scotch was a crime against civilization.

Things only got worse.

Their latest client—the poor sap who’d finally been proven innocent of skimming city money—celebrated the good news by hanging himself in his cell before the paperwork was dry. Then the doc gave Jonny the cheerful bulletin that the pounding behind his eyes wasn’t a hangover or a tumor.

Late-stage syphilis.

Just the kind of news a guy wants before lunch.

So Jonny did what any reasonable private dick would do: he dragged Boris into the nearest dive bar to drown the day in something brown and dangerous.

That’s when he saw her.

She was perched on a barstool like trouble carved out of red silk—hair like a four-alarm fire, legs that seemed to go all the way to Sacramento, and eyes that could make a bishop pawn his halo.

Jonny was trying to cook up a line that didn’t sound like it came off a greeting card when the redhead slid off the stool and walked straight over.

“I live next door, handsome,” she said, voice smooth as contraband whiskey. “How about you come upstairs for a drink and a few hours of violent anal sex?”

Jonny nearly broke the land-speed record for standing up.

But Boris, who’d seen enough sucker plays to write a textbook, narrowed his eyes.

“What’s that gonna cost him, Red?”

“The name’s Harmony,” she purred. “And I don’t charge for my pleasure. Not with the right fella. I make my money other ways.”

Boris studied her face the way a card shark studies a deck. The pug knew a lie when he heard one. This didn’t sound like one.

Ten minutes later they were in Harmony’s loft.

Jonny stripped down like a man auditioning for a romance magazine and stretched out across the bed, practicing a few seductive poses he’d picked up from questionable cinema. Boris planted himself at the foot of the mattress with the evening paper and the expression of a dog who expected disaster.

Harmony drifted into the bathroom.

“I’ll be ready in a second,” she called. “Might want to stretch those hamstrings.”

Jonny grinned like a lottery winner.

“See, Boris? Life turns on a dime. Couple hours ago I had the worst day of my life. Now I’m about to split that lovely lady’s butt cheeks in half.”

Boris suddenly froze.

His eyes were glued to the newspaper.

“Oh my god,” he muttered. “Look at the date.”

“Relax,” Jonny groaned. “I’ll pay the cable bill when we get home. Britbox isn’t going anywhere.”

“No, you idiot,” Boris snapped. “It’s the thirteenth.”

“Yeah, and?”

The pug slammed the paper down.

“Friday the thirteenth! The universe has rules, pal. One of them is that nothing this good ever happens to you on a day like this.”

Jonny laughed. “Old Wives’ tale.”

The bathroom door opened.

“And I used to be a wife,” Harmony said pleasantly as she stepped out.

The redhead was smiling.

She was also holding a pistol pointed straight at Jonny’s heart.

“These days,” she continued, “I’ve got a new line of work.”

Jonny’s grin melted.

“Hired assassin,” Harmony said. “Mob pays very well.”

Boris slowly lowered the newspaper.

“And tonight,” she added sweetly, “I’m cashing a very generous contract.”

The gun didn’t waver.

Jonny sighed.

Just his luck. Friday the thirteenth.

Two Lunatics in Search of an Author

The plates were empty, the champagne was warm, and the kind of trouble that only shows up after dessert was already circling the table like a vulture with a reservation. Linda and Pussy slipped away toward the ladies’ room in a swirl of perfume and promises to get themselves ready to return to Casa de Jonny and give Jonny and Boris their Valentines Day gifts, a night of violent anal sex without lube.

Boris tilted his champagne flute and chased the last rebellious bubbles with his tongue. The little pug adjusted his white tie and tails like a diplomat preparing to start a war.

“Ever notice something, boss?” he muttered, voice low enough to dodge the waitstaff but loud enough to land like a brick. “We’re catnip to every dame in Van Nuys. Me — a pug with a vocabulary and a tuxedo, cruelly castrated before I was shipped across the Pacific. And you — a 64-year-old moron with a disposition like a cracked ashtray, dating a legendary pop star who looks 25 on a bad day despite her being born in 1946 and suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.”

Jonny blinked slowly, like a man trying to read a clue written in invisible ink. “What’s your point, Boris?”

Before the dog could answer, a thin man with a pencil mustache and a tragically ambitious French accent glided up to the table. The restaurant manager. He smelled faintly of garlic and deadlines.

“Messieurs,” he said, bowing just enough to suggest either respect or indigestion. “Monsieur Werker requests that you conclude this philosophical digression. He intends to dedicate several pages to… how do you say… your evening of bareback cornholing, and your existential debate is slowing the rhythm of the narrative.”

He clicked his heels and vanished toward the kitchen like a stagehand fleeing a spotlight.

Jonny stared at Boris. Boris stared at Jonny. The silence hung between them like a bad alibi.

Finally, the pug sighed, straightened his bow tie, and delivered the line like a verdict.

“My point, pal,” he said, “is that none of this makes sense… unless we’re just characters trapped inside a pulp crime novel.”