Category: Law and Order

In the Custody of Dogberry

Jonny and Boris were excited when they learned that they’d have to travel to Messina to investigate the murder of Robert Vestal. But instead of a relaxing trip to Sicily, they’d be slugging it out in the backwaters of Messina, Alabama — a place where the humidity clung to your skin like a bad alibi and the locals looked at outsiders the way a junkyard dog looks at a mailman. Vestal’s murder had dragged them across the country, but the only thing getting slaughtered so far was their patience.

They’d barely set foot on George Wallace Boulevard when trouble clocked in. Jonny had been absent-mindedly giving Boris a bellyrub outside the diner — a perfectly innocent moment by Van Nuys standards — when a deputy named Verges with a badge too big for his brain wandered over. One look at their drivers’ licenses and the man’s eyes narrowed like a pair of cheap blinds.

“California, huh?” he muttered. “That may be the world capital of homosensitivity but perversion ain’t legal in these parts.”

Ten minutes later they were cooling their heels in a holding cell inside the sheriff’s office, labeled in chalk as Community Protection. The air smelled like old coffee and older grudges.

Sheriff Boscoe Z. Dogberry made his entrance like a man auditioning for a play he couldn’t read. He spoke in grand flourishes, dropping ten-syllable words where a simple grunt would’ve done the job. Illiterate maybe, but determined to sound like a dictionary that had swallowed a thesaurus.

Boris stepped forward first, all lab-coat dignity wrapped around a pair of fawn-colored paws. “Look, Sheriff,” he said, sliding a hundred-dollar bill between the bars like a peace offering. “I know it looks unusual — a human and a pug working together — but there’s no funny business. We both have girlfriends. I date an alley cat named Pussy, and Jonny is in a relationship with the 25 year-old version of rock star Linda Ronstadt. So you see that there’s nothing weird going on.”

Dogberry squinted at the bill as if it were a snake that might bite. “Pray thee, fellow, peace,” he declared. “I do not like thy look, I promise thee.”

Jonny sighed. The sheriff’s stilted speech sounded like it had been chewed up and spit out by a tractor. Boris glanced at Jonny, then added two more hundreds to the stack, crisp green confessions fluttering in the stale air.

“O villain!” Dogberry barked, puffing up like a rooster with delusions of grandeur. “Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this!”

Jonny coughed to hide a laugh. Boris didn’t even try; the pug just fished out two more C-notes with a weary flick of his paw. Dogberry’s eyes gleamed. He snatched the money, unlocked the cell, and pocketed the evidence of his own moral flexibility. “If you’d coughed up that much at the beginning,” the sheriff said, straightening his crooked badge, “you could’ve saved all of us a lot of time. What do I look like, an ass?”

A Twist of F8

Eight years ago today, I drove to the customs area of Korea Airlines and picked up the little dude who would soon become my best friend. The good folks at Pug Rescue of Korea called him Bruce, but that was a handle I never cared for so I rechristened him Boris and we began a series of adventures that turned my new buddy into the legend he was always destined to become. Eight years later, my heart overflows with gratitude that fate (and the Pug Rescue of Korea) brought us together.

I told Hack that story and he cranked out this stupid novel. I guess it was a nice gesture.

Death on the L.A. River

Christmas Eve in the City of the Angels came in hot and mean, ninety-five degrees and not a cloud dumb enough to offer mercy. The sun baked the concrete scar of the L.A. River basin until it shimmered like a bad alibi, a waterless waterway where careers went to rot. Officer Jane Law walked her beat through the heat haze, boots crunching grit and regret, every step a reminder of why she’d been exiled to this bone-dry purgatory. She’d followed a money trail too clean to be coincidence, too dirty to be legal, and it had led straight to the department’s polished brass shaking hands with mob grease. That kind of curiosity didn’t get you medals—it got you forgotten. She knew the only way out was something spectacular, the kind of mess nobody could ignore. That’s when she saw it a hundred yards ahead: a body sprawled like yesterday’s news, a knife standing proud in his chest, waiting for some lucky flatfoot to make sense of how Christmas had come early for one poor bastard.

By the book, she’d call it in and let the forensics boys do what they did best—muddy the water, lose the evidence, ship the stiff to the wrong slab so any future collar would walk on a technicality. But Jane wasn’t interested in losing this one. If she was going to climb out of the riverbed, she needed the only scientific mind in town sharp enough to read a corpse like a confession: Boris the pug. And Boris didn’t come alone. He came with Jonny M.—the one man who’d ever cracked her armor, whose touch could still turn her ice-cold blood into something reckless and alive. Jane scanned the empty stretch of concrete, heat waves dancing like ghosts, and knew there was no other play. She fished out her phone, dialed the operator, and swallowed hard before saying the last words she ever thought she’d say: “Connect me with the Jonny & Boris Detective Agency.”

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.

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.”