Hack wrote this to commemorate the passing of Humphrey Bogart, who died 69 years ago today. In truth, the constraints of the Production Code in force at the time wouldn’t allow them to use the scene in The Maltese Falcon where the femme fatale has to take off all her clothes to prove she didn’t steal a $1000 bill in the 1941 Bogart film. But it is in the novel and the 1931 pre-code version so Hack plugged it into this book because we’ve had a stressful morning. He even made Natalie Wood the character to cheer us up that much more. Hack can be a nice guy when he wants to.
By the time the trio finally made it to the front of the line at the soup place, Jonny felt like he’d made some headway with Elaine. But Boris’ perpetually ravenous belly was focused on only one thing: lunch. The middle eastern proprietor starred down the pug with an intimidating glare that would have overwhelmed anyone else, but Boris’ only master was his stomach. “We’ll have three large mulligatawnies and make it snappy!” The man was unmoved. “Who brought this animal in here? Dogs are not allowed on the premises. Whoever it belongs to, take your mangy creature and get out! No soup for…”
Before he could finish his catchphrase, Boris leapt over the sneeze guard and delivered a kung fu kick to the insolent server’s jaw, sending him sprawling to the floor. While he laid there in a daze, Boris put him in the dreaded Ninja Death Grip so that if the pug increased the pressure of his paw even a fraction of an inch, the soupmaker would be meeting his maker that day. “I said we’ll have three large mulligatawnies, and it will be your pleasure to give them to us on the house.”
Jonny threw his arms around Elaine protectively because he’d witnessed this scene enough to know that if the Soup Nazi was foolish enough to resist, there would be blood spouting at least six feet in all directions. The sultry beauty returned the grasp with the firmness of a woman whose blood was about to boil over with passion. She looked at Jonny with a red-hot intensity, and he replied with the smug grin of a man who knew that he was about to spend the afternoon between tangled sheets.
The Jonny Pals sat hunched around the roundtable at the Van Nuys Denny’s like defendants waiting on a verdict, steam from bad coffee curling up into their famous faces. They were all icons in their own right; the celebrated detectives Jonny & Boris, the legendary junior ranger Bro Joe, the storied political agitator Lisa Glass; even Jonny’s girlfriend Linda had a singing career that won her a small following. But they were about to confront REAL celebrity. Midnight came in on the cheap neon buzz of the door, and with it staggered Hack Werker—whiskey-heavy, eyes bright as switchblades—one hand on the counter, the other gripping a pen that had ruined better men than bullets ever did.
Introductions were exchanged with the care you’d use passing a live grenade. Werker slid into the booth and fished a steno pad from his jacket, the paper already hungry. He said he’d followed their exploits for years, that he admired the cut of their sins, but his pencil hovered like a vulture waiting for someone to stop breathing. Penny Pal clutched her tiny, bejeweled clutch purse as if it might shield her. “You won’t put any of this in a book, will you?” she asked. Werker’s grin answered first—thin, knowing—before his voice did, and everyone at the table felt their secrets shift uncomfortably in their pockets.
He waved the waitress over and ordered drinks like a man setting a trap with velvet gloves. “I only write what people give me,” he said, casual as a confession, “and I never improve on the truth.” Glasses arrived, ice clinked like nervous teeth, and the menus suddenly read like alibis that wouldn’t hold up in court. They all knew then that the night wouldn’t end with pancakes—it would end with pages, and once something hit the page, it stayed dead forever. The Jonny Pals lifted their glasses anyway, because in this town refusing a drink was just another way of telling on yourself.
Boris shook the salt from his jowls and watched the last bubbles of the S.S. Jonny Pals wink out like bad ideas at dawn, the sea around them littered with the bloated punctuation marks of a voyage gone wrong. Survival, he knew, was about priorities, and priorities were about people. He cleared his throat and laid it out like a crooked hand of cards. Pussy was a given—some things in this world were as fixed as gravity. The movie star with the Frankenstein jawline didn’t blink before calling dibs on the brilliant professor, citing destiny, chemistry, and the simple math of ego. Everyone nodded, because in a crisis people believe whoever sounds most confident, even if he’s wrong.
That left the odd scraps, and that’s when Linda cut in, braids swinging, red gingham bright enough to insult the sun. She chose her boyfriend Jonny…’s pal Eddie with the cool efficiency of someone picking the only lifeboat that hadn’t sprung a leak, and she didn’t bother sugarcoating the reasons. “No offense, Jonny, but you’re pretty damaged and I don’t think you’ll survive more than two weeks in the wild. Plus, you cheat on me in every other Hack Werker novel with whatever hot celebrity has a birthday that day, so it’s not like I owe you anything. “ Jonny felt the verdict land like a sap to the kidneys. Boris made it official with a wag of his paw and a tone that brooked no appeal: couplings set, pecking order established. Jonny, freshly demoted to island mule, got the worst of it—dragging the dead from the shallows while the living sorted their futures. The sea smelled like rust and regret, and as Jonny worked, he couldn’t shake the feeling that being unfuckable was the least of his problems.
As Jonny lay helpless in the webbing of his sex swing, staring down the blue-black eye of the pistol she’d just slid from her garter, the room smelled of cheap perfume and bad decisions. It hit him then—this wasn’t just another luscious dame chasing a bedtime story about a roll in the hay with a famous detective. Her voice trembled, but the muzzle didn’t. “Your incompetence killed my Daddy,” she said, tears bright as broken glass in those beautiful eyes. “You let him face the hangman’s noose for a crime he didn’t commit.” Revenge had a pulse, and it was thudding in his ears. She was about to pull the trigger when fate padded down the stairs on four short legs—Boris, on his third midnight snack—who let loose a flying judo kick that sent the gun clattering like loose change across the floor.
They both remembered the case like yesterday, back when they were flatfoots pounding a beat and believing the badge meant something. They’d had the goods on the real killer—a big shot tucked into the Van Nuys comptroller’s office—but the department took care of its own in those days. Evidence went missing, reports got rewritten, and the noose tightened around James Cleveland: decent man, community pillar, father to a baby girl who’d grown up feeding on the cold diet of injustice. One look at her anguished face told Jonny and Boris the truth they couldn’t dodge anymore. The past had come calling with a loaded gun, and it was time to reopen the case—this time with the lights on and no favors owed.
The door to 221B Baker Street didn’t answer Jonny’s knock, so he answered it himself with a hairpin and a bad feeling crawling up his spine. The stairs groaned like an old stool pigeon as he climbed, Nurse Alex Price right behind him, her heels quiet, her eyes sharp, her London calm about to be shattered. He’d ditched Boris earlier, left his precious pug in the care of England’s most celebrated brainbox so he and Alex could tangle sheets and forget the world for a few blessed hours. What waited for them upstairs was a crime scene without the courtesy of a corpse. Holmes and Boris lay sprawled like fallen idols, arms riddled with track marks, mouths slack, eyes rolled back to places no mind should visit without a passport. A bottle sat on the table, nearly empty, its white promise betrayed. Alex didn’t need to touch them. One look told her the truth. They were flying. High as church bells on Sunday. Jonny’s heart cracked like cheap glass. “I knew it,” he howled. “I knew leaving my pug with that pipe-smoking maniac was begging for heartbreak.”
“Your deduction is unsound,” came a voice from the gloom, clipped and wounded with disappointment. Watson stepped forward, mustache stiff, eyes colder than a London fog. “This isn’t your common Soho snow. Look at the label. Seven percent is the ceiling in this city, and that concoction is strong enough to wake the dead or put legends to sleep.” Jonny’s jaw tightened as the pieces clicked together, ugly and perfect. “Van Nuys,” he said, the word tasting like rust and regret. Watson nodded. The room seemed to sag under the weight of it. Boris, sweet, stupid, brilliant Boris, had gone home for his poison and dragged Holmes along for the ride. The two greatest minds in the room were unconscious, and the dumbest truth lay naked on the table. Jonny stared at his fallen partner, praying the line between genius and grave hadn’t already been crossed.
Jonny’s grin stayed plastered on his face as they crossed the threshold of Scotland Yard, but it had the stiffness of cheap glue. The murder of Robert Vestal still rang in his ears like a cracked bell—shot clean through the heart on some manicured English estate, a heart Jonny had always assumed Vestal rented rather than owned. The chief inspector, all tweed and clipped vowels, laid it out with the solemnity of a man announcing the weather: they’d be sharing the case with a local bloodhound named Drummond, who’d been tracking it from the English side of the pond. Jonny knew the name. Ex–army, thrill-seeker, a legend in rain-soaked pubs and police files. The constable leaned in and lowered his voice. “Good chap, Drummond. Made quite a name for himself in the canine corps.” Jonny blinked. “Did you just say CANINE corps?” The word hung in the air like gun smoke.
The answer padded in before the question could cool. Drummond entered without a sound, Limey incarnate, every inch the Empire right down to the jowls. He was a bulldog—no metaphor, no exaggeration, just a solid, breathing slab of British beef with a detective’s stare. His eyes locked on Boris and lit up. “Smashing to finally meet you, old boy. After years of chasing villains with homo sapiens, I thought it time we dogs showed them how it’s properly done. Care to see the murder scene?” He turned, already moving, a paw clamped around Boris’s arm. “Your assistant can take notes.” Jonny bristled as the pug was hustled away, the thrill draining out of the room. Scotland Yard suddenly felt colder, and Jonny had the sinking feeling this case wasn’t going to let him enjoy a single damn thing.
