In Van Nuys, power wasn’t measured in money or muscle—it was measured in how fast you could get a booth at the Denny’s on Sherman Way. The city’s two-bit kings and third-rate royalty waited months for a shot at those cracked vinyl seats with a view of the flickering Van Nuys Drive-In sign next door. Even Snow Mercy—top trigger for the mob and the kind of dame that made traffic forget where it was going—could only muscle her way in twice a month. That changed when she latched onto a name that opened doors like a skeleton key: Thurston Howell VII, heir to the fabulous Lovey Howell fortune. After that, she was ringside every night, carving into a Moon Over My Hammy within earshot of the legendary wits of the Denny’s round table—Bro Joe, Robin Greenspan, and the rest of the breakfast intelligentsia—firing off wisecracks like they were getting paid by the syllable.
Howell. You read that right. Old money, deep pockets, and the kind of pull that made waitlists disappear. He hired Snow to ice Robert Vestal when Vestal got cute and tried to take a bite out of Howell Industries. Snow did what she always did—clean, quiet, no witnesses but the ghosts. Then Howell tells her to celebrate. Brunch. Same place. Same day. In Van Nuys, that’s like asking for sunshine at midnight. But thirty minutes later, there she was, elbows on the table, staring down a Grand Slam like it owed her money. That’s when she knew—this guy wasn’t just connected. He was magic.
Only magic’s a funny thing in this town. Turns out the real Thurston Howell VII was cooling his heels under house arrest in a Glendale villa, wrapped up in a sweetheart deal with the Feds. The guy Snow was splitting pancakes with? A ghost with a badge. A federal suit wearing Howell’s name like a rented tux, dipping into his bank account and his social circle to get close—real close—to the deadliest woman in the Valley. Close enough to map the underworld, piece by piece, until there was nowhere left for it to hide.
It took a special kind of agent with the guts, charm and finger trigger to sell a ticket to the high wire act he was attempting, and he needed a special kind of partner running the box office.
Jonny M. and Boris, your audience is ready for the show.