PROLOGUE
I’m a lone wolf, unmarried . . . and not rich . . . I like liquor and women . . . The cops don’t like me too well . . . and when I get knocked off in a dark alley . . . nobody will feel that the bottom has dropped out of his or her life.
—Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
New York City
Friday, April 18, 1947
5:45 p.m.
“HIYA, MR. SHEPARD. Want your messages?”
“Sure, Doris. Lemme get a load off first.”
As Jack hung up his trench coat, he heard Doris snap her gum.
“Suit yourself, Mr. Shepard. But I gotta leave real soon!”
“Hot date, huh?”
“You bet! Me and the girls got tickets to see Frank’s new movie, It Happened in Brooklyn. He’s so dreamy. You seen it yet?”
“No, honey.”
“Well, I cannot miss it!”
Doris was the younger cousin of Jack’s regular secretary, who’d been out for most of the week (on a date with a dentist). He didn’t mind since he’d been tied up giving trial testimony in three different cases: two Cheating Charlies in divorce proceedings that made the Battle of the Bulge look like the Ice Capades and one case of a young woman who’d gone missing and then caught the big chill. He’d been hired to track her down, and he had—too late.
Jack still felt the gut punch of defeat over that one.
At least his work had helped the city dicks find her killer and secure evidence to convict, but it was a grim business. Nothing he planned on sharing with young Doris here.
All of nineteen, she’d flown fresh as a newly hatched bird out of some midtown secretarial school and landed in his office with bubble-gum cheeks, a bouncy yellow ponytail, and the kind of blindingly sunny disposition that made Jack want to shove on dark glasses and head for the nearest gin mill.
The past decade alone, Jack had seen the rise and fall of a madman named Hitler, devastation in European and Pacific theaters, and history’s first god-awful atomic bomb.
The defining moment of Doris’s young life (as she’d informed Jack with breathless detail over morning coffee) wasn’t D-Day or V-E Day, but Columbus Day 1944—the day she’d been lucky enough to wedge herself into the Paramount Theater with thirty-six hundred other squealing, swooning bobby-sox girls to witness the crooning of a skinny kid from Hoboken named Sinatra.
The unlucky ladies (twenty-five thousand of them) became a crushing pink wave that washed over Times Square, leaving traffic rerouted, shopwindows smashed, and some of New York’s Finest with their most bemused riot duty in recent memory.
According to one of Jack’s old partners in the PD, the bobby-sox blitzkrieg required twenty radio cars, seventy patrolmen, sixty-two traffic cops (twelve of them mounted), six sergeants, and forty temporary badges who’d been pulled from parade duty on Fifth.
“Ain’t life grand?” Doris chirped, filing her nails.
Jack blew out air.
Leaving the postage-stamp reception area, he moved into his office proper, shrugged off his best navy blue suit coat from his acre of shoulders, rolled up his shirtsleeves, loosened his tie, and settled into the creaky chair behind his desk.
As he considered his day—and the whole lousy world at large—he rubbed the dagger-shaped scar on his jaw, reached for the bottle in his drawer, and knocked back a satisfying shot of single-malt therapy.
“Okay, Doris. What have you got for me?”
“First message,” she announced before snapping her gum. “From Assistant District Attorney Donovan’s assistant. Ain’t that comical? An assistant has an assistant?”
“Barrel of laughs,” Jack said. “What’s the message?”
“ ‘Judge Hoffman moved Monday’s proceedings to Wednesday. Kindly remember to be on time and wear proper tires for your courtroom appearance.’ ”
“Uh, Doris, I think you meant to write attire. What do you think?
“Oh, Mr. Shepard, you’re right! I guess I heard it wrong, but I figured maybe it was a park-in deal. You know, like that theater in New Jersey?”
“There are no park-in courtrooms in the tristate area. Not yet, anyway. Go on . . .”
“Sure thing! Message two was from a lady who wouldn’t leave her name.” Doris squinted at the note card. “ ‘I would like to hire you, but I need to know your rates, your address, and could you be the street?’ ”
“I think she meant discreet. She leave a number?”
Doris nodded. “Gramercy 5-3—”
“I’ll ring her back next week. Anything else?”
“A Mr. Larsen called. Says he has two Great Danes and would like to schedule your walking services.”
“You pulling my leg?”
“No, sir! You wanna see the note?”
“Must have been a wrong number. That it?”
Doris shook her head. “I got four more calls asking about your dog-walking services—”
“Hey, what’s the idea? You trying out for vaudeville?”
“No, Mr. Shepard. I swear the messages are on the up-and-up! Plus I got three more asking about your canine-kenneling rates for summer weekends.”
“Your cousin’s coming back Monday, right?”
“She sure is. Her bad tooth got pulled without a hitch.”
“Send her some flowers for me—and leave her a message on your desk. Tell her to straighten out Ma Bell ASAP.”
“I will, Mr. Shepard,
but I don’t think it’s a phone company mix-up. Didn’t you see that dog story in the afternoon paper?”
“Which paper?”
“This one.” Doris ricocheted to her desk and back, then handed him one of the many daily rags. “You’re in it!”
Doris pointed to the picture of a well-heeled society matron posing with her Pekingese. “DOGNAPPED!” screamed the headline. “PRIZEWINNING POOCH IN PERIL!”
The story revealed how the little lapdog with the long pedigree was kidnapped from her loving mistress by an “insensitive brute,” but reunited with her grateful grande dame due entirely to the heroic efforts of one Mr. Jack Shepard, “lover of creatures great and small.”
The overwrought feature included exaggerated details of Jack’s recently closed case, along with his address and phone number and a fake quote from Jack himself: “In this dog-eat-dog world, I’ll do anything to help my four-legged friends.”
The dognapping story was mostly true, though some of it was complete fiction, including the line extolling the virtues of Jack Shepard’s “reliable dog-walking services.”
Smelling a rat, Jack searched for the byline, which explained everything—
“Timothy Brennan,” he spat.
“You know him?” Doris asked.
“Yeah, I know him . . .”
A yellow journalist and a degenerate gambler, Brennan had a penchant for making up quotes, double-crossing sources, drinking his lunch, and pretzeling facts when it suited—or amused—him.
Identifying Jack not as a licensed private investigator, but as an expert in “doggy business,” was obviously a case of the latter. Jack could have run it all down for Doris, but he didn’t want to burn her little pink ears off with the curses he’d surely utter in the process. Instead, he checked his watch.
“Quitting time. You run along now, Doris.”
“Thanks, Mr. Shepard. Oh, hold the phone. I got one more!” she cried, waving the message like a winning bingo card.
“Just hand it to me, honey, and you can go.”
“Okey-doke!”
As the young woman made her earsplitting exit, Jack held his breath. After the screeching of a desk chair, slamming of a file drawer, and bang of the front door, Doris was finally off, headed for that date with her celluloid boyfriend.
At the blessed sound of silence, Jack sat back, put his feet up, and sighed. Peace in our time. Sipping another shot of Scotch, he glanced at Doris’s last message card, expecting another load of doggy business.
It wasn’t.
A man named “Muggsy” had called. At the sight of that moniker, Jack felt his muscles stiffen.
Myles “Muggsy” Malone was a Hell’s Kitchen hothead famous for his short temper and long switchblade. A few years back, he gutted some
poor sixteen-year-old kid during an argument over a dice game. Nothing new for the locals who lived in the tenements and worked on the docks. Only this time, there was a hitch.
The victim’s older sister, Irene, was a real looker, and she’d married well. Outraged at the police’s lack of enthusiasm for tracking down the man who tried to fillet her little brother, Irene hired Jack to find Muggsy Malone, drag him into the nearest precinct, and make sure he did time.
Jack complied.
Little brother recovered and testified, putting Muggsy behind the eight ball, with a hefty fine and sentence to two years of hard labor, less on good behavior.
Well, Malone obviously made parole, and he wanted Jack to know it.
“So much for peace,” Jack muttered, and knocked back the rest of his drink.
* * *
HOURS LATER, LOADED gun by his bedside, Jack was back at his apartment alone, a rarity for a Friday night.
Stretched out in pajama bottoms, twiddling his thumbs over his bare chest, he’d been staring at the bedroom ceiling. The pounding rain and cracking thunder were loud enough to split Zeus’s eardrums, but nature’s racket wasn’t the reason he couldn’t get any shut-eye.
Jack couldn’t stop thinking about Muggsy Malone’s message.
By now, Irene was long gone, somewhere out West with her well-off hubby. She’d taken her little brother with her, which left Jack as the only fish left to catch the ex-con’s fillet knife.
Would Malone come for him at home or jump him at the office? How many days would it take for the ugly Muggs to show?
Jack considered reporting the message to the ex-con’s parole officer, but that was weak coffee. Malone could easily dodge the flack by claiming his innocent phone message had been misunderstood.
No, if Jack wanted charges to stick, he would have to catch Muggsy in the act of coming for him, weapon in hand . . .
As the spring storm finally subsided and the thunder rolled away, Jack could swear he heard a noise in the front room—a kind of scratching.
Jack was a big guy, but after years Over There, he knew how to move quick and quiet. Picking up his gun from the nightstand, he slipped barefoot from his bedroom to the front room.
Someone was scratching at the door, all right. He could even hear breathing.
Geez, Louise. That was more than breathing. It was panting.
Now Jack had a clue why Muggsy was so steamed. He must have picked up TB in prison!
“All right, Muggsy, I hear you out there!” Jack shouted at the closed door. “If I see that switchblade in your hand, I swear I’ll end your days!”
In one swift motion, Jack jerked open the door and leveled his gun at—
Empty air.
Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!
Jack looked down. A leather leash had been wrapped around the doorknob. At the other end stood a little dog. The fur ball with legs was the spitting image of Toto, that cute little canine who caused all the trouble in that kiddie film with the yellow brick road.
Weapon raised again, Jack stepped into the hallway. He searched it up and down, even checked the stairwell. But there was nobody. Nothing. Just the little—
Ruff-ruff-ruff!
“Where did you come from? Who are you, girl?”
He assumed it was a girl because of the little pink bow clipped to a tuft of fur at the top of its head. Something was around its neck, too, slipped under its collar—
An envelope.
Inside, Jack found a C-note and a typewritten letter.
Dear Jack Shepard, I want you to find me some answers . . .
What in the Sam Hill is this? Jack wondered, frowning down at the pup.
“Are you hiring me?”
Ruff-ruff-ruff!
Jack brought the dog inside, closed the door, and bolted it. While the little fur hat ran in circles, sniffing up the rug and every stick of Jack’s furniture, the PI sank to the sofa in disbelief.
The C-note was good. He couldn’t dispute it. One hundred clams made it official.
Jack Shepard had gone to the dogs.
CHAPTER 1The Language of Canines
People love dogs. You can never go wrong adding a dog to a story.
—Jim Butcher, White Night
Buy the Book
Quindicott, Rhode Island
Present day
“YOU HAVE MANY fans here at my shop, Ms. Breen,” I said into the phone. “They’ll be thrilled to meet you. I booked a room for you at the Finch Inn, and you’re scheduled to arrive tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow’s flight?” Amber Breen shouted back.
“What did you say?” I replied so loudly that several customers who’d been browsing our stacks were now staring my way.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. McClure, but you’ll have to speak up,” Amber yelled over the sound of barking dogs—very loud and excited dogs. “You see, I’m in the shelter with my babies . . .”
(I’d already deduced that.) “Hold the line—”
After whispering my dilemma to my aunt Sadie behind the counter, I moved with all speed to the back of the bookshop and closed the stockroom door.
Now, Amber Breen was as delightful a human being as you could find on God’s green earth. The prolific author of the Kennel Club Mysteries even ran her own animal shelter with a portion of profits from her book sales and the smash hit streaming series adapted from her works. But attempting to converse with the bestselling novelist by phone was clearly a challenge. The canine interference was worse than cellular static!
“Can you hear me now?” I asked forcefully.
WOOF-WOOF!
The loudest dog in the pack suddenly took over Amber’s device. Even as I yanked the phone away from my ear, I heard the author scolding—
“Down, Biscuit! Down, girl!”
When the yapping of a smaller, more belligerent canine replaced the howls of the dog called Biscuit, Amber Breen shouted—
“Mrs. McClure, I don’t like airplanes! I’ll be driving a rental car to your charming little town in the wee hours. I prefer night driving, far less traffic. So, you see? No need to arrange a flight for me—”
“I didn’t arrange a flight! ...
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