Parlor Pink Private Detective Sherlock Holmes’ “Murder By Decree” Screed-Once Again-With The Teen Queens 1950s Song Hit “Eddie, My Love” In Mind     

By Will Bradley

I have developed something a reputation around this publication (and others like Truth ) for busting up, busting up soundly all kinds of overblown if not false historical reputations what would now be called nothing but alternative fact press agent gibberish. I had originally been called to the task by the reaction of one fellow writer here the venerable Seth Garth, well-known for years as the king of all things detective who was offended that I would blow smoke number one pass the curled head, padlock hat and hashish-piped Sherlock Holmes who worked the docks (more later on this) so-called sleuthing against nefarious bad guys and as we shall see in this muck those who would foul up the works against Queen and Empire.  And other off-the-wall bullshit presumably done while high as a kite on his “dear friend” Doc Watson (once again for those wo don’t remember not the late Doc of mountain music fame) while some journalist-flak named Coyne, Coll, or whatever name he used depending on the publication addressed touting his small palaver work as, get this, an amateur parlor pink detective around the time of Queen Victoria.

I had enough sense gained from speaking to fellow writer and friend of Seth’s, Sam Lowell the famed film noir critic that I had better not go right after this old blowhard on the Holmes stuff right off but work my way up the food chain busting past overblown reputations to see what he would say, if anything once I pulled the hammer down on the Holmes-Watson operation and their quite unusual relationship which shocked the landlady at their digs on Baker Street to a heart-attack when she opened the door to find both men naked, so-called modelling themselves doing their “arts” But more on that later when I review the storyline of this film Murder by Decree and put a final put paid to that stinking moribund reputation.  

As acute readers well know, for my rookie effort (which drew some praise from the usually no praise editor), I blew the legend of one Robin Hood, you may not remember the name now since I did my “hatchet job”, that way back when who somehow had such good press agent, a guy named Nottingham I believe, that he went centuries looking like some friend of the poor and downtrodden. Of course, that was when he was sleeping under the stars eating tree bark. Once his boy Ricard the Lion-Hearted hit English shores and gave him some acreage he, under the name Robin Lockhart, became the worse rack-renter in England , had a few guys, guys who swore to follow him to the ends of the earth for a little medieval justice named John Little and Friar Tuck put on the thumbscrews just because they whined about the high taxes. With money and powerful friends on and around the throne he did awful sexually lustful things to the king’s underage female ward, Mary. I chopped this bum of the month down in about a week like so much Sherwood Forest forage. Now at the sound of his name women and children seek refuse from the cold in the arms of strong men or go screaming in the night. Easy work.

Of course, on the Lockhart case I had plenty of archival and manorial material to work with, including his payments for services rendered to that Nottingham press flak to prove that this bastard was from nowhere, was all hot air stuff. Later guys and gals were tougher strangely since the fine arts of press coverage vastly improved with the invention and workings of the printing press that would take anything you could ink on it. Despite that I gave Queen Elizabeth I a bloody nose over that nonsense about her being a virgin after reading some stuff from the Bodleian Library from her main lady-in-waiting who kept a diary and kept the back door to milady’s boudoir ready at all times for half of the in-house court to discretely come by, and not always men either.    

Lesser guys, guys with names surrounded by romance like Don Juan and Casanova proved to be much harder especially in the case of the former who may very well have been nothing but the wild unmet longings of some well-bred Spanish girls imprisoned by their families in convents. Casanova we know more about since he left plenty of love letters, diary entries and “broken hearts” except, and I granted him a few exploits for a short period when he was around Venice before they threw him in that silly so-called prison, most of the press stuff was written by his patron, one of the later generation of the Borgias who were trying to break out of their own  reputation for evil profligration.             

         

Before the Holmes bust up (and Watson let’s not forget Watson and if I do assume he is in the picture) my biggest “coup” was exposing a guy named Errol Flynn who worked under the name   

Captain Blood, who according to a well-respected writer of the times named Marlowe who actually did press work under another name while he was writing his plays, started out as a pirate, and then went into the King’s service allegedly to expand the Empire and fight off assorted bad guys at sea and make the whole world a British lake. Well that happened as we well know, still know a little and certainly had our noses dug in it in Sherlock’s time, but what is not well-known is all that swashbuckling bullshit was just that. Blood, and blood is the right name, was a kingpin in the Middle Passage trade, the slavery trade transporting Africans to the bloody sugar cane fields of the West Indies. The only sword he drew was when some shackled black man or women mumbled too loud. I have no proof but I believe the intellectual model for the English painter Turner’s chilling Slave Ship was directed at Blood’s horrible conduct.           

I believe I have demonstrated my “street cred” on this legend-busting business. Take it or leave it. The Holmes case drove me, continues to drive me crazy, since I have made nothing but a small dent in that blowhard’s “rep.” I have tackled the problem from several different angles and will try yet again to break this down, especially since this case involved state interests which he should have blown the whistle on, and didn’t (probably saving old Watson a heart attack since it involved the royal family, Prince Albert, named Eddy). Let’s see.

Strangely the storyline here of dear Eddy (Queen Victoria’s son and heir presumptive) and his well-known indiscretions with whatever lady, high-born or low attracted his attention, has the same moral and plea behind it as a popular song from the 1950s Eddie, My Love by the Teen Queens. Eddie come back and do the right thing. In the song the young woman, let’s call her Betty which is what Bart Webber called her when he did an analysis of the lyrics as part of a classical age of rock and roll series. Some good-looking Eddie from nowhere drifted into town on his high-end motorcycle, saw Betty, pretty and ready Betty I assume, walking on the street or at some soda fountain and charged forward. Bingo, they get along, for the times unstated but go “all the way.” Then Eddie, claiming he has a job in New Jersey somewhere, although it is not always Jersey for this caper, says he has to get dough to live, for them to live and he will be back come fall. And as you may have guessed way back at the start of this paragraph, Eddie is long gone and has not written to Betty for months-and it was not because he did not have the price of a postage stamp. Pine away Betty and take care of the little one as best you can when you go to “Aunt Emma’s for that nine month visit which means you are not coming back to town soon.

Forward to our Eddy, our philandering Eddy, as already noted, who got attracted to some serving girl at one of the family estates. Wined, dined, fake married her (since he was already married to some cousin-age arranged woman) bedded her and abandoned her. Not though without the obligatory child produced which made things very complicated in the crazy quilt line of succession that had been dead weight on England forever. Enter the cabal, the parliamentary leadership with Queen and Empire in mind. The child, and if necessary the mother must go under the sword. This after all is an affair of state. It is hard to believe that these guys could run a green grocery much less a far-fling empire, but they put together some of weirdest plans to achieve their goals, including trying to lay off the murders of innocents who got in the way, or who knew where mother and child were, or could be forced to tell on some Jack the Ripper wannabe.

Enter Sherlock who eventually sees the whole Jack the Ripper thing as a smoke screen for more nefarious conduct up in the ruling elite where he is not without friends or knowledge about the peculiarities of that elite. The blast is that while they, the cabal, had the mother locked up tight and on whatever passed for downers in those days so she couldn’t continue to blab about her affair with the ungallant Prince, and about their love child he was on the trail after the few false leads. It took Holmes’ energies to figure the whole mess out, with a little help from Watson when he found the mother, found out what was up and then the why of the ruling elite’s crushing desire to find the child and put her, the child, mother, whoever got in the way down. Never happened since for once Sherlock played the gallant.

More disconcerting though and not gallant is when Holmes confronted the cabal and basically balked at turning the big guys over in what in the film would have been the Queen’s and Empire’s mercies, not well known for mercy when it came to her own bastard Albert and his women. Why, and that is finally where I can wind up on this bum of the month Holmes who has haunted my dreams more than somewhat. A lot of what got my ire, got Seth Garth’s countervailing ire up was the proposition that I presented in a series of films that we both reviewed. My main contention, my main contention now as well, was that Holmes and Watson were part of the “Homintern” W.H. Auden’s shorthand name coined in the 1930s for those who were of male same sex persuasion, homosexuals in those days among gentile society, fags and Nancy boys further down the social chain where I lived.

Following Auden, who kept serious tabs on this segment of society, I found compelling evidence (this well before the shocked landlady found them buck naked on some drugged escapade at Baker Street) that they were using their so-called investigative powers to run a male whorehouse among other things featuring the dregs of sailor, wharf, and river life. Were running under cover of night every illegal operation known to man from white slavery to liquor. That made a certain sense since neither man was otherwise gainfully employable yet wanted to keep up the lifestyle of that crummy elite that lived and died for Queen and Empire when the deal went down.

Most troubling though, the thing that should put the punk Holmes (and the viciously punk Watson who had the audacity to proclaim for the foolish prince out loud and in public) in the shades was going back to my original take on these high-end English. Then I started putting two and two together. Started looking at the real connections between the edgy Holmes and the cabal. As it turned out, and I should kick my own ass for not realizing this early on, they all went to Cambridge or Oxford, places like that notorious as breeding grounds for the “love that dare not speak its name.” The interconnectedness between the members bonded them together into some sort of sordid brotherhood not permitting them to “drop the dime” on each other-ever. No wonder nobody fell for all the murders, the death of the mother and Eddy succeeded to the throne and that was that. If this doesn’t put a big dent in the Holmes mythology nothing else could. And I say shame.   

The Once And Future King-The Short Happy Life Of Joseph Robinette Biden-Last Seen Panhandling On The National Mall-He Could Have Been A Contender

By Frank Jackman

[This short piece about the rise and fall of one Sleepy Joe Biden, ex-VPOTUS, over the last short period since his announcement to run for POTUS was started prior to the news that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and a fellow POSTUS contender had gone under the laser in Nevada. This is no reflection on his candidacy nor than of the current front-runner Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the three main contenders of the Democratic nomination. It still remains a not so tongue-in-cheek did at Sleepy Joe’s belief that he could run a presidential campaign that did not run out of gas almost before it got started. FJ]        

No question Seth Garth and Sam Lowell two of my oldest co-workers here at this publication and going back even farther to our high school days as 1960s corner boys in front of Tonio’s Pizza Parlor in the Acre section of North Adamsville love to talk politics. No, love to spin some kind of web out of the political happenings of the day would be more like it. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely when I think about it now, in the old days, in those holding up the bricks in front of Tonio’s days they could have given a “rat’s ass” about politics, even parody. It was a guy like the late Peter Markin, always called the Scribe, and me who were incessantly talking politics to the point where the other guys, including Seth and Sam, would point daggers our way when the conversation drifted from girls, cars and girls to that subject.

Things change in life, usually out of some wake-up call event, and shift the axis another way. That happened with Seth and Sam in a very dramatic way that I am privy to so can disclose here-the Vietnam War of the 1960s, of their robbed youths. They, as was I, were dragged into that conflagration as patriotic as the next citizen, believed plenty of what the government said was going on and did what they considered their duty. Considered their duty until they got home starting crying to the high heavens about the insanity of that war, maybe all wars which meant that they had to go smack dab up against politics. Politics which for the most part they, we, have followed and acted on around specific issues like the struggle for peace, the struggle against the endless wars of the past couple of decades and the long wave on-going struggle against the bloat of the war economy on society and the individual.   

So you can see we mostly have dealt with issues rather than the hurly-burly of electoral politics, you know, getting people elected POSTUS, stuff like that. That was until this past election cycle or really the result of the last election cycle with the election to POSTUS of one Donald Trump. That opened many eyes, theirs and mine included, that we were dealing with a new kind of beast, a new “how low can you go” in that kind of politics. And that they, we, needed to do something  about it-pronto, or as pronto as the next election in 2020 would allow seeing that we were, are, essentially stuck with the bastard until then (the current noise about impeachment notwithstanding since the Republican Senate will not vote to convict and throw the bum out so “noise”).       

At the beginning of the year a number of us, Seth, Sam and me included, not just war veterans although the others were veterans of many social and political struggles all sat down and discussed who to support, if anybody for POSTUS in opposition to the monster in office (who has actually gotten more monstrous since then if you can believe that). We dickered back and forth given the growing number of Democratic candidates who had the fire in the belly necessary to even bother thinking about running came out of the woodwork. Most of us centered our choice on the valiant refugee from the 2016 election process Senator Bernard Sanders from Vermont and fresh-faced and new Jane on the block Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. That is enough to be said about that political process because as the headline here notes this is about one Joseph Robinette Biden, former VPOTUS under Barack Obama.

And that will be the point, the main political point and the cause for much laughter and joking between Seth and Sam spilling over to me, Bart Webber, Jack Callahan, Frankie Riley, Chrissie McNamara and others in the room at the time. Joe Biden figured nowhere on anybody’s radar although there was plenty of speculation that he would be the front-runner if he ever decided to get into the race by the social media and   corporate media pundit class. Seth made everybody laugh especially at what has now turned out to be something of a prophetic pronouncement. Seth told everybody that the day Joe announced, if he did so, would be his best day, his high point and so it has turned out as he wobbles around sulking through the Trump Ukraine debacle that will come down on his head one way or another. (Strangely for once not of his own doing but Trump’s crazed notions about how to bring a domestic political opponent low via foreign powers.) 

Yeah, we all had a good laugh on that one at the time although for a while, for much of the summer actually, we could not figure out why he was still considered the front-runner since he could hardly utter a word without putting his foot in his mouth. Not the kind of person you want to send against a professional foot-in-mouther like Trump. We heard all kinds of fast talk about Sleepy Joe’s ability to beat Trump, to make him cry uncle under the weight of Joe’s brilliant career and his presidential campaign efforts. All baloney, all who gives a rat’s ass as we used to say in the old days when some yawn moment came.

So where is Sleepy Joe now, where is he staying tonight now that his over-loaded chariot has busted and he has tapped out in his $2800 packaged checks from guys like Comcast, the lovely bilking credit card companies that made Delaware, Sleepy Joe’s old constituency a safe haven for rough usurious interest rates and a billion others whom he glad-handed over the years. So things never change though a couple of months in and he is already like yesterday’s new. Except lots older and so now to make his dough he had to hang around the National Mall panhandling the millions of tourists who don’t remember that he was the VPOTUS to the second black president (by general admission around our circles Bill Clinton was the first by din of having a few black friends on and off the Vineyard  and playing some kind of mean sax was the first but that is just around our way).   

Hell, somebody said after the saw Sleepy Joe and heard his spiel about needing the dough to pay bills, buy a cup of joe, grab a hot dog, whatever line he was using at the time said he sounded better and more coherent than he ever did on the stump. Somebody said he raised around $2800 one day just working those crowds. Tough way to finish a political career but that is hard-ball politics up in the rarefied air of fire in the belly presidential politics. Enough said.    

Accept No Substitutes-Private Eyes Have Got The Public Coppers Beaten Six Ways To Sunday-So Why Is Ace Crime Novelist Lem Kane Doing A Police Procedural-“Hotel NewYorker” (2019)

By Rav Wilson

I am mad as hell this morning ever since I heard that I was assigned to review what is now Lem Kane’s 19^th crime novel Hotel New Yorker. What I am mad as hell about has a source in that Lem has switched up on me, has made me look foolish for having given a pretty good review of his The Cup Runneth Over (which by the way was his 18^th published crime novel since he had had the habit of numbering the series from the start) based on what looked like an interesting extension of the private detective genre into the 21^st century. In this century producing story lines which rely more on guile, paper trails and archival interventions than the two-fisted hit or shoot first and let God sort it out later that created the professional hard-boiled P.I. genre back in the day. Back when the international revolt against parlor pink teapot shamuses took root.  

Back in the days when Lillian Hellman, she already notorious for dealing with subjects like lesbianism, S&M, and underground foot fetish cults, literarily took Dashiett Hammett in hand and forced him to redden up and pile the corpses high in the pages of his Continental Op series instead of doing the normal nine to five leg and quite legwork that passed for hard-boiled crime detection when it was gathered at weekly women’s clubs meetings. Made him, made Hammett’s previously stiff, backwater repo man and keyhole peeper working out on a rundown seen better days office building Sam Spade man up a bit, lose lavender man, yes, gay man, Joel Cairo as a partner and take on ladies’ man Miles Archer. In response, pushed the editors at Black Mask into forcing Ray Chandler to throw some bang-bang lead, maybe a little machine gun fire for effect, around toughing up his previously cream puff P.I. Philip Marlowe who was mainly seen escorting the vivacious daughters of LA’s elite to various charity events and keeping their blackmail gambling and drug gaffs down a bit. Yeah, and Louella Parsons begging Phil Larkin to let more fists fly per page in his popular Private Eye Malcolm Dowry series (allowing her out of work actor son Bill, a former Golden Gloves boy, to grab some work as Malcolm’s bodyguard when Hollywood decided to put the P.I. on film).

But central to that concept, central to going hard-boiled to fit the times and the tired reading public was, is that the main characters be private actors, be private investigators who clean up the cold file messes left by the public coppers after they fiddle with the case for a couple of days then go back to the coffee and crullers. (Not that the private eyes could not have previously been public coppers who couldn’t take the gaff, who couldn’t take gambling impresario Eddie Mars’ weekly white envelopes, could look the other way when the booze was being run up the coast, or the underage girls either, or like Phil Marlowe saw the D.A.s office as your average cesspool of corruption and favoritism and bailed out, or was fired take your pick.)

That was what was interesting about the joint venture between P.I. John David Nicolas and his investigative partner/lover criminologist Doctor Alexis Newcome. The putting of two heads together unfettered by governmental rules, bureaucracies and staid traditions like the coffee and crullers grab every rookie copper was expected to start out doing day one to solve some crimes and avoid the cluttered deep freeze cold file chest. That seemingly ordinary skill set would as we shall see when we get to the bones of the Hotel New Yorker case would have saved a few innocent people, a few guilty also come to think of it. (Interestingly John David first got hooked on crime detection after picking up a soggy matchbook on the ground one day walking home when he was in high school to see if he could use the matches to light his cigarette and saw an advertisement for learning the private detection trade in ten easy lessons just fill out the form and mail in ten bucks and you were on your way. John David of course never did succumb to such a silly “come on” trick but went to Nick Charles’ Advanced Private Detection Academy in San Francisco becoming the school’s most famous graduate. Doc Alexis, grind, went the straight academic route up to and including a doctorate in criminology from Stanford.)  

Now that bastard Kane has gone and given us a freaking police procedural starring some Dorothy minus Toto from Kansas transplanted to New York City to teach the city slickers real crime detection named Ellie and Rogue her super street wise Afro-American sidekick who moved a shorter distance from Hoboken to the city and who is not quite sure what to make of a prairie-bred woman, both young and already detective sergeants if you can believe that. Who, in what is probably one of the great unheard of moves in the annals of public copper cases, actually stay on the case past the three day maximum usual for NYPD investigations before they head to the freezer. Jesus.    

In that Cup Runneth Over review I invoked the holy of holies’ name, the master hard-boiled private detective aficionado at this publication Seth Garth who was spoon-fed on the genre on Saturday afternoon matinee double-headers at the local cinema when he was a kid. Seth is so much the P.I. junkie he can tell you the difference in dialogue and plotline, between book and film, sometimes dramatic, on every film he saw as a kid. He has set the gold standard for crime novels for many years and has had many devotees including me as young as I am having only seen or read those ancient texts second or third hand. Moreover Seth had reviewed the first 17 of Lem’s crime novels, mostly favorable even if he still held to the older hard-boiled premises set by Hellman, Dick Sales at Black Mask and Louella Parsons. And that is exactly the point. Everybody bows down, and rightly so, to guys like Dashiell Hammett after he got the blood lust up, Ray Chandler when he added murder to Phil Marlowe’s squiring the young ladies around, Kenny Millar in his good days before he turned rotten and got his ass kicked out of the profession from letting Lew Archer take a few falls for him when Lew was on the downside of his career, Chester DeFord in his Dudley Smythe series, Phil Larkin for a while until he got wrapped up in women troubles that his fictional P.I. Dowry stirred clear of, and Link Soros who turned the whole private detection genre into something worth reading (and later viewing on the screen) after an all-out assault on the gentile Dame May Whitty noise that had previously existed complete with tea cups and parlor pink plots (and no guns or fists).

Those guys, and Dame Whitty would have been clueless unto the grave about the matter if she even knew what the matter was beyond the larder, worked off the simple premise that where there is crime, rampart crime like developed in the big cities of America in the early part of the 20^th century you were going to need tough and ready guys to fight these monsters, these guys who were deep into liquor, selling women, illegal drugs, gambling you name it. Dame May would have run for the hills if she had had to face a guy like say Eddie Mars who ran everything on the West Coast before the big boys from the East decided to take in some sun along with the profits. Eddie was tough alright, but he snapped like a twig when Phil Marlowe got the jump on him and let him have the RIP rap. Along with that simple premise there was the idea that if there was crime afloat then the public coppers were knee deep “on the take” or looked the other way and so nobody in their right minds including some old biddies looking for lost grandsons even bothered checking in with these bums. Got their bulky checkbooks out for the so much a day and expenses private eyes. That is what Lem Kane (who as those who read the previous review by me know I went to grad school  with in the 1990s before he hit pay dirt with his crime novels) is overthrowing just to suck up to some by-the-numbers throw little scraps of evidence along the way police procedural which John David and Alexis would have wrapped up in day.  

Let’s go by the numbers here with Ellie and Rogue. Naturally against all good instinct Lem has too many moving parts going on in the plotline I suppose to fill out the book to his normal private detective production  so he throws in every possible social and criminal gaff around. Tough work although I know personally he had been given a huge advance from Random to do this little threadbare effort. (Yes, jealousy is abound here as with others who went to grad school with Lem, who showed us none of the crime novel promise he has exhibited and is in danger of losing with this throwback to Dame May Whitty stuff).

Naturally as well this Kane-etched storyline is not going to be some average fall down junkie found in a dumpster and forget about it gag or somebody whose kid got caught in a drive-by and is asking questions. Here from minute one we are in upscale New York which Dorothy from Kansas doesn’t seem to have much of a clue about or she would have backed off early in trying to frame some Mr. Big. A guy named Simon, yes, that Simon from Simon Real Estate who bought up all of the Westside Highway and is still counting the dough he has made on that boondoggle. This Simon is also known far and wide (meaning of course the Hamptons) as a man about town, always has the most gorgeous looking young women hanging off every arm. (Keep this thought in mind for later since those women play a role, maybe a small role, maybe big in what finally comes down to us.)   

Somebody got murdered in Mr. Big’s penthouse (let’s call him Mr. Big since if I recall correctly Lem always called his high-end characters that in classes) in the exclusive Hotel New Yorker of the title (if you have to ask for the nightly room rate or what you get for your dough, the amenities move on you can’t afford the joint or will smell the place up ). The murdered person was no stumblebum, some junkie stealing the silverware,  like usually happens in these situations but Mr Big’s trusted bodyguard whom he let use the place for some romance with a dame, a hooker as it turns out, a hooker associated with the same escort service Mr. Big would us on occasion to have a doll wrapped around his arms. So the public coppers, our Ellie and Rogue have to do some additional head scratching to figure out why a body guard for Mr. Big fell down, took the gaff  in Mr. Big’s bedroom after having sex with some woman unknown. And why that woman left no trace, or little of her presence and why.      

Ellie and Rogue take the easy road out trying to put a big frame around the notorious Mr. Big but get nowhere fast since he, so they assume, is totally connected and can walk away from this rap without any heavy lifting. And he does for a while having a high-priced law firm (if you have to ask their rates move on you had better get a public defender or  something) and Mr Big friendly judge  on his side leaving them with plenty of egg on their faces and no real leads as to who killed some rent-a-cop who got his job through some graft with, Nick Dolan, Nick who after leaving the New York public coppers landed on his feet with his own agency which got him some inside play with a gal in Mr Big’s office and he wound up as head of Mr. Big’s security operations.

Then the inevitable strange and usually unrelated chain of events throws things this way and that for the next few hundred pages of fluff. Through modern technology and its endless lists of hard information Ellie and Rogue find that the woman involved, or the woman they think was with robo-cop was a young hooker, oh, excuse me young escort who answered Robo’s pleas for companionship. They also somewhat weirdly find once they put the NSA tag on her that she, a college student at NYU, is being Internet “stalked” by a party, or parties unknown. Before long they find her very dead one sunny afternoon in her apartment mutilated. Oh yeah find that she had a roommate (follow the bouncing ball from here on in, okay) who also was hacked up but who survived, was taken to the hospital then walked away one late night. How is Lem going to glue all this together and make the average avid crime detection reader by into his grift. (By the way I agree with those like Lem, who uses modern technology extensively here although not so much when John David and Alexis were on the case in earlier novels, and Lank Revere who think that private eyes have to buy into the new technology, charge it up to expenses if they have too padding charges for that material just like the gas mileage in the old days).  

 As the bodies pile up Ms. Ellie and Mr. Rogue rather than like good public coppers put the thing in deepest cold file storage figuring that the world had one less bent whore to worry about with the death of Robo-cop’s young hooker companion on the night he fell down or who the other whore was who slipped into the night they keep going. Keep going rather than the “real world: solution, tried and true, and let’s say let this dead young woman’s anguished parents hire a private eye per day and expenses continue on. Continuing on though they get thrown into yet another gruesome murder scene (involving torture, meaning somebody, some party or parties unknown are looking for more than kicks but information, hard information and are ready to go medieval to get the damn stuff) of another young professional-type woman making coffee and cakes money on the side using her sex to ward away the evil bill collectors. Once they start to see some not obvious connections connect the unknown trail gets shorter.  

Then things start to tie in, start to congeal around the doings of our previously left alone very connected Mr. Big. Ellie and Rogue, mainly Ellie here finally see Mr. Big had some connections, used okay, the services of the escort service that Robo-cop had used, that this young professional women and part-time sex worker worked for. Throw in a previously independent Soho artist working her own coffee and cakes angles for her art using her body to keep afloat until the big breakthrough who was connected with that Robo-cop’s whore and here is the beauty of the police procedural spoon-feeding Casanova another young whore who was actually the Robo-cop’s “date” and who had witnessed some conversation between the murderer and the victim. Who just happened to be the NYU roommate who blew town when the heat was on, went underground anyway. Very curious.

I mentioned before that most of these police procedurals have to bring in every possible contemporary social and political idea and issue that will fit. Have to bring in the average coffee and cruller cops if for no other reason than to show how superior the lead characters, young up and coming detective sergeants no less, are against the run of the mill rummies who make up the force but also some ex-cops who may or may not have been corrupt. Enter Nick, finally, you remember Nick, the guy who did a hard twenty on the publics before landing on easy street with Mr. Big, as the fall guy, or at least one of the fall guys. Did his twenty on the force then landed on his feet working for Mr. Big as his chief of security. Had hired Robo-cop out of sunny Taliban-infested Afghanistan and kept him moving up the ranks to guard Mr. Big.

Here is where everything gets squirrely and that is exactly the right word. Nick, and for that matter Mr. Big, Simon okay, have a secret, have a secret that set off this weird train of events (in Lem’s mind anyway). Solid ex-cop Nick who still cuts a tough guy figure with the publics who he came up with, and our man about town Mr. Big are shacking up, are lovers, are gay lovers and Robo-cop found out about the affair. Here is where John David and Alexis would have had this case cleaned up, the final bill sent and have time for lunch. Mr. Big had a very big reputation as a “swinger,” as an eligible bachelor. Ellie and Rogue had busted the code, had the skinny on the sex worker angle early on. They could have asked more than one of the escorts who escorted Mr. Big around town whether they played footsie. One gal, one candid gal, Lena, said while Mr. Simon was a perfect gentleman he had made no play and that had hurt her feelings since she had her reputation to think about. There was also plenty in the social media about Mr. Big maybe being a “switch-hitter.” It all came out in the end by only after the bodies piled sky high.    

In 2019 big deal you say, about Nick and Mr. Big being lovers, especially in New York City and you would be right since crime detection, hard-boiled crime detection has recognized gayness, good guys and bad, at least since Sam Spade sniffed Joel Cairo’s lavender calling card in The Maltese Falcon and Allan Ladd’s Johnny Bad salacious killer looks at a couple of guys in a bar in This Gun For Hire (while tossing off Veronica Lake). So why an indiscreet moment even for a tough ex-copper with his boss would set off this flurry of sheer madness seems distinctly odd. As it turned out the whole thing got connected, got glued together if you think about it,  by this older hooker. Tanya, who moved into that doomed NYU student’s apartment being the one with Robo-cop and an active witness, not the co-ed. The young professional real estate broker and part-time hooker and the Soho artist hooker were part of a big mix-up about who was supposed to be at Mr. Big’s apartment the night the bodyguard fell down. Oops!

The side story, the inevitable side story to fill out the pages maybe written into the contract , is this judge met earlier who was supposed to be covering for Mr. Big who in turn could help him on his way up the judicial ladder had been, intergenerational sex aside, the “lover” of that NYU student’s roommate back down in Baltimore before the judge headed north for the bright lights. Dimmed, dimmed by a son who knew the old man was bonking the hooker in the days when she was a babysitter for him and in New York went crazy when it looked like the old times were coming back. To protect his mother, some Tammy Wynette “stand by your man”- type this kid figured murder the hometown hooker, and on the fly the NYU student who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and who was the only really innocent part in the whole show. Like I said too many moving parts, even for a private detective.