A retired cop and his son, and daughter-in-law, moonlight, in their own detective agency. Tucker, the father, digs up the cases, while his son, Junior, works at the crime lab and his daughter-in-law works as an assistant DA. This case is about smuggling drugs from India by rather clever means.
Excerpt:
Kinky Mandevil prepared the acid dip for Ezra Coffman's ex-mistress Annie. This was the first time he had acid dipped a woman and he hoped it would be the last time.
She was a pretty girl; beautiful face; body a little on the chubby side. All he really knew about her was she worked for a bank somewhere in Los Angeles. Less he knew about the victim the better. Although he knew Annie's brother, Marty, it wasn't as though he was a pal like Duke. If he was a pal like Duke, Kinky would have told Marty it was stupid to fix your chubby sister up with a psychopath like Ezra Coffman.
Coffman treated woman like they were crap stacked five foot two. Why Ezra Coffman cared about who Annie was cheating with was the biggest question. Coffman was a billionaire. The little cretin could afford any woman. Coffman liked big woman even though he was a little shit himself. Had a fat wife in India. Coffman was the craziest bastard Kinky had ever met in or outside of prison.
Now, he set up the video camera. Equipment was ultra-expensive--that was the thing about Ezra Coffman; everything was first class. Kinky rolled the heavy chair to the center of the lights. The chair was built with four-by-fours with thick straps strong enough to hold a gorilla or a man built like a gorilla: a man built like Duke. This chair was designed by Gunard Smitch as a salute to the Nazi Death Chair.
Kinky and Annie were in the sub-basement of the old Van deKamp building in Los Angeles. It was becoming a state-of-the-art torture chamber. Infamous. Named Kinky's Killing Korner.
He had lured Annie over to his little torture chamber--Kinky's Killing Korner--with a promise of a reconciliation with Ezra Coffman.
Annie, seductively dressed in a low-cut silver-lame cocktail dress, size ten, laid crumpled, in t he corner, on the cold, hard cement floor.
Kinky lifted her heavy body and placed her in the chair. He buckled the straps to her neck, upper arms, wrists, waist, and ankles then struck her across her, "Annie!" Kinky shouted close to her ear. No response. He struck her again, "Annie!" he repeated.
Annie blinked her sparkling gray eyes; she tried to free herself from the restraints; then spotted the camera. "You, weirdo fruit! When I tell Ezra Coffman, he'll have your heart ripped out and fed to his dogs. And my boyfriend--if you knew who my boyfriend was."
"Annie. Annie. Annie. This little show is for Mister Ezra Coffman to find out who your boyfriend was, is, and will be. Addresses are not necessary. Just a name. Or description. Or gang affiliation. Give me just a little information and you should be out of here in a jiffy with no hard feelings about the 'weirdo fruit' comment." Kinky snapped the cuffs of his rubber gloves. He pulled a chair up beside the trembling girl and then slid a small table closer to his right hand. With the amount of traffic the chair was getting, it needed its own flip out leaf instead of the inconvenient table. And it should have a sliding drawer in the bottom for the steel bowl and syringe.
The inconvenient table contained a metal pot bubbling with acid and a twelve inch syringe.
She passed out.
She had a beautiful face; most chubby women did.
He used smelling salts to revive her.
"Annie, all Coffman wants to know is who you've been sleeping with, recently." Kinky dipped the syringe into the acid then squeezed eight drops of the burning liquid onto her right forearm. The acid ate into her flesh to the bone. Her screams crackled from her throat. They ripped into Kinky's eardrums. He used the smelling salts again.
"I've been faithful," She whispered, "I love him."
"Annie! Now is not a time to tell lies. Now is the time to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--so help you God."
Kinky dipped the syringe into the acid and squeezed eight drops of the burning liquid onto her shimmering dress covering her left thigh. The acid ate away the material and the pantyhose beneath then it ate away skin and flesh down to the bone. Her screams vibrated through the sub-basement; her tongue slipped to one side.
Kink revived her for the last time.
"What do you need me to say?" she said in a horse whisper. "I'll say it. I'll say anything."
"Just give me a name. Than you can go home a little worse for the ware," Kinky said.
Kinky dipped the syringe into the acid and then squeezed the mandatory eight drops of the burning liquid onto her shimmering dress covering her right thigh. The acid ate down to the bone. Her screams were no more than whispers in her throat; her tongue slipped to the side; saliva bubbled between her teeth; and her once porcelain skin began turning gray.
"Gunard Smitch," Annie blurted out.