The buses ran regularly mid-morning and it took less than an hour to ride home. Between the bus stop and the apartment, I found a public restroom to change out of the cloak and horseshoes. I released my mane and rubbed off the cutie mark, replacing it with a nondescript square that implied a book. Close enough, especially since I had to use the wrong shade of yellow for it. I'd given Spiker my main makeup compact.
The four had gotten themselves arrested. They'd fought when cornered by Land Hover. Of course, my makeup compact wasn't contraband, but hitting an officer still got you busted.
Ironically, had I not decided to get fancy about my detour and had gone directly by another route, I might have gotten through while the others dealt with the constables. Showing up with a bottle of conditioner might not have ended quite as well. Without Citron's, Crystal Skies', and Pig Pen's tale of woe and that Land Hover knew me as Gelding not Grimoire, it would have been my word against Mr. Nopony's. The thought made me shudder.
As I trotted through the lobby, I glanced at our mailbox before heading to the flat. I hoped Trigger wasn't home. I really didn't trust him right now and feared I might sock him if he said something flippant.
Then I came to the door and saw it was open a crack. I felt my jaw bunch up and I just about went stomping in, ready to shout and vent all my frustration on the not so innocent fellow.
I saw a bit of yellow pine at the edge of the ivory white door. Splinters. I deflated and felt my limbs grow cold as I noted all the scratches on the lock. Somepony had jimmied it, failed, and then just crowbarred it.
I took a deep breath as I spun up Force. I felt deservedly proud of my earlier performance, but then again I didn't really want to burn up the curtains or carpet. I had a better idea. Thanks to cups of black tea freely given during my debrief—okay, interrogation—I felt sharp as a tack. Sure, caffeine was a drug hyping me up through my fatigue, but it was my drug of choice when the theobromine in chocolate was unavailable in quantity.
I pushed open the door to peer in. When you pay good money for rent, they even oil your hinges occasionally.
I immediately saw the contents of the coat closet on the floor, with my pink hoof galoshes thrown against the opposite wall. Beyond, the chairs had been overturned. I saw Trigger's trunk emptied and clothes strewn about. The bed clothes, gold tone satin and a brown summer blanket, slumped to the floor between the living area and the kitchen area. A couple pots, shoved out of the bottom cabinet clattered.
And a pot top. The blackened cast iron top of Trigger's stock pot rolled out making that hollow sound such things made until it hit the carpet and flopped over.
That's where he was. Or she. In the kitchen.
I opened the door a bit more, getting a good look at where everything now lay. I finished prepping my spell. It felt like it activated. I hoped it did, anyway, and quickly pushed the door almost closed behind me.
The temerity of the burglar! After my long day at work, he, or she, was going to rue they'd ever been born.
I crept forward, updating my internal picture of the apartment as I saw more clothes strewn around. The flankhole had even tossed aside my Marlin's. It lay thrown on the floor, two or three pages creased over.
Heck, sold to the right dealer, that book was worth a fortune!
Some perverse part of me wanted the pony to be Trigger so I could finally have the excuse I craved, but it was a palomino who walked around the corner, not a roan pone. The stallion wore coal-smudged denim slacks and a blue long sleeve longshorepony shirt. The requisite knit cap that together spelled dockworker had been pulled down over his face and muzzle, hiding his short mane completely.
I watched him go to the wardrobe Trigger had helped me shop for. He checked where the drawers he'd pulled out would be inserted, checking with a hoof to assure himself he hadn't missed anything and there could be no secret compartment. He then went to the back where it rested against the wall, wrestling it forward. It moved easily. Never underestimate the strength of an earth pony. I though he might just tip it over, but he didn't find what he looked for.
Then he saw the dining table. The inelegant white-laminate thing with green squiggle designs had side rails behind which something might be hidden. He bent down and craned his head to look.
I hurled the heavy pot top at his head.
With my magic, you bet it wasn't about to do any real damage, but I kept the Push spinning getting ready to shove as the cast iron stock pot top gently (ugh!!) bounced off his withers.
He jumped hard enough that he flung the table toward the window, breaking the panes with a loud crash. Adding insult to injury, the style-monstrosity impersonating a table bounced directly back. Not only had he hit the table with his head, it hit him back.
Ooooops.
Never underestimate the strength of an earth pony.
He slumped to the floor and the table slid into the kitchen, further breaking broken dishes and making an unbearable clangor with the strewn about pots and pans. Two cabinet doors splintered and a table leg bounced off the ceiling. Trigger's cast iron potion pot rolled out to my hooves.
"KO. In one," I said. "Huh."
Prize fighting pretty much by definition resulted in flowing blood. Noses, split skin, you know. I'd seen plenty of mine, and it wasn't blue despite all the work Proper Step had put into training me. A pony, hit atop the head will bleed profusely.
It was unsightly.
Seeing the pool growing on a white floor rather than the straw and dirt arena floor actually made me gag. I ran for the bathroom, found a hoof towel, and pressed it in place for a few minutes. That staunched the flow. The miscreant breathed. I saw a steady pulse on his neck.
He certainly had a concussion, but I wasn't taking a chance of him waking for a second bout: In the clothes strewn on the floor, I found a couple belts. Unexpectedly, they proved hard to tie. The terry-cloth belt to Trigger's robe worked well enough. I hogtied the burglar, grabbed a kitchen mitt, and stuffed it in his mouth.
No need to annoy the neighbors if he woke.
As a last measure, I looped the leftover belts around his legs and around the posts in the headboard of the bed. The bed was made of iron.
Even with earth pony strength, escaping would be a stretch.
I galloped out of the building, after taking a minute to try to get the broken door to stay closed. Despite being affiliated with the Carne Asada Syndicate, I was happy that the local constabulary office was on the opposite side of the block.
Five minutes later, two stallions and three mares in black uniforms burst into my apartment. All were equally burly. I glanced at my mail box, before trotting down the hallway to look in. It was extremely obvious that the wound was self-inflicted. The pot top didn't even have blood on it.
Palomino pony? The color rang the bell.
I'd peered in just in time to see a constable pull off the blood encrusted knit stocking cap. A black mane flowed out, such that it could gunked-up with hair gel and blood.
I chuckled. Add a tan raincoat. "Land Hover."
After an ambulance took the erstwhile burglar away, I answered questions and filed a report with a buff mare with whom I ended up talking strength training intervals and isometric stretches. Later, I found the label I'd peeled from the box that had contained my Petites-Filles.
It had my address and apartment number. He had done some picking through the trash. Hadn't seemed the type.
The constable left me with her business card and an invitation to visit her at her gym. I suspected she recognized me as Princess Grim, but was way too professional to fangrl about it.
I thought about it for exactly 14 seconds, before I scrounged up one of Trigger's overnight cases. I fetched the cardboard box from the post box and swapped packaging. The product—a metal thermal flask that weighed twice as much as the hair product—was also a cylinder and a bit wider. The hair ties wouldn't do. I found package tape and discarded the gum.
I dumped the cardboard and sadly the conditioner down the hallway garbage chute, then packed Marlin's, my library books, some strategic clothing, makeup, my spare bits, and the boxed cylinder.
I decided that all-in-all, I felt safer staying at Mobtown Mattresses. Everypony knew a flimsy padlock on a locker wouldn't hold anything worth taking the trouble to steal. I knew how it worked.
I made the delivery a day later.
A week after that, somepony walked by while I stood at a lunch table in the park eating a carrot dog smothered in relish and mustard. He slid an envelope under my orange soda even as I sipped it through a straw.
It contained five times as many gold bits as I'd been paid previously and a note that had an address and two words.
New Lodging.