Starlight Over Detrot Chapter 16: But Why Will You Say That I Am Mad?
Cadaver #43062- Patient Name: Quartet, String
Developed case of Wandering Torso Syndrome induced by not-quite-passing car. Remaining limbs may make excellent supports for credenza. Family did not seem to appreciate this fact.
Cadaver #43095- Patient Name: Catalogue, Card
Self-inflicted alphabetization. Dewey Decimal system not conducive to continued organ function. Made for easy autopsy, though.
Cadaver #43203- Patient Name: Legs, Crazy
Terminal case of congenital Sleipnir Syndrome.
--Notes made during the writing of Dr. Slip Stitch’s Amazing Almanac of Anatomical Anomalies, published through Staggeringly Random House
Hearts belong in a pony’s chest, beating the steady drum of life. They belong on Hearts and Hooves Day cards, all neat and friendly with messages of love. One might even see a heart on Hearth’s Warming Eve, lighting the way through the dark and cold.
One place a heart definitely doesn’t belong is in a drawer. If a heart is in a drawer, something has gone wrong in the world, and I believe everypony should just sit down, take some breaths, and wait until things make sense again. Sadly, that luxury is afforded to few, and never to those wearing badges.
****
“Kid, breathe. Breathe.”
I held a paper satchel over Swift’s mouth as she hyperventilated; for once, thank the Princesses, she’d managed to hold off on puking her little orange guts up. Taxi sat in the corner opposite the dresser and its grisly contents, humming one of her chants to herself and looking peaceful. It was a great act, but I could see the tick in her left eye every now and then.
When the drawer had popped open, all of the switches in my brain that controlled conscious thought shut off. I may have drooled a little, but at that point, nopony in the room was looking at me anymore.
There, in the middle of the drawer, was an equine heart. It was glistening with what might have been moisture, sitting in a little box full of velvet and silk handkerchiefs to keep it safe and comfortable. Zebra runes dotted its surface around the neck of each large artery, and a thick white diamond nestled amongst a bundle of tightly wound wires at its center. I might be an earth pony, but even I have a sense for when something is just loaded with the wrong kind of magic. The fleshy parts of the heart should have long since rotted away, hardened, or at least shown some signs of aging, and yet they were flawless. Pristine, even.
The front of the box was engraved with the letter ‘C’, hammered into a solid gold plate.
Some might say it shouldn’t have been a great surprise, after we’d seen Jingle Jangle’s mother upstairs, to find a heart sitting in his private collection, but I must label any group of ponies who would say such a thing a collective of idiots. The old cliche about homicide detectives being able to ‘get inside the heads of killers’ is lovely propaganda, but in truth, it’s bullshit. We don’t get inside their heads. We notice patterns. We establish motivations. We put together reasonings from the twisted wreckage and scenes of horror that killers leave behind.
What we don’t do is crawl around inside their brains. I’ve seen cops who thought they could do that, and nothing good comes from empathizing too closely with murderers. The best one should hope for is to sympathize convincingly enough for them to give you something that will let you put them in jail. Hence, opening a drawer and finding a heart that looks like it just came out of somepony’s chest still came as a bit of a shock.
Swift’s breathing was finally starting to slow down, so I gave her the bag. She clutched it to her face, as though the meager paper fibers might somehow shield her from the sickness of that house.
“Sir... what is that?” she asked.
I thought about not telling her, lest it provoke a round of industrial-bakery-level cookie-tossing, but not doing so could have led to all sorts of issues down the road - and besides, what plausible lie could I have told?
“It’s the brother’s heart,” I tried to sound calm, despite the ferocious crashing of my own pulse in my ears. “Cosmo’s father said he went to a zebra witch doctor to keep his son alive when he was dying, and the witch doctor gave him a new heart. No idea why it’s not rotted. Probably magic.”
“Oh... okay...” Swift replied, holding her bag more tightly over her face.
“You did good," I added. Comforting banter was a new thing for me; I'm not certain how well I pulled it off. "I’m going to have to take a few anti-nausea meds myself after this day is over.”
I couldn’t see her mouth, but her breathing calmed a little; I like to think she smiled.
Taxi was still in the opposite corner of the room, sitting in her impossible rear-legged folded up position on a work stool and resting her forehooves on her knees. Her lips were moving but her eyes were closed. I moved over to her side and hefted my butt onto bench beside her, trying to emulate the funny upright sitting style kids these days seemed to enjoy. Her ear flitted in my direction, but she didn’t acknowledge my presence.
“Sweets, talk to me,” I said, very softly.
“No. I’m going to be angry for another five minutes here.”
“It’s not like this is my faul-”
“Five minutes.”
I hopped off the bench and moved away. The ‘five minute time out’ rule is a long-established coping mechanism for my relationship with Taxi. She doesn’t make use of it terribly often, but when she does, it generally means she’s less than four minutes from assaulting the nearest living thing if she doesn’t get those five minutes to take her mind elsewhere.
Instead, I returned to the drawer. I couldn’t help the odd feeling that the thing was watching me, and with magical artifacts like that, it’s best not to take chances, so I reached in and flipped the lid of the plush box closed.
I pushed the box and its disturbing contents aside, and immediately felt the light of hope as a jewel-inlaid book tipped forward, falling neatly onto my right forehoof. With great care, I picked up the diary of Ruby Blue and felt its comforting weight against my chest.
From just inside the binding, a pea-sized brown ladybug wiggled its way out and puffed up to a normal size, returning to its normal red and black color scheme. I gave the creature a light pat on the head and it winged its way up the stairs, presumably to find its mates. Patting my coat, I found a mostly empty pocket just inside the collar and slipped the book inside. The tension in my neck relaxed just a little at having it back safely in my possession, my error undone.
I almost missed the last item in the drawer; it was nearly the same color as the wood.
It seemed to be a tome, though not like any I’d ever seen. The cover was solid brown with an unusual texture, made of something I wasn’t familiar with.
As per standard operating procedure when dealing with what might or might not be a magical item, I snatched a long ruler off the nearest workbench and did what ponies have been doing since time immemorial when confronted with the unknown: I poked it with a stick.
When nothing happened upon initial prodding, I used the edge of the my ruler to lift the cover. Still nothing. No explosions, no screaming, no attempts to fly out and eat my face. Granted, such results are never a perfect indication of future behavior, but I felt reasonably assured it wasn’t going to do anything really nasty.
I levered the cover all the way open and ran my eyes down the page.
“Kid! We got it! We’ve got his ledger!” I called to Swift. She leapt up, tossing her paper bag to one side.
“What, really?!”
“Yes, really.” Picking up the book, I spilled it open on the desk and ran down a row of figures. “I think it’s in some kind of accounting jargon. P-T to White Petal, Sent B.D. and D.T. to handle, acqui two thousand? What?”
Taxi rose from her sitting position, brushing dust off her bottom. “White Petal. It’s a massage parlor about three miles from Monte Cheval. P-T is probably protection. It also means extortion. Taking protection money. I’d bet B.D. and D.T. are whoever he sent to get the protection money. Acqui might be short-hoof for ‘acquired’ and two thousand is how much they got.”
My brain immediately started to glaze over at the thought of digging through that book, translating page after page. “Right, you’re in charge of the ledger.” Picking it up in my teeth, I passed it to my driver... who immediately dropped it and fell back, wiping her mouth violently with both hooves.
“Oh ick! Ick yuck ick! That’s vile!” she sputtered, trying to scrape her tongue.
“What? What is it?” I asked, looking down at the seemingly harmless little tome.
“That book’s cover is made of leather!” she spat, making a sound like a motorboat with her tongue, then kicked the book across the floor to me.
“Wait, real leather?” I reared back from the ledger.
“What other kind of leather do you think I’m talking about?!” she barked, tearing through her saddlebags until she found a package of chewing gum. “I bet Cosmo thought it was some kind of sick joke!”
Swift set her paper bag to one side and edged over, running her hoof over the book lightly. “Sir, it’s... cool. Soft. What's wrong with- what did you call it? Leather?”
“Griffin smugglers sell it. It’s soft because some creature used to be wearing it.” I held out my hoof and Taxi slapped a stick of gum on it. “It’s skin, kid. Leather is some animal’s skin.”
Lifting the book in both hooves, my partner sniffed it lightly. “It smells... mmm. It smells... good.”
Before my partner could get any stranger, I pushed the ledger against her and said, “Then you keep track of it. We can decipher the whole thing as soon as we get a quiet moment. I think we’ve got what we came for. The recordings from the Vivarium aren’t here and I don't feel like digging through any more of Cosmo's dirty laundry.”
“You think Cosmo has already moved them?” Taxi asked, nervously.
“Bet against me and I think I’d win, easy." I replied, spitting the gum in my hoof and holding it out. Taxi shook her head. I went on, "Either way, that ledger might be our saving grace, so sick joke or not, you’re going to have to read it.”
“If I'm going to dig through that, then you’re going to let me have a weapon, right?” My driver’s voice sounded just a little bit too hopeful for her intentions to be noble and pure.
“Weapon? Sure. Lethal? Not a chance in this world," I responded, pulling off my hat and tossing my mane so it settled out of my eyes. "Picking buckshot out of my cutie-mark is not how I want to spend my weekends. Get yourself a big zebra stick you can hit things with or a bazooka full of chili powder. Otherwise, drop it.”
“Ookaaay...” Taxi sounded slightly dejected, but I could hear one of her special notes of duplicitous cleverness buried somewhere under the surface. In the back of my head, I started writing a death threat to slip Requisitions. That group of somewhat vengeful ponies was entirely too capable of giving my trigger happy best friend an assault rifle with rubber bullets and leaving me bruised beyond recognition.
Something tingled in my mane, then made a noise like a fire alarm three inches behind my right ear. I slapped a hoof against the side of my head, staggering to one side as the ladybug in my mane did its damndest to destroy my hearing. Based on Taxi and Swift's reactions, they were having a similar experience.
“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake!” I shouted over the dreadful noise. It immediately cut out, and the insect flew out of my hair. I offered it my forehead, clapped my hooves together and shook my tail.
****
The Ladybug network was abuzz; more of the passing images than usual seemed to be of scenes relevant to myself. I saw the outside of my apartment complex and a dozen little insectoid eyes fixated on the house on Cosmo’s Bloom road. A number of bugs were in the Night Trotter, buzzing around the eight track player. Had I a tail just then, it would have been slashing the air as I tried to find whatever they were trying to warn us of.
Danger, I thought, impatiently.
My perspective split, changed, and shifted until I was peering into the windows of the house. It slid backwards, moving down to the far end of the road. A black limousine was there, trundling along at a leisurely pace. The tinted windows kept the driver’s identity anonymous, but I could see at least six ponies moving behind the darkened glass. I pushed one of my eyes closer to the license plate; it said ‘HAMR-DWN1’.
Hammer down. King Cosmo’s cutie-marks were hammers.
“Leaving! Need out this instant!”
Conveying urgency without lips is difficult, but I managed it somehow; I was out so fast my ears popped.
****
“We’re going now! King Cosmo is up the street and coming home!” I gasped as sharp pain burst behind my eyelids. Leaving the ladybug network isn’t meant to be done so quickly. “Kid, you have the ledger?”
“Right here, sir!” Swift held open her combat jacket, showing one of the ammo pouches stuffed to capacity.
“You're on point! Taxi, middle, I'll bring up the rear. Head out the back and go for the car!"
We started a headlong charge up the stairs, but halfway up, my cutie-mark did something that sent me stumbling against the railing. It felt, for just a second, as though all of the blood in my whole body had rushed into my flanks. My tail jerked like it'd been pulled, and I stumbled back down three steps. The sensation of having left something unfinished was overwhelming.
I shouted to my partner, "Keep going! I'll be right back! Park up the street!"
Taxi threw me a questioning look and Swift started to slow down, but then I met my driver's eyes for a half second. She nodded, pushing the rookie ahead of her as I darted back into the basement lair.
The dim, hellish light coming off the bulb didn't provide much luminance. I stood there amongst the dozens of dangling hammers, the displaced paper stacks, and the half completed projects, waiting for some further sign.
Talent or not, cutie-marks are not the most reliable crime solving mechanism. I, like most decent cops, preferred observation and awareness to magic and spiritualism. While, now and then, the magic and spiritualism comes in handy, most times it seems to be there just to drive you mad - like right then. Time was a factor here and just waiting for a signal from on high (or, as was often the case, from my butt) seemed like a recipe for disaster, but I've yet to have such a flank-signal be completely meaningless.
I waited ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty and I was starting to think I'd simply imagined the tug on the steps. Around thirty-four, I was proved very wrong.
When it happened, there was no warning. My entire body seized. Every muscle cramped at once like I'd stuck my hoof in the cab's engine while it was running. I was left shaking, my limbs burning, with my chest tight. My cutie-mark let off another prickle, centered on one particular corner of the room.
I wanted it to be some awful magic King Cosmo unleashed to disable everypony in the house, and I'd simply gotten lucky. Unfortunately, the feeling was too familiar. It was something I woke up with every day and went to bed with every night. It brayed in the back of my mind, gripping my consciousness with an overwhelming command that left me breathless and frightened. It was a heartbeat, coming from the dresser.
Forcing myself to move, I ran to the stacked drawers and tore open the secret panel. It hadn't locked when it was closed, but considering the mess we'd made finding it, it was unlikely the mobster would be unaware somepony had broken into his house.
The box looked so innocent. Almost peaceful. Its golden lettering was carved with fantastic attention to detail. It might have been just one more of symbol of Jingle Jangle's depravity, but it was beautiful.
No, I told myself, firmly. No, his name is Cosmo. I can’t let myself forget that. He stole his brother’s name and made it his own. Jingle Jangle was the sweet boy who died with his brother. Cosmo is the pony who is going to try to kill you. Cosmo is the King of Ace. He’s the pony you’re going to bring down.
Without quite realizing what I was doing, I flipped open the top of the box.
The heart of Cosmo’s brother sat there, quietly thumping to itself like a chest-less ticker was the most natural thing in the world. My hoof reached towards the crystal at its center of its own accord. As my toe touched its cool surface, it gave a jarring burst of energy that coursed up my leg and, again, every muscle in my body clenched. No blood pumped through and no brain controlled it, but something deep within the organ was still very much alive.
Reality snapped back as my ladybug trilled loudly in my ear. I shook my head, then clapped the box closed and yanked it out of the drawer. Jamming it into one of my enchanted pockets, I sprinted up the stairwell.
As I turned towards the front door, the insect beside my head let off two short, sharp beeps and I skidded to a halt. There was a sound coming from the other side of the door. It wasn’t the Night Trotter’s healthy grind. It was softer, without the crackle of unshielded arcanolectrics or high powered runes; a luxury vehicle.
A car door slammed and four hooves hit the pavement, then a second door opened.
There’s a tiny part of every pony’s mind that wants to wait and see what happens. I’d long since taken that part of my brain out behind a barn and shot it.
Scanning my options, I settled on the back door. It had a straight line of sight from the front but jumping through a window wasn’t appealing and hiding, hoping Swift wouldn’t do something rash, was even less so. Light-hooved as I could, I rushed down the carpeted hallway and made the backdoor just as heavy treaded hoofsteps started up onto the front porch.
I pulled the handle, twisted, and stepped into mid-air.
The front porch was a beautiful piece of house construction. The back porch left a really frightening amount to be desired, largely because it was still a stack of two-by-fours covered in a tarp sitting up against the fence. I pitched off the back step as the door swung shut behind me, collapsing into a many-inch-deep puddle of mud.
Laying there, I waited to hear the door above me open, but once more, the Princesses were smiling on me. Nothing. Squirming out of the clinging dirt with a number of wet squelch noises, I pressed myself against the back of the house and shimmied across to the side.
Peering down the gap between the houses, I could just see the front bumper of Cosmo’s limo.
Where was Taxi?
I didn’t want to try the drainage ditch running between the row of houses I was in and the more inhabited collection a few streets over. There was a dead cat floating in it. As my day included enough foul events without adding splashing around with some foal’s deceased pet, I left a swim as a last resort.
The next house over was a shabby, decaying affair whose rear had been let go almost completely, and I was thankful it was. It made finding a place between two of the fence slats that much easier.
Behind me, I heard the click of a door and froze, plastering myself to the fence I’d just climbed through. Somepony gave a bullish snort and the door crashed shut again. On the empty street without even the benefit of birds' song in the trees, the noise was deafening.
I made an effort to breathe and started hopping fences again, occasionally peering out onto the street. My partner and driver were well and truly off the radar. My frustration growing, didn’t register the soft hum until it was almost on top of me.
Ten ladybugs, flying tightly grouped, zipped out of the sky and landed on the bridge of my muzzle. I crossed my eyes and swatted at them.
“Hey, off! Not a place to rest! Where’s the car?” I whispered urgently to the whirring swarm.
The insects did a quick mid-air pirouette and arranged themselves into an arrow pointing over the next fence. It was a good thing Cosmo’s neighborhood was a remnant of the styling period when treated wood was favored over chain link. Climbing chain link with hooves is not pleasant. Still, the going wasn't easy.
After hopping twelve more fences, my lungs were starting to feel like somepony had doused them in flaming napalm and my bruised shoulder joint was screaming for rest. I slowed to catch my breath and noticed that I seemed to be making my way around the edge of a cul-de-sac. Creeping down the short alley between two houses, my heart fluttered at a truly glorious sight. It may have been fluttering from over-exertion, but I chose to take it as a sign of joy rather than a sign of how badly out of shape I was.
The Night Trotter was sitting there inside a half open garage attached to one of the other empty homes, just across the street. The garage was dark inside, and if I hadn’t been looking for it I might have missed it entirely, but there it was: my salvation in vehicular format.
Working my way across, I circled around, clambering through one back yard after another, until I was convinced that it might simply be better if Celestia banned fences altogether. While a few were easy enough, most involved a jump or some undignified scrambling, but finally - at about the point where running for my life was taking a backseat to wording the banning petition - I made it to the final house. I was sweating in every place it was possible and wishing yesterday’s rains would return just so I might have a bit of relief. Journey over, I plunked my behind on the rear stoop and just let myself pant.
I was so worn out I barely registered the door behind me opening. It may have been blood flow issues from the exercise or my adrenal gland having drained multiple times in a short period but I couldn’t even muster a solid surprised jump.
“Hardy!”
“Sir!”
Perhaps, just maybe, it was time to have a nap. Right there seemed good.
****
In spite of not finding the recordings and almost getting caught by the megalomaniacal creep himself, which would have probably ended me as a pony skin rug in his dining room, I felt inexplicably good. My limbs ached and my lungs hurt with every breath, but we’d escaped. I had another piece of The Truth, capital letters and all.
It did, however, leave one burning question: Why did I take the heart? Why did I risk becoming a trophy for Cosmo to hang over his fireplace? 'Because my Cutie Mark told me to' seemed as incomplete an explanation as that old Celestia-Works-In-Mysterious-Ways cop-out. Why did it tell me to?
It felt right? It wasn’t much a much more complete answer, but it was at least true. It had felt right.
The heart was a wretched hunk of flesh and metal conjured up from the imagination of a crazy zebra with too much mechanical creativity and not enough common sense, but buried under the horror of its creation, some tiny piece of the boy in the painting, putting on a strong face in spite of his fading spirit, was still there. That spirit called to me and I had no ability, no will, to ignore it.
Maybe he wanted me to free him? Maybe it was the magic of cutie-marks leading me to correct a great injustice? Or maybe the zebra’s spellcraft had some residual narcotic effect on my mind and flank?
Any of those options sounded perfectly reasonable in the light of my near-complete exhaustion. I could still feel the heart, thudding back and forth in my pocket in time to my pulse, like a happy kitten that's found a friend. Now and then it would settle, but I was too freaked out and tired to give its continued animation much deep thought. Magical artifacts are categorically not my department.
If my luck held, Cosmo would not immediately realize who’d burglarized his house. If he somehow put together that it was the ‘stupid cop’ and that I was working with the Vivarium, then his unstable mind might just decide an assault of some sort was worth the enormous number of potential lives lost to recover his brother's heart.
I didn’t want to find out if that might be the case, but I was too shagged out to even lift my head, much less come up with a course of immediate action. Taxi needed time with the ledger. I needed rest.
****
After my short dizzy spell, my partner and driver managed to wrestle me into the back seat of the cab without too many questions asked. It might have looked, to the untrained eye, like I passed out, but that was deceptive. Detective ponies don't have fainting spells. We have combat naps.
With my scruffy, muddy tail wrapped around my body, I let myself close down for a bit while Taxi wormed her way down a side street just around the curve of the road, keeping us out of sight of King Cosmo’s limo. The streets smoothed and, for a short time, I let myself enjoy the feeling of having once again defied death.
****
Time was passing unmarked and the motion of the road under the vehicle was delightfully relaxing. Another nap was right on the horizon when Swift asked, “Sir, why did you go back?”
“Hmmm?”
“She asked ‘Why did you go back down there?’ and you better answer her, you stupid ninny!” Taxi cut in, pulling back on the hoofbrake and throwing us to the curbside. She turned to face me. “I’m not paid to drive for crazy and stupid! Just one or the other! Not both at the same time!”
“Oh...” I struggled onto my side, plucking the box out of my pocket and setting it on the seat in front of me. It wasn't making much noise, to speak of, though if one looked closely it was easy to detect a slight rocking motion. “I got a feeling.”
“Hardy... that’s not... why... Why would you take that awful thing?!” Taxi sputtered, reeling back slightly.
“Bargaining chip,” I replied, though maybe that was only partly true. Saying the heart ‘called’ to me was a recipe for disaster even considering our long standing reliance on ‘feelings.’ Whatever else she might be, Taxi wasn’t any more a fan of dark magics than I am. The thought that there might be some bit of a dead pony residing inside that meaty amalgam would likely turn her stomach almost as much as it was churning mine. There was no sense in alarming her. An alarmed Taxi is a dangerous Taxi. Besides, the organ didn't seem malicious... just bizarre.
"You're insane! That's your problem, right?" My driver railed. "I just watched that huge bastard walk in there and I was convinced I was going to see him dragging out a carpet full of... full of you in ten minute's time leaking all your vital fluids!"
“Look, I'm fine. We got away. That's what matters." I held open my coat to show my entirely un-bullet riddled body. "That box might be the best chip we have. Could be the only one that will stop Cosmo from shooting at us long enough for me to offer him a deal.”
“A deal?!” My cabbie’s voice rose with each word. “You don’t deal with ponies like him! You lock them in deep, dark holes and let therapists dig out the evil parts of their brains! You stick them in cages for study! You don't make deals with them!”
“This won’t be a compromise. It’ll be a deal,” I answered, tiredly. The expression on her face said the distinction was lost on her, and she might be more inclined to pull my head off than to relax. I continued hurriedly before violence could ensue. “Compromises are where nopony gets precisely what they want. You can make deals where one party walks away pissed off and the other dances a little jig. What’s important is Cosmo walks away. Forever.”
After a moment’s thought she relented. “I’m going to take it out of your hide if you get yourself killed doing this, Hardy. I swear.”
"Won't that be difficult if I'm dead?"
"I will find a way." Releasing the brake, she steered us back into the flow of traffic. “So? Where are we going?”
I turned to Swift.
“Kid? Thoughts?” I asked, fighting down a yawn.
“S-sir?” Her wings half-extended in surprise, almost swatting me in the face.
“I asked for your thoughts,” I reiterated, pushing her feathers away from my nose. “Where should we head? The Vivarium was the first place I considered, but I don’t know if Cosmo can track either this box or that ledger. I doubt it’ll take him long to put together what happened, even if he’s not sure how. The first thing he’ll check, after he discovers the house has been invaded, is that drawer. If it’s possible, I’d like to keep who we’re working for at least a little bit secret. I’m also too damn tired to come up with anything so... what’s the plan?”
My partner’s face leapt from confusion through comprehension, sidelined briefly at fear, before settling on deep contemplation. After some thought, she got a roguish glint in her eye. “Sir? Can we put wherever we go on the department’s tab?”
“Could be our last case if things go poorly, so why not? If we pull this off, they'll pin medals on our chests or fire us. Or both. Either way, it won't be a problem.”
My dear, sweet, naive little partner heard the word 'medal' and everything else after that was just so much babble on the wind. Rising up into as close to attention as she could in the back seat, she lifted her muzzle high and announced, “I know a place, sir. Nopony would ever look for us there.”
****
I want to note that every horrible dream I’d ever had of transient living centered around theme hotels. I am a pony who requires a certain degree of sneering indifference from staff in an establishment before I start to feel genuinely comfortable. I won’t eat a daisy-burger unless it’s flavored with the cook’s phlegm in that first bite. It lets me know where we stand, and that I am leaving the right tips.
The desire to stay in adult fantasy worlds where the employees are chipper and appear to be cheerfully enjoying their own public humiliation is mystifying to me. I don’t need somepony in a ridiculous hat catering to my every whim. If the room’s mini-bar contains actual booze rather than tiny bottles full of cinnamon mouthwash and residue, it’s just confusing.
****
“You can’t be serious!”
“Well, Hardy, she’s right about one thing. No-one in their right mind would ever look for us here.”
“I’m not staying here!”
“Sir, it fulfills all the criteria in the police manual on safe-house selection.”
“I picked up on that, yes. It’s a boat, dammit! I’m not staying here!”
My objections went unheeded, partly because I’d been outvoted, but mostly because I was too tired to lodge them without all four knees wobbling. Cosmo’s neighborhood ‘obstacle course’ took more out of me than I’d like to admit.
Having never even heard of the High Seas, I thought it fair to assume it wasn’t the sort of place murders take place frequently. Standing outside with the Night Trotter’s engine idling and the quickly drying mud sticking to every inch of me not covered by trenchcoat, I could understand why. If I were intent on stabbing somepony, I’d have to first ask them to step out into the parking lot next door just so I could take myself seriously.
When I said it was a boat, that was not a metaphor, allegory, or simile. It was a boat. A big boat.
From the outside, it looked like somepony, at some point, had dropped a large, pink and purple pleasure ship in the middle of a parking lot in midtown Detrot. Whether that was actually the case or somepony just built it to look like that, I don’t know, but if it was an accident then the enterprising minds behind Detrot’s hotel industry certainly took advantage. It was one of the few I’d seen that didn’t seem short of business. Very nearly every spot in the parking lot had some type of vehicle in it. Even the High Step, with all its pedigree and posh character, wasn’t as busy a place on its best days.
The boat, which must have cost a fortune if it were ever actually seaworthy, stretched lengthwise across the lot for half the length of a hoofball field. The hotel’s name was painted across the bow and a smattering of platforms, catwalks, and stairways covered its sides, leading to the rooms themselves. It was zero-utility and pure facade, like many of the younger buildings in the city.
About a dozen over-painted tug-boats sat behind their larger parent with their own private parking garages and little lawns out front. The image that first formed in my mind, as we followed Swift’s directions was off the highway, was of a great, violet whale that’d beached itself on an asphalt shore and was surrounded by mourning relatives.
The name on the bow was ‘Sweet Heart’s High Seas Hotel’.
****
“Kid, I realize I don’t get out enough, but this is ridiculous. How did you even find this place?” I asked, resigning myself to my fate as we drove through the lot, searching for a place to park.
“The city looks different from the air, sir,” she replied, raising her wings for emphasis as she stared out the window at the landlocked cruise ship. “I used to fly over this place going home from training, back when they were building it. I always wanted to stay here!”
“I... why did you always want to stay here, exactly? You can’t tell me you’re a fan of boats.”
“Erm... no. I get seasick at the movies.” Turning her head, she spoke over her shoulder, eyes still on the hotel. “I just liked the idea of it, you know? I never get to stay in weird places. When we used to go on vacation, Dad would always take us to historical sites or Mom would want to go to all the mystical places like old graveyards and forests. It was sooo boring! I mean, look at it! It’s a huge boat in the middle of the city.”
I sighed and picked grit off my cheek. “What I care about is that they’ve got a shower. This isn’t a vacation. We’re here to rest and make plans. We’ll only be here for a few hours.”
“Sooo... does that mean we’re staying?”
“I don’t have the energy to argue so, yes.”
“Eeee!” Swift did a little four-hoofed dance until she caught my look. “Sorry, sir.”
Turning to the front of the car, I raised my voice so Taxi could hear me. “Sweets, get Telly on the horn. We need a line of credit. Enough to pay for a night here if they don’t rent by the hour. Ask her if she can keep this one out of the log until... day after tomorrow.”
My driver shifted her flank against the seat-rest. “Aaand what should I tell her you’ll be buying her this time?”
“A gold plated nose-hair plucker. Canterlot real estate. A griffin sex dwarf. I don’t care. Line of credit. I’m going to lay here and you two can tell me when the room is ready. This isn’t a vacation. It’s a rest.”
Despite my dour insistence, Swift was still all but jiggling with excitement in her seat.
****
When Taxi and Swift returned from the small front office, they were sharing a look that made me feel awfully like the rabbit stuck in a snare, listening to the hunter coming. Had I been more aware at the time, as opposed to just barely staving off sleep, I might have thought to ask what the joke was that I’d missed. As it was, they decided to share anyway.
“Haaardy! You’ll never guess what happened!” Taxi singsonged.
“Oh, sir! It’s fantastic!” Swift joined in, making my fur crawl.
I put my chin on the window sill. “I don’t do guessing games. What’s the scoop? Do they have a place for us?”
“Not just any place!” Taxi exclaimed, holding her hooves together dramatically and fluttering her eyelashes. “Telly gave us unlimited credit, and even said she’d let you have this one for free so long as we asked for their specialty rooms. They’re giving us the wedding suite!”
Every drop of blood in my body turned to solid ice.
****
Once we’d parked up, we were met by a goofy looking grey-green earth pony colt from the front desk whose smile might have been wired in place. He wore the standard hotel uniform; blue sash, white vest, ridiculous sea-pony hat, and a disposition so cheerful I wanted to kick him. He seemed completely immune to my deplorable state, babbling happily about the amenities of our room with the well-practiced ease of somepony who gives the same speech about once a week.
We were led around the side of the ship to a set of private stairs, with Taxi and Swift oohing and ahhing over his every word and myself trailing along behind like a sad puppy just in out of the rain. The door he took us to was a more heavily decorated version of every other, with the words ‘Captain’s Quarters’ in big, loopy letters across the top.
“Now then, if the sir wouldn’t mind, I can take his coat to be laundered while he gets comfortable in his quarters.”
I barely registered that the porter was talking to me as I lay my head on the door sill, my hat-brim folded down over my eyes. I could have rested right there except my dear, sweet driver elbowed me in the chest.
“Buh? Wha? Oh... right. Yeah, sure...”
Both Swift and Taxi peeled me out of my coat and hat, draping them over the colt’s back. And maybe, I just wanted to see that twitch in his heavily engineered good cheer as the muddy, sweaty coat settled on his shoulders. Regardless, being naked, save for my gun harness and weapon, felt good. I’m not normally a pony who feels alright going around in the buff, but there are times for it.
“Thank you, sir,” said the bellhop, who then turned to Taxi and held out our keys in his teeth. “Ma’am, your keys, both to the mini-bar and the room. Feel free to call us for anything you might need. The phone in the room will ring room-service and we’ll have somepony up right away. Check out time is noon.”
I dimly registered the colt retreating down the stairs and the key going into the lock, then my partner zipping past me in a blast of orange fluff and wind.
“Oh sir!” Swift cried. “This is so cool!”
I knew it was coming. I thought I knew what to expect. The truth was worse than I could have imagined.
Lifting my head, I stared into an abyss of lavender, perfume, and nautical paraphernalia.
The room was made to look like a plus-sized version of standard shipboard quarters. The windows were portholes and the walls were bulkheads. I might have been alright with that. I’d stayed in something similar during my Academy days.
The color scheme and the appointments were where everything fell apart.
Every surface was some lighter or darker shade of red, ranging from maroon down through mauve with an immoderate pass through cerise here and there. Wretched wreaths of fake flower spilled across the only useful table, though I supposed most ponies who would willingly take the Captain’s Quarters wouldn’t have paperwork on their minds.
The bed was the true horror.
I’d seen a heart in a drawer and a box full of broken unicorn horns just that morning. The day before, I’d been stomped and nearly killed by a paranoid spy and her massive meat-shield. Before that, a crazed coroner tried to feed my partner an eyeball freeze-pop.
None of it compared to that bed, where I was expected to lay my head and dream rejuvenating dreams.
I think the proper naval term for it was ‘dinghy’. The tiny craft was suspended from the ceiling by four thick cables, all falling into that same ‘romantic’ decorative schema as the rest of the room. Silk sheets and fluffy, heart shaped pillows sprawled over the control-wheel shaped headboard. Some monster, cruel and insensitive to my bleak condition, had spilled a loose dusting of rose-petals over them.
Champagne was cooling in a bucket of ice. Not beer. Not smooth, beautiful, liquid hops and barley, none of the elixir that might rebuild me in my moment of need and soften the blow of having to lay myself down amongst the stains and juices of untold ponies.
Just carbonated, chimerical crap.
The dearth of worthy beverages did not bother Swift, who was dancing around the freakish little room, poking her nose into cabinets, fiddling with the fake instruments board, and rummaging through the mini-bar.
I took one more look at the bed... then kicked out my rear leg, pulling the strap which set my auto-loader. It made a dull, unsatisfying click. I glanced down at my revolver and realized somepony, most likely a certain somepony with a stupid stripy mane, had nicked my cartridges. Not that it would have been difficult, considering how wrung out I was in the car, but it was still disappointing that I couldn’t shoot something.
“It’s not that bad, Hardy.” Taxi put her hoof on my rear end and gave me a shove into the room. “Like you said, we’ll only be here for a few hours.”
I put my leg over my face and tried a few breaths. They didn’t do much besides make me feel a bit light headed.
“No-one else will ever know about this, Sweets.” I grumbled. “You, me, and Swift. Nobody else. You hear me?”
My driver’s guilty smile said I was not long for this world.
“Errr...Telly may have already told Chief Jade. By the way, she asked me to pick up one of those little boats they sell in the gift shop. She wants it for her desk, just so she can remember this.”
I fell forward onto my forehead and lay with my rear end in the air.
Death. Death would be good. Right here, right now.
****
Somehow, Taxi helped me into the shower for just long enough to get off the worst of the dried mud and stinking horse sweat, then dragged me bodily into the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed with some kind of judo.
Swift produced the ledger. She and Taxi tore the fake flowers off the table, then set to work.
I fought sleep, but it was a losing battle. In spite of the deeply revolting knowledge of what’d most likely been done hundreds of times on the sheets I was under, I couldn’t drag myself out of the bed. I watched with detached interest, drifting in a pleasant fog, as the two mares whose fates I shared started going down rows of figures and jotting out notes. In an ideal world we’d have been out there with a battering ram, dragging Cosmo out by his ankles and clamping him in irons.
It was not, by any means, an ideal world. That didn’t stop me from wishing.
Beer would have been nice, I thought, letting my eyes slide shut.
****
Awareness was slow coming back.
How many hours had passed? I couldn’t be certain. I knew, in general, Taxi could be relied on to wake me if something were to happen that she considered urgent, or even vaguely interesting.
Soft words were spoken off to my left and somepony tittered in response.
Something did seem to be a bit off, but I couldn’t figure what, precisely, it was. My brain was chugging along like poorly oiled machinery, so I started with the basics. My hooves all seemed to be in operating order. I was still in the hilariously awful dangling bed. I was very comfortable and the bedsheets were warm. Very warm.
Too warm.
There was somepony in the bed with me.
I could feel their breath on my face.
On the one hoof, it could have been Queenie. Waking with that thing on my chest was a proper shock. Swift and Taxi were, in all likelihood, the two voices going back and forth but neither of them sounded close enough to be my mystery guest.
Most interesting, whoever it was didn’t quite smell like a filly.
Upon that realization, my eyes jerked open.
It took several seconds to pick out Scarlet Petals laying there amongst the pillows. His red coat provided excellent camouflage in the ridiculous bed. Propping his handsome face on one shoe, he smiled coyly down at me.
I weighed my options. Kicking him would likely have been very satisfying, but the satisfaction might have cost me some body parts next I saw the dragon. Besides, it’s entirely possible he’d have enjoyed it, and I didn’t need that kind of relationship with Stella’s secretary. Screaming might have worked, but I was still too dozy to get up a good head of anger. He hadn’t kissed me awake or anything like that. Still, a line had been crossed and warranted an appropriate response.
Rolling over, I dropped over the edge of the boat then turned around, planted my front hooves, and gave it a buck that made the entire hotel room shake. Being as it was dangling from the ceiling, the whole craft, cheeky male-whore included, swung into the nearest wall. Pillows flew all over the place as he let out a frightened whinny, dropping out onto the carpet in an undignified heap.
Trotting over, I put my hoof on his side, rolled him onto his back, then planted it on his chest. A few petals stuck to his mane as he put his hooves under his chin, looking up at me submissively. It would have to do.
“Scarlet,” I said, tapping him on the chest, “are we going to have another ‘sitting on your head’ issue or are you going to stay out of my bed?”
“You were just so cute, Detective Hardy!” he gushed. “I couldn’t bring myself to wake you.”
“My bed. Stay out. Period.” I gave him a good poke in the gut for emphasis and stepped back. “Now, anypony want to tell me why he’s here?”
Taxi, who hadn’t moved from her place at the table, pushed Cosmo’s ledger away. Most ponies would have missed the subtle signs, but over many years I’d learned to spot them; she was scared. Her eyes were bloodshot from poring over the columns and graphs, but it was the poise of her ears and the tightness of her shoulders that made it truly worrying.
Swift wasn’t even making an effort to disguise her discomfiture with whatever it was they’d learned. The leg with her pencil strapped to it was stiffly curled against her chest and her wingtips spilled right to the floor. She wasn’t frowning, exactly, but it wasn’t a happy expression.
Mouthing around until she caught the straw on a little glass of champagne near her elbow, Taxi slurped up half of it in one go before she replied, “I called Stella and filled him in on the general outlines of our day. He sent us Scarlet.”
Looking down, I stepped off of the stallion’s chest. “Are you here to liaise or are you just handing down the snake’s dictates?”
Tipping himself back onto all fours, the secretary stood and struck a loose approximation of a military pose. I don’t think any drill sergeant in the world would have accepted an attention that included that much flouncing. “Here to help, sir! Mistress Stella says the Stilettos stand at your call!”
I nodded. He relaxed as I set myself down on the edge of the dinghy to stop it swinging back and forth. “I hope we don’t need them,” I replied, then canted my head at Taxi. “We learn anything from the ledger?”
Swift sounded... Almost defeated. “It’s... sir... it’s awful!”
“Care to elaborate?”
Taxi dragged the little notepad Swift was taking down notes in over in front of her and flipped back the first three pages. “Good news? It’s Cosmo’s actual ledger. Bad news? We can’t use it.”
“What? You couldn’t break the code?” I asked, raising one eyebrow.
“No, I didn’t say that, did I?” she responded, sounding just a bit exasperated. “We just... can’t use this. This is well above my karmic pay-gradient, frankly. I can’t decide whether to burn it or just find a really deep hole to hide in.”
I moved over to the table and and picked up the pad, running my eyes down the facts and figures they’d managed to dig out of the book’s contents.
“Payments to a courier... destinations... let me see...” I dragged my hoof under each line, making sure I had them matched to their attendant numbers. “A half dozen payments to the Academy? Payments to the city planning office. Sweet Celestia, is that the mayor’s office?! He’s bought off a quarter of the city government!”
“It gets worse.” My driver chewed at her lip, which she only did when she was genuinely frightened. “We managed to translate part of the next page before we stopped. It’s his... blackmail payments.”
I turned the page.
“Two payments, five hundred, from Officer Spindle. Ace addiction. Fifteen payments, thirteen hundred from Judge Tingle Spark. Zap addiction, embezzling. Thirty payments, five thousand... from... mayor’s adjutant Tumbler... Underage... zebra prostitution.” I trailed off, unable to continue.
I’d known the ledgers might lead us to something sickening, but it’d become a ticking time-bomb sitting in our hooves. Each entry was one part of a complex death trap woven into the fabric of my city. We’d badly underestimated the reach of the King of Ace.
My brain was sliding quickly from drowsy fogginess to something resembling terror. Every sense sharpened to a razor’s edge.
“Sir...” Swift’s voice quivered over each word. “W-what do we do?”
It was an excellent question. Holding the book was likely to be extremely dangerous. Destroying it was unconscionable. Using it...
For a moment, I was tempted.
I'd long suspected that corruption ran deep through the city's veins, but here was solid proof of just how rotten the city was, and it was infuriating having that rot exit the realm of my cynical suspicions and become my solid, choking reality. More than anything else, I felt betrayed by the very ponies who'd charged me with solving murders and keeping order; ponies who'd let themselves slide so deeply into their desperate sins that they were paying sociopathic madmen a royal ransom just to keep their heads above the black, tarry surface of their own iniquity. Parted of me very much wanted to pull the trigger. To let it all go public. Let the city burn in the fires of its own hypocrisy and let the Princesses sort out the rest.
My cutie mark stung for a moment, chiding my brief, vengeful thoughts. It was right. Applied incorrectly, too many innocents would get caught in the backwash created by powerful ponies covering their flanks by any means at their disposal. On top of that, the ledger was essentially stolen evidence; inadmissible by any standard. We'd wind up doing a lot more damage than good.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn I could hear Juniper giggling somewhere nearby. He was always the sort who could work his way out of situations that seemed impossible with a laugh and a touch of quick thinking. He’d taught me many valuable lessons, but none more so than ‘Keep it simple.'
“...We eliminate Cosmo. The ledger is secondary to that until the Vivarium is safe. If he killed Ruby Blue, we arrest him. If he didn’t, we drive him out of town.” I picked the notepad off the floor and flipped it back onto the table beside the ledger. “Was there anything in there that is actually useful?”
Taxi hesitated then pulled the pad to her end of the table and began shuffling pages. “It... mmm... I... I don’t actually know if this is ‘useful’ per se, but I did notice a strange transaction.” She held out a particular section of Swift’s notes in her teeth, indicating the line with her toe.
“Fifty Flimsy Mimsy foal’s chemistry sets and twenty arcane viewers sent to... Sunny Days Juvenile Foster Facility?” I read the line twice to make sure I was matching up the purchase with its intended destination.
“That’s an awfully generous donation for a mob boss, don’t you think?” Scarlet added, sidling up beside me with more contact than the action required, but not enough to warrant smacking him, a line he clearly had experience treading.
Setting the evidence notes down, Taxi gave us both a very meaningful look. “Oh, it’s generous. Very generous. Especially considering Sunny Days has been closed for five years due to magical contamination.”
“That’s his drug factory.” I said, with certainty. “It’s the perfect venue. Arcane viewers for crystal drives aren’t cheap, but with what he’ll make off those recordings, he can afford it.”
Taxi nodded at the paper. “The date on that is yesterday. There’s another delivery schedule for next week that looks about the same size. Cosmo must be cleaning out every shop that sells viewers in the entire city. If the ledger's right, he’s got almost thirty already.”
Stepping away from Scarlet, who’d begun lightly grinding his flank against mine, I asked, “Did Svelte tell you how many hours’ worth of recordings she’s got?”
He shook his head. “Miss Svelte was most cooperative, but she could only give us general numbers. Thousands was her best answer. If they have a hundred viewers and groups of ponies watching all of them, then they could get through the whole thing... well, faster than I want to think about.”
“We need to move, then. How many Stilettos do we have?” I asked, picking up Swift’s pencil and finding a clean page on which to make a list of our immediate resources.
In general, it requires a decent sized army to attack any fortified criminal position, whether they’re expecting an attack or not. Fatalities were to be expected, but the situation warranted maximum force and with overwhelming numbers we might just pull it off without them.
Scarlett puffed out his chest with a proudly magnanimous smile and replied, “Four!”
“Four?!” I shouted, spitting the pencil to one side. The escort shrank back against the side of the bed, but his comfort was the last thing on my mind. “Four?! Four to take down a major drug lab?”
“Well, a zebra, a griffin hen, and two ponies... but... um... yes.” The escort squeaked like a mouse that’d been stepped on.
“We don’t even know how many ponies Cosmo has assigned to that place and my entire backup is four ponies? Why is the serpent suddenly getting stingy?! We’re facing our deaths here!” I snarled, smacking the bed beside his head.
“I-it’s all those who volunteered!” He whimpered, cringing. “Mistress Stella insisted they be volunteers! The rest are guarding the Heights!”
Bucking Scarlett was such a tempting proposition, and had I been confronted with that piece of information before my little nap, I probably would have. However, naps have a powerful restorative effect. I recommend them to anypony in a high stress job where you risk finding yourself with a higher than daily recommended dose of lead in your system.
Still, it left me with one unfortunate fact; while the prowess of the Stilettos in keeping the mob out of their neighborhoods was impossible to deny, as a tactical unit, seven persons just weren’t that many. While the element of surprise is an amazing force multiplier, ideal scenarios are few and far between, and I wasn’t pleased with the thought of going in nearly unsupported.
I drew in a breath, forcing myself not to choke on the room’s cloyingly sweet air. My mane was absolutely foul with whatever scent the hotel’s maid staff regularly rubbed into the pillows to cover the stink of sex. I wanted another beer. I would have strangled somepony with my bare hooves for a case of it, even that wretched trash Bloom somehow forced down every day.
Still, It was time to play the hand I’d been dealt. I knew Cosmo was holding aces. I just hoped that four of a kind was enough.
“Alright, where are these characters?” I asked Scarlett, picking him up and holding him upright until he got his legs under him.
“They’re waiting in one of the Vivarium annexes,” he replied, the unsettling flicker of adoration still in his eyes. “We have to pick them up, but I saw your cab. We should have enough room if the Tortellini twins are in the back and Edina sits on Zeta’s lap in the front. I can squeeze in with you and Hardy.”
Swift slid off of her chair and stomped over to Scarlett, shoving between us. She gave him what might have been an intimidating glare coming from just about any other pony. “You’re not coming.”
“The Mistress wants me there!” he responded, waving his hooves to ward her off. “Your grandmother wanted to come, but the Mistress said she had to stay behind and organize things.”
I let my shoulders slide back and asked, “Why does Stella want you there? You’re not a fighter, are you?”
“I... I know how the security system works. Those recordings have to be destroyed. He wants somepony there that he trusts implicitly to do it. I’m supposed to protect his interests...” Scarlet mumbled, lamely.
“Protect his interests?!” I snapped, poking at the other stallion’s shoulder. He recoiled, holding his foreleg to his chest like I’d punched him. “I’m protecting his damn interests! You want those recordings, you’re going to wait in the car for them. Got it?”
We needed Stella’s goodwill, but we didn't need a civilian in the line of fire. Scarlet was, thankfully, amenable. “I think I can live with that... so long as I know you’ll be coming back for me, Hardy,” he simpered, sweetly. My adam’s apple bobbed as I tried to keep down my lunch. Swift bit her tongue between her teeth and suppressed whatever comment was dancing around on its tip.
My driver, conversely, was never the soul of reservation. “Oh, Hardy...you’ll come back for him, won’t you? After all, the two of you make such an adorable-”
“Sweets, if you finish that sentence, I’m going to shoot you.”
“How? I’ve got your bullets in my glove box.”
“I’ve got pillows, damnit!”
Somepony knocked on the door, interrupting the conversation before it could escalate to myself wearing a fine array of ice-pack based accessories and/or Taxi picking feathers out of her teeth. Mostly out of habit, I adjusted the empty gun on my leg before I went to the door, flipping open the one-way porthole and pushing my eye against it.
Our porter in the absurd sailor outfit was there and, for once, he wasn’t wearing that smile that made him look like he’d suffered an attack from an aggressive amateur mortician; if anything, he looked a bit nervous.
I cracked the door and stuck my nose out. “What is it?” I asked, shortly. Not even the shattering of the porter's hollow facade could improve my mood right now.
“Er... sir, your coat is clean.” His lips tried to work their way up into something friendly, but they only managed a pained grimace. Turning sideways, he displayed my carefully folded trenchcoat. “We couldn’t empty the pockets, but we gave it a hoof wash...”
I practically leapt on him, snatching up my coat and swinging it around my shoulders. It felt miles better than it had any right to, even if my tie still had spots of grime on it. I struggled into the leg-holes and let out a languorous moan. The inner lining was still warm!
Our bellhop was staring. I followed his eyes to my chest, then down to my gun sitting in its holster.
“Is something the matter?” I pulled my coat shut, and his gaze went up to my face.
It took him some time to find words. “Errr... the... the lady asked that we have her... taxi... detailed...”
“...Yeah? And?”
He shot a queasy look over his shoulder.
“The v-valets just wanted to know... um... if y-you w-want your box of... heart... polished?”