Starlight Over Detrot
Chapter 21: Can You Tell Me How to Get...
The one hard-and-fast rule of Equestrian police interrogations is that the interrogating officer is not allowed to cause physical discomfiture to the subject. No beatings or torture or starvations or sleep deprivations or cakeboarding. Celestia's Equestria takes stark issue with cruel treatment of suspects... but it has never taken issue with unusual treatment.
The options in creative methodology employed by interrogators vary as widely as the interrogators themselves; some of them have gotten downright imaginative. Pegasi have been known to create thick indoor fog clouds and ask their questions from different and disorienting angles. A unicorn illusionist pioneered a technique wherein she disguised herself to look like the subject's mother. Notably, one of Equestria’s most feared interrogators has earned dozens of confessions simply through hours of unrelenting whining.
Of course, there are occasionally advantages to working extralegally. Interrogation techniques employed by non-legal entities are not restrained by any such code of conduct. It is difficult to argue against the idea that dangling someone feet first above a roaring volcano is excessive, but it does tend to get ponies talking.
--The Scholar
In basic training they say the key to every cop’s life is easily summarized in one thing: positivity. The popular and well-entrenched wisdom is that if you can keep a positive outlook in the face of what’s wrong with the world, you’ll wake up every morning convinced you’re a superhero who can change that world themselves.
I used to wake up in the morning some days and piss on a police manual before breakfast. Sometimes because of my hangover, but often just to remind myself why I’m alive and so many good ponies aren’t.
****
Zeta pitched Snicket’s unconscious body off of her back, letting her spill onto the stage at the hooves of a sizeable colt with tufts of ruddy orange fur around his neck. “You.” She pointed at the stallion, then at the comatose enforcer. “Carry this or I will forcefully emasculate you.”
The guard, considering this sufficient incentive, scrambled to shift Snicket onto his back, aided by one of the techs who was perhaps a little rougher than necessary with the Red Hoof, though she wasn’t in any condition to feel it. From somewhere off the back of stage-left, another squeal of pain made several of the trussed up guards jump. It was followed by a cackle of avian laughter.
I sighed, scratching at my ear and finding it full of dust.
Taxi was giving me dubious looks. “Hardy, shouldn’t we go stop whatever that is?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting around to it.” Inspecting a nasty rip in my coat, I started for the back door of the auditorium, ducking under a cardboard replica of Canterlot Castle. “Get the guards on their hooves and ready to go. Don’t forget to cuff Snicket, and see if you can break those hooks off her hooves.” I indicated one of the work-tables behind the curtain, which was lined with rows of snips and clamps.
“Alright. Where are you going?” Taxi wondered.
“I guess I’m going to go take care of the—” Another piercing wail split my explanation. “... noise... before it attracts attention. Then we snatch up the recordings and ditch this place forever. After that? Cosmo.”
Swift was just finishing affixing one last pair of cuffs between the front knees of a very slender mare with a razorblade cutie-mark. The taller mare made to spit in her face, but my partner swept one wing up, blowing a little breeze back at her and flicking the spittle all over the other pony’s nose. “Sir, I think we should probably go and-”
“I know, kid. You’re with me. Zeta?” I inquired. The zebra was watching as the school cleared away the last bits of the drug lab into large garbage cans. A number of wide, heavy chairs were starting to fly back into the auditorium from wherever they’d been stashed, settling themselves in rows starting from the back. Flights of screws seemed to materialize and begin bolting the chairs in place. Soon, the only evidence there had ever been a drug lab would be the ponies who ran it. “May I have your company?”
“Of course, Detective Pony.” She bowed, then snapped out with her teeth, catching my shotgun out of mid-air before a pair of kitchen tongs could carry it off to parts unknown for disposal. I gingerly took it from her, flicked the safety on, then with her assistance, settled it back in its holster and reattached the various belts to my trigger.
That may have taken more time than generally required. I wasn’t feeling any special hurry.
****
I pushed through the stage door marked ‘Emergency Exit’ and held it open for the two mares coming behind me.
There was a long, grassy alley behind the school with brick walls on either side which ended at a thin strip of tarmac. It might have been paved cart path some years back, maybe for bringing props to the back of the auditorium. Passing between empty warehouses, it must have wound its way back to a main road some distance away; I could hear the far off squeaks and bumps of late night traffic.
A pool of light provided by a street lamp, which gamely lit the abandoned alley despite having most likely not seen maintenance since the school was closed, illuminated a sight that sent a warm tingle right to my cutie-mark.
Dangling by one rear leg from the lamp by the thin length of a whip, a flailing body twisted and spun as it tried to fend off a ghostly figure which danced and snapped at its face. The figure leapt up and gave a sharp bite to the soft parts of the swinging body, eliciting another howl of agony.
We approached at a leisurely pace.
“—little bitch! Let me down from here!”
“Oooh, meat likes a game, does it? We play many games before we eat you, pony meat!”
The manager, his vest torn and hanging from his neck, was doing his best to shield the most sensitive parts of his body with his rear hooves while Edina cavorted around him in circles. He looked up and saw us coming.
“Help me, idiots, or I’ll make sure you don’t get paid this week!” He shouted at us. “Shoot it or something!” The stallion yowled, batting at the griffin with one foreleg as she came in for another nip.
“Meat! Meat is loud and stupid!” Edina glared at us, hissing softly as she swatted the manager across the face with one wing. “You meats, stay back! This one is ours!”
The three of us stepped into the circle of light and the manager’s jaw went slack. “You’re not-”
“No, we’re not. You’ll be re-joining your friends in a few minutes, so don’t worry. We’ve got to have a little talk first.” I told him, gesturing for Zeta to catch Edina before the griffin could swoop in to peck out one of our prisoner’s eyes. Snapping out with a lasso, she wrapped it tightly around the griffin’s wings, pinning them to her sides along with her front legs. Tripping over herself, Edina pitched into the grass, chirping angrily at us.
“Release us, meat! We caught this one fair and square!” she demanded, trying to bite the zebra as she reached out to stroke the little griffin’s downy neck-feathers. As Zeta’s hoof touched the base of her skull and began moving in tiny circles, it was like a switch had been flicked. Edina’s slitted pupils widened and her beak fell open. Every muscle in her body relaxed.
“Is that some kind of pressure point trick?” I asked.
Zeta shook her head. “Merely a neck scratch. Works on most griffins.”
“Huh. I’ve got a big friend I may try that on the next time I’ve got a few drinks in him.” I blew a breath through my nose. “May be worth a laugh down at the bar.”
I returned my attention to the hanging manager. He was staring back at me with a mixture of shock and fright.
“Y-you should be dead!”
“Probably,” I conceded.
“The Red Hoof cunt—”
“—Is going to be nursing a sore throat for the next month.” I finished for him. Zeta stroked the noose dangling from her side in a subtly threatening way as I asked, “Now, name?”
“Go bone your mother, fuzz! I want a lawyer!”
“Ahhh... you seem to have missed out on how this is going to work. Allow me to explain. I’m doing some freelance good deeds. I may claim it as volunteer hours on my taxes, as a matter of fact. The upshot is that I’m not presently working as a representative of the Detrot Police Department.” Taking a step forward, I put my leg overtop of Zeta’s, stopping her slow scratching motion. Edina immediately came to attention,half-heartedly trying to turn her head to snap at our legs. I guided her beak around to stare at the manager’s helpless form. “Edina, if he doesn’t cooperate, I’m going to hold him while you bite off his ears. How does that sound?”
Long claws scratched at the ground as Edina tried to get up, only to be held gently in a squat by the zebra’s restraining hoof. Finding she couldn’t rise, she settled for a low purr. “We like this. Please, meat... do not cooperate! We are hungry and would much appreciate a simple meal without all the fuss!”
Panic crossed the manager’s face and he glanced at Swift. “You! You can’t let them do this to me! You’re a cop, right? My boss’ll kill me!”
If he was hunting sympathy, he’d picked the wrong pegasus. She snapped out one wing, stopping his spin and bringing him back around to face her; her blue eyes were furious pinpoints that she might as well have trying to drive into his skull. “How could you? How could you have done that to somepony?!”
“Done what?!” He quailed, trying futilely to pull away from her.
Swift grabbed his thready, green vest in her teeth, tore it off of his head and dropped it on the pavement. Without the thin piece of clothing, his paunch sagged slightly. I had to tilt my head to make out his cutie-mark and even from the proper angle, I wasn’t sure what it was. It looked like a sandwich of some kind with a snail crawling out of the end.
Digging around until she found the front pocket, my partner yanked out the drug addict’s snapped horn. The broken piece of magical bone stuck out of one side of her muzzle as she waved it accusingly under the managers nose. His face paled under the layer of patchy scrub-like fur clinging to his pasty cheeks.
Swift stuffed the horn into one of her pockets, turned away and sat facing the wall. “I’m not even going to look at you, or I may do something I regret. I saw you hurt that poor pony. I was watching from a cloud and I saw it, so you don’t get to talk to me!”
The manager hung there for a minute, processing what’d just happened, before kicking frantically at his ankle, trying to dislodge the whip. “Arrest me then! I want to go to jail!” He begged. “You gotta protect me!”
Grabbing his foreleg, I stopped his slow spin, shifting him around to face me again. “We’ll take your situation under advisement and if you cooperate, I’ll consider not feeding you to the feathery psycho.” I patted his cheek, comfortingly. “Now then, about that name?” I asked again.
In the way of all middle-management types too witless to climb out of mediocrity, he was a pony of grand ambitions and little courage.
“Hoagie! My name’s Hoagie. Please, lemme down! I’m going to pass out!” He whined.
“I can disable blood-flow to his legs.” Zeta offered, taking a step forward. Hoagie’s breath caught. “It will keep him conscious longer, though if we take too long they may need to be amputated.”
“Hmm...” I considered this just long enough to make him worry. “No, no, I don’t believe that will be necessary. I just need a question or two answered. You think you can do that for me, Mister Hoagie?”
“Yes! Yes, anything!”
“Excellent. Good to have you on board.” It was a real effort to smile at him, considering I wanted to pull his heart out through his ass. “Now, the recordings. You know which ones I’m talking about, yes?”
“I... “ His lip quivered as his cowardice fought a losing battle, deciding how likely it was that a member of Detrot’s finest would just sit by and let a griffin devour him piecemeal. Once again, my co-workers bought the short end of the trust-stick. “I was supposed to escape if we ever got raided and things were looking bad. Everypony else would have really good lawyers and be out of jail fast, so I was supposed to get out with the crystals. I... I forgot them.”
Zeta sneered at the hanging stallion. “I do not believe you simply forgot. You ran away. You are... yellow. I believe that is how you ponies say it. You are yellow and no better than the dog that runs from the wolf, rather than defend his shepherd.”
“Hey lady! I’m not getting paid enough to die!” Hoagie snapped, a look of offended pride crossing his face.
“If there is a sum sufficient to induce you to acts leading to your death, you are a waste and I see no use for you as anything but offal to feed my winged friend. Speak, yellow pony. The recordings.” The zebra didn’t raise her voice, but somehow, that made her tone all the more unsettling. Edina ran her long, pointed pink tongue over her beak.
“They’re in the office!” Hoagie screeched, holdings his forelegs together pleadingly. “Snicket has the key to the lockbox!”
I let my chin fall to my chest, thinking. Finally, I nudged Edina with my toe. “Alright, get him down and put him with the others. We’ll get the bunch Stella had hunting down the injured kid to pack them into a truck or something and stash them somewhere until we're done with Cosmo.”
“This is our meat to play with!” Edina snarled.
“Yeah, it was your meat. He cooperated. If any of the others decide they want to make trouble, you can chew on them a bit. Clear?”
Her green eyes narrowed to slits. “If there is no more meat to hurt, we will be most unhappy.”
A look of relief passed over Hoagie’s face, right up until Edina flew up and popped the supporting knot free. I didn’t feel much like catching him.
****
I sent the others on ahead and stayed back, looking up at the lonely streetlight. It flickered and buzzed, a tiny cloud of insects zipping around it in a nightly ritual as old as fire. Why did they do it? What drove them to keep trying to get to the light?
I suppose I might have asked Queenie. Who knows? The Essy might even have told me.
A breeze snuck down the long path, ruffling my mane and brushing the brim of my hat. I pulled the old fedora off, examining it. There was a thin hole in the brim just a few centimeters from the headband; a bullet hole. I hadn't even noticed the hit. It was such a damnably close thing and, yet again, I was alive to hold my hat and wonder at the reasoning of moths.
Cosmo needed to be brought down. We had little of the original plan remaining to us, though the pieces that still fit were integral.
My cutie-mark felt very slightly hot. Not the aching burn of proximity to great injustice. Just hot, like I was standing on one side of a door with a raging fire on the other. The drug lab was gone. We'd gotten away with zero dead. Snicket, Cosmo's killer, was off the board.
Why, then, did I feel the game wasn't over?
I knew the answer. It was in the back of my mind, though it was only later that I had time sift through the subconscious musings.
Ruby Blue was dead, and still I didn't know why.
****
I stepped back onto the cool, air-conditioned stage to discover Swift standing on the stairs, basking in the gratitude of a couple of the freed laboratory techs.
“Thank you so much, Miss!” A kindly-faced older mare with an incongruous lip piercing was vigorously shaking my partner’s hoof, while another chemist about my age with a nasty, barely healed chemical burn on his ear patted her on the back.
“I-I’m j-just doing my duties, ma’am.” Swift muttered, blushing the color of a cooked lobster. Taxi had one of her smug looks on, letting my partner take the adulation while she sat back and watched the guards lifting their snoozing compatriots into wheelbarrows and carts purloined from the theater prop closet. Several of the techs had the guards’ guns in their teeth, keeping them moving.
I felt a slight tug on my coattails. Turning revealed that the source was an eggshell-blue filly with an electrical coil emblazoned on her flank, holding my coat in her teeth. She dropped it and lowered her eyes. The whites of her eyes had a sick looking redness to them, and the fur of her cheeks was matted with tears. A series of truly shocking purple splotches dotted her neck and cheek. Her voice was soft, beaten, as though she was afraid to hope for dawn after such a long and awful night. “I... we... mister... what’re we s-supposed to...”
Something in my memory jittered. I recognized her, but it took a few more seconds for my brain to catch up with my eyes; When I figured it out, my chest tightened with sympathy. The last I saw her, she was in a pool of spilt chemicals under the curtains. The mare Snicket kicked. Bunsen.
Dropping onto my haunches, I touched her shoulder. She blanched, falling onto her backside like she was expecting to be struck, then forced herself to look at me.
“Bunsen, right?” I asked. Her expression turned slightly fearful, and I added: “I saw what Snicket did to you. We were sneaking around a bit. Take your time. What’s wrong?”
“I...I’ve got a... a debt. S-Snicket said iffen I didn’t work for it, she’d hurt my kids. I had to make... make all kinds of things for them... b-but my debt...” She stuttered, then stopped and dropped her eyes.
“I know who holds your debt.” Sliding my hooves underneath her forelegs, I lifted her and set her upright. “He’ll be leaving town soon. Sooner than he knows. Got me?”
A miniscule flicker of something I rarely get the chance to see first-hoof burst to life in her injured face. “R-really?”
“Yes. I’ve got a place where you can be safe, too, until he’s gone. Your kids too.” I gave her a light shake, then stepped back. “I still have something to do, though, so wait here. Listen to the pegasus and we’ll get you out of here. She may not look it or sound it, but she does know what she’s doing.”
Bunsen nodded, her lips settling into an uneasy smile that lasted only an instant, then wandered backwards towards where Swift was securing the guards in the aisle between rows of now perfectly laid down theater chairs. The tall stallion carrying Snicket was at the end of the line.
Trotting down the stairs, I walked in a slow circle around Snicket’s impromptu ride, ignoring his curious looks. Now that Snicket wasn’t casting red-hazed berzerker eyes on my jugular vein, I could see she actually was pretty nice to look at. Not the kind of stunning gorgeous that Ruby Blue had pulled off even in death, but not bad.
Pushing aside her bowtie, I tugged open the lapel of her tuxedo’s jacket. As with any decent tailored coat, there was an inner pocket. That close, I could smell bubblegum and the turpentine she used to oil her claws, though somepony had used a pair of snips to remove the tips of the dangerous spikes. Tipping the pocket upside down, I shook it until a pack of Supremo Mega Blammo Bubble slipped out, followed by a thin, old-fashioned key with a gem inset that caught the light and seemed to shine internally.
“Ahhh... that’s a lovely thing.” I murmured.
Taxi was at my side. I hadn’t noticed her come up beside me until she spoke, “What’s that?”
“Not sure.” I answered, picking up the key in one side of my mouth. The cold copper tasted foul. “They gave that little scummy twit who was with Snicket some orders to grab a lockbox out of her office, but didn’t give him the key.”
My driver eyed the gemstone. “It’s an old drug runner trick. They have two keys. Cosmo has one and Snicket has the other. It keeps a courier from running off with whatever they’re holding and selling it elsewhere. It looks magical.”
“No surprise there, I guess.” I sniffed, irritably, and made for the stage. The stallion carting the Red Hoof knickered unhappily, shifting his burden as he turned back to wait. “This is just a modification of that safe in Cosmo’s office. Doesn’t matter. We’ve got the key. Come on.”
****
Finding Snicket’s office took more time than it should have. The door was hidden inside an ancient wooden wardrobe half again my height. Somepony back in the day must have thought it was cute to stash the theater director’s office behind such a thing. Taxi’s sharp eyes noticed that the badly painted furniture was slightly inset into the wall, and she decided to have a look. Inside was a curtain of taped-together hall passes that parted in the middle.
I sidled in beside her, gun ready, and pulled back the curtain with one leg.
What we found was a kind of controlled clutter. Every wall and surface of the room, ceiling included, was covered in dozens of monitors. Even more sat on the floor. The dark screens seemed like sunken eyes, staring at us as we invaded the Red Hoof’s little sanctuary.
A small desk sat in the middle of the mess, with a chair behind it. The screens were mostly blank, though a few showed static and one was an overhead shot of the drug lab itself. Bake and Boil had the guards and lab-techs moving towards the back of the auditorium, a slow train covered by Swift, head high and wings wide, at its front and Zeta’s stripes bringing up the rear.
Taxi stepped over a screen that hadn’t yet been plugged in. “Hardy? I’m feeling that need to ask what the plan is, again.”
I spat out my gun-bit. “Plan is as much the same as we can make it. I was hoping we could just leave that bunch out front and call the DPD, but I don’t think that’s an option now.”
“Are you afraid they’ll identify us?” My driver wondered.
“Nah, not really.” A flicker of amusement crossed my lips. “I mean, what’re they going to say? ‘We were taken out by a bunch of whore ninjas and the Detrot Police Department?’ They’ll think the fumes got to them or it was a rival gang.” I lifted a thick notebook off Snicket’s desk and nosed it open. “Unfortunately, we can’t charge any of them for the drug lab. The school destroyed most of the evidence and anything it didn’t is contaminated. We have no warrant. Until Cosmo is out of the picture, we can’t afford to let them go or book them.”
“What, then? My trunk can’t fit that much pony.”
“I know,” I acknowledged. “Haymaker took up half the space by himself. Might be fun to try, though.”
Taxi buried a smile.
I ran my eyes down the page “Hmmm...looks like Snicket had the jump on trying to get information off the Vivarium recordings. Here...” I read from the notebook, “Nine A-M, griffin tribelord Gorse for three hours, likes anal, recorded on crystal six, information block one-one-four-one. Ten A-M, Bark Skin, Academy Lectern, thirty minutes with... Scarlet Petals... crystal five, info block blah blah blah.” I groaned and shut the book. “She didn’t get much, but enough to screw the Vivarium. No pun intended,” I added as I caught Taxi’s expression. “We might have to find a nice, deep hole to drop her down until this blows over.”
Taxi gnawed on her lips, top, then bottom, before pulling the desk drawer open. It leapt out, as though on a spring. My driver stopped breathing for several seconds, then murmured, “Oh my...”
Inside the drawer was a staggeringly complicated array of knobs, switches, and toggles set into a jet black control panel. Each was labeled with a different number, corresponding to a similar number on each screen. At the top, a big green button had a sticker on it that said ‘Play’ and below it, a red one that marked ‘Stop’.
Taxi sometimes acts according to strange whims and cosmic signals, but I always suspected she was just incapable of ignoring a shiny toggle.
Before I could stop her she smacked ‘Play’ and every single screen in the room burst to life. I tossed my leg over my eyes as the light exploded in a wildly discordant mural of wall to wall imagery that sent my stomach churning. Backing into the door, I tore loose the hall-pass curtain and sat heavily. The passes fluttered down over my head. “Dammit, Sweets!”
“Sorry, sorry!” She darted forward and punched the Stop key, freezing all of the images in place. “It... you know...”
“Yeah, a button. I hope the next one isn’t wired to a bomb or both you and Swift are going to bite it.” I groused, letting my leg drop. The frozen pictures seemed to be mostly empty rooms, though a lot of them weren’t and I really wished they were. I tried to find something to focus on and picked one that seemed tame enough, until I realized the cucumber wasn’t actually a cucumber. I shivered and shut my eyes, pressing the Stop button again. The screens went blank.
Poking at the control panel, Taxi began turning switches and dials, until one made the entire assembly shudder. A smaller drawer snapped from the side of the open one. There lay a crystal drive, an emerald the size of a chicken’s egg. The gem seemed to catch light and twist it inside itself in a way that was mildly hypnotic.
The damn thing could have paid my rent for a year if it were sold on the street, notwithstanding the huge value of the blackmail material inside it. Sometimes I envy the bad guys, just a little.
Picking Snicket’s key out of my front pocket, I set it on the desktop. “If that’s the recording... what does this go to?”
Taxi shook her head, then gave me a questioning look. “Cutesy gangster crap?”
Turning around, I brought my rear hooves up and smashed the side of the desk with all of my strength. It skidded across the floor into the wall and tore free a bundle of cables leading out of the bottom, tipping onto its face with a floor-shaking crash. A second, hidden drawer bounced out of the bottom, dangling by one broken hinge.
“Cutesy gangster crap,” I agreed, prying one shoe-tip into the space and ripping the drawer free. A thickly jeweled lockbox dropped onto the floor. Snatching up the key, I slotted it into a keyhole on the top, twisted it, and felt the entire thing creak. Several internal mechanisms variously shook, rattled, and let out noises of operation before the lid, with little aplomb, opened an inch.
Flipping it open, we found were six more crystal drives, each in their own comfy little hole. Picking up the lockbox, I closed the lid again and pulled out the key. “Get the one from the machine. Everypony else should be out front by now. I think it’s time to go.”
As if to punctuate that statement, a dustpan and feathered brush flew around the fallen hall-pass curtain and began trying to sweep a monitor off the wall.
****
After the amount of noise we’d made coming in, strolling through the silent halls of Sunny Days with only the light of a small mouth torch was eerily peaceful. We’d left the auditorium just as the first of the expensive magical screens was dragged out of Snicket’s little office and tossed into a small, metal dumpster that’d somehow made its way in and was waiting patiently beside a row of garbage cans full of carefully separated chemicals and broken glass. The clean-up was proceeding apace, with tiny squadrons of tweezers zipping back and forth along the corners of the room, removing fragments and dust that more brute force methods had missed.
By wordless agreement, as we moved down the quiet hallway, we tore open every door we could easily reach. The entire building was a disturbed tomb and we were just setting things back the way they should be.
High Spirits, wherever he was, deserved a little peace in knowing his school would always be clean and the students always on time.
****
I strode out the front door to the school yard, where a middling-sized crowd of ponies was milling around in the middle of the street. Scarlet and Swift sat together, talking softly on the sidewalk under a streetlamp while, in the road, the guards were pressed together, side by side with their injured and unconscious brethren piled beside them. Bake and Boil were making sure none of them ran off with the help of a circle of five or six ponies who I didn’t recognize; Stella’s search team. The lab techs were gathered up as far as they could be from the guards, while still being in the light.
Being back in the smoky air of the industrial center made me long for the clean, filtered school again. I could feel myself getting black-lung just standing there, but it wasn’t so much the foulness of the air that made me uneasy as the uncertainty of what was coming.
We’d won, in every sense of the word. Every part of our three day journey was leading up to eliminating one of the worst mobsters in the city. Again, I tried to summon up some celebratory impulse that just wouldn’t come.
Taxi jostled me gently with her foreleg. “Hardy?”
I realized I’d let myself drift for a moment, watching the little herds of ponies. I shuffled my coat, taking the time to run my hooftip over the lacquered box in my inner pocket. The heart made a quick double-thump, which my tired mind was inclined to interpret as ‘I’m here, I’m okay.’ My shoulders relaxed, just a little.
“I’m fine, Sweets. Just piecing together what we’re going to do next. Hey! Scarlet!”
Stella’s secretary was fervently nodding to something Swift was saying, but at my call, his head snapped up and his puppy-dog grin appeared.
“Detective Hardy!” The rose colored stallion rushed over to us. “I was so worried! Are you hurt?”
“No moreso than usual.” I flicked a bit of dust off one shoulder. “What’s your situation? Bring me up to speed.”
Scarlet hesitated, sweeping his tail between his hind legs. “Err... well...we did find the colt. He’s on his way to the hospital. Swift gave me his horn.” He patted his stylish sapphire blue saddle-bag. “I’ll see to it the doctors get it. It was a clean break, so he should, eventually, recover.”
“Good to hear.” I said, waving Taxi forward. She opened her own bag and extracted Snicket’s lockbox, setting it on the road in front of me. Scarlet leaned forward, reaching for it, and I put a restraining hoof on its top. “These are the crystal drives. The recordings. Let’s talk price.”
“I... I’m only... I can’t...” He stammered, then a disappointed look expanded from his mouth to his eyes. “Detective Hardy, you’re not going to try to blackma—”
I held up my leg for silence.
“What I want is protection for Cosmo’s drug makers. The ones making the drugs were debtors he roped in to mix product. I want them and whoever they choose to bring with them safe in the Heights. Got me?” Facing the motley collection of guards, waiting for whatever fate we might have in store with them I added, “We’ll also need somewhere to dump the King’s goons. Some of them are... sharp.” My hoof found the gash in my armor and I tugged it open, leaving the plating underneath exposed.
“Of-of course!” Scarlet said, picking up the box and secreting it away in his pack. His sweet smile returned. “We’ve already got a couple of trucks on the way. We have safe places and we can get their families as well. What about the drug lab?”
“The school ate it.”
The stallion peered at me, confused. “What?”
“It’s taken care of.” I didn’t feel like going into long explanations. Using one knee, I rubbed one eye, then the other. Adrenaline is better than caffeine, but it doesn’t last near as long and the comedown is a bitch. “I need to sit down for a bit. Have some coffee. Where’s our ride?”
Taxi’s lips curled back off of her teeth. “Yeess. If you’re here, who is guarding my car?!”
Stella’s secretary brushed a stray hair out of his eyes. “Miss Edina and Miss Zeta came to get me. I think Miss Edina was driving, so it shouldn’t take long to get—”
****
A tiny, mean part of me regretted keeping my driver from murdering Scarlet.
****
Bake was sitting on Taxi as the Night Trotter’s engine sound wafted down the desolate road. The twins were very apologetic, but firm in their position that she wasn’t allowed to choke the life out of Stella’s secretary. My driver was less than pleased with the arrangement and kept slamming her back knee into Bake’s gentlecolt’s region. It wasn’t having the desired effect.
Meanwhile, Swift recapped the fight for Scarlet, who was watching her zip in excited little circles, making shooting noises with her mouth. She was practically dancing.
I remembered that feeling of total, full body exultation after my first successful operation. Juniper had to almost throw me at my bed after forcing a whole cup of chamomile tea down my throat, because I just knew, just damn well knew, that I was going to make a lasting difference and within a few weeks the criminal elements would find themselves shaking in their little booties at the name ‘Hard Boiled.’
I let myself smile as I followed her tale out of the corner of one eye, inspecting the damage to my shotgun. The blow to Snicket’s cheek had widened a weakness in the stock that I was going to have to slap some epoxy on before I sent it back to Requisitions.
A pair of headlights flashed, bringing me upright. The Night Trotter’s nose crept around the bend in the row, its lights playing over the crowd as it rumbled forward at a snail’s pace. There didn’t seem to be anypony behind the wheel, though Zeta was sitting in the passenger seat with her hooves braced against the ceiling. Her eyes were like saucers.
As the vehicle got closer, I made out a pair of tiny claws clutching the steering wheel and a single, orb-like eye, tilted sideways, peeking over the dashboard. Edina would have needed five or six telephone directories under her for a normal driving position.
Taxi’s struggling increased substantially. “Lemme up, you chunky bastard! What’s she done to my baby?!”
The car pulled very, very gradually, to a stop in front of us. Zeta threw herself through the window and slumped onto her foreknees beside the nearest gutter, retching copiously. Edina pushed the driver’s side door open and stepped out. The Night Trotter’s engine snapped, crackled, and shut down with a burbling of quiet pleasure, like a race-pony who’s run hard and made the finish line by a comfortable margin.
“We find this a most suitable vehicle,” the snowy griffin said approvingly, patting the cab’s hood with one wing. “Pardon and excuse how long it took us. We had to try out the fully engaged speed rune and then got into a race with a very perturbed meat sack who believed his pony police car could keep up with Mistress Edina in the bends. We have set him right, though we do not think he meant to drive into that milk truck.”
My driver writhed on the road, flipping over and using both rear hooves to smash Bake under the chin, finally tipping him onto his side. She tossed herself towards the car, throwing up the hood to reveal the steaming hulk of the engine. “Oh sweet Celestia...”
A few of the runes etched into its surface still glowed with latent energies, but most seemed to be flickering weakly. The large red ruby centered on top was almost black, its magics completely drained.
“Wait, Mistress Edina... did you say you got in a race with a...” Scarlet began, then found a fuming Sweet Shine a centimeter from the end of his nose.
They stood there, muzzle to muzzle, for several seconds. Everypony else, including the guards, was frozen, waiting for the attack that was inevitably coming. There was no way in this world I could have gotten close enough to stop her before she snapped his neck.
Taxi growled in a voice barely above a whisper. “Your boss will be paying for my entire power re-supply and a recharge on my maneuvering rune."
Scarlet made a squeaky noise of resignation as he pulled a sparkly pink wallet from his bags. “Cash or check?”
****
Finding a late night garage took us an extra hour; rousing the mechanic to any sense of urgency required the addition of a zero to his fee, especially after a raging Sweet Shine almost tossed him through his own front window when he made a comment about her ‘lead hooves’ and the nearly empty power system.
The Night Trotter hadn’t suffered much for the hard driving, but then I’d never seen it so much as cough no matter how hard Taxi rode the clutch.
The four of us, Taxi, Swift, Scarlet, and I sat in peaceful contemplation in the small lobby beside the garage, meditating over styrofoam cups of instant coffee that had an aftertaste of motor oil. Arcane sounds of machinery came through the wall.
My driver was in a more forgiving mood since she’d watched Scarlet going down the checklist of options and ticking off every maintenance related alteration the mechanic had available. After a noticeable improvement in his attitude when Stella’s secretary didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the final cost, the grease-monkey placed some calls and had his entire crew in for the wee hours with a promise that he’d have us on our way in ‘two super quick jiffies,’ whatever those might be.
Thus, we waited.
I think we were midway through the second alleged jiffy. I took another sip of the wretched sludge and felt the kinks in my back coming undone. A cup of joe can do wonders, even if it tastes like sewer water. Peering over the rim of my cup, I noticed Scarlet doing that quick breath thing one does when they know asking a question is unwelcome, but if they don’t they may have a stroke.
“Detective?” Scarlet asked, finally. I set my cup aside and waited until he went on. “Do you mind telling me what you’re going to do now?”
“I’m holding up my end of the bargain.” I replied, setting my cup on the small table and picking up one of the outdated magazines, hoping that would signal I didn’t really want to have an ongoing conversation.
“As... comforting as that sounds, could you elaborate?” Scarlet pressed.
Swift scowled at him and gave him a kick in the ankle. “If The Detective says he’s going to hold up his end of the bargain, then that’s what he’s going to do.”
I grimaced at the title. I could hear the capital letters. ‘Sir’ was bad enough. If she went around calling me ‘The Detective’ we were going to have to have a heart to heart.
“You want the truth?” I asked, and Scarlet nodded. “Fine. I’m going to walk into Monte Cheval and bell the biggest, meanest cat you’ve ever met. The Heights will be safe. The Jewelers will have one less mobster, and I’ll know whether or not Cosmo had Ruby Blue murdered. Is there anything else?”
“That’s all very well to say, but... how are you going to do all that?” Scarlet wanted to know.
“We have his ledger.” I waved towards Swift, who flashed the belly pocket of her tactical vest. “His drug business was massive and must have been supporting damn near every other part of his organization. Extortion is good money, but not good enough to run a casino. I doubt he ever considered that he might need a back-up. Every dirty deal he’s ever run will come back to bite him, and his creditors will chase him into the grave. His only alternative will be to skip town and pray his creditors are less skilled headhunters than the Detrot Police Department.”
Scarlet pursed his thin mouth, wiggling back in the uncomfortable lobby chair. “I... don’t mean to be rude, but if it’s all so easy, why hasn’t somepony done something about him before now?”
I slurped at my cup, forcing myself to swallow as I answered, “If we’d been going through normal police channels I think Cosmo could have sold me a sack of Beam out front of the Castle and I doubt I’d have been able to arrest him for it. He’s careful bordering on paranoid and whoever holds his strings has somehow kept him off of anypony’s radar. Speaking of that, I need to have a quick discussion with someone. Make sure I don’t fall out of my chair.”
Closing my eyes, I pushed a hoof into my mane, searching around until I found the little bump behind my right ear. The ladybug meeped, then raised its wings and gave them a buzz.
I know you can hear me. I need access. I’m not playing games anymore.
Nothing happened.
Dammit, now!
My vision exploded into fragments, then peeled away into blackness.
****
The network was in a strange state. Many of the ladybugs were drifting aimlessly over the city, passing images of smoking ruins. Probably whatever fire they’d been watching earlier had burnt itself out, and now that our fight with Snicket was over, the big shows for the evening had finished. A few ponies were screwing, a few eating supper, but the largest segment of the ladybug population was involved in various televisions.
Still, there was a peculiar anticipatory sensation that sat right near the edge of perception as I floated inside the field of magical insects. I poked around for several seconds, trying to get what I could, though none of the images were coherent enough to tell me anything useful. It was another irritating fact of dealing with ladybugs; unless somepony was telling them what to look at they tended to drift about like children on a city-sized playground, staring at whatever took their fancy.
Take me to Queenie, I thought, exasperated.
After clinging to Zeta’s consciousness, the sensation of speed was less jarring, but no amount of experience will ever make me enjoy the roller-coaster ride feeling of sliding through tiny minds, one after another.
The grimy hotel room crashed down around my ears.
In the corner, the television still blared. The neighbor sounded like they’d given up just banging on the wall and were using a lamp or some heavy instrument to bash their way through. Arrayed over the stained mattress, hordes of ladybugs swelled and moved like a blanket of living, multi colored ping pong balls. Most of them seemed to be asleep.
Queenie, meanwhile, was laying on the floor, forelegs propping up its chin. It was intently watching an advert for car polish, with a bowl of popcorn and the surviving half of a delivered pizza piled on the floor nearby. Internally, I attempted to send the sound of a throat clearing down the connection.
“Detective Hard ‘Hardy’ Boiled!” The insect rolled onto its back, peering at the spot near the ceiling where most of my mind was hovering. “You have returned! Joy and rapture abound! We have not been so amused in many weeks.”
I figured you bunch would get a kick out of that. I replied. Now, question time. One, how did you drag me into the network without me doing the song and dance first?
The ladybug raised one wing and began cleaning itself with its proboscis. Something about the procedure was just a bit obscene. “We have not needed the dance to operate for some years now, Detective Hardy.”
What?! Why did you make me do it all those times?!
“It was so entertaining to watch.” Queenie’s lower set of wings buzzed and though I couldn’t read its expressions very well, I got the distinct impression it was a bit wistful.
I...argh! Never again! I tried to envision a giant boot stomping on Queenie’s face and send that down the link before I continued. The essy just fluttered and made its laughter noise. Question two. You got anypony left in Cosmo’s office?
“One of ours remained. The King of Ace has been in his office for some hours. He returned not long after you left his abode and did much damage to his desk, chair, and several of his guards. We found his screaming most interesting, though we did see something else that we feel you would find very intriguing elsewhere-”
Sorry, no time to go on sightseeing tours. He’s still there?
Queenie’s mandibles twitched, but it answered after a short pause, “The King of Ace is there. He made several phone calls and is now having a beverage full of poison.”
Poison?!
“Alcohol. Most foul! Foulest fouly foul!” The ladybug shuffled out a pack of cigarettes from somewhere inside its carapace and lit one from a wooden match struck on its leg.
Right, booze. Envy him a little bit. Did he try to call the school?
“We are unaware of the content of his conversations,” Queenie hummed, apologetically. “Our representative became most interested in the wonderful probability tables in the below rooms. We must explore them further. If you would like to acquire many thousands of your metal pony bits, we are certain we can assist!”
The blackjack tables? I... mmm... tempting, but we’ve got something to do first. Keep watching. If he goes anywhere, let me know.
“We will do our very bestly bestest!”
Let me out, but keep your people nearby. I may be about to do something stupid.
The insect sucked down a lung-full of smoke and blew a series of concentric circles in my direction.
“Most assuredly, Detective Hardy! That is part of why we enjoy you so very much.”
****
I dragged myself up and pushed my hat back on my head. Swift and Scarlet were laughing over a calendar full of kittens on the lobby wall while Taxi sat in her meditation pose, rear legs drawn under herself. She wasn’t actually meditating, but rather had one eye cracked and on me.
I lay back in my barely padded chair, tilting my gaze back to look up at the cool neon lights. So much was riding on the next few hours, the next few moves. I imagined Cosmo as a wily old tiger, cornered and ready to tear the throat out of one last foe. How much did we really know? His history? Certainly we had a chunk of it. There were so many holes and fragments. I felt like I was assembling a puzzle starting from the center, realizing as time went on that it was much larger than I’d first thought.
How would the King of Ace respond to having his brother’s heart stolen? Now that his drug lab was gone, he’d have to be comatose not to wonder about the connecting factor between his recent misfortunes. There was little left for him to lose, and to prevent an atrocity I had to give him something before he could move from shock and depression to vengeful rage.
Time was, again, not in my favor. Cosmo might decide at any time that he could retrieve his brother’s heart with an attack on the Vivarium. If nothing else, he might decide it would draw me out.
I had only one card left to play and it wasn’t the kind that could be played over the phone. That meant walking into the mad, wounded tiger’s den before he could recover. The question remained; Was I another tiger, ready to claim his territory, or a mouse inviting myself in for a snack?
I sat up.
Taxi unfolded herself. “Hardy? You alright?”
“Just checking in with Queenie,” I told her. “It’s going to be keeping an eye on us.”
“An eye on us for... what, sir?” Swift asked as she and Scarlet noticed I was up and made for their seats. “Didn’t we win?”
Innocence like that should be put in museums and kept away from the big, nasty realities of Equestria to give us all something to strive towards. That, or it should be physically painful.
“Kid, we just set the house on fire. We can put it out, but first we’ve got to walk in and convince the crazy son of the moon who owns the place to give up the keys before it burns to the ground around him.” I prodded Scarlet in the side, ignoring Swift’s confused look. “That’s where you come in. I’m going to be trusting you to keep ahold of Cosmo’s ledger and to get us out. I need Vivarium fliers standing by.”
The escort’s lipsticked mouth turned downward slightly. “The Stilettos will be guarding the Vivarium very closely and patrolling the Heights. They’ll be stretched pretty thin.”
“I don’t need fighters,” I assured him. “Pegasi or griffins. If we can’t leave through the front door, we’ll need a quick exit. Cosmo doesn’t have many fliers in his employ. I need to exploit that.”
“Just what do you intend to do?” Taxi asked, looking very leery.
“Like I said. We’re going to bell the cat. Then the cat is going to have a ringing bell around its neck, inviting all the other predators to dinner. If I’m right, he’ll run. If I’m wrong, we’ll need that exit sooner, rather than later.”