//------------------------------//
// Chapter Ten 
// Story: All In - An Applejack Noir 
// by Belligerent Sock 
//------------------------------//

	The cabbie was a donkey, with hooves that had met every street in Manehattan and a face that had probably met half of them. His mud-colored fur was graying in places, and the tweed of his jacket was at least ten years past retirement. He was a talker, too. He talked like the sun had just come up that morning. 
“...But all that’s not worth a pile of mule dung if they don’t make an effort. Sure, you get some ponies who do try to lend a helpin’ hoof, but most of ‘em couldn’t give two salt licks about their neighbors. Never used to be that way. You used to see all sorts of dinners. Heck, I had a buddy up in Flatiron who did a nice potluck every year. Brought out the whole neighborhood. And every Hearth’s Warming, his family would get all’a that food back and more. Never had to pay a bit for their holiday dinners. Funny how that works. But these days you don’t see that sorta thing. Folk these days just wanna hold onto what they got. They just hold all’a their chips and never throw any into the pot.”
“Gotta have something to bet something,” I said.
“Exactly. That’s what I mean. Maybe if everypony started bein’ a bit more neighborly again, we’d be sittin’ pretty. But then you hear about the state a’ some of these folks, it turns your stomach. You know about that hobo place up in Central Park? Savages, the lot a’ them. What kinda world are we livin’ in, where they let that sorta thing happen?”
        I shuffled in my seat. “A dark one, to be sure.”
        “True, that. It’s enough to boil my hide. Don’t even get me started on some a’ the neighborhoods further down the Lower East Side.” He let out a whistle. “Some a’ the things I’ve seen there… I’d almost be of a mind to take to City Hall with a sign or somethin’, but I try not to make myself any more of an ass than I already am.”
I smiled. “Thanks for that.”
“Been in this town for fifty years. First time somepony’s said that.”
“Cryin' shame. You’re such a nice ass.”
“Oh.” He sent a crooked smile back at me. “Well, thanks for lookin’, doll.”
Grinning wider, I sat back and let my head loll over the back of the seat. “I take it back. You’re a wise ass.”
I heard him laugh. “The wisest!”
The rest of the trip went by quick. The wheels seemed to prance along the cobblestones.



	

“Auric Aspect - Lenses and Glasswares.”
It was an odd building, to be sure. If Barnyard Street were an actual barnyard, it would have been the run-down shack that nopony had used in years, but was too much of a hassle to just tear down. It had to be as old as the neighborhood—the chimney in back was certainly ancient enough—it was just one story, which made the modern building next to it seem all the taller. The bricks around the door were covered in cracks and a layer of soot that had to be an inch thick. The windows, though, were clean and clear. I suppose that made perfect sense.
A little bell chimed as I stepped through the door. Inside, it was lit the old-fashioned way, with a few candles hanging from the back wall and a few more scattered around the tables and shelves in the middle of the room. They cast their flickering light on the piles of neatly-organized merchandise. At the far end was a counter and cash register, and a door under which a much brighter light shone.
The floorboards creaked and spat dust beneath my hooves. There were rows upon rows of eyeglasses; shelves packed with wine glasses, colored glass plates, and a few large crystal serving trays; telescopes with padded cases; a small display of various decorative items, sculptures, and the like.
One of them drew my eye. A life-size hummingbird sat perched on a wooden branch, its pure blue feathers flared, as though it were about to leap off and suckle the purple flower which was wrapped around the branch. The little orange sword of its beak was pointed at the cup of the flower, forever reaching but never quite close enough.
The door in back swung open, and in stepped a bespeckled ochre unicorn of about fifty with the leary eyes and tousled mane you’d usually associate with an old chemist, or somepony else who put just a little too much time into their work. He wore a protective smock over a maroon pinstripe vest, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up past the elbow. From the look he was sending me, he didn’t see many coat-wearing mares in his shop.
“Can I help you, Miss?” he said, placing a tentative hoof on the counter.
I put a hard face on and let my voice dip low and deep. “You do a lot of good work, Mr. Auric. Gotta wonder why you don’t do it all the time.”
“I-I’m sorry?”
“I get it though, I do. It’s delicate work. Things… break.”
His glasses magnified the movements of his eyes. It made it easy to see them darting back and forth.
“What I don’t get,” I continued, starting toward him, “is how we can pay you for the good work, and yet wind up with junk like this.” I pulled the spyglass from my coat.
Even his magnifying lenses couldn’t keep his eyes from shrinking to pinpricks. He froze in place, his mouth dropping open as he inhaled sharply.
Bingo. “This piece of ‘work’ just cost us a stakeout. Our employer is not pleased.”
He finally found his voice. “N-now, wait just a moment—”
“And I’m sure I don’t need to mention what he’s going to have us do about this betrayal of trust.” I looked around pointedly. “Lot of delicate work in here.”
“Please!” he burst out. “I swear, Mr. Greenback will not be disappointed again!”
And there it was—that name again. Very odd, hearing it in a little glass shop here. I was on the right street now. I’d just need to keep out of the potholes.
“Please,” he said, “let me make it up to him.”
Next step. I kept my expression unfeeling. “He doesn’t care about favors. He cares about results.” I set the spyglass on the counter with a hard thump. “You’re going to take this thing apart and figure out what went wrong. And you’re not going to let the same mistake happen again.”
“Y-yes! Yes, of course!” He snatched the thing up in a pale pink aura. “I’ll do so right away, in fact!” Whirling around, he all but tore the door from its hinges as he fled into the back.
I followed him with a leisurely step and leaned against the doorjamb, crossing my legs and watching. The back room was tiny, made even tinier by all the cupboards and boxes which lined the walls. A single, bright gem light shone down on a workbench across from me, which Auric was busy clearing of loose glass and papers. His horn lit up, and one of the cupboards spewed a clutch of tools into the air, which then floated over to him. He took a seat on the room’s lone stool and set the spyglass on the bench.
“The lenses… appear to be in order,” he said, turning the thing over in his trembling hooves. “No scratches that I can see.”
“There’s more than two lenses, ain’t there?” I said. “Check ‘em all.”
“R-right. Yes.” He clamped a set of pliers around the end of the spyglass, and with his magic, unscrewed the front lens. He picked it up, along with a magnifying glass, and held it to the light. Setting it aside, he did the same with a number of smaller glass circles lifted from the remainder of the device. “There are no faults with any of the lenses,” he announced.
“Hm. Well, that’s weird. You got an idea what else could be the problem?”
“I’ll need to check the energy of the gemstones,” he said more to himself than to me. He leapt from the stool, crossing the room in a flash and rummaging through a pile of tools in the corner. “I-I just need to find my dowsing wand.”
I watched him from my spot at the door like a dog watching squirrels. “Take your time.”
He pulled a device like a doctor’s stethoscope from the pile. He wrapped the two tail ends around his horn, rushed back to the bench, and took the single end to the pulsing gems on the spyglass’s outer surface, one at a time.
“Good… good… good…” he mumbled. “I don’t understand.”
“What’s not to get?”
“There’s…” He gulped. “Nothing wrong. Nothing wrong that I can tell.” He sat as still as a statue in a graveyard, his ears drooping. He didn’t dare turn around.
I let out a sigh. “Nothing, huh? Well, guess that means I got nothing to tell anypony, either. Darn.”
He still didn’t budge. I guess I’d have to make it obvious.
“We’ll just have to keep this a secret between the two of us, huh?”
That got him. His head jerked around. “W-what?”
“I’m going to do you a favor, Mr. Auric. What I suggest you do now is take those components and use ‘em in building a bunch of other spyglasses. Nopony will ever know.”
His jaw hung open. His eyes were doing the scurry again, this time beneath a furrowed brow. It took him a long moment to ask the right question. “Who the hell are you?”
I smiled. “I’m just somepony who’s trying to figure a few things out. I’m doing you another favor by not sayin’ anything else.”
His gaze narrowed. There was a very different look in his eyes now. “Cop?”
I didn’t say anything else.
He shuffled around in his seat, fully facing me. “Well, whoever you are, you’ve got some nerve, springing all of that nonsense on an old pony.”
“Investigative technique. Nothing personal.”
“You might have just asked some questions.”
“A lone mare comes walking in with one of your special spyglasses, and starts asking suspicious questions? Somehow I doubt you’d have answered any of ‘em.”
“Probably not, no.”
“The real question is, are you open to a few right now?”
The glint in his eyes shifted again. His lips twitched before he spoke. “Perhaps I am.”
“Well, thank you kindly, Mr. Auric.” I reached inside my coat, taking out my notepad. “So, what can you tell me about your relationship with this ‘Mr. Greenback?’”
“You mean, aside from what you already know?”
“I’ve made some guesses, nothing more.”
“Well,” he let out a breath. “You know who you stole from, don’t you?”
“Sounds like a bunch of gangsters from the Lower East Side.”
“A rather scary bunch of gangsters, in point of fact.” He cast his gaze to the floor for a moment. “Mr. Greenback only holds onto the slips and the Six Points, but his people go as far as Midtown unopposed.” He looked back up at me, shaking his head. “Not even the griffons from the Rookery can just waltz in any place they want like that.”
“So, he’s based out of the Six Points?”
“Do I look like the kind of pony who would know exactly where they’re at? That’s just what I hear. I don’t ask for every detail.”
“So, how’d you get involved with his lot?”
He looked away again, licking his lips. “A couple of his enforcers came in one day, around two months ago. They dropped a few hints at who they were, made sure I knew I’d be a fool to refuse the business.”
“You normally make night vision scopes?”
“No. No, I didn’t even know a night vision spell until they gave me a few pages copied out of some spellbook. They sent the gems, as well.”
“Sounds like they set you up good and proper.”
“Yes,” he said, slowly. “They did.”
“How much did they pay you, exactly?”
He shuffled his hooves uneasily. “A fair price for this sort of work. Both bit and grain.”
“You ever think about what they could be using these spyglasses of yours for?”
A heavy sigh escaped his lips, his ears drooping. “I lose sleep every night.”
I nodded. “Don’t we all.” I flipped my notepad closed, stuffing it back into my coat. “Well, that’s all I needed to hear, Mr. Auric. Thank you kindly.”
He perked up again. “Really? You’re done, just like that?”
“Yep. Don’t you worry, you won’t be seeing me again.” I turned away from the door, heading back into the main room.
“Well, wait a minute!” he said. I heard his scrambling hooves behind me. “Suppose I up and tell them all about you?”
I looked at him, shrugging. “I can’t stop you. I would appreciate it if you kept this little meeting quiet, though. That’s for your benefit, too. They’ll probably want a replacement for that lost spyglass eventually.” I tilted my head toward the back room. “And hey, you’ve got the spare parts. It’s easy money.”
He glanced back at the doorway. When he looked at me again, his face was that of a Saddle Arabian trader. “I suppose it is.”
I held his gaze for a moment, then started for the front door. My hooves fell still as I spied the hummingbird again. “I meant what I said, earlier,” I said. “You do good work.”
“Hm? Oh, that’s not one of mine. A colleague of mine made that a long time ago. That was during brighter times.” He paused, licked his lips. “In Canterlot.”
I stared at the thing, long and hard. “He ain’t still in Canterlot, is he?”
“No, no. Thank goodness, no. When he moved away, he sold it to me. I don’t know where he went after that. I’ve never been able to sell it in this town.”
“It’s a nice piece.”
“Yes. He put all of himself into it, all for a single customer.” He sighed, a bit of life leaving his eyes and going somewhere far away. “But that was a gamble he lost.”
The sound of carts and hooves on the street outside sounded through the shop once again. I tipped my hat to him.
“Well, Mr. Auric, you have a good day.”
“You too, Miss…” He trailed off. “I suppose I can’t ask for a name one last time?”
I smiled at him. “Have a good day, Mr. Auric.”
The door opened with a ring of the bell, and I walked out without a single glance back. I’d shaken this tree. Now I had another one to buck down on the Lower East Side.