Looking Glass, P.I: Coins and Crowns

by Kavonde

Chapter 8

By the time the first rays of morning sunshine began poking through the clouds, I knew I was getting sick. My throat burned horribly, and my head felt like someone had wrapped it in a wool quilt and tenderized it with a hammer. Every joint in my body howled in protest as I pushed myself to my hooves and staggered out from under my shelter.

The Starswirl River divided Fillydelphia roughly in half, meandering through slums and mansions alike before depositing its collection of filth and garbage into Clover Bay. A dozen or so bridges of a wide assortment of compositions and designs spanned its width, arcing high enough over the water to let trade barges pass unimpeded. The one I'd taken refuge under was an antiquated stone behemoth filled more with graffiti than mortar. My last couple of bits had bought a promise from the handful of homeless locals not to rob me in my sleep, but I double-checked my “Oh Crap” bag just in case. To my relief, everything seemed to be there.

I walked down to the edge of the river to stretch my legs and get a drink. I was always amazed at how clean the city looked after a heavy storm. Layers of dirt and grime had been blasted clean off the sides of buildings, and splashes of actual color in bright, pastel hues seemed to glow in the morning light. The Starswirl, its banks filled almost to overflowing, rushed along so quickly that its waters looked pure, clean, and blue.

This was what my city was supposed to look like.

I made a quick breakfast out of the dried snacks I'd packed, then splashed some water over my face and mane to drive my sleepy haze away. My head still pounded, my throat still burned, and my front right shoulder was stiff and knotted, but I felt moderately functional. Time for another trip across town.

The clouds were almost gone by the time I reached the alley where I'd found Silver Coin's cufflink. I could actually see what I was looking at now, but there wasn't much to see. Between the haphazard cleaning job I'd suspected before and the more thorough one performed by the storm, there wasn't any hope of finding worthwhile forensic evidence. I poked around near where I'd smelled blood before and found a few drops that had been sheltered by a stack of pallets, but the sort of things I'd been hoping to find–bloody hoofprints, broken teeth, bits of brain matter–were absent.

Well, that was a bust. Hopefully I'd at least get to talk to my client.

High Canter Boulevard ran north to south through the nicest part of town, just a few blocks east of the Horn and Feather. It sat on a rise that overlooked Clover Bay, or at least the nicer parts that were filled with white sailed yachts rather than trash barges. Perfectly manicured lawns and hedges lined a road paved with pristine white cobblestones; every house was huge and gorgeous in its own way, from one that was practically a miniature forest of greenery to another built like a Canterlot castle. I generally distrust the wealthy elite in Fillydelphia, but I had to admit... this was kinda nice.

3803 High Canter was the largest mansion I'd seen on the boulevard. It was surrounded by a red brick wall topped with intricate metal scrollwork that, if you looked closely, concealed thousands of tiny and no doubt razor-sharp points. The building itself was the definition of stately, four stories tall and seemingly carved from a single, immense block of silver-veined marble. Two wings extended towards the front gate and surrounded a large, shallow pool with a statue of an proud-looking earth pony at its center.

A guard in a spotless blue-and-silver uniform stood at the main gates. He wasn't particularly huge, and he didn't appear to be armed, but something in his posture and the set of his eyes made me wary of ticking him off. He wore a name tag on his vest that simply read "Moss." I approached with a pleasant a demeanor as I could muster, which ended up being somewhere in the neighborhood of surly. "Hey."

His green eyes shifted to me. “Hey.”

“I'm hear to see Miss Calla.”

“And you are?”

“Glass, P.I. She hired me.”

He grunted and pushed the gate open with his rear hoof. “She's expecting you. Go on in.”

I tapped the brim of my hat in salute and proceeded in. The mansion rose up like a small mountain in front of me; funny, it hadn't seemed quite so sheer from outside.

I noticed a plaque at the base of the statue, and paused to read it. “In Loving Memory of Gold Coin: Adventurer, Businesspony, Beloved Father.” I looked up to inspect the work more closely. The earth pony was lean and well-muscled. His snout seemed to be slightly misshapen, probably broken in some long-past fight. He had one of those thick, bushy mustaches that added an air of confidence and competence, and the expression on his face was that of a pony looking forward to his next challenge.

Everything about the statue seemed to say, “I loved this pony, I respected him, and I miss him.”

Hm.

Past the outdoor atrium, a pair of huge double doors led into what, in a normal size house, might be called a foyer. In this place, is was more like a lobby. Twin staircases spiraled up to the higher levels; between them, a gold-plated alicorn statue poured water from its horn into a marble basin. Uncomfortable-looking but clearly expensive love seats lined the walls, as if the place was normally used as a waiting room or small auditorium. Doors led off in almost every direction, the décor giving no real indication where they might go.

“Mr. Glass! I hadn't expected to see you again so soon.”

Miss Calla descended the stairs with the kind of stately grace that you almost have to be born into. She was wearing a magnificent gown, all rich violets and baby blues, which trailed behind her as she went. She was stunning, and for a moment, I felt a strong kinship with Silver Coin.

“Have you news? You look a bit sick. Are you well?” she asked, her eyes wide and sincere. “Is Silver?”

I tore my eyes away from her and shook my head. “It doesn't look that way, ma'am. I found this.”

She gasped at the silver cufflink. “He wore these the night he disappeared!”

I nodded. “I found it in an alley outside the Horn and Feather. There was blood, too, but the place had been scrubbed pretty clean. Almost like a professional hit.”

“A hit?” she asked, panic in her voice. “Do you mean he's... ?”

“I don't know for sure, ma'am, but it doesn't look good.”

The strength went out of her legs. She sank towards the ground, but some sudden, gentlemanly urge propelled me to catch her before she fell. I helped her to one of the seats and stood silently while she gathered herself.

“Miss Calla,” I finally said, as she wiped tears from her eyes, “I'm here because I need some answers. What, exactly, is your relationship to Silver Coin?”

She looked up at me in surprise. “Why, I am his fiancé!"

“No, you're not,” I interrupted. “I've done my homework. I know that you are–or at least were–a professional mare. I know that Silver bought out your contract six months ago, right around the time he established contact with his dad's old friends. I know that, somehow, these events are connected. And I know that they lead to Silver's disappearance and possible death. So, Miss Lily, why don't you tell me what's really going on?”

She stared at me with wide eyes, tears still brimming at the corners. I could see her pushing every ounce of innocence and gormlessness she could through her eyes, trying desperately to convince me that I'd gotten it all wrong, that I'd added one and one and came up with three. I wasn't buying it, and after a long moment, her whole facade dropped. Her sapphire eyes took on a jaded weariness, her shoulders slumped, and her voice lost some of its saccharine sweetness.

“He's my brother.”

I rocked back on my hooves in surprise. “He's what?”

“He's my brother. We... we didn't always know. We only met for the first time about six months ago. He, um... he wanted to hire me. But nothing happened,” she added quickly. “He was very nervous. He'd never, um, hired a professional before, and he wasn't sure what to do. So we got to talking. Somehow, our fathers came up. He described his, and I realized, well... ”

“You're Gold Coin's daughter.”

She shook her head. “I knew that already, I just never... put the pieces together. I didn't know him well, but he used to visit my mother occasionally when I was young. He'd read to me, ask me how school was going, if I'd made any new friends... ” She smiled sadly. “I always thought he was an uncle. Uncle Gold. Mom didn't tell me the truth until after we heard he'd died.” The smile faded away. “He was a good stallion.”

I grunted noncommittally. “So once Silver found out you were related, he bought your contract?”

Calla nodded. “He brought me here and told me he'd have to keep me secret for awhile. That 'he' couldn't know. I didn't know who 'he' was, and Silver didn't want to tell me. But I was comfortable, and safe, and didn't have to spread my legs for anypony... I didn't pry. Sure, I was going a little stir-crazy, but it was a small price to pay.”

“So why pose as Silver’s fiancé?”

“It... it seemed safer,” she said with a sheepish little shrug. “As his ‘fiancé,’ I’d have a good reason to try to find help for him. So I came up with this whole story about how we met, how he’d wanted to protect me from the tabloids... ” She looked up at me with a rueful grin. “Fortunately, I picked the one private eye in Fillydelphia who didn’t know who he was.”

“Glad to help,” I said dryly. “But why were you worried about anypony finding out you were related?”

“Well, about a week before he disappeared, Silver told me everything. He said that he'd learned that this other pony, his mentor, had killed our father. He hadn't wanted to believe it for a long time, but his actions lately had been so ruthless and so erratic that Silver had finally realized what he was capable of. He said that the other stallion had killed our father when he refused to cooperate with his 'big idea,' and he had been trying since to mold Silver into the sort of pony who'd go along with it. He thought that I might be used as leverage to force him to cooperate.

“Silver knew he couldn't go to the police with this; he didn't have any real evidence, and besides, he suspected word would get back to the other pony. So he started trying to find ways to bring him down. That's why he'd started meeting with our father's old associates. He said he had a plan, and that he was going to explain it to them the next time they met. And then... ”

“He vanished,” I finished. She nodded, tears welling up in her eyes again. I put a hoof on her shoulder. “I'm so sorry, Miss Calla.”

She sniffed back tears. “Thank you.”

"I have to ask, though... why didn't you tell me any of this before? Or at least point me in the right direction?"

She smiled sadly. "I didn't know you, Mr. Glass. What if you worked for him? I didn't want to put myself or Silver in any more danger. And I hoped that you'd be able to put together enough information on your own that you wouldn't need my help."

I grunted. She'd only made both our lives harder by withholding her suspicions, but I saw her point. I had just one more question to ask now, but I thought already knew the answer. “Who is this pony you keep talking about? The one Silver thought killed your father?”

“Crown Jewel," she answered. "The president of the First Equestrian Bank.”

Comments

[Nekonyancer]

I approached with a pleasant a demeanor as I could muster,

as pleasant

but I thought already knew the answer.

I thought I