Apropos of the Sinners

by SpitFlame

Part III – Chapter III – Head-to-Head

Well, first of all, none of this was self-evident. Cluster needed to familiarize himself with certain necessities, like a system he would abide by. That is, he needed some framework to use. The money—that much he could get behind. This whole business operation—not so much. In fact, it was likely that he knew a few ponies around these parts. He had lived in Baltimare just last year, but was obliged to leave, owing to unfortunate circumstances.

Still the matter could not be deemed simple. Would anything extra be accrued to this debt? Interest, for example? No laws would get in the way, Cluster was sure of it. He entertained the idea of searching for this friend of Daisy's father, but thought better of it. Even if it were possible, he would delay too much to get to the end of that. The more you delay your work, the harder it will be to finish. If you haven't finished half your work by midday, for example, then it's safe to say you won't finish much at all for the rest of the day. Cluster was almost mortally averse to procrastinating on anything. The whole situation could be completed in a single day, so why wait? No, he would march on, muddle through, as it were. He was here now, so... may as well, really... but now I'm getting confused.

To avoid another one of my fits (I do apologize, really), I will dive right back into the current events. It transitioned unexpectedly, that is, not at all how Cluster imagined it. He was walking down the street, en route to the apartment (he recognized this apartment, too; he rented out a room in it last year) and he was confronted with the disjointed and raspy remarks and exclamations of a group of ponies. These voices were not at all in agreement, their tones stacking and overlapping onto one another rather chaotically. It came from right around the corner, on the path he was taking, by a little park with a bench and tree. As Cluster drew closer the voices became more distinct: three stallions, one mare.

Indeed, three unicorn stallions donning blazers, scuffed up at the neckties, dirty and ill-kept. The mare in question was decked out in a plain white dress. She was standing her ground, that is, staring back at the stallion with a defeated look of insolence in her face, but her eyes in particular gave away its quiet meekness. She looked like she was defending something, not for her sake, but for somepony else. The main stallion in the middle, who was closest to her, had a visibly angular, hurried, and irritable expression—and, in fact, they all looked rather hateful. One of the other two was the biggest one, gruff, while the last was the tallest yet gaunt in stature. In all this speech Cluster made out the intonations of spiteful and faltering collisions of trust and fate.

"Marble Solid said you'd agreed to pay him more!" the stallion in the middle rattled out.

"I'll give you every last bit, with interest," the mare was prattling in a strained voice, staring back at the other two behind her tormentor with desperation. "Just give me a week. Please."

"Marble's no banker!" the stallion spat out. "He's an honest pony—you pay on time, you get protection. You don't pay..."

He suddenly lifted a hoof and struck the mare flat across the face. She squeaked, tumbled back, holding her cheek.

"Help!" she cried, tears beginning to submerge from her eyes.

"What you hollering for, stupid wench?" laughed the other stallion from behind, the large and gruff one. "You hoping for what? A knight in shining armour?"

"Close enough," said Cluster as he approached them.

The mare, still all atremble, gazed at him in bewilderment.

"Keep out of this, you," said the leader. "Not your concern."

"Not your concern," the other one chimed in dumbly.

"Just like to know what's going on here, if that isn't asking too much," said Cluster sternly and seriously.

"He don't look like he's from around here," remarked the thin one rather arrogantly.

"Wait..." The leader's ears twitched. "You a fancy unicorn, or what? Yeah, yeah... You look the type. Tell me, do you swindle other ponies' magic? Is that your business?" he added with a glare.

"Do I what?" Cluster was, at last, taken aback.

"Pah! You look the type to steal it from ponies. Eh? Or maybe..."

"Nah, he don't look the hoodwinking type," said the gruff stallion.

"Scurry off, you, before there's trouble," his friend concluded.

Cluster cast a glance at the frightened mare, then paused, thinking for a second.

"She's got somepony else's protection now," he replied to them.

"Really!" guffawed the leader. "Who would that be?"

"Mine." Right away his horn glowed brightly; sparks of magic shot out and sizzled on the ground.

"Ah! This lad..." cried the leader, twitching all over. He, too, lit his horn, but before he could think of a single spell, a small wall of light flashed right in front of him: the ground shook, and a shockwave nearly threw them off their hooves. The stallion blinked rapidly, and at last observed a sizeable crater right at the edge of his fore-hooves. On top of that, he felt that something on him was missing, and noticed that his blazer had been disintegrated off his body.

"Don't underestimate me," warned Cluster, showing them, by the expression on his face, that this attack took no effort whatsoever on his part.

"Who are you?" wheezed the stallion, stepping back.

"Cluster Tale, from Canterlot. You better get out of here. I don't want the situation to escalate anymore than you do."

"Pah! Forget this!"

"I don't get paid enough for this!"

"You don't get paid at all, you dolt!"

The three stallions ran off, looking back in anger. Clearly these were low-hanging fruit, not at all powerful unicorns like Cluster. He was thankful for that, even with a sort of sardonic satisfaction. That talk about stealing magic, swept through his mind, could it be a coincidence? I'll have to write a report later. Not now.

"You okay?" he asked the mare, helping her up. Her left cheek was slightly bruised, but nothing too bad.

"Thank you," she replied quietly, looking down, almost as if she were ashamed to be rescued by him.

"Whatever those guys wanted from you, it isn't worth it," he advised. "That one hit you, too. Assault is a crime—you should take it to the police station."

The mare nodded out of what seemed like propriety. "I'll... I'll keep that in mind," she said again. While she was quiet, and certainly meek, Cluster could detect a wildly disagreeable air about her, a sort of caged-up insolence that she dared not let out, of which she most likely assumed was unnoticeable. It quickly dawned on him that there was nothing else he could do, and that for all intents and purposes this mare could find her own way without him. He had given her his piece of advice—that was it.

"Take care," he said mechanically, and at once took off in his direction in a slow gait.

My guess is starting to assume the shape of probability, he was thinking. Baltimare is on the verge of change, that much I'm certain of. Last time I came to that apartment, it was managed by the landowner, the widow Madame Blank. She had a caretaker, too. Was it her sister? Or... niece? I remember when I was staying there... couple of stallions I was associated with, no do-gooders, though... how was it that one day, before I met Snowfall? I moved the chair closer to the window... for some reason... I quietly opened the door, locked it with my key, from the tenant, and went to the shed. The door was closed but not locked, and I was waiting, but I was waiting for nothing, yet I wanted to prove to myself that I was still in full possession of my mental faculties. I decided finally that I'd leave, so I went downstairs. About three hours later we were all drinking tea in the other room and playing a friendly game of cards. Who was it that recited poetry again?

Cluster's strange flow of thoughts were cut short when he realized that he was not walking alone, but, in his peripheral vision, he noticed something else following him. He turned around and saw that mare from before in the white dress.

I guess I was walking a little too slowly...

"Where are you heading?" he asked suddenly, stopping in his tracks.

The mare stopped, too, and stared at him almost defiantly yet respectfully.

"My house is this way," she replied, gesturing to the sidewalk they were on. "Right there, see? I'm turning down the block." She briefly told him her address, as though this were a business meeting. Cluster remembered this.

A sullen thought, the sign of a fleeting idea, passed through his whole body like a vile sensation.

"You know," began Cluster, his lips contorting into a strange and mocking frown, "I practically saved your life there. You owe me a lot more than a thank you."

The mare's face winced as if in pain. Her eyes, finally met with his, burned like coals. Their expression gave one a cold feeling.

"Relax," Cluster hurried to say, "I was only joking. What's your name?" he asked at once, as to put a quick end to it.

"Sweet Scroll," she replied, almost in a whisper, but somehow quite unpleasantly, and looked away.

Cluster paused.

"Do you come from around here?" he asked at length.

"No."

"Where then?"

"Manehattan."

"Been here long?"

"Two weeks." She spoke more and more anxiously, as though being discouraged.

"What are you, by the way?"

"Just..."

"Just what? I mean what are you, socially?"

"I'm a midwife."

"Midwife? Hmm... Get much out of that job?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"Got a mother or father?"

"Just..."

This "just" meant: leave me alone, please. Cluster felt some curiosity encouraging him to keep asking questions, but he thought better of it.

"For all I know you might be very busy," he concluded, "and I'm getting in the way of something. I'll be going now." He turned around again.

"Don't get me wrong," she said suddenly, much to his attention, "I'm grateful for what you did back there, really... just..."

"It's okay," remarked Cluster, "it was no big deal. Take care."

He had glanced at her for a second, as if acknowledging something, but he was off on his own way just as quickly.

* * *

This, incidentally, happened to be his old apartment, the one in which he rented a room over a year ago, when he was living in Baltimare for reasons of academic research. In the letters Daisy gave him it said that the main dealerships occurred in Filio's house, but to go without a promissory note to pay for the debt would be useless, and so he was conveniently pointed to the old apartment. Some names he happened to recognize, two in particular: there was Pillow Chin, the drunkard who was nevertheless given a great deal of responsibility in managing his companions' finances, as well as a tall, quick-witted, and bashful fellow in his own right; second, there was Flapper, a clerk and an eternally muddleheaded stallion, whose most memorable characteristic was a strand of hair on his mane that ostensibly refused to lay flat and was forever pointing upwards, no matter how much he brushed it down. A couple of other names flew over his head.

He remembered that the room he occupied was small yet decently kept. The caretaker came to him every day with a tea tray. The landowner, Blank, occupied a larger room on the first floor. Her husband worked in an office and was always away from night till morning. The caretaker, who was about forty years old, also had a cousin there, who cut up and remade new clothes out of old ones, and also frequently left the apartment to sell what she had sewn. Since Cluster was often left alone, he met the two ponies mentioned above, who were staying on the third floor.

Cluster was generally well liked, largely because he kept to himself, intruded on nopony's business, and helped out whenever he could. One time, for instance, when the husband was selling off a house, a penknife was lost, and Blank was absolutely sure that the caretaker stole it, and she nagged over her for hours on end, and punished her by cutting her month's salary in half—only for that month, that is. The caretaker cried her eyes out, though everypony ignored her. Cluster found the penknife in the backyard the next day, returned it, and commented that it had likely fallen out of the open window by a passing wind. The explanation was examined, even scrutinized, but in the end things returned to normal.

Another day, when an official and his family were staying in two rooms adjacent to each other, the power had gone out, and Cluster helped to restore it—after accepting some compensation for it, naturally. That same day he had a lively conversation about Equestrian diplomacy with the official, who came to realize that he was Princess Celestia's student. He left the week after.

Despite all this, most ponies were drinking a lot then, and were full of consciousness. Ponies came in and out. Eventually the faces became blurry, hard to remember, as it were. It was better, he reasoned, that there was little attachment to this place. That could even help him focus.

The apartment was starting to fall into shambles from poor maintenance. The entry hall was well lit, but past it, to the second floor, many of the windows were boarded up, and Cluster only saw a few candles on a little table that was producing the light in an otherwise dark building. Despite all the empty space, walking in still felt like the walls were closing in on you, and the stairs creaked when you stepped on them.

Cluster, still on the first floor, went and knocked on the landowner's door. He heard a bit of scrambling within, a few voices, and the door opened to reveal an elderly mare, with squinting eyes, a crooked nose, and a bare forehead.

"Yes, yes, I'm here. Do you want something?"

"Don't you remember me, Madame Blank?" said Cluster.

She stared at him for a whole ten seconds.

"Are you a keeper?" she asked in vexed confusion.

Guess not...

"It's Cluster. Cluster Tale. I'm Bronze Pocket's son."

"Is it somepony you know?" he heard the caretaker's voice from within the room. "Oh... Cluster Tale!"

"Forget it!" Cluster called back. "Look, I only want to know if either Pillow Chin, Flapper, Deadbeat, or Rave Note are present."

"Hmm..." Blank fidgeted in her spot, fixing Cluster with a suspicious and eerie look. "Most probably not, or probably they don't want to be bothered."

"How about for this?" Cluster lifted five bits from his saddlebag and placed it in Blank's hooves. This had an immediate effect.

"Third floor, last room down the hall, the one with the broken window!" she said sharply. "Eh, somepony ought to fix that thing before another pony cuts themselves. It's protocol."

"Thanks." Cluster nodded and headed up the steps. That was easy, he found, which was to their disadvantage in any case. The spell of the place was becoming nauseating; he'd drive it away from his head. Little by little, though, he'd get used to it, adding to his vexation.

When he got to the third floor he went to the room and made out some voices—a few he recognized, others not at all.

"The ball goes 'round and 'round the prokes," one voice was new, and it was laughing, "till it defeats all your chances, because sometimes you'll get red ten times in a row. Ha, ha!"

"When Rover is pleased and not moping"— this was Flapper —"you boys are cheerful and talk cleverly." It sank into Cluster's mind that they were playing cards, either preference or trente et quarante. Or maybe blackjack. Another voice—yes, this was the one he remembered, Pillow Chin—was reciting poetry, some verse or other from the Star Swirl era.

They were evidently discussing some important matter before Cluster arrived; it broke into trivial digressions, and some of them were irritatingly trying to get back on track. Without knocking he opened the door and went into the room to make himself known. None of them paid more than the slightest attention to his coming, which was strange, because Cluster hadn't seen two of them for over a year, and to the other two he was a complete stranger. They were together at a table, playing cards, with a bottle of who-knows-what to go around. In the corner was a roulette table, set up on a stand, as if waiting to be played. There were several saddlebags laying on the floor. At that moment Flapper looked at him with some perplexity.

Judging by the music-based cutie mark, Rave Note was the fellow furthest from him: an unremarkable unicorn, a military type, with a cold demeanor; honest enough, but worshipping any success, and almost only capable of discussing promotions. He was some sort of distant relation to Flapper. By process of elimination, the other fellow, Deadbeat, an earth pony, treated all of his friends, if not politely, then at least passably. It was easy to offend him.

"I hope none of you are busy," remarked Cluster with vague sarcasm, scanning each one of them.

"Naturally not," said Rave Song, "but you weren't invited."

"Cluster, you want to come, too?" asked Pillow Chin with displeasure, avoiding his eyes.

"Do you really think," Flapper broke in presumptuously and fervently, like an impudent lackey boasting of his master's decorations, "do you really think Rover'll pay Cluster, after coming out of the blue like that? He'll only stand on a half-dozen."

"No, no, I don't want to be part of whatever you're talking about," Cluster cut in. "And besides, I don't know anything about this so-called half-dozen."

"So why are you here?" Deadbeat was the last to speak—he asked this somewhat agitated, apparently even offended.

"On business. I'd like to meet your manager, Black Rover, if it could be helped."

"It can't," spat Deadbeat spitefully.

"You have to be on good terms first," said Pillow Chin, frowning.

"Seriously, who is this guy?" Rave Note threw in for anypony to answer.

"Cluster Tale?" Flapper twisted his face. "He's from Canterlot."

"He's a magic researcher," added Pillow Chin. "You being here now, Cluster, is very awkward. I mean, it's awkward timing."

And at once Deadbeat began to get up from his chair, most likely to leave.

"I'll be blunt," said Cluster, "Daisy's father, a certain lieutenant, passed away recently, and he's incurred quite the debt with Rover."

"So you're here for that!" exclaimed Flapper. "Ah, so you're running errands now?"

"Enough," said Deadbeat, rising. "Handle him, if he's so eager. I hate this whole fiasco." He trotted out of the room, leaving for real.

Pillow Chin barely nodded. Flapper, who was in some sort of annoyance, gave Cluster the oddest glance.

"Go to Filio's house," said Flapper, after a pause.

"I need a signed bank note to get in, otherwise I won't be accepted there," retorted Cluster in the calmest of tones.

"Hmm, and you'll give the money now?" muttered Rave Note in some embarrassment. "That is, pay the debt, or...?"

"How much?" asked Cluster.

Pillow Chin scrambled around in one of the saddlebags, pulling out a stack of small papers. He flipped through them, humming to himself, as it were.

"Twenty thousand," he declared at length.

Cluster did not expect this. He almost flinched in surprise.

"Twenty?" he said, deep in thought. What did you get yourself into, Daisy?

"That's four zeros!" cried Flapper.

"I'm very annoyed at myself for forgetting," said Pillow Chin, putting away the papers. "So, Cluster, does that interest you?"

"All right, all right, I got it," he huffed. He stopped short and began pacing the room with great annoyance. As he paced, Flapper started tapping his hooves in impatience.

Eventually Cluster stopped, and told them, "Just sign the thing already. I'll pay for it."

"R-ea-lly!" cried Flapper in a cracked voice. He hunched over, staring carefully at Cluster. "You'll pay all twenty thousand?"

"Yes, all."

"That took a turn!" Rave Note suddenly roused himself. "Though, we can't do much. You'll get what you want, then head over to Filio's house. I trust you have the address. You see, I've also got to stop by at... Not far from here..." he added, in a somewhat apologetic voice.

"To business, gentlecolts," said Pillow Chin. "Say, Cluster, would you care for a round of roulette?"

"I appreciate the offer, but I'm done with that. Fate doesn't play favourites."

"But the skill is there," remarked Flapper.

"No skill, it's pure chance."

"Ah! If you say so."

They had Cluster sign a special bank note and he stored it in his saddlebag.

"Good luck dealing with the infamous Black Rover," said Flapper, laughing. "He beats his employees, you know!"

"Tell that to yourself, not me," replied Cluster, and he took off in extraordinary haste.