If you asked one of the residents of the cereal district, they'd tell you that you couldn't find a better place to live in all of Ballyhoo. The air was as sweet as freeze-dried marshmallows, the people were pleasant so long as you avoided the children who always seemed to find a way in to torment the Trix Rabbit or Lucky the Leprechaun, and just walking down its sunny streets while two scoops of raisins rained down on you from above was enough to make you feel like you'd started your day off right, enriched by twelve essential vitamins and minerals.
They wouldn't mention Soggy Alley. Most citizens didn't even like to think about it. The very name brought to mind the death of crunch and shapeless mush slowly disintegrating in lukewarm milk.
So there was nothing odd about the way everyone on the street carefully avoided looking at the two men who ducked into the alley one day. Anyone who went there wouldn't be the sort of people decent folks would want anything to do with; the only place you could get to from the alley that got much business was the bar frequented by mascots who had been phased out of their jobs, and it was common superstition that anyone who paid those poor lost souls much attention would be doomed to share their fate.
Sure enough, the two men walked straight to the bar. It was a quiet and dingy place, the scent of smoke from a thousand meals of eggs and bacon devoid of the wonder crunch of puffed rice never left the air, and the tinted glass in the windows made it seem as if the entire room was filled with the dim light of the evening instead of the eternally bright morning that existed outside. Nobody even looked up when the men sat at the bar.
"Whole. Chocolate. With a shot of cream," Cookie Crook said when the barman, Captain Vitaman, turned to him.
The Captain whistled softly. "You sure you want something that starting this early in the day, Crook? The calcium in milk may be an important part of a balanced breakfast, but you know there's a reason the nutritional values are based on skim."
"Always early in the day here, robble robble," Crook's companion said.
"You said it, Hamburglar." Crook leaned towards Vitaman, his elbow resting heavily on the surface of the counter. "Listen, hero, do you know who Burglar and I ran into lurking around the edges of McDonaldland on our way here? The Burger King. I'm going to drown myself in dairy until that face is wiped out of my mind. If it takes hitting the hard stuff right from the start, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Burglar will have the same," he added as an afterthought.
Vitaman didn't question his choice again. Just hearing the name of the Burger King was enough to make everyone in the room wince, although most of them only knew him by reputation and had never even met him in the rigid plastic flesh. "How are you doing, Hamburglar?" he asked kindly as he set the two men's glasses of milk on the bar. "I think I have some hamburger in the back of the deep freeze. I could fry up a patty or two for you if you'd like. I know that a tall frosty glass of milk just doesn't cut it for you."
"No thank you," Burglar said, slumping against the bar and staring into his cup. "This morning Ronald offered... he offered... he offered to give me a bag of burgers for free, robble robble! He said he knew times were tough since thieves don't get much work these days, and offered to help me out so I didn't need to be cut off from the delicious juicy all-beef patties and soft sesame seed buns with the perfect amount of ketchup and the sour crispness of the pickle--" He abruptly stopped speaking, salivating enough for a thin stream of drool to escape the corner of his mouth and shaking so hard that the milk in his glass sloshed over its top. While a few of the other customers threw nasty looks at him for wasting any of his drink, the Crook rubbed his back in slow circles until he calmed enough to mutter. "I have my pride, robble robble. Even if I never get to steal another burger, I won't take one from him."
"You look like you're about to toss your cookies, Burglar. Try not to worry about it so much," Cookie Crook said. "Ronald won't be bothering you again."
Vitaman didn't think anything of this, although later he'd wonder how he didn't notice what an odd thing that was to say. He was so used to hearing his patrons complaining bitterly about whichever mascots had gotten to keep their places or who had come into being just to take over that he'd started to half tune out whatever it is they said. So his only response was, "That's right, Burglar. McDonald's never once been to this district, as far as I know, and I doubt he'll start today. You won't need to deal with him while you're visiting." He began to wipe up the spilt milk before anyone could start crying over it. "You two have plans for today?"
Crook smirked, his eyes narrowing dangerously, but that was the way his smiles always came out. He held up a plastic grocery bag, displaying the unmistakable shape of one-pound cereal boxes within, each certainly loaded with tiny cookies that couldn't be resisted if Crook was the one who had them. "Bought legitimately and everything. Couldn't have Officer Crumb coming after me; it's a special day." His hand, which had still been resting on Burglar's back, raised briefly to graze against the back of the other criminal's neck then fell to his side.
"Well, you two have fun tonight," the Captain said as he began to turn to see to Waldo the Wizard, who had just entered the bar. "Don't do anything that would make you bad role-models."
He didn't notice when the two left, didn't even think of them again until almost an hour later when Tony the Tiger burst into the bar in search of his wife, to the shock of everyone else in the room who had never seen a big named mascot even acknowledge its existence. "We need to get home," he tried to say in a quiet voice, an act physically impossible for him. "Everything is not grrrrrrrr-eat! Not grrrrrrrr-eat at all."
"Something the matter, Mr. The Tiger?" Vitaman asked in a respectful tone of voice.
Tony glanced back and forth, than leaned closer, conspiratorial. He didn't realize that the action guaranteed that every other person in the room, even those who were so bitter about how far they'd fallen that they usually ignored more popular mascots, turned their full attention to him. "Ronald McDonald was found murrrrrr-dered. They found the Burger King near the scene of the crime Big Mac has him in custody."
The silence that had filled the room aside from Tony's voice exploded into whispers, most frightened, some excited. Ignoring everyone else, Vitaman scanned the room, looking for his earlier customers. "Where'd they go? Where are Cookie Crook and the Hamburglar? Somebody needs to get them to McDonaldland; they saw Burger King there while Ronald was alive!"
But nobody had paid any more attention to the men's leaving than the Captain had.
• • •
At that moment, Cookie Crook and Hamburglar were lurking behind Chip the Dog's house. Their hands were linked, squeezing each other so hard that anybody with the ability to see through gloves would notice that their knuckles were white. That was the only sign they showed of their nervousness as they waited patiently, their ears perked up for the sound they knew was to come.
Soon enough it came; the ecstatic howl of "Coooooo-ooooooo-kie Crisp!"
Before Chip had even managed to get the first word out, the two criminal darted out from where they were hiding, Crook slamming a spoon the size of his body into Chip's head, knocking the dog forward onto the boxes of cereal Crook had purchased earlier in the day. It was a shame to ruin the chocolatey crunch of it, he thought as he slammed the spook down again and Hamburglar kicked Chip hard in the stomach, but it was worth the loss. Soon he'd have all the Cookie Crisp he wanted once more.
Somehow still hung onto consciousness, Crook saw when the kick somehow managed to roll the fat dog onto his back. The tip of the spoon had dug straight into his left eye on the second hit, but his good eye settled on Crook after drifting around without seeming to be able to focus for a moment. "Boss... why?" he managed to slur out when he recognized who it was behind the sudden, vicious, attack.
"You need to ask, you job-stealing mutt?" Crook asked, his voice a low growl because otherwise he wouldn't be able to keep from yelling. "I gave you a home, fed you your fair square of those doggone good cookies every time we managed to swipe some, and taught you everything you know, and you stabbed me in the back. I'll tell you this, Chip, even Crumb isn't going to look too hard for the solution to this crime, not after you stole his job too."
The spoon came down again and whatever reserve of willpower Chip had been using to keep himself aware gave out, but it wasn't enough. Again and again Crook struck the dog, not feeling satisfied as long as any scrap of him still look the way he had in life. Hamburglar didn't offer a single word of condemnation against the brutality of the attack, lending his hand to the savagery just as gladly as Crook had helped him with Ronald hours before. The only sound he made throughout was a constant babble of, "Robble robble robble robble."
When all that was left of the dog was what looked like a fur-covered sack of shapely flesh that slowly oozed blood, Crook let his grip on the spoon slacken, although he didn't let the weapon drop, knowing that they needed to get rid of it along with their clothes just like they done earlier that day. He began to laugh wildly. "We did it. We did it!" He grabbed Hamburglar around the back of his neck and dragged the other criminal forward to crush their mouths together, too giddy from victory to even think of gentleness until their teeth clashed together reminded him to pull back and soften the kiss just the slightest bit.
Burglar didn't appear to mind at all, grinning broadly when they broke away from each other. "Now we just need to wait, just wait, robble robble. They'll have to have us back. They'll have no choice."
Crook slung a bloody arm across Burglar's shoulders, both of them starting to walk across the yard to his house. "And then all the Cookie Crisp and hamburgers will be ours. Crumb and Mac won't even have a chance of catching two smart cookies like us; neither of them have had to solve a case that wasn't happening right in front of them in their lives! Now, it's time to get cleaned up, and celebrate."
Neither of them even thought twice about the body slowly beginning to cool in the yard behind them.