The Call

Royce Day

There were days when Chief Bogo could still feel good about being a cop. When they collared a criminal that the force had been chasing for too long. When a civilian said "Thank you" in the tone that let you know you really had made the world a little better, at least for one person.

Today was not one of those days.

"Sir, I'd like to make the call, if you're willing," Wilde asked. His tail was limp, his ears were flopped down in exhaustion, but there was no hint in his stance or voice of the need he had to be feeling to either scream or break down sobbing.

"What you need to be doing is reporting to the ZPD counselor, Officer Wilde," Bogo said. "This part is my job."

"Chief, they don't know you," Wilde said, his ears flicking back in challenge. "I've visited that little farm of theirs, played with their kids. They know me. They trust me." He didn't have to add, They trusted me to keep her safe.

Bogo stared down at Wilde. The sly fox, the officer, didn't back down or break his gaze.

"Five minutes," Bogo finally said. "Then you go the counselor, and do what she tells you to do and tell her what she needs to know, not what she wants to hear. Got it?"

"Thank you, Chief." Wilde pulled out his mobile, looked at it, then shoved back into his pocket, choosing instead to use the phone on Bojo's desk, making it official. He dialed in the number, then waited, foot tapping impatiently in a manner more bunny than fox. Then his face relaxed into a smile, ears popping back up, the charm turning on like a switch. "Hey, that you Tommy? Yeah, it's me, Nick. Is your mom around? I'd like to talk to her for a minute." His gaze flicked up to Bogo, the smile dropping away, put back into its box until it was needed again. "She's out in the fields," he reported.

"You don't want to talk to her dad first?"

Wilde shook his head. "He wouldn't be able to keep it together." He turned his attention back to the phone, the switch turning back on briefly. "Bonnie? Hi, it's Nick." He took in a deep breath. "Okay, first things first; Judy is alive, but she's in the hospital. She was hurt..." He paused. Though Bogo's ears weren't as big as Hopps' or Wilde's, he could easily hear the horrified exclamation coming out of the receiver. "She was hurt while we were out on patrol. She's been in surgery for, um..." His face blanked out, the fatigue he'd been trying to ignore overwhelming him for a moment.

"Five hours," Chief Bogo provided.

"Five hours," Nick repeated, giving Bogo a nod of thanks. "Yeah, um, she was trying to make a collar on this polar bear we'd been tailing. Russian mobsters, not Mr. Big's boys."

The sonovabitch almost gutted her, Wilde had said in his verbal report. I was two steps behind her, I swear to God, two steps.Then Nick had to let the bastard go, because he was too busy screaming officer down into his radio, while his other paw was in Hopps' stomach, trying to grab the artery that had been ripped apart and clamp it shut with his fingers.

Bogo reminded himself to give Clawhauser another commendation. Not only had he routed backup and an ambulance to Hopps and Wilde's position in less than two minutes, he'd also kept the fox officer talking, not letting him shut down, not letting him think about what had just happened, and most especially not giving him time to look at the gun at his belt and wonder whether it would be better to shove it down his own muzzle and pull the trigger, rather than face the grinding ordeal that was going to be coming in the next few hours, days, weeks, and perhaps years.

Wilde was going on. "Yeah, well, Zootopia General is one of the best hospitals around," he said, his expression perking up as he tried to will confidence into his voice to carry down the phone line. "They have mouse surgeons who wear these full body surgical suits and go right inside the vic... the patient's body. Fix whatever's wrong, and then stitch it up so tight you'd need a microscope to see their work. They got a whole team working on her right now." Another pause. "Yeah, okay. I'll tell the chief. If anything changes I'll call your mobile, okay? See you."

He hung up the phone, then said, "They'll be down in about four or five hours. Gotta call their neighbors to watch all the kids."

"Good."

"I... I guess I'll see the counselor now," Wilde said, his voice going flat, drained of emotion.

"Sit down," Chief Bogo ordered.

"Sir, with all due respect, if I sit down I won't be able to get back up again."

"Sit. Down."

Wilde sat, thumping down in the chair across from Bogo's desk, tail curled across his lap. "Sir?"

"I need to talk to you about the investigation that's coming up. Before you say anything, I will tell you right now that you won't be leading it. You are too emotionally involved at this point, and you are incapable of thinking straight." Bogo paused, then added, "I speak from experience in this."

"I... I thought you might be, sir," Wilde said quietly. "Is there anything else?"

"Just one thing," Bogo said. "In ten minutes I'm going to be leading an all hands briefing with every officer in this precinct. They'll be listening to me, but they are going to be looking at you. Now every single one of them is going want that mobster's head for what they did to Ju... Officer Hopps. But I want them to do it by the book. I want an arrest, and I want every criminal in this city who thinks they can hurt one of our own to know that we will find them, no matter where they hide. But that's not going to happen if they look at you and see your fangs are out and that you want to taste blood."

"I am not the Chief of Police, and I am not made out of stone, sir," Wilde said stiffly.

"You wouldn't be a good cop if you were, Officer Wilde," Bogo said. "But a good cop, the one who answers the call to serve, does not act out of revenge, no matter what the temptation. No one goes into this line of work for the money, or thinking how fun it would be to confront armed lunatics every day. I know Officer Hopps didn't. Nor did you. But if you've changed your mind, if that's what you want your brother officers to do for in return for what was done to Hopps, I want your badge right now."

"That... won't be necessary, sir," Wilde said quietly. He looked at Bogo, his green eyes intent. "How do you get up in the morning, and keep doing this? How do you do it when you know you might end the day having a conversation like this with one of your officers, when his partner is in the hospital and might never come out?"

Bogo templed his fingers together on his desk. "Some days I don't know, Wilde, I really don't. But if it isn't going to me, then who else?"

He nodded. "Understood, sir."

"Dismissed, Wilde. Go see the counselor."

Wilde stood, saluted, then turned away, his tail dragging wearily behind him. Bogo watched him go, then picked up his phone. As much as he might want to stop time, tomorrow was going to come whether he wanted it to or not.

But he had known that when he'd taken this job.