Chapter 12: When at Roman's…

A word of advice about being pistol whipped: Avoid it if you can, because it hurts. Despite what my nickname of "Armored Arc" might lead you to believe, I can feel just as much pain as the next guy. As I finally came around, all of those pains I had been ignoring all came around at once like ten years of back taxes. My head was still spinning, no idea where I was or why, my arms and legs wouldn't respond (and I seriously hoped that was from some kind of restraint instead of being paralyzed), and my stomach felt like somebody was poking me repeatedly with a stick.

Once I finally got my eyes open, I discovered that somebody was, in fact, poking me repeatedly with a stick. The poker in question didn't even reach five feet tall, and only the very well-placed curves of her torso kept me from assuming she was a child. One eye was a bright, cheery pink in color, while the other was a coffee brown, and her hair was split between the two colors. She appeared to be wearing a tailored suit, built on the colors of her hair and eyes, plus an off-white that reminded me of fresh cream. The stick the midget had been poking me with was actually a lace parasol, though I could feel it was a touch heavier than it should have been.

I was hallucinating. Just what I freaking needed that day.

"If you're with my subconscious, then I demand to speak with your manager," I slurred at her. "The service here stinks, and I don't even know what I did to hallucinate this. I tried hashish that one time in high school, but that's it. There is zero reason for me to be seeing things." The woman gave me a funny look and tilted her head to the side, like a puppy that saw something confusing. After snapping her fingers, she walked over to me and gave me a nice big pinch on the shoulder, which told me two things.

First, pinching people was the universally accepted manner to show someone they were or were not dreaming, which meant I was awake, and my tricolored captor was real. The second thing it taught me was that she had grip strength like a crab that got a summer job as a blacksmith. I still didn't know who I was dealing with, but tied up the way I was, my life was in her hands. The woman then surprised me again by rummaging around behind me and offering me a flask of something that smelled like stale bread soaked in kerosene.

"Not that I don't appreciate the offer, miss," I explained, trying to sound apologetic, "but the last thing I remember was somebody trying to kill me. How do I know this isn't poisoned?" She responded by taking a long swig of the flask herself, then offering it to me again. While there are several ways to beat the "you drink some first" test for poisons, I didn't see any of the usual tricks, and besides, if that dame really wanted to kill me, there were easier ways to do it, so I cautiously took a swig as she tilted the flask into my mouth.

Stale bread and kerosene was a good explanation for the taste, too. I coughed and hacked for a minute before my various aches and pains started to muffle, like there was a thick blanket between them and me. My first fear was that she'd drugged me to keep me from escaping or calling out for help, but I could still feel my tongue and fingers wiggle, so maybe that flask really was for the pain. Which seemed like a strangely generous move for a dead man walking. Maybe whoever left me in this broom closet actually meant to let me—

Son of a bitch. I finally remembered what happened to me. Emerald and Mercury must have brought me here after coldclocking me. Meaning this closet was in one of Roman Torchwick's properties. Which further meant that there were anywhere between one and "too many" armed guards between me and my freedom. And since I couldn't feel the weight of my Model 10 anywhere, "too many" could have been as low as half a dozen, not counting the dwarf with the umbrella, who had stepped out of the room shortly after I drank from her flask.

No sooner had I realized she had vanished than she reappeared, smiling. It was not a pleasant smile, by any stretch of the imagination. It was a smile that you often see in schoolrooms, when that kid you hate is about to get punished; or sometimes on the face of a housewife when something bad happens to the woman she's jealous of. I didn't know why she flashed me that smile as she began to drag my chair out of the closet, but it did not bode well for any hardboiled detectives in the crowd.

The legs of the chair made a muffled squeak as they dragged across the marble floor. Due to the angle I was being dragged at, I could only really get a good view of the ceiling of the place, but what a ceiling it was. Held up with marble columns, with lines of gold trim thin as a pencil. In between the columns were a series of painted scenes, mostly either landscapes from around Vale or scenes of the kingdom's founding. The contrast between that ceiling and the rooms on the Beautiful Lie was plain to see. Cardin's sense of style seemed entirely based around a desperation that everybody realize how rich he was, and making that point as obvious as possible to the layman. Whoever decorated this place understood how to be understated while still using the best materials out there; if you couldn't feel the money in this place, that was your fault, and not his.

While I admired the architecture, my new best friend had dragged me up a flight of stairs to the ground floor (meaning I woke up in the basement) and around two corners into a long hallway full of suits of armor. We passed a covered porch on an interior courtyard, like the old Roman villas, and up another flight of stairs until she spun me around in front of a pair of oak double doors, guarded by two men. They were dressed in white shirts and black trousers with matching vests, looking like any number of butlers or waiters in the kingdom. Unlike most butlers and waiters, they also wore white suit coats and gray bowler hats, and each carried a sawn-off shotgun in a shoulder holster and a stock-less Thompson at their waist. They glanced at me, at the girl, then at each other before opening the doors.

The office was big enough to play baseball in, but was otherwise not much different than the rest of the house. Lots of marble columns, a scattering of art, and an oak desk the size of a pool table. On the corners and sides of the room stood six men, dressed and armed exactly like the door guards. On a couch on one side sat Emerald and Mercury, wearing gray bowlers of their own. Leaning against the back wall behind the table was another mystery woman with long hair black as sin, and a body built to match. The red dress with yellow trim she wore did a fine job of emphasizing while covering, and her body language was one of bored arrogance, the look that said you had far more important things to be doing than this, and more interesting things too. Behind the desk itself sat Don Roman Torchwick.

Torchwick reminded me of a statue that had been left out in the elements for just a few years. In his prime, the man must have cut a pretty imposing figure. He was tall enough that most men looked up to him by default, and his bright orange hair further marked him out from the crowd like a painted sign. His clothes were as immaculate as the day they were made, and his confidence brooked no tolerance for pissing matches with his underlings. Much like his mansion, if you couldn't tell Roman was the boss in the room, that was a reflection of your own failings instead of his. It was only when you looked closer that you could see the passage of time on him. There were some crow's feet around his visible green eye, and his hair had a few streaks of grey fighting for prominence. His white jacket had some wrinkles from years of loyal service, and the black bowler hat on the desk had a pair of dents implying he had worn it into battle as well as into meetings. Finishing off the ensemble was an expensive-smelling cigar and a sturdy gray cane leaning against the desk, a grudging concession to Father Time.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Torchwick smiled, and the impression of a cat playing with its food sprang unbidden to my thoughts. "I hope you slept well?" I swallowed before answering. On the one hand, the Don had killed hundreds of people without batting an eye, and my death wouldn't even register on his radar. But on the other hand, I was still Jaune Arc, and if today was my last day, then I was going down with my rapier wit swinging.

"Certainly not the most comfortable sleep I've had," I admitted, "But compared to the beds out in the harbor, I'd say I got the better end of the deal."

"I don't know about that. I've never heard anyone in the harbor complain about it once they got settled in," he laughed, and the rest of the room laughed with him. I couldn't quite find it in me to laugh, but I at least got a convincing chuckle out of the deal. Once the room got quiet again, the Don turned his attention to a waiter's tray on his desk, which carried all of my personal effects I had on me when Mercury Black punched my ticket to Slumberland. He picked up my wallet and began leafing through it with a casual disinterest. I usually felt the same way when I looked through my wallet, and I'd bet the kingpin hadn't counted a stack of bills that small for a long time.

"I already checked his ID, Don Roman," Emerald bowed her head like she was speaking to royalty. "Jaune Arc, formerly VPD Homicide, now a private eye. He's got an office in the old Luna building, according to his business card."

"Jaune…Arc, you say?" he squinted, as if he had just heard an old piece of music he couldn't remember the title of. "Why do I remember that name?" Torchwick tapped the ashes off his cigar as he tried to remember. Personally, I had no idea why he would know who I was, so it wasn't like I could help him or anything. "Did you box during high school, by chance? Neo, bring me my ledgers from ten or eleven years ago." The midget who brought me to Roman saluted her boss, then walked towards another door in the office and disappeared.

"Yeah, I did," I replied, shrugging my shoulders as much as I could through the rope binding me. "I've been boxing since I was ten, but I really couldn't use it worth a damn until high school. Definitely came in handy on the force, I'll tell you that much."

"Is that so?" Mercury sneered. "I suppose that explains how I landed so many kicks on you back at Tukson's place."

"It also explains why he was the one holding you at gunpoint when Emerald showed up, and not the other way around," the lady in red cut him off.

"After all the work I've done for this organization, Cinder, you still honestly think I hadn't planned ahead?" Mercury's gray eyes shone like knife edges as he glared back. "I knew how long Emerald would take to check the perimeter, and I stalled in the fight long enough for her to return and finish things off."

"And you chose to wait things out staring down the barrel of his gun? You're fortunate he planned to turn you over to the police instead of killing you himself. Heaven knows Junior probably has a bounty on you and Emerald." Not only did Cinder have a body to kill for and eyes fiery enough to incinerate you where you stood, but that woman's voice was as husky and smoky as a grilled ear of corn. She could probably make reading a cookbook sound like an erotic invitation, and hearing her berate Merc set all kinds of strange emotions stirring inside me. "One of these days, I hope the Don finally takes my advice and forgets to keep bailing you out of prison." Before things got any more heated, Neo the lapdog came back with an old, cracked leather ledger as thick around as Cinder's hips.

"Finally. Now, let's see here…" he began leafing through one of the pile of ledgers, frowned, and then picked up another. Eventually, he stopped, looked closely at the page he was reading, then began to chuckle to himself. "Well, now! Truly, it is a small world we live in."

"What is it, Don Roman?" Cinder turned her shoulders so she could properly face her boss.

"Let me tell you a story to explain," his eyes turned a little dusty as he shook the cobwebs out of his memories. "It was around ten or eleven years ago, and I had just become a made man for the family. I was walking around Vale with some of my associates, and as we walked past where they were hosting the Golden Gloves, that young amateur boxing tournament. There was a bookie outside the place, letting people place bets on the kids' fighting. I asked a few questions, and he told me that the semifinals were starting. The favorite to win was some kind of trained gorilla named—"

"Haddock the Hammer," I whispered under my breath. As a rule, I avoid dwelling on the past, lest I slip into the dreaded realm of has-been-dom, but it had been over a decade since I had thought of that boxing tournament.

"—plus two other nobodies from Mountain Glenn and Vytal, and dear Mr. Arc. So I asked the bookie what kind of odds were out there, and he told me he was offering 3,000 to 1 odds that Arc would make it to the final round and beat Haddock by knockout in the sixth round. I was still in a good mood from my initiation, so I said what the hell and bet my entire wallet on him. Which was only $105 at the time, but I didn't feel like taking out a loan from my friends for a spur-of-the-moment bet."

I didn't say anything in response, but my memory was reeling as I remembered that old boxing tournament. I hadn't ever considered myself Golden Gloves material , but my coach quite disagreed with my assessment. He said I had talents like a block of marble; nice and heavy already, and just in need of some sculpting and polishing to be something really valuable. I didn't believe him at all during my freshman year, treated his words with skepticism as a sophomore, and finally realized what he meant as a junior. By the time I registered for the Golden Gloves in my senior year, I was a genuine threat in the ring, and the fact that nobody knew a thing about me made me twice as dangerous.

"And wouldn't you know it, with fifteen seconds left in the sixth round, Jauney boy caught Haddock on the chin with a right haymaker and knocked him unconscious. And my little bet turned into $315,000."

"If not killing me is your little way of paying me back," I proposed after a moment of silence, "then I'll gladly call us square once I'm back in my office with a drink in my hand."

"I haven't killed you yet," he clarified. "Whether or not that changes depends on what you can tell me about Winchester's death that I don't already know. And since I have numerous… friends in the police department, I already know quite a bit."

"I don't doubt that, but before I start talking, are you sure you want this whole room knowing about it? I mean, this is technically an ongoing murder investigation." Roman frowned, then nodded his agreement.

"Mercury, Emerald, take the boys and go patrol something. If I need you for anything, I'll give the usual signal. And Merc?" he called before the group had left the room. "I'll discuss this matter with you later." Once the door snapped shut, the only people left in the room were myself, Roman, and the two women called Neo and Cinder.

"These two are trustworthy, then? I don't think I recognize 'em, myself."

"You've already surprised me and mine once today, Mr. Arc, and I'd like to make that the limit. I can assure you my bodyguard is in absolutely no risk of divulging my secrets." Nodding to her boss, Neo opened her mouth, revealing a mass of scar tissue roughly the shape of a piece of cauliflower where her tongue should have been. My surprise must have been too obvious, because Roman continued. "One of my earlier competitors thought he could use Neapolitan here to send me a message about the territory on the western side of the city and to whom it rightfully belonged. As messages go, it was remarkably concise."

"Do I want to know what kind of message you sent him in response?"

"Not if you have any plans for dinner tonight." The kingpin gave Neo one last nod, and she turned to me with a wicked grin. In one fluid motion, she reached for her umbrella, drew a long, thin blade from its shaft, and slashed at me with it. The ropes that had been holding my arms down fell off cleanly, and not a thread of my clothes was snipped in the process. "I don't keep her around just for her good looks, as you can imagine."

"And Cinder? Obviously she ain't just your secretary, based on how she and Mercury talked to each other."

"I'm his consigliere, if you must know," the dame made a big show of bending her leg and adjusting her black glass heels. "And Mercury is a bruiser with delusions of grandeur. His ego is like a topiary bush; if you don't cut it down every so often, it just spirals and grows unmanageable. I've got half a mind to send you a check for trimming him down to size." I smiled back, but my heart wasn't in it.

First thing you noticed about Cinder was her legs. Wars have been started over legs like those and the women attached to them. But if she really was Roman's consigliere, then she had a brain just as dangerous as the rest of her. In the old crime families, the consigliere was the title given to the don's most trusted adviser, their right-hand man or woman, and as such, one of the few people in the family who could outright argue with the boss without jeopardizing their health.

"Well, in that case I'll get to brass tacks," I cleared my throat, choosing my words like they were my last ones. "Since you've got friends in the department, I'll assume you already know the big details from Winchester's autopsy."

"I've never been a fan of assuming things. You tell me the high points, and I'll tell you if it's news to me or not."

"Okay then," I cleared my throat, glad that Neo had freed my arms with her umbrella-sword. "Two days ago, in the late morning, Cardin Winchester's body fell off the top of the Orchid onto a diner's Rolls Royce."

"That's what the news stations have said, yes."

"But the M.E. found out that it wasn't the fall that killed Winchester. He'd been dead for about 36 hours before getting dropped, and whoever did that must have kept him somewhere special where the bugs didn't get to him like they normally do."

"Dr. Polendina did mention that in her report, yes."

"She also found several dozen bullets, in a whole fruit salad of calibers, garnished with two rounds of buckshot. Plus a handful of axe wounds on the sides, in between the ribs."

"There's no kill like overkill, as the kids say these days," Roman shrugged as he tapped out his ashes.

"And the icing on the cake was that his suit coat was pinned in place by a giant knife with Hei Xiong's logo on the blade. According to my sources, it's the same style of knife he gives to his entire inner circle."

"Which probably helped sell the suicide angle, to the uninformed masses. But these are all things I know from the autopsy. If you're trying to convince me to let you live, you'll need better leverage than that."

"The autopsy, yes, but do you have the police report from the crime scene?"

"Sadly, not yet."

"Then you have no idea how Winchester got up there in the first place?"

"I would assume his murderers carried him up the stairs at the Orchid, gave him a shove, then fled while everyone was focused on the dead man."

"Great idea, except that there's only one door up to the roof, which was padlocked at the time, and had enough cobwebs in front of it to weave a set of curtains. They got to the roof from a neighboring building."

"With the rain pouring like it was? Must have been some jump to get across with the body."

"The building next door was having work done on their water tank, and we found some wood in the alley below. Would have been easy to steal some longer boards and make a gangplank out of them, knock them off when they escaped. Also, I found a dry matchbook for Turney's on the rooftop. I've never been there myself, but I'm told it's—"

"A very expensive bar that doubles as a Triad front?" Cinder interjected before picking up a thin folder from her boss's desk. "Basically, yes. Their plum wine is to die for, if you ever visit."

"Anything else big you remember, sport?" Roman asked as he stubbed out the cigar.

"That's everything from the autopsy and crime scene that I saw, Don Roman," I scratched my head as I thought. It was rather nice having my arms free to gesture, but it had the added side effect of reminding me that my legs and back were still tied down. If I even thought too hard about escaping, Neo would stick me like a kebab.

"Which also happens to be everything in the police reports," Cinder turned her folder around to show me. Roman had lied; he did have the crime scene report already, and he was testing me to see if I would give him the same answers. "Either the reports are good, or Junior's bought Arc off as well."

"I did think it was kind of funny that nobody had bribed this mess into disappearing yet," I thought out loud, hoping to find some more information that would convince Roman to spare me. "Usually, both of you are pretty quick at that, but the investigation is still open."

"I'm puzzled as well," Roman agreed, sitting up in his chair. There was a sigh in his voice, like a gust of wind right before a tree falls, or a cowboy who had finally decided to shoot his wounded horse. "A pity you couldn't have been more help to me. You seem like a decent enough guy." The kingpin slowly shook his head before reaching for my beloved Model 10. I was running out of options, but as he examined the chamber, an idea sparked, like a piece of dry grass that finally caught a spark. It was risky, sure, but if it actually worked, I could not only save my life, but save myself hours of research, which can make a substantial difference in the private eye business.

"Of course, that's just what I saw at the crime scene and during the autopsy," I stroked my chin as I 'remembered'. I was never an amazing actor in life, but if there was ever a time to sell my bid, this was it. "I did some more digging today before I ran into Emerald and Mercury, but I hadn't had time to confirm any of the leads I picked up. If you could somehow fill in some blanks for me, I'd gladly share the info with you."

"And why should we trust your judgement?" Cinder sneered over her police report. "There's already plenty of evidence to say Junior's men killed Winchester. You could just be making things up to save your own skin."

"That is always a possibility," I admitted. I then made the mistake of reaching up to scratch my nose too quickly and nearly got my finger nail clipped back to the second knuckle by Neo's reflexes. "But the fact of the matter is you need to find the man who did this and make an example of him. Desperately need it, even."

"This ought to be good," Roman leaned in close to me, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth. "Why do you think I'm so desperate?"

"Because reputation is everything in your line of work," I met the Don's gaze as well as I could, but the intensity of his eyes combined with my nerves at being executed while tied to a chair left me shaking like a newborn deer, still figuring out how to walk. "You've got plenty of men and guns to make people do what you want, but it's your reputation that makes that threat stick in the first place. If one of your closest allies just got knocked off by an enemy, and you let it slide, who's gonna want to be your ally? What poor immigrant shopkeeper is going to want to send in protection money if it's not protecting them from anything? And how many small-time outfits will take this as a sign of weakness and start a feeding frenzy for your territory? If Xiong really is behind this, all he has to do is wait until you're too busy fending off the buzzards to stop him." I took a deep breath, then gave my closing statement with as much conviction as I could muster:

"For your own sake, you need to find Cardin's killer, make an example out of them, and remind the entire kingdom what happens to anybody stupid enough to screw with Roman Torchwick." Silence reigned in the room for several long minutes. Neapolitan, who obviously wasn't going to be the one breaking the silence, kept her sword between me and her boss, who was exchanging several meaningful looks with Cinder. What those looks meant was anyone's guess, but the feeling of grudging acceptance on the consigliere's face was plain as a neon sign.

"How do you like your brandy, Mr. Arc?" Roman asked as he set down my pistol.


Author's Notes: By Oobleck's thermos, this chapter was an ordeal to write. Getting ready to go back to college, plus the work of having an actual summer job, really does eat away at your time. And that's not counting the time lost from writer's block and other intellectual pursuits. (I've also started playing Darkest Dungeon, and it's been a fascinating game, let me tell you. I almost want to write a story about it.)

Over the next few months, I think I will have to stick with my "every other week" schedule for posting new things. So in two weeks, I will either have another Sea Shanty ready, or perhaps another little gem I have been working on. The only hint I can give about that is this: Monty Python.

Today, though, please enjoy this next chapter of "The Clean Sweep", and don't forget to follow, favorite, review (constructive criticism is always welcomed), and tell your friends about my labor of love. I put a good amount of love into it, and I hope you can add a little of your own.