Mordecai shuddered as he shoved aside another grunt's body. The bodies weren't really the problem, neither was the fact that he was indirectly responsible for their deaths; it was how much he was dirtying up his clothes. His sleeves were bloody, as were his knees and his shoes. It was an overwhelmingly disgusting feeling, and an awfully insanitary position to be in. He would have to take a shower when he was done. Mordecai could only hope Mitzi would let him.

The bodies had been moved out of the way, though, and Mitzi quickly began to clean up and sanitize the doorway and the outside— that was the main priority, of course, because with it, anyone walking this way would immediately notice that there had been a fight of some kind. That wasn't the kind of attention they needed right now. Mordecai was busy with some of the menial labor that needed to be done as Mitzi quickly cleaned. Rocky still wasn't in a great condition, obviously, but offered to go fetch more cleaning supplies if they needed it. Mitzi let him know that they were fine right now and thanked him. With that, Rocky flopped back against the wall where he had been sitting before.

Freckle was managing the speakeasy itself, serving drinks and the like. Fortunately, nothing else was really happening— no disagreements or fights or anything that needed intervention, and no more Marigolds attempting an assault. So, it was actually quite calm. Nice, even. Of course he knew that the situation was a bit direr, especially back in the garage, but he was sure everything would be alright. It was just people enjoying themselves and getting drunk. Freckle wasn't exactly all for that, but it was certainly an appreciated break. But, just to make sure, he would go and take a quick break to go back and make sure everyone was good and ask if they needed anything. Freckle served the tipsy guy some more spirits, then slipped away and started walking back to the garage.

Mordecai looked down at his chest. There was even blood there. Mitzi saw him look down, seeing the dead Marigold on the ground beside him. She turned to him, continuing to scrub the wall, and asked, "You know him?"

Mordecai looked up, over at Mitzi. Then, back at the guy on the ground by him. "Him?" he wondered, pointing at him with a scarlet hand.

"Mhm."

"No, I don't believe so. I don't know any of these people; the Maribel employs a lot of people." Mitzi gave Mordecai the side-eye. Mordecai noticed. "That was just a statement, not a slight at your establishment, Mitzi."

"I never said I thought it was."

Mordecai exhaled. "Mhm." Then, reaching down and accidentally bumping into one of the grunts' bullet wounds with his bare hand, he let out a quiet, "Ugh."

"...You've handled plenty of corpses in the past, Mordecai. What makes this different?"

"Typically I wouldn't be this involved in the cleanup process. And if I did need to handle the bodies, I would have gloves and proper gear." And with scorn, "And I would be able to take a shower afterward."

"You wanna take a shower? This late? In my house? I don't think so."

"Look at this suit!" Mordecai gestured to himself, "It's soaked through with blood! I can't keep wearing this."

"Well," Mitzi came back into the garage from the alley, shutting the door— the threshold was sufficiently clean, "you can change into something else in the storeroom before you go to sleep."

Between nearly gritted teeth, "I don't have any other clean clothes."

"Apologies for not providin' you with fresh linens, sweetheart, but you are a—" There was a sound from outside, not far from the garage door. It sounded like a car door shutting. "There's someone outside." Mitzi stood up and locked the recently replaced garage door— the one that had a stray bullet hole in it already. Then she reached over and shut off the lights.

Apparently not fast enough. There was a knock at the door and a blurry, darkened, and otherwise indiscernible face behind the glass. Mitzi was stood back and to the side. Mordecai was on his hands and knees completely out of view.

No one did anything for a tense few moments that dragged on forever. They knocked on the door. "Hello? I saw you turn out the lights." No one acted still. "Answer the door." More silence. "Was that gunfire earlier?"

To that, Mitzi whispered across the room, "Rocky, go up and talk to that guy through the door; you don't have any blood on you."

With that, and with the feeling that he ought to be helping more propelling him into assistance, Rocky stood up and brought himself to the door. Rocky, indeed with no blood on him beyond what was noticeable by his wounds, which couldn't be seen from the small pane of glass in the door anyway, stood by the door and nearly blocked the glass with his face. Then, somewhat loudly, he talked through the door. "What do you want?"

"Ah. Hello. So, what's going on here?" the face asked, muffled and somewhat hard to hear on account of the door being in the way.

"Nothing. It's the middle of the night."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You can see the stars, can't you?"

They sighed. "No, I meant 'Really? Nothing's happening?'"

"Yeah. What are you doing?"

"Just, looking around." The face looked down for a moment. "So, uh, what's this, then?" Rocky heard the sound of a claw rapping against the metal of the door.

"What's what?"

"This hole, in the door." Pausing for just a beat, then speaking again just as Rocky opened his mouth. "You know, I heard a different story, with regards to this place." The face struck a match against its matchbox, illuminating the face in warm, dim light. The match moved to a pipe in their right hand. The lip of the pipe was in the mouth of a certain Dominic— not exactly a surprise to Rocky. "I heard that there was some shooting. And this looks like a bullet hole, Rocky."

Ignoring, or perhaps not even noticing the unprompted mention of his name, Rocky continued. "I wasn't shooting anything. And that's not a bullet hole."

"What, might I ask, is it then?"

"...Well, so there was some shooting. I was shooting rats."

"Rats?"

"Yeah, there were some rats in here. Don't wanna be blamed for a rat infestation."

"But a bullet hole is fine?"

"Well, I didn't plan on it. It was an accident, wasn't it?"

"I don't know— was it?"

"It was."

Drago sighed. "In case there was some kind of confusion here," Dominic held up a badge, "I'm here to investigate."

"Show that again."

Dom furrowed his brow, then held up the badge again, holding it up in front of the glass for longer this time. Rocky studied it.

"That doesn't mean anything. It doesn't have your name or anything on it. You could've just stolen it."

Dominic did indeed borrow it from another officer, and it wasn't his. But that was beside the point. "Okay, how about this? I need to take a look at everything and make sure everything's alright, and if you don't let me in, I—"

"Need a warrant."

"Goddamnit, let me in! You just admitted to shooting, and you're gonna try and act innocent?"

"Ah. We were shooting rats."

"'We?' You were saying 'I' before? Who's 'we?'"

"Oh, uh, it was just me and…"

The hatch into the garage opened up, spilling light from the tunnels into the garage. Freckle cast a blurry shadow against the far wall. Mordecai and Mitzi turned and stared at him. Rocky glanced over his shoulder at him. Freckle, suddenly having everyone look at him in the dark, "Oh, uh, did you guys need anything?"

"...Calvin?" Dominic asked through the door. Dominic leaned closer to the glass, as if he could push right through it with enough willpower or force. "Calvin? What are you doing here?" He sounded personally upset, almost.

Freckle took a step closer, keeping the hatch open, somewhat illuminating the space, still. "Who's that?"

"Calvin, I told you not to come back here!" Dominic stopped. "Is that blood on the ground?"

"Rat blood!" Rocky interjected.

"Oh, um," Freckle hurried up the last couple of steps and let the hatch slam shut. The light disappeared. Mordecai stood up and, staying out of the line of sight, started sliding a crate in front of the door.

"Calvin, our deal is through!"

Mitzi turned to Freckle, suddenly feeling betrayed. "What deal?"

"Rocky told you about it, didn't he?" Freckle said, nervously.

"Who's that, now?" Dom loudly wondered.

"I did! Remember?" Rocky added. Mordecai stacked a second box on top of the first, with the crates between Rocky and the door.

"Oh," Mitzi understood now.

"I was wrong about you, Calvin. You're just as guilty as the rest of them," Dominic shouted over the rest of the noise.

"It was just rats!" Rocky argued.

"Yeah, and that's just bevo you're peddling in there."

"You know, if we were really gangsters, you'd be putting yourself in a lot of danger making all these accusations!"

"And you're putting yourself in a lot of danger lying to me!"

Mordecai, having strained, stacked the final crate. The window was completely blocked off. He fell backward and leaned against the wall, having tired himself.

Dom continued, "Fine then— don't let me in. We'll see how this turns out for you soon, won't we?"

The garage was silent as everyone stood there and listened. They listened to try and hear what Dominic was doing now. Rocky could hear his own heart beat in his chest. Mordecai could hear his own quiet, quickened breathing. And collectively, they heard the sound of the same car door slam shut. Then, the sound of the car's engine starting up. Then, the sound of the car driving away. Finally, after several more tense seconds of waiting, in absolute silence, the group took a breath and relaxed.

"Well. He saw a bullet hole in the door, knew about the shooting earlier, and saw the blood through the window." Mitzi summarized. Then, putting her head in her hand, "We're gonna get arrested."

"No, no! He didn't see the bodies. Besides, he still doesn't have a warrant," Rocky reassured.

"I can't imagine it'll be hard to get one after all that!"

"He didn't take any pictures or get a, uh, testimony or whatever."

"He's a police officer, isn't he? It won't be hard for him to get a warrant off of that alone."

"He's actually, uh, a federal agent," Freckle noted.

"Well, that's hardly better. So he's a police officer that specializes in stopping bootlegging? The thing that we do here?" Mitzi reacted.

"Well, if he hasn't been able to get a warrant with everything's he's learned so far, he won't be able to get one now," Rocky stated.

Mitzi exhaled, loudly. "Maybe so." She stood up straight. "Thanks for handling the situation, Rocky, even though you probably could've told some more believable lies. Freckle, go ahead and go back to the speakeasy; we'll handle everything here." Mitzi turned her head to Mordecai, who was adjusting his suit with his bloody hands, "And Mordecai," he turned to face Mitzi, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but— thanks for saving us just now. If you hadn't blocked off that door, he might've seen one of the bodies, and then we'd really be in trouble."

Mordecai, of course, had just acted on a sudden impulse, fueled by adrenaline, but in his currently troubled perception of his own opinions, he simply had to rationalize it. Indeed, he had done what he had because he was starting to lean more and more towards the Lackadaisy, especially Rocky, but his allegiances still officially lied with the Marigolds, and his rational mind wanted it to stay that way. But, as he had thought about again and again in the past couple of days, his emotions were pushing against his rational thoughts, affecting him this much for the first time in a long time; the first time since his bygone relations with Viktor. And, consolidating his thoughts and rationalizing in a split second, explaining away his cognitive dissonance and increasingly fractured opinions, he simply said, "Well, if you lot were arrested, I certainly would be, too."

"If that logic keeps you from trying to get us arrested, then great— keep doing it. But for now," Freckle began to take his exit, and Mitzi continued, "we need to worry about cleaning up this crime scene. I'll deal with the bodies and figure out if I need to do anything about this guy tomorrow. But we're cleaning up the blood before you leave, and before you can go to sleep." She pointed to Rocky, and then to Mordecai.

It was about an hour and a half later. At this point, Mordecai was just covered in blood. It smelled of iron, and it left his fur matted and flattened down against his skin. And of course, he wasn't getting a shower, nor even a change of clothes. Rocky said he would bring some clothes over tomorrow, and that he would convince Mitzi to let him take a shower, though. But regardless, he was thoroughly uncomfortable, and would have to either sleep that way or strip down. While that would certainly resolve the blood issue, it would also leave him sleeping on the floor, bare. And if someone came in without knocking or while he was asleep? The thought had only crossed his mind and dissipated quickly. Yes, he would be sleeping in a bloody suit on the cold floor. It couldn't get too much worse than that, though, so perhaps things would be getting better soon.

The bodies had been set in a hidden away part of the tunnels between the speakeasy and the garage, by means of Mordecai. The blood had been cleaned and the now pink rags had been left with the bodies— also due for destruction. And now on Mitzi's plate for tomorrow were the bullet holes which needed patching, the bodies which needed disposing, and the federal agent who needed… well, something, probably. Regardless, the speakeasy crowd was dissipating out through the café, and the gang was ready to just leave. And so, they did, with Mitzi, Freckle, and Rocky leaving through the café. Mitzi went upstairs, planning to go to bed immediately, and Freckle and Rocky were homebound.

And yet, through all of this, Dominic sat in his car, parked down the street. He had driven around the block and parked back where he had been, almost exactly. And as the patrons left, and then as Mitzi and the two cousins left, he took pictures. Indeed, he gained photographic evidence of the suspicious activity going on at the Little Daisy. Would it be enough for a warrant or for an arrest? Probably not. But if he could just get access to the speakeasy and take a few pictures, then it would be over for them. And as it were, Dom didn't think it would take long before he did just that. Soon, there would finally start to be a collapse of the bootlegging operations in St. Louis. And although the Maribel was, of course, the grand prize, it would all start here, with the Lackadaisy.