Chapter 43 - First Move
"Moving forward requires that one first take a step."
― Chase S.M. Neill
Nick
Not long and their night shift would finally end. Until then Nick would continue to drum happily the beat to "Never gonna give you up" on the front panel of the police cruiser, while he carefully watched the entrance to an old backstreet on the other side of the road. It was the six-day in a row that he and Judy observed that particular spot from the parking lot of a place called Moira's 24/7 Cafe, that served terrible coffee in large amounts at any time of the day. Nothing could disturb his focus on the drumming or his observation, not even the fact that the door to the cruiser opened and his partner hopped on the driver seat with two steaming paper cups in her paws. One definitely with the previously mentioned coffee and hopefully one with hot water plus an additional bag of tea in it.
"You look like a mad mammal when you're staring like that, Nick...Anyhow, here's your tea." Judy said. She placed his steaming cup of black tea in his cup holder and leaned over to place a quick kiss on his left cheek. Nick's neutral face changed immediately to a cheeky smile.
"Oh, what's that? Didn't we make out some rules for our public life, Carrots?" Nick asked.
Judy, however, was unimpressed by his statement. She sat down in a crossed-legged position and took a big sip from her coffee before she answered. In the last two weeks, she began to drink it black with just some sugar in it and Nick had still no idea what he should think about this development.
"You made some rules for the two of us, not me...but in your defense, you also said that we could bend the rules from time to time. Besides... it's seven in the morning in one of Savannah Central's least active corners. I think we're good." Judy replied with a weak grin and Nick saw the tiredness in her half-closed eyes that she tried to hide.
"Any activity?"
"Nope," Nick replied.
"Blueberries," Judy cursed and took another sip from her coffee, "And you're sure that's the place where the exchange is taking place?"
"As sure as I am that my second Name is Piberius. Do you doubt my expertise?" Nick asked back.
"No, but I doubt the integrity of your source but please, explain to me again why we should trust him," Judy asked this rhetorical question not expecting any real answer.
"Alright, where do I begin...Oh, yes. Just let me remind you of his words…," Nick said and stopped for once his drumming, just to clear his throat, "Mmh...yes that's better. As my source claims, the mammals under the command of Peacock, the guy of the Company who is responsible for most of the drug trafficking here in Zootopia, use a two-channel system for their distribution. Or in other words, they deploy the drugs by one mammal somewhere in the city together with an encrypted note where the next package will be located and where to drop off the money. Then, one completely different mammal will collect the money at the mentioned location. Our source knows only the place and the approximate time but not the day...and that, my darling, is why we're here and waiting that something will happen...probably...maybe...No, I'm pretty sure something will happen. After all...someone has to collect the money." Nick said and ended with a satisfying smile towards Judy.
Tired of continuing with the same tune, Nick changed the song he was drumming and began with the melody to 'I was made for loving you', which added a lot to Judy's visible annoyance. He knew that she usually enjoyed Nick's odd behavior but even her patience ran thin after a ten-hour night shift and a week of too little sleep and too much coffee. She grabbed his wrist as she turned towards him.
"Nick, you know I love you and I get it that you miss your old band. You're probably devastated that they no longer play and not even told you that they stopped performing but please... could you stop the drumming until I get a fair amount of sleep? Pretty please?" Judy asked with a cute but also forced smile on her dead tired face.
An acknowledging smile flashed over Nick's face before he folded his paws behind his head. He ended his little musical interlude but continued to watch the entrance to the backstreet on the other side of the road. Judy embraced the silence and began again to drink from her coffee while Nick thought back to the last Sundays which they spent almost entirely in the Zootopia Central Park. He would lie if he would say that he wasn't desperate to see his old band again but there was nothing. No fans gathered under the maple trees and no music was emerging from the Pangolin Pavilions. And what was the most curious thing of all was that Nick couldn't reach any of his old band members. Not one but he had already made new plans because his fingers were itching for some music.
All work and no play make Nick a dull boy. He thought to himself.
"You know," Nick began, by then grinning like a child who knew more than the rest of his class, "Maybe not too long and I have a new band, Carrots."
When she heard this the doe choked hard on her coffee and began to cough so violently that she couldn't speak up.
Woah, maybe I should've told her on a better occasion. Probably after some hours of sleep and a good, long breakfast with the rest of the pack.
Nick reflected and began patting her back softly to ease the coughing until she could finally speak again. A quick look onto the street to check before he concentrated again on his bunny. The target location was still calm and no other mammal in sight but Nick knew he had to stay focused. Those thugs could be slippery fellows. He knew it just too well, as he was one of them not too long ago.
"You….What?" Judy asked, dazzled.
"A band, Carrots. Music...Instruments...Gigs. You heard me right." Nick said again and his grin widened even more.
"But...how?"
"Oh, Judy. You disappoint me. I thought my little eager beaver over here would attend all her classes at the ZPD academy with full attention? Mmh?" Nick asked back, his eyes switching every now and then between the conversation and the entrance to the back alley.
The question mark on Judy's face grew with every second in which Nick didn't solve the small riddle he had given her. She was thinking hard but she couldn't find the answer.
"Okay, you lost me, Nick," Judy said and finished her drink, putting it finally in her cup holder. Nick realized just now that it had written the name 'Trudy Hupps' on it. A true masterly performance from the coffee shop employer who had served her.
His gaze was sternly directed at the little alleyway on the other side but Nick was sure that Judy was looking at him and especially his grinning face.
"Did you know that the ZPD has a band consisting of officers, staff members, and other mammals who serve directly or indirectly the police force?" Nick asked as if Judy had never before heard about it but of course, she had.
"Well...I heard of it but never really wasted a second thought to it. Isn't the current bandmaster already very old?" Judy asked curiously but also slowly guessing what her fox was up to.
"Frank? Oh, he's old that's for sure. So old in fact that he wants to retire this year…," Nick said and became quiet. Judy's ears which were high up until now dropped suddenly. The little bit of hope that Nick had spread was already fading.
"Oh! Oh no...I'm sorry to hear that, Nick. I thought for a moment that you…," Judy replied, visibly taken away by the realization but was in the end interrupted by the fox.
"...but not without giving me a chance to prove myself as his successor! Someone has to keep business running, right?" Nick said with a grin.
"Really?" Judy asked and jumped in a wave of excitement to her feet. Forgotten was the need for sleep when both of her paws were clenched to fists while a grin rose on her face.
"Yes. And all I have to do is to assemble a new band of police members." Nick said and leaned back in his seat, his arms crossed behind his head. "Which will be super easy, barely an inconvenience."
To Nick's surprise, he saw how the enthusiastic smile left her face. Something was worrying her, that much he could tell.
"What's wrong, Carrots?"
"Nothing big. It's just…," Judy stopped and fell back into a sea of thoughts. It was another thing that bothered Nick in the last week's. He knew Judy was thinking most of the time about his dad and what he could have planned for them. Until now the old fox kept his word. Adrian Wilde didn't step into action and Nick knew he wanted Judy to make the first move and that was driving her almost to insanity because every step she took could be a mistake. That and so many other things went through her mind at the same time.
"Come on, Carrots. Spill the beans. What's bothering you?"
"It's... It's just that I can't help you with this, even so, I want to." Judy said and became quiet for a moment, watching the street in front of them, "I've never learned an instrument or even considered playing one."
Nick was touched by the genuine feelings of the bunny. Knowing exactly what he had to do now, he leaned over to her and took her right paw into both of his. All while looking deep into her eyes.
"Judy."
"Yes, Nick?"
"You have to understand that you already have the most important job to support a musician like me. A truly unique one, I must add." Nick said as Judy glared up at him.
"And...which one should that be?" She asked, waiting for his reply.
"You, my dear bunny, are my lifeline while I'm on stage. You're my muse and my first fan. You are the one who cheers while everyone else is booing and the one who has to take care of me after the lights went out. All of that and more is your job. The payments are kisses and I'm sorry but I can't guarantee you any promotion opportunities. So...what do you say? Do you think you're the right one for the job?" Nick asked and put on a questioning gaze as if this was a serious job offer.
Judy, on the other side, nodded back seriously as if this was an offer she had to consider in all seriousness, "I think I'm up to the task, Mr. Wilde...except you don't like what you see?"
"Oh, I love what I see. I'd say you have the job, Carrots," Nick said and leaned over for a kiss. Delighted about the sudden attention from her fox, Judy tilted her head slightly to the left. Just when she wanted to close her eyes and went all in for the kiss, she backed away. Rejected like this, Nick tried to find the mistake on him and checked his breath with one paw.
"Really, Judy? Is my breath that bad?" Nick said, snickering.
"No...not worse than usual." Judy replied in a sarcastic tone but went on, "Come on, we've got movement at the target location."
She was by then solely focused on the entrance of the backstreet and already on her way out of the car. Nick turned to look at the entry himself but just saw the fading image of a mid-sized mammal in a trench coat that vanished behind the corner.
"One small kiss before the action begins, was that really too much to ask for?" Nick mumbled to himself as he left, gave a short call to the precinct one, and locked the cruiser.
Both of them followed the suspect as fast but unsuspiciously as possible or whatever would count for the two most famous cops of the city as unsuspicious. Judy stopped some meter into the back alley behind a large trash container. As soon as he had caught up, Nick laid his paw on Judy's shoulder to signal her that he was ready. Without turning to him, she gave him a sign with her right paw for him to draw his weapon.
The time to use stun guns was after the Missing mammal case rather quickly over and the ZPD switched back to their standard gear. Every officer was again equipped with a 9mm gun, varying only in size for the mammal that used it and an additional shotgun in their police cruiser, which was only usable for Nick. And even he had his troubles with its size.
Pressed to the red brick wall of the warehouse, Judy and Nick moved on. Leaving the trash container as a cover behind them, they had their new aim in sight. The rusted metal door that leads into the old building was slightly open when they reached it. Without making a sound the two of them slipped into the massive hall.
The place was filled with old and used desks, tables, and other furniture. All of it stacked atop of each other with just some small aisles left to walk between the piles of deadwood. The air that Nich inhaled was stall and not much light entered the hall through the small windows below the ceiling. Nick didn't like the atmosphere here at all. It reminded him of long nights with Finnick in similar warehouses, where they waited for some suspicious guy to appear and sell them whatever he had to sell. Not knowing if there were more mammals lurking in the shadows or if there was a weapon pointed at them.
His mind moved slowly back to their current situation as he followed Judy through this maze and for a second he asked how they ended up in this warehouse. It all began after a brainstorming session with the others while they ate breakfast at the Dandelion Diner, their favorite daily meeting place and also their favorite diner by far. It became in a short amount of time something like their second headquarters after Nick and Judy's apartment. When one morning only coffee remained on the table after an extensive meal of pancakes and toast, Judy had proclaimed the idea to deal with the drug department of the Company at first. The idea was that this part of the Syndicate was most likely to have connections to criminals on the street. And they needed an entrance to prove their case in front of Bogo, information or anything at all to get things moving, and Judy's idea to find the guys who distributed drugs on the streets of Zootopia was immediately accepted and probably the only way to find any members of this ominous crime syndicate at all. But for this first step, Nick had to cash in a lot of old favors mostly from mammals who stood in a little red notebook he had hidden between his old records. Who had thought that anything of what he did in his past could be helping them in the future? Nick definitely couldn't.
He and Judy even tried to locate the position of the money on their own during their first visit here but they realized soon that this would mean to find the literal needle in the haystack. There were thousands of drawers and cabinets in this office graveyard. Too much to find the money on their own and so they began to wait.
Judy stopped and raised her right index finger to signal Nick to do the same without any noise. The ears of bunny and fox began to scan the location for any sign of activity. It didn't take long until both of them heard the sounds of claws on wood and the muffled curses of whoever their suspect was. Judy pointed in front of her and the both of them moved on.
Three more towering rows of old furniture and a quick turn to the right and they could finally see him. Some meters above them stood the mammal and tried to open the drawer of a desk that was once part of an expensive office. Slowly, the two of them closed the distance between them and the suspect. Their weapons were already pointed at the mammal in his trench coat that disguised perfectly his own species.
"Who the hell had the idea to hide the cash in the highest desk? Didn't dad tell them that I'm afraid of high places? He should punish them...yeah, he should definitely do that. Well…, now that I'm already up here guess I earned myself a little reward before the old bastard is checking in on me…" the high-pitched voice spoke and chuckled like a mad mammal. Judy and Nick couldn't see what he was doing up there but they could hear it clear as day.
He was searching for something in his coat. As soon as he had found it, the sound of glass on wood came to their ears.
"Yes! Come to daddy. Ahh...a little bit more will not hurt. Hihihi." The mammal said and began to giggle fanatically. Nick saw how the fur on Judy's neck and ears began to raise as they listened to the maddening sound of his laughter.
Oh damn. That sounds as if another Blanche dealer just became his own best customer. Well, good for us that your professional behavior hasn't rubbed off onto the other departments of the Company, Dad.
Judy's confused face turned to Nick who had already figured out what was going on upon the highest desk. Silent, his lips formed the word 'Blanche' for Judy to give her the answer but the long snorting noise that followed was everything she needed to know. Her face changed immediately into a grin which meant one thing over everything else - trouble. For whom was still to be determined but trouble it would be.
"Gotcha!" Judy said to Nick and stepped forward with her gun in both of her paws. He had committed a crime in front of her and for this Judy knew just one reaction.
"Judy! Wait!" Nick hissed after her but deep down he knew that it was already too late for her to stop.
"ZPD! Paws up where I can see them. You're under arrest," Judy shouted up at the unknown mammal. The first few seconds Nick couldn't tell if they were looking at a mannequin or a realm mammal. There was no movement at all and there was no attempt of showing his paws or even moving them to his head.
"My, my...what a lucky guy I am to not just run into the arms of the ZPD but also the most famous bunny cop of the city," He said and giggled before he continued, "Don't you think we could solve this little incident through a small donation from my side? I would say 2000 dollars sound great to let me go?"
"Just like that, I also add bribery to the list of your crimes. Right now, I have four different crimes for which I can take you into custody. In the name of the law I take you in for break-in, possession as well as consumption of illegal substances, and last but not least the bribery of a police officer. I hope you and your Company have good lawyers because it doesn't look too good for you." Judy said and made another step towards the suspect who still showed no effort to raise his paws.
Disappointed about the outcome of the conversation, he exhaled deeply and muttered an almost silent, "Fuck...the old bastard will kill me if I call him from a prison cell." His words had just left his mouth when he made a jump to the left and towards another massive desk that stood at least twenty feet high and on the other side of an aisle. His claws dug deep into the wood and could barely keep him on top but he managed somehow. As soon as he was back on his feet he began to move again, aiming for the next desk to land on.
"Blueberries!" Judy cursed and followed the culprit from her lower position, always trying to keep an eye on him. Both mammals, fox, and bunny, we're running now through the small aisle, while their target jumped from desk to desk above them. Gaining more and more distance between them with every second. Sometimes he was close to falling but he always managed to stay on his feet.
"How can he be so fast...and didn't he say he was afraid of high places?" Judy asked and continued to run as fast as she could through the dark aisle.
"What do you expect from a mammal who just invited himself to a nose full of Blanche Neige? This guy is probably having the time of his life. Also, we know to whom he belongs I would say that this was the good stuff and not the cut you get on the streets." Nick explained in a calm tone, searching for a possibility to climb higher. For a moment, he was distracted by Judy's judging gaze that looked back at him and which told him everything.
"I know what you're thinking but no, I never took that stuff, okay?" Nick said to the bunny who was running in front of him.
"Okay...but how do you know so much about it? I mean...," Judy began but was fiercely interrupted when the sound of a gun shoot interrupted their conversation. Both of them parted to one side and pressed their backs against two old cherry wood desks. Both of them were just as tall as them.
"Could we please have this conversation at a later point in time? Those bullets flying around us are killing my mood for a history lesson about my past." Nick said while he tried to peek over the edge of the desk he was hiding behind. When his head passed the edge, he was immediately greeted by splinters of wood that flew in his direction.
"Come on and get me! Or is hiding everything the hero of Zootopia can do?" The culprit said laughing. Just seconds later the sound of another snort filled the air. "Wuhu, that portion was even better!"
Fired up by his self-induced courage boost, he shot multiple bullets through the hall. Nick wasn't sure if he did this to celebrate or to kill. In the end, it didn't matter as none of the bullets was even close to hitting Nick or Judy. Most of them vanished in dry wood or into the concrete of the walls and floor.
When he reloaded the gun after wasting the last bullet, he fell into a tantrum in which he taunted Nick and Judy for being cowards, cops, and other names Judy seemed not to know.
"Great...but how do we get him? The only advantage we have is that he has to pass by us to leave this place." Judy explained and looked around her to get an idea of what she could do.
"Well, by now he's surely high on Blanche. Which means he's probably so sure about himself that I'm not so sure if he wouldn't just rambo our position and head for the exit." Nick said and checked his gun, "I would say we climb up there and apprehend the guy at gunpoint and cuff him. It's the best I can come up with. What do you say, Carrots?" Nick asked.
Judy sighed and leaned her head against the desk, staring at the ceiling above her. Nick watched her for a long moment and concluded that even in the dim light of the hall and too many hours of missed sleep, she still looked gorgeous to him. A smile appeared on his face that she couldn't see. He knew it was a bad time to let his mind wander but who cares.
"Let's do it. By now, I'm too tired to come up with some fancy plan and I'm not even sure that he needs one." Judy said and both began to climb. They reached the top without complication and only exchanged glances from time to time to check on the other. When they reached the penultimate desk, they looked at each other and nodded to signal their readiness. At least until Judy's ears shot up.
Nick recognized it immediately and asked, "What's wrong, Judy?"
"Why is it so quiet?" Judy asked confused.
"What?" Nick replied and realized at the same time that there was no sound around them, "You're right...there should be at least something. What now? I for one have a bad feeling about this. Should we still proceed?"
Judy nodded but seemed no longer sure about the outcome of their chase. Nick, who was approximately twenty feet away, on the other side of the aisle could now and then hear the shuffling of cloth or an almost silent giggle but it was never enough to pinpoint it to a certain location.
You can't locate him like that. If he's no longer up there we still have the advantage of the higher ground.
"One." Judy began to count.
"Two." Nick continued.
"Three." Judy finished and both climbed on top of the highest desk, just to point their guns at nothing. In front of them was a plateau of desks and maybe seven feet of stall air until the ceiling. Slowly, both of them sank their guns until they pointed to the heavy desks below them and both of them took a good look around. Up here it felt as if they were on a barren landscape or maybe the moon. There was no life, no sound and just repeating patterns of the things they could see.
"Where is…" Judy began to ask but was interrupted by a sudden tremor that brought her to her knees, while Nick watched in terror how Judy's world began to shake right underneath her feet. Again they heard the same mad giggling like before while their suspect tried to push over Judy's pile of desks. The giggling turned into one of the craziest laughter Nick had ever heard.
"Hahaha! Let's see how the hero of Zootopia handles some tons of wooden desks?" The mammal said laughing and slammed his shoulder into the tipping point of Judy's pile of furniture. That was the moment when hell broke loose.
Tons of wood fell and crashed into thousand pieces in an ear-piercing sound that made Nick wince. And above all was the maddening laughter of their suspect who began to walk away.
"Come on, Wilde! Save your partner! Hahaha!" shouted in delight.
"Judy!" Nick shouted in terror and moved in Judy's direction, just when the bunny saved her life with a jump to another desk that wasn't moving. "Wait, I'm coming for you!"
"No!" Judy shouted, as she managed to get onto her feet while the ground underneath began already to shake. It took Nick a moment to understand her sudden outburst but the decision she had made was as clear as day in Judy's eyes. There was just one thing for him to do, follow the culprit at all costs.
He was their key to find clues to work against the Company. Who knew when came their next opportunity to strike.
"But…," Nick began his weak response but was immediately interrupted by Judy.
"No buts! Go after him, I can manage this on my own." Judy commanded and vanished between dust, wood, and even more collapsing furniture.
"Judy!" Nick shouted in desperation into the cloud of dust.
"I said go!" Judy replied from a place that Nick couldn't see.
Fine. I'll go, I'll go. Nick, now is your time to shine.
And with Judy's command still repeating in his head. Nick jumped after a short running start over to the next desk from which he hoped to have better chances to pursue his target.
The jump was a close call and a glance at Judy showed him that two piles of pushed over desks had developed into a chain reaction of chaos that consisted of crashing wood and raising clouds of dust. All of this made it impossible to locate the bunny exactly.
A second passed in which he thought about Bogo's reaction when he found out about all of this but thought in the end that it was better to keep on moving. With every desk, Nick managed to come closer to his target who had by now stopped to tackle the massive piles of furniture. The culprit seemed as if he wasn't even aware that he was still followed. He probably took for granted that Nick would go after Judy.
The exit already in sight, Nick hurried on and with every two desks he passed he went one down. He didn't have to think about the sounds he made because the forest of furniture was still collapsing behind him, even so, it had slowed down. A small peek into the chaos of the wooden avalanche but he had no luck. There was no sign of Judy and that made him uncomfortable to the bone.
Where's she? Damn it, I shouldn't have listened to her and didn't follow that guy. What if she's hurt or worse...No! No, she's fine. You should know that better than anyone else, Wilde.
Nick jumped the last bit and was finally back on the ground, with the culprit some meters in front of him. Anger rose in him when he saw that the guy was still giggling like a little child who had just played a trick on some other kids on the local playground. And as if it wasn't enough, he searched again for another sniff of Blanche. Paws searched and found what they wanted. One of them found a small bag of white powder, the other a standard police gun for small-sized mammals.
"Paws up, buddy. It's over." Nick said with a gun that pointed at the shoulders of the culprit but he knew he would change his aim when the guy was trying anything stupid.
It was dark between all those towers of wood and even Nick with his eyes that were made for the dark had problems seeing details from the figure in front of him but he felt that mood had changed, the giggling and laughter was gone.
"Heh...I was sure you would save her, Wilde. What a friend you are. Maybe I should take less of that white stuff...but it's just so goddamn good. You know?" The culprit said and his smartphone began to ring. The sound of an old analog telephone with a mechanical bell echoed through the small aisle they were in and finally through the whole hall.
"Maybe I should…?" The culprit began while he raised his arms. Two gloves for predators appeared. One black and the other white from the drug. Again, no luck for Nick to have a peek at his identity.
"Don't even try to get that thing in your pocket," Nick replied. He reached with his left for the paw cuffs on his belt, while he kept his gun in position. Nick had no idea why but he was sure that the guy in front of him was grinning.
"Oh, you should let me take that call, Wilde. It would help both of us."
"Nice try," Nick replied, smiling. He was sure to recognize a lie when he heard one. After all, it still takes one to know one.
With ease, Nick handled the cuffs with one paw and made them ready to close around the wrist of their culprit. But just when he reached the raised arms, Nick saw a figure coming from his left out of a dark aisle. Without warning, the mammal slammed right into him, making him fall against a high oak desk to his right, dropping his gun and the cuffs in the process. Nick had no time to think or react when the next blow hit him. This time, his new opponent was bigger but also faster than him. With a kick to his shin, the new guy managed to make him fall flat on his face, cushion his fall just in the last moment with his paws.
The world was spinning around Nick but he fought on and tried to stand back up. He pushed himself up until a strong but small foot stopped him in his effort not even three inches over the ground.
"Stay down, mate." The new voice commanded in a professional tone that accepted no talking back.
"Yeah! Stay down, Wilde!" The first voice repeated giggling and sniffed another portion of the white powder. The high kicked in and he acknowledged it with a high-pitched scream of ecstasy, just to draw his gun in the next second and pointed it against Nick's head. He could feel the cold steel pressing against his right ear.
"Or maybe...maybe I just pull the trigger and poof...no more fox. Hihihi."
Heh? Who would've thought that after all those years where I predicted that my end would come to me in one of those dark and dusty warehouses, it's now that I turned my life around that I die in one? What a joke.
Nick, who had already accepted his fate, turned his mind to Judy and hoped that at least she was fine. But like many times before, when Nick was sure that fate had already cast it's dice and decided what would happen to him, something unexpected happened. The attacker who had tackled him to the ground intervened roughly and yanked the guy, who just wanted to end Nick's life, up and against a wall of cabinets. A shot was fired by accident and according to the intimidated howls of their first suspect was he just as confused as Nick.
"Bloody hell, what is wrong with you, boy? Didn't I say you should just go in here, get the goddamn dosh and come back to the car? When did I say you should take another nose full of this damn powder?" Nick's attacker asked, ending his sentence in a deep grunt.
"Ahh! Let me go, you damn butcher! I do whatever I want and have you forgotten? You're here to protect me."
"Oh? I'm here to protect you? Ey, mate? Maybe even let you down? What else? Maybe some wet towels to wipe your bloody arse? Tse, bollocks! I'm here to teach you plonker, some manners! That's what your father told me to do and that's what I'm here for. I bet you don't even understand why your old man has given you this bloody job and the privilege of my company." Nick's attacker said in a thick and also slightly annoyed accent, that reminded him of some island mammals from the midland area who spent half of their lives on the sea and the other half in pubs to celebrate their adventures.
As whiny as he was before, the mention of his father moved something in him. It wasn't much but what he said spoke volumes about the relationship to his father. Others would start to find a way out from underneath that guys feed but not Nick. For him, listening and understanding what was going on here was way more important. Who knows what he could learn about those two.
"Oh, I know why he gave me this damned job! The old bastard is just searching for a way to get rid of me! Maybe….yeah! That makes sense thinking about it. Maybe he's responsible that the two most famous cops in all of Zootopia appear just here to…," he became silent when the impact of the fist hit him right in the stomach. Pressing all the air out of his lungs and bringing him slowly to his knees.
"I'm no one who gets easily upset over some words from a little boy. Words are wind. But even I can't take it lightly when the mammal who saved once my life is dragged through the mud by his own son. Tell me...What must a mammal do to atone for his sins?" Nick's attacker asked and waited for an answer. It took the boy a while until he got his breathing back under control but when he did he spat blood in front of the feet of his companion.
"I don't know," the boy began, chuckled slightly and looked up to his protector, "...but dying sounds like a proper start to me. Wouldn't you say?"
"Bloody hell…," Nick's attacker, who had still one of his feet on Nick's back, replied and turned away but just to come back with a second blow. This time, Nick could swear he heard some bones breaking.
"Ahhh...that hurts."
"Ay, it should and enough about the past. Now toughen up buttercup and tell me what happened. Where is the bloody bunny?" Nick's attacker asked and looked around him.
"Dead…" was everything the first guy managed to mumble in his pain.
"Alright...and where's her body?" He continued to ask and concentrated back on his partner.
"Don't know...somewhere between all that crushed wood."
"You don't know? By the three goddesses are you mad, lad?" Nick's attacker asked and seemed to become angry with his partner, "Didn't Kingfisher was clear about this in his last newsletter for the whole bloody company or didn't you get the memo? He wants all of them alive at all costs and what is even more important...we should never underestimate her. The gale is not so easy to kill and if there's no body to be found? Well, then she's not dead. Simple as that you bloody wanker."
"N-no, I didn't read all those messages. He...he wanted her a-alive?" The first one replied in a terrified tone and Nick realized that the term company was more literally than he thought.
Memos? Newsletters? What the hell do you build there, Dad?
"Aye...and you know what happened to those who botch his plans, right Phasan?"
Phasan? A name! Now that's something I can work with. I think I might even have an idea how to get the identity of that guy.
"Y-yes...what now?"
Nick's attacker exhaled deeply before he continued, "Go to the car and wait. I'll take care of things here."
"Do you...do you think he will hurt me?"
Another deep exhale, "Aye...Maybe...I don't know. It depends on what I find here. Now go...wait! Do you have the money, boy?"
"Y-yes," Phasan replied. His voice was shaky.
"Good. At least something. Now go."
Ready to leave the scene, the young thug passed Nick's face when the fox reached forward and grabbed the ankle of Phasan's feet. Nick could feel fur in the palm of his paw and knew that his plan would work.
"What the? Let go of my feet!" Phasan declared in panic and tried to pull back his leg. It was no use. Nick had a firm grip on it and didn't seem too eager to let it go.
"Where do you think you're going? You're still an arrested suspect of the Zootopia Police department." Nick said with his face pressed against the cold, concrete floor of the warehouse.
"Really, Wilde? I never expected you to be the one who would protect the law until his last bloody breath." Nick's attacker said and began adding pressure to the foot that still stood on the fox's spine. It took a while but at one point the pain was simply too much for Nick and Phasan could rip himself free from his paw.
"You red-furred bastard! Be glad to know that your damn father, holds his damn paws over your damn life! I would smash your head in if I could! Believe me. You…" Phasan said towering over Nick, just shouting at the defenseless fox on the ground. Like before it was Nick's attacker who stopped the young thug mid-sentence.
"Get over it boy! Take the money and wait for me outside! Did ya hear me?"
Silence was all there was until Phasan decided how he should proceed. In the end, he just turned and walked towards the entrance, mumbling curses on his way out. The moment in which the heavy door slammed shut, Nick's attacker decided to take his feet from his spine and stepped some meters away from him. At first, Nick was sure his remaining opponent would try to disappear into the darkness of the furniture but that was miles away from reality. All he did was to walk over to a group of chairs that were stapled together. Without a second of hesitation, Nick rolled over and stood up, bringing even more space between him and the enemy.
In front of him, an old black boar turned around with a chair in his claws. Some parts of his fur had already turned snow white but the thing that was most fascinating about him was his cloth. The boar wore a fancy, blue, three-piece suit that remembered Nick of an old-time gangster that lived maybe ninety years ago. Every detail was as it should be, the vest, the neat clothes, the coat, there was even a shining chain moving in the dark. Nick assumed that it led to a silver pocket watch.
The boar sat down and sighed deeply, before he began to drink from a metal flask that he had just pulled from an inner pocket of his suit, "Kids these days, aye?"
"Yeah...tell me about it," Nick replied and tried to keep the conversation alive with a joke. The boar began to chuckle, so Nick added another line, "No seriously! Because I have no clue about kids."
The boar chuckled again, "Good to know that at least one mammal in your bloody family has a sense of humor. Every time I see your dad, I could swear that someone shoved the bloody stick he has up his arse even further ."
"Oh, you should hear the female part of my family. You would wet yourself of laughter." Nick said, smiling and the chuckle of the boar turned into genuine laughter, that ended in another big gulp from the flask. Even for his age, he must be strong. What he did to the one he called Phasan didn't seem easy and even now he's sitting there with a straight back and no signs that he is exhausted in any way or form.
"Aye."
"You don't seem to be out for a fight...so what are we waiting for? And what should I call you?" Nick asked.
"A fight? Oh no, no, no...my time of fighting is long over. The only thing I do nowadays is to give certain lectures to certain mammals. Like the boy for example. He's a good lad but with terrible manners. But enough about him, we two wait for Miss Hopps to join this little conversation. By the way, you can call me Griffon if you want to." The boar said in a calm voice when Nick heard the familiar sound of a gun that was just unlocked.
"Ahh, there she is! Good to see you alive and well, Miss Hopps." Griffon said, smiling at a space between two stapled desks above Nick's head.
"Judy! Are you okay?" Nick asked when he noticed the doe. She exited the darkness between two large desks, some meters above the ground. Her fur was ruffled but all in all, she seemed fine. The gun in her paws was aiming at the boar who had called himself Griffon.
"Thanks, Nick. I'm fine. Maybe some bruises here and there but all in all I'm okay. I guess this is no."
At first, it seemed as if Judy had not understood what he had said.
"No. We're not here for negotiations. We're here to arrest you. " Judy replied with a stern face and Nick knew she tried her best to play as if she had the upper paw in this game but all it provoked was a chuckle from Griffon. The boar watched her carefully but also with a lot of interest from his chair.
"Alright, lass. Listen here and let me tell you what will go down when we follow your brilliant plan. You two coppers will cuff me and drive me down to your fancy police station in your fancy car without any resistance from my side, of course. You will put up charges against me. I will deny them. You will search me, but you'll find nothing in my pockets but lint and money. I'll use my obligatory phone call and half an hour later a group of sophisticated mammals, who get paid too much in my opinion for what they do, will appear and flood you with enough bloody paperwork for the rest of your week. You, Miss Hopps, will persist on your point to keep me arrested for the next twenty-four hours but every time you want to interrogate me, I'll remain silent until I leave. In the end, you did nothing but treat me to a free ride to precinct one. Now, what will it be? Negotiation with me or eight weeks of parking duty because of overstepping your boundaries?" Griffon said and tilted his head. His small black eyes fixed on Judy. Time went by in which both mammals, bunny, and boar, just stared at each other. Nick had an idea of what was going on in Judy's mind right now and he knew to whichever terms she came, it would be no easy decision for her.
A deep sigh echoed through the hall when Judy took her gaze from the boar.
"What do you propose?" Judy asked and a smile began to grow on Griffon's face.
"I give you information and in return you let me go. Easy as that, mate. No dodgy tricks and no second layer." Griffon said.
"Why would you help us?"
"Why? Because I have mammals I'm loyal to and it ain't the Company. I do not trust anyone in the Company, not any of the higher-ups or smaller agents, and most of all not Kingfisher."
"Why?" Judy exclaimed and let her gun sink a little bit, "What is with Kingfisher?"
"Not so fast Miss Hopps, do we have a deal or not?" Griffon asked.
Reluctant but determined to hear more Judy nodded, "I...I guess we do."
"Good. Now let me tell you something about the old fox, aye? He's careful beyond belief and mysterious like the three goddesses themselves. He takes no hostages - never. But all of a sudden he's giving out a list of mammals with the distinct order to keep them alive at all costs? Bollocks, I tell you. Kingfisher is someone who minimizes risk at all costs and to keep a mammal alive is always riskier, especially when we're talking about a bag of fleas like you two." Griffon stopped for a moment to take another large gulp from his flask before he continued to talk, "Ahh, that was good. Do you want to hear what I think? Of course, you do. I think he's planning something. Something big. He never did anything like this before. Never."
"What makes you so sure that he's planning something?" Nick asked.
"Aye...Well, I heard whispers throughout the Company that something big will happen soon. Mammals are moved, plans are made...change is in the air. What exactly will happen you ask me? I have no idea but I don't like it when parts of the Company know something and the others don't. Makes me suspicious... and a little bit uneasy." Griffon said.
"Is that all," Judy asked.
"No," Griffon replied and began to smile, "But now comes the banger for you two. As much as if heard, Kingfisher has placed a mole inside the precinct one."
"What?" Nick and Judy replied unintentionally at the same time, while they stared with wide eyes at Griffon.
"Who?" Judy demanded to know.
"Never saw him but I heard some of the bloody stories about him. Likes to play with other mammals, torture them, and sometimes even brakes them mentally. He's a sicko." Griffon said and watched how the new information sunk into the duo.
"When did this happen?" Nick asked.
"Don't know, because it's not my department but I would guess that happened a while ago, depending on the stories I heard," Griffon said and stood up from his chair. He nodded to both when he said his goodbye. "Ms. Hopps, Mr. Wilde, it was a delight talking to you two. I'm sure I'll hear of you two again...one way or the other."
Without waiting for another question, Griffon stood up and slowly left the scene. The two of them looked at each other without saying anything until they heard how the heavy door closed behind Griffon.
"What now?"
"I...I have no idea. All I know right now is that I need sleep but before that, I have probably to endure a long monologue from Chief Bogo about dealing with fleeing criminals." Judy said and looked up to Nick. Her eyes were even more tired than before, "And all of that without any success after all that work."
"Oh, don't be like that Judy...I would say we had at least a pawful of luck." Nick said grinning, while he's holding up his open paw to her.
"What do you mean...wait is that fur?!" Judy asked with a high-pitched voice, holding his right paw with both of hers.
"Yep. I don't know who the guy was who called himself Phasan but I'm sure we can find it out with this sample. A Blanche addict without a criminal record? I bet we have his name at least once in our vast database of criminal individuals. Could you please give me one of the plastic zip bags you always carry around with you?"
"But how did you do that?" Judy asked.
"Blanche users tend to feel less pain, especially when they've just taken their 'medicine'. And our friend was high as a kite when I grabbed his ankle." Nick explained but he could see how Judy's facial expression changed from delight to shame, "What's wrong Carrots?"
"I'm sorry, Nick. I shouldn't have thought that you could...well..you know."
"Don't worry. I know I make myself suspicious with all that knowledge about this damned powder...but this time it wasn't me who took it." Nick explained and became more and more silent.
"Nick you don't have to…," Judy said but Nick was already talking, "Finnick. It was Finnick who began taking that stuff back in the days when we had quite the success on the streets and more money than we could spend. I saved the most of mine...as you know. But he...well he liked nightlife and the nightlife liked him. I mean, he was never the calmest mammal but his Blanche consumption pushed him over the edge and unfortunately, the old Fin never came back."
"Oh no...I'm so sorry." Judy apologized, with both of her paws in front of her muzzle but Nick just shook his head, for him there was nothing to apologize for.
"He's clean now for over four years but when he disappeared last year when we were in BB...let's just say that this brought back some old fears," Nick said.
"I bet you helped him wherever you could," Judy said with a smile but Nick's gaze remained cold. She fiddled a small plastic bag from her belt and handed it over to Nick.
"Maybe, but I should've known better...I should've stopped him before he fell into that pit. What for a friend am I to let him run into such an open knife?" Nick said. He took the small bag, put the fur into it, and closed it tight with the zip lock. Without even thinking about it he put the small back into his breast pocket, the one below his badge.
"I bet you did what you could!" Judy exclaimed and looked up into Nick's eyes, who couldn't resist her charming attitude. A small smile appeared on his muzzle as a reply.
"I hope so…," Nick said and looked back at the avalanche of broken wood that their chase had created. He didn't even want to imagine how much all of this would cost them in the end and even worse, how many weeks of parking duty Bogo would give them.
"What do we do about this?" Nick asked and pointed to the chaos of wood behind him, while he bowed down for his gun, which he locked and put back in his belt.
"Standard procedure from here on. We call reinforcements, drive back to precinct one, I face Bogo and you bring your fur sample to the CSI team. How does that sound?" Judy asked, trying to keep their spirit up.
"Terrible...but I guess that's the path we've both chosen," Nick said, smiling back at Judy, while both of them began walking back to their police cruiser.