Carmelita speaks
He's so fast! I've never been able to catch him on the roofs; the best I can do is keep him in sight. Before that was good enough; I was shooting at him. Now I need to watch for traps, as he will be, and my best bet is to follow him.
What is driving me crazy is that I think I know who this blackmailer is. If it is someone from Sly's past, I intend to stop them, whatever it costs. I am certain Sly will not agree to what they want if they only threaten to hurt him, but if they threaten to hurt me, he might give. He might think his exposure will hurt me. He might think he could still be arrested for something in his past. After what the Contessa did to him, I don't think Sly could stand going into any kind of imprisonment. The Contessa kept me locked down because she didn't want me physically hurt- it would have ruined her plans- and I fought off her mental attacks. Like Sly said once in a rare fit of exasperation-he was physically holding me back from shooting a particularly nasty piece of work that pretended to surrender, then tried to knife Hunk - I'm too damn stubborn to give in to anybody when my mind's made up. But I was an honest cop, and while she held me in the same contempt she held everyone, I was what she expected. Sly was different from any criminal she ever dealt with. He was a thief, but he had a moral code he stood by and to my knowledge never violated. He never stopped fighting her or the guards, and they had no restrictions against hurting him. When they talked he never stopped arguing with her. She was determined to break him, and they both knew that she could, given enough time. Thanks to Bentley, she did not get more than a good start, but I know Sly still wakes up with nightmares sometime, remembering being in that box, surrounded by guards with motion detectors.
Over the roofs we went, past the obvious traps, past the ones that were tricky, and I saw that if I were alone, I would be navigating these easily. My heart sank. It confirmed that the blackmailer was who I thought it was.
Sly Speaks
The meeting was in a place only a skilled thief or roof climber could get to. Whoever this was, he knew a few things about me but not a lot. In fact, it occurred to me that he was setting the kind of traps that I might have missed in my younger days, before the Thevious Raccoonus. As I went I realized I knew the area. It was in the part of Paris I was raised in, where the orphanage was. It's still there, although it's changed a lot. I know because Sylvester Cooper still makes regular donations there. All right, so I'm sentimental- but I've met a lot of mean people raised on the street. The orphanage was better that being on my own; it had a kind headmistress, and a responsible board of directors, and most of the teachers were decent.
They try hard to put all the kids in jobs, too, before they have to leave. Murray learned to take care of cars there; Bentley they set up to go to computer school. Me, they gave a good education and watched as I worked myself into good shape in sports and practiced what my father taught me as a child, and worried. I think the headmistress had some idea of what my father was, although he was never caught and no one could ever prove anything. She worried even more when I got a job installing security systems part time. That was a good old guy I worked for; he taught me a lot about security systems and led me to my first ever job. It wasn't him or any of his clients; I had more sense than that! Besides, they were all honest people, as far as I could tell. They had to get the systems because there were a lot more crime problems due to drug addicts. One nitwit tried to break into the orphanage. Why I don't know, because there sure wasn't anything there worth stealing. That had to be the one time that the headmistress was glad I was out after curfew. Not that she knew for sure; after I tripped the idiot, wrapped him in a sheet, and rang the alarm, I ran like the devil for the room I shared with Bentley and Murray and was through the window and in the bed before the fuss started. They always checked our room first (we gave them plenty of reasons) but we were all in the room, in bed, dressed for bed, with the window lock still in place and the door still locked, so she never did figure out who caught the guy. The addict never saw me, which was a good thing as I was the only raccoon in the orphanage. She only suspected it was me because I got out of the orphanage at least once a week since I was eight, on general principles. While the headmistress routinely locked the door to our bedroom, she had not figured out we had the window rigged. She liked me-she just didn't want me to be a thief. She told me quite a few times that I was a good kid, usually when she was changing the lock again, after I learned to pick the last one. We had the only bedroom with a bathroom of its own, and I still to this day don't know if that was because of being locked in, or because I was the only kid in the orphanage with a private income. To my absolute surprise, there was still a legacy left for me to claim, put in trust when I went into the orphanage; the interest had paid the orphanage for my keep. I discovered it when I went through her records at seventeen. She never knew I did that. I did it for practice, not because I expected to find anything.
I made the record for demerits, time outs, and other minor punishments, until I learned how not to get caught. It took me about a year, and that was when I started trusting Bentley to make plans for me. By that time I had Bentley for a best friend, and Murray came a year later. Bentley's parents were killed by police. His father, from what little he ever said, was as mean as any parent can get, and hit both he and his mother, but his mother never did anything wrong and she was killed anyway. To this day, Bentley will never trust the police. Murray came in the same way I did; his parents were killed in a plain, everyday car accident and he had no one else.
Anyway, I was working part time at a place that set security alarms, and I was sent on a routine errand by one of the older workers. On the way back, I was walking by a warehouse when a couple of toughs came out and cornered me. I still don't know if they wanted to scare me, hit me, or had anything more sinister in mind, but I was lucky; the wall behind me was brick and crumbling, and I was able to get up it and past them before they figured out what was going on. I met my boss on the way back; he was worried, and glad I hadn't gotten hurt because there was a lot of trouble in that area. While we walked back, he told me that he was sorry he was losing me to the military, and a little puzzled about why the headmistress told him instead of me. It was two weeks before my eighteenth birthday. That gave me enough warning to disappear. When I got back that night, we listened in on the recording device we had set up some time ago in headmistress's office; an Army recruiter who had been watching me had the headmistress convinced I would be better off in the military where I would get some discipline, have an outlet for my restlessness, and, I quote, "properly exercise my abilities and leadership potential." She was a little doubtful, but at the end of her rope. I don't know how they planned to push me into it, but I didn't want to know, either. I departed two days before my eighteenth birthday, with all my possessions. Since I had to lay low anyway, I decided to check out the warehouse.
Their security was a joke. Anyone who could climb a roof could get in. I figured that something had to be going on. Why weren't they afraid of the cops? Well, I learned why fast; one of the local cops came by for his payoff while I was watching. That showed me how to get into the safe. Watching that payoff made me boiling mad, and that warehouse was the first job after Murray and Bentley departed the orphanage. Bentley just didn't make it to the school they put him in; Murray took the wrong train, and we were together again.
Bentley is a genius. He managed to work out that the crime lord was a nasty fox who had a tough reputation on the street and a good one otherwise. I hit the warehouse first, after we were elsewhere. Then we hit his home. That was where I left my first calling card. To top it all off, we mailed pictures to the authorities, and got to watch the fox arrested on television. He died a few days later of a stroke when he was convicted in one of the biggest scandals in Parisian police history. That job bought the van and Bentley's first computer, and got us started. The thrill meant more to me than the money, and I felt I was upholding my family's legacy. I had my friends, and a career that I loved, and we were bringing in enough to build up a fortune for all of us. What more did I need?
Until Bentley got hurt, I never looked back. Then Murray left, needing to come to terms with his "failure." It certainly diminished the thrill. Worse, after that long talk with Carmelita, when she was relaxed, I had the uneasy feeling that I wanted something more between us than just the fun of being chased by her. Still, it wasn't until I was being crushed by that monster of Dr. M's that I knew I'd been a coward, that I wanted what I have with her now- and more. When the gang told me that Carmelita was the one to stop the monster, I knew we had to work something out when the Cooper vault was opened and Dr. M settled. Fortunately Carmelita took care of that
So how did this fox know who I was? Was he connected to that first job? Who was he, anyway? The old fox I robbed died in prison of a heart attack. If there was anyone left, I didn't know about it.
Well, only one way to find out. I dropped down right behind the guy sitting in what like a minor throne, knocked the guard there out of the way, and announced my presence.
Carmelita speaks
I watched as my partner dropped in, and waited. I was in jumping distance, and would join him if I needed to. I saw the blackmailer's face and I was sure.
Pierre was older, but just as handsome as he used to be, with the body a little more thickened and his hair a little gray. When I was younger and much more idealistic, I believed he was perfect. Not only was he handsome and charming, but he would discuss politics, laws, and criminal rehabilitation at length with me. I felt that I had someone I could trust in him- until the robbery at one of his father's warehouses.
I wanted to see the scene of the crime, and went to ask. They- Pierre and his father- were discussing why the thieves only hit the safe and some other small valuables but left the "merchandise" alone. I wondered what they were talking about, but never got a change to consider more about it. Pierre's father refused to let me approach the warehouse because the police had blocked it off. He said his good friend the police commander was taking care of the matter. Two days later their home was struck. The mansion was in a suburb of Paris, and a lot of valuables were taken, along with the safe being raided. It was not only the valuables that were concerning the men; something else was. They kept looking at something small that was left in the safe. Papa Pierre and half of the police force in the area of the warehouse were arrested, and the evidence, obtained in a raid based on information anonymously sent in, including pictures, was damning. Pierre's father was a drug lord, and I knew beyond any doubt that Pierre not only knew, but was part of the organization. Pierre was not arrested, but I remembered his conversation with his father very well.
We had a horrible fight that night. He accused me of wanting to leave him when he was in trouble. That hurt like crazy, but not as much as knowing he lied to me. I had been fooled from the beginning. He was never the man I thought he was. I told him I would stand behind him if he knew nothing of his father's activities, but I would not stand behind the next in line for his father's place. I asked him if he was going to dissolve the business and sell the warehouses. He said nothing. I ran away in tears. By the time all the scandal had settled, I had finished school, and I became a cop. I worked my way into Interpol.
I got my assignment to go after the Cooper gang when several other cops had failed to do more than find shadows. I got close enough to get his picture and to singe him. He got lucky, because he got knocked into a place I couldn't get to him easily, and recovered before I managed to grab him, but after that he had a lot more respect for me and my pistol. I remember the first time he spoke to me, and I discovered his wry sense of humor. I didn't flirt. At first I didn't reply, until I realized that I would get a better chance to shoot if I talked back. In time, I learned more about the gang. Sly was the leader and the thief, their center, and the one that could think on his feet, but he could never have done half as much without the other two. If Sly got into that damned van, Murray could get them out of anywhere. You would think Murray was the scary one because he was so strong, and he was completely devoted to his friends but I had him captured once, and when he isn't angry- and he wasn't angry at me then- he wasn't like most of the criminals I know. In fact, I know for sure he was scared of me. I think he would have been perfectly happy being a truck driver or some such, if he hadn't fallen in with Sly Cooper and Bentley. Bentley- he's the kind that scares me. Bentley is a genius. He made plans, and he hacked computers and he was as devoted to his friends as Sly and Murray were. For a long time he stayed in the background, but after a time, he insisted that he go "into the field" with Sly and Murray, and I know when because they were more effective after that. He was the one who got Sly away from the Contessa, and on his own, too. I had him once, too; physically he was not a problem, but Murray got him away. I couldn't use the pistol in that damn tank, and I wasn't up to fighting both of them physically.
The funny thing is, when Sly talks about his friends, I can tell that he was not only the leader, but he thought of himself as responsible for them. They were his family, the one he found after he lost his own, and he made sure they were taken care of. I was reassigned to clean up the Venice matter when Sly had not surfaced in quite some time except to leave that damn bottle in my office and to help clean up a situation involving some children, which was where he encountered Shelly, but I know now what she suspected, that Sly was having to take care of Bentley, and so my restless thief had to severely limit his activities until Bentley designed a wheelchair that made him just as mobile, maybe more, than he had been before. It occurs to me that this kind of responsibility is a good quality in a father.
What is Pierre trying to do? What does he want? Is it to hurt me through Sly, or did he just get some information and think to use it to his own benefit?
I have to listen to find out.