I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.
"Let It Go, It's Happytown"
Chapter Twelve: Good Business
By: Gabriel LaVedier
Medical necessity interrupted the reunion for a time, doctors and nurses tending to Hermione. They checked on her monitors, drew blood for tests, poked and prodded and shined lights everywhere. Seedsworth's money bought an excess of care and concern. It was the most medical treatment the immigrant stoat had ever had in her life, it seemed.
When the rush was ended there was only Sherlock and Hermione left in the room, the machines once more beeping steadily, the only thing missing the devices that had been cleaning out her system. They were mostly silent, Hermione breathing deeply every so often, Sherlock giving a light sigh about as often.
"Monsieur... how did you know to come to my side? There, so exactly. You truly are a master of deduction," Hermione said, smiling weakly. "How does such work?"
"Ah, my capabilities are weaker than those of my venerable Master Bajja. Surely he would have had the fine senses. But no. I... brought you here and remained here. While the case lingered, while clients waited, I waited. It mattered more than anything else. Imagine, in this place, this veiled place where we see only the thing pulled over our eyes to make suffering and attachment all the sharper... I was here waiting for you to wake up."
"Monsieur..." Hermione weakly reached out for Sherlock. As he reached for her she used what speed and strength she had to slap the back of his hand. "Monsieur... I am an understudy. A mammal of no real worth. Not compared to the enormity of this darkness. We need action. We need results. If I die some new belette will file her claws in my seat. We are bound by money and honor. Merci, monsieur, that you were there. But if I mean anything, you cannot be here."
Her ways. Strange. Impenetrable. But not impossible to grasp. She had gratitude, that much was clear. Working with her long enough made her small, hidden moods transparent. She was weak but thankful. Her indignation came from the immense swelling of pride and honor that lived in her, the things that made her so unique. Pride, despite being in a place that beat out that emotion and replaced it with shame. She would never bend. Honor, true honor, the kind that could not be stolen, only lost by her own shameful actions, actions she would not take.
"Mlle. LaBelle... I have my duty, I have my instructions, but my life is my choice. If I choose to be here hol- holding a vigil in meditative silence as your system is cleaned that is my prerogative. Besides..." He could be honest. "You saw who, what attacked you. Your information is direly important, you made someone scared enough to make a mistake." But he was not.
"Oui, monsieur, oui. Évidemment," Hermione said, shifting up slowly in the bed. "You are correct, as ever. If you would catch him, you would know which fantôme it is that you must hunt down."
Sherlock slipped out his notepad and pen, jotting down his normal preliminaries. "I caught a brief glance of a shadow, but was.. focused on you. And I brought with me the small injector. Cheap and disposable, appropriate."
"Une ombre... ombre huileux. Living oil oozing along in the body of a mammal. Wrapped against light, large but not too large. Canine of some kind, stinking of bodily oil and cheap fruit spray. Lumpen, hiding shape with all the poison in his hidden and normal pockets."
"Was it real stink, or was it unwashed stink?" Sherlock asked.
"Quoi? Vrai?"
"You know the unfortunates on the street, they pick up the odor in their clothes, they try what they can, become uneven and varied in their smell, sometimes with alcohol and other things. But an outsider would think only of stink, and a poor attempt to cover it up as though they were being authentic, falsehood on falsehood to appear real. Was it real or only unwashed?"
Hermione tapped the rail of the hospital bed, eyes darting as she considered the question and sunk deeply back into her sense memory. Picking apart the scent, the powerful lingering trace that intensely splashed across her mind from his proximity before he jabbed her. "Unwashed... oui! Unwashed. Faux. Body spray, an idle mammal, nothing more. Dirty clothes that did not smell of the body, only looking dirty. Filled with poison."
"Just as I suspected. An interloper, an invader. The poison flows in and the money flows out. Agents of the ones who would drain our blood like a hungry ghost come for us, and one tried to undo you. Were there any other things? I can see you had no face to go on, no other physical things. Perhaps his voice, accent?"
"A moment... he... he spoke with a voice... bold, vulgar. Un sauvage, had no shame. Offered me his drugs for sex, like he knew it could work. The desperate would give in. As oily as his motions, slippery and lying, hungry, gluttonous. He said such terrible things. What could happen to my body, insulting me while hungering for me, thinking himself superior, desirable. Always vulgar, always warning me to speak... speak... merde... that was strange."
Sherlock looked up from his notes and quirked a brow. "What could be so odd?"
"It is as you often say, thinking around leads within. It was odd he became almost angry when I spoke to him in my native tongue. But... he knew it. I cannot tell if he spoke it, but he knew the name. From the first," Hermione mused. "You know I correct all. A reflex. Hermine. But he knew it was exotic, said I was an albino weasel. He called my tongue frog-fried. So few would ever know how my kind love fried frog. He even said the name, he said français. With terrible pronunciation, but he did. He knew it. Knew what I spoke, knew what to call it. Half the time mammals say I must be like the Councilor Erminova. They cannot tell the difference. He could."
"Frog-fried..." Sherlock mumbled, jotting it down. "Swampfolk."
"Marécage?"
"I know some things of the city outside my home. I no longer live secluded in the lamasery and have not for a long while. It benefits to know some of much, so more may be added on when the first hooks catch hold, and you are aware there is anything to catch. In the west of the city there is a kind of... rural suburb, built up but disorganized on islands in a murky river, and swamp. The Canal District, a special administrative zone, and places within like Marshlands and Bayou Bay but not Muddy Swamp. The folk there are not as urban as the city folk proper. But they still hold pride at being part of Zootopia. They have immigrant roots too, and down in the bayou their kind dimly remember being from the old country your folk called home. They can barely recognize the old tongue and don't speak it."
"Bian sûr!" Hermione cried, her excessive activity making her fall back down and pant softly. "I even said it. Le laveur. They so often come from some rural place and hide it. He said frog-fried after I mentioned the common phrase. He must have heard it from raccoons there. So... he is this swampfolk? And he is here, in Happytown?"
"It is a reasonable assumption," Sherlock said, jotting down a last few notes and slipping the notepad back into his pocket. "This is very significant. And must be looked at by proper authorities. I sent the injector to the police lab, now I need to bring Officer Wulfberg to this."
Hermione sighed. "If you must. The Chevalier has little patience and hates this assignment."
"But he is a dedicated mammal. He can be trusted, one of the rare few who may be so," Sherlock noted.
"So it is... I feel I may be too hard on him. But a mammal must be made hard to the harshness of the world. He may not like me, but he will appreciate it, I am sure," Hermione said.
"Perhaps. If he knew that was your intent. Mysteries are made to be solved, and as my venerable master said, we cannot return to speak truth to one gone. We owe truth and an omission is a lie, inflicting hurt in a hurtful world."
"I will inform him. Thank you for reminding me where the truth lies, monsieur."
Sherlock said nothing as he walked out of the room, not looking back at her.
o o o
Patrol routes inside Happytown were set, making it easy for Sherlock to cross paths with Officer Wulfberg in a casual way. With the panic over he could put on a look of mild contemplation. Just as he ever was, calm and thoughtful. "Officer, Hermione is awake again, and ready to tell you what she can, which is very significant indeed."
"She get a name, good look at his face, a confession?" Louis asked, with a level of his usual longsuffering edge but some measure of a brighter attitude.
"She had a surprising amount of information, all she gathered from the way he spoke. Tell me, do you know of the français they barely recall in the swamps?" Sherlock asked.
One word make Louis perk up suddenly, his ears pricking as swamps was spoken. "You've implied interlopers already, and it makes sense. Bleeding the place dry. The gang unit already knows this very well. Rougaru."
"The... Loup Garou? They are native to here, immigrants and native wolves, packed together for strength," Sherlock said.
"Like you said, they barely recall," Louis insisted. "They're too high and mighty to be connected to the long-ago immigrants so they hide what they were behind mush-mouth mumbling, not like your w- Hermione. They're very quiet, not as overt over there, but they exist. We have the idea and this is probably true now that you say it, the Loup Garou must have some kind of agreement with the Rougarou. Swampfolk make deals and handle dealers, collect the money. But they're just the pipeline. Not in control. They even have their own lackeys they can lend out. Foxes think they can band together for strength but they're just too sly for their own good. The Madra Rua is a social club that gets tapped by the likes of the Rougarou just to keep from being forgotten. Nick says he only never joined up because he could see they were just a bunch of losers getting taken advantage of. Never thought hustling was the least bad option."
"He has always had a sort of... guru's instincts for some situations. He reads the language of body and connection in the clear air as easily as a mammal reads a scroll of collected sagely wisdom. So what does it mean to find this swamp mammal being here? She did not say he was big enough to be a wolf, yet knew when she spoke her own tongue," Sherlock said.
"Some low-rent Madra Rua stooge got tapped by the Rougarou to either pretend he belonged or to make a deal with the locals. He manipulates the sex workers as much as he can but the ladies don't play ball often enough. Not them. It's still a market, we know at least one bought something. I... came to common cause with the women who lost one of theirs. We have surprising amounts of history, one way or another," Louis said with a waggle of his hand.
"I should not pry on personal matters..." Sherlock began.
"My grandfather, the legendary Mayor Wulfberg, the one who made The Stainless Badges. Part of their job was cleaning out Vice units. With corrupt Vice cops gone, the Old Girls of Happytown... took care of their pimps in much the way the dirty cops were taken care of. The department was purified and the girls were free. Relatively speaking," Louis said with a slight clearing of his throat.
"Relative freedom is the superior choice to absolute slavery and objective corruption," Sherlock noted. "Had they more insight?"
"No, they spent their info on your assistant. But now there are eyes, eyes that see mammals at their most vulnerable, who can tell me if they notice anything. We have a... deal. We all need to live, and we all want this solved," Louis stated.
"This is a lesson we all must learn," Sherlock said with a nod. "More eyes is always best. If anything comes of it, all the better. But the peace is its own reward. Now... I will require the information that you have gathered, perhaps information from this gang unit and the needle I gave to you."
"That... that is something that I was hoping to talk about," Louis said, rubbing the back of his neck. "You're involved in a lot of things, lead on so many cases! Ironically... I can't have you involved in the case closest to you..."
"W-wait... but Hermione is-"
Louis halted comment by holding up his palm. "First, you're too close to this. I'm sure you have some super secret technique to maintain objectivity like in all those movies they show in Tanukitown. But second and more important, this isn't your case in any way. You are not a part of the police force, you can't just jump into any case you want. You need to connect the dots. As far as we know, this was just some scummy Madra Rua working Happytown to collect money for the Rougarou. Once more, find proof, and we're in business."
Sherlock nodded slowly, his breathing almost seeming to fight with itself, growing quicker and more deliberately slowing down, going deep and slow. "I understand. I am aware of how it works. But... Hermione is one of the few mammals I can trust in this place. I need to be involved in this, in some manner. I know that I can be of help in this matter, I have so much to offer to assist."
"You're already a consultant on police cases, just not this one," Louis said with a shake of his head. "Now... that thing you gave me, that was a great find. The lab should finish analyzing it soon. And when it's done, I'll need to interview Hermione for additional details. First-hand accounts and official police records, you know how it goes."
"Yes. I am aware..."
"I'm sure you'll be by her side a lot while she's recovering. It won't be any big deal to have you in the room while I interview her. You got the information first, after all. Probably take a few hours before that. Not much of a wait," Louis said, shrugging some. "If I see you there, I'll see you there. I should call in to the precinct, get the information and see about all that." With a nod he walked away down the street.
Sherlock regarded Louis' form curiously. He was not exactly a sophisticated city mammal, but he was aware of the roundabout way city mammals could speak. So often these Zootopians remarked upon his homeland's inscrutability, while they so often meandered in a labyrinth of meanings, double-meanings, implications, and mysterious agreements made with eye-flicks and posture. He was fairly certain that he understood that the Officer was offering something without offering it and without speaking a clear word.
"Master Bajja, if only you knew the obscurity of these mammals. Meditation would hardly be enough to know how they think..."
o o o
"You look well, Miss LaBelle, considering what happened," Officer Wulfberg said, standing by Hermione's bed at the hospital, tablet in hand, stylus at the ready.
"Indeed, Chevalier. I feel better than one inflicted with poison by a monster should feel," Hermione shot back, her tone slightly less edged than usual.
"We're not enemies," Louis softly said. "Having made peace with the women helped by my grandfather I can recognize that Happytown is just another part of the city. It's still Zootopia. Maybe I'm taking my job too seriously. Scarlet told me what it really means to be liaison. To liaise. To-"
"Bind together," Hermione finished. "To tie as one. Oui. As your blood binds predator and prey, you stand in Happytown and bring Zootopia with you."
"There is no difference," Louis insisted.
"It is so easy for a proper city mammal to say. It is not so easy for our kind to have the feeling flow in that direction," Hermione insisted. "But the change in you is a good sign. These women..?"
"Those. They want to help, for Charlie and Red. Cleaning out the police helped clean out the pimps. So now... Sherlock told me what you said, but to make it official I need to hear it from you," Louis said, looking around the otherwise empty room. "But... your boss is a little late. Does he happen to not understand a verbal wink?"
"M. Gyag has astounding powers, but the city has ways beyond him. That is why he has me," Hermione said with a smile. "But those powers are of great detecting capability. He will reason his way to the room. Or come to see me. He seems to have ruined his rational mind with worry."
"Mammals are mammals, no one is perfect. Scarily computer-like, but not perfect," Louis said with a chuckle.
It wasn't much longer after the conversation that Sherlock arrived, strolling slowly, in a very unconcerned manner. He had a small bouquet of flowers with him, which he set on Hermione's small bedside stand. "Flowers, to help you recover. No flowers from my homeland that would make a good tea, but there should promote your recovery with a positive spirit welling in you."
"You may buy a jill flowers without excuses, monsieur," Hermione said with a small laugh. "But thank you. I know nothing of a spirit in me, but such a sight brightens this cold, dead room. A dying room. A fate I escaped. Thanks to many reasons. But you, M. Gyag... how did you find me? I had no notion that I would be there, no clue where my steps took me. How..?"
"My trials were my own to meet and defeat. When I sat in meditation for days on end, I meditated alone. When I punched wood and stone again and again to strengthen my fists they were my fists alone. When I stepped onto the face of the Sacred Mother it was my rag-wrapped trotters that sank into the snow, my saffron robes just keeping the chill from seeping in to my core, as I stood and focused on putting the world away. I. Each time. But... truly alone? Never. There, always at the edge of the great challenges was Master Bajja. If I looked to be collapsing without water or food in a misguided attempt to show more than I could claim, if I looked ready to shatter my hooves, if I dared the cold too long thinking my mind could conquer the endless onslaught of frost, he would whisk me back, save me from myself as I sought to do as he had instructed. My venerable master knew the truest teacher expects their student to dare, but could never be said to be good if they simply evaporated. It was my job alone to succeed at what was asked of me. But never as alone as I thought. No test should ever end in a grave. I only hope you can forgive me, that I was waiting too far back to save you..." Sherlock sighed.
"But you did, Monsieur," Hermione said softly, as understanding crossed her features. "Your petit oiseau flew from you, met danger. But still you were there, to make sure it did not end in a grave."
Louis cleared his throat and tapped his tablet. "I know that we have these nice moments but... I have to get to taking her statement."
"Yes, of course. You said as much, and that my presence would not interfere," Sherlock said.
"I had to take a quick trip out to the precinct, picked up the lab report on the injector, a little kludged-up personal party in a pen, something the Rougarou cook up in kitchens from bits and pieces, sometimes even with medical-grade parts. You got lucky, Miss LaBelle, they gave you one with a real medical-grade needle that hadn't been recycled," Louis noted as he looked over some papers that he had set aside previously.
"I will have to thank them with my needle teeth," Hermione seethed.
"Thing about drugmakers is, they get fancy, they get proud of the junk they try to push. Good ones have a signature style. You can figure out about where they come from if you get consistent information. That pusher was loaded up with known stuff. The breakdown analysis was clear. But I can't have you officially knowing that, sorry" Louis apologized, setting down the open folder, which showed off a typed up page marked with bright yellow highlighter. "I can't reveal any of the known locations or suspected mammals. Now, I just need to collect the account..." He gave a quick nod and turned his back to the folder, focused fully on Hermione.
Sherlock would have been insulted if he wasn't aware the show was played too broadly because of the assumptions about his ability to understand. He turned his attention to the paper. His notebook and pencil were out in a flash. The names of compounds and their percentages meant nothing to him. But the names of suspected involved parties were eagerly jotted down, along with one name, that told him he would have to leave Happytown. To reach the next link in the chain, he was given a place.
Sahara Square.