Hard Boiled

~Cars characters (c) PIXAR 2006-2011~

~Downtown Chicago streets, 0750 Hours~

The Aston Martin drove steadily down the dank street, various sorts of garbage littering the cracked asphalt. His tires passed close to a flattened oil can, faintly reminded of a hippie a few blocks back, yelling and calling him an "oil-sucking government spy" who'd come to rid the world of his organic fuel. In response, the spy car had swiftly sped past him, now finding himself even further downtown.

Remembering the address he'd looked up only hours before, the Aston Martin was soon confronted by a medium sized, brick motel building, the sign depicting the structure's purpose extinguished, with sunlight glinting off of the rusted metal.

Driving into the old edifice, the spy car was met with a plainly kept lobby, a vacant desk against the wall to his left. Not very tight security, Finn duly noted.

Heading towards a lift at the end of the room, the Aston Martin remained alert, body tense as he rolled into the shaky elevator. He pulled one of the multitudes of levers, the grated doors closing with a clank, and the pulley began to rise with a groan and the creaking of metal. Light from passing floors shone across the spy car's hood and windshield, the lift finally stopping with another audible creak at the third floor, and Finn swiftly exited the unstable elevator, doors closing behind him with another rusted groan, and began to drive down the musty hallway.

Although the Aston Martin had seen much worse places before, much, much worse, he admitted with a glance around the unkempt hall—this building seemed to be one of the most rundown. Not that Finn was one to judge or course, but he would've thought a private investigator such as this 'Mater' would prefer better kept facilities. It appeared that he was wrong in the thought.

Driving down the end of the hallway, the spy car was met with two faded double doors, the slightly yellowed glass above him depicting this as the office of "Mater Private Eye".

Knocking promptly, Finn rolled back to await an answer, and was soon met with a familiar accented voice from inside. "Come in!"

Pushing open the doors, the spy car silently rolled into the tow truck's office, faint sunlight seeping through barely-cracked-open blinds and onto the private eye's vintage paint, fedora lowered slightly.

Mater glanced up upon the Aston Martin's entrance, smirking lightly, "Well howdy. Looks like you were purdy serious 'bout comin' at exactly eight o'clock sharp."

"Indeed," the spy car nodded, before lowering his hood slightly."I apologize for not introducing myself earlier," he amended, drawing himself up once more, "Finn McMissile, British Intelligence."

Giving an over exaggerated bow, the tow truck responded, "Tow Mater, average intelligence."

The Aston Martin only smirked in response, "Well, I hardly believe that."

With a shrug and nonchalant grin, the private eye began shifting idly through the newspapers on his desk, "So what kin ah do ya' fer?"

"As luck would have it, I'm looking for a car."

"Well, that don't really narrow things down. Any specifics?" Mater inquired quizzically, shoving an enormous pile of older newspapers into the bin next to his desk, the thick papers falling into the wastebasket with an audible thud.

"Yes," Finn nodded, unperturbed by the truck's aloofness. "She's a younger car, Jaguar, going by the name of Holley Shiftwell."

A proverbial light bulb went off in the back of the private investigator's mind when he heard the name, but he ignored it and continued questioning the Aston Martin, "Any relation?"

A pause. "….she was my partner."

Mater swiftly caught the underlying sentiment but didn't comment on it, instead asking, "And when did she disappear?"

"Three weeks ago," the spy car answered promptly, gaze beginning to wonder around the room. "We were investigating a possible oil scandal when she went undercover. I haven't heard from her since."

The tow truck raised an eye ridge, "Tell me 'bout this 'oil scandal' a' yers."

"Ah, yes," The spy car nodded in realization, turning back towards the private eye." Several gang members—otherwise known as gangsters—from all over have been meeting in the heart of Chicago. 'Big D' and a few others from New York, several from Britain, France, and Italy, even Al Carone supposedly. All big-shot gangsters, mind you, who have been evading the police's detection—and ours, much to my chagrin—for months now. And we believe that they're after oil; Dinoco oil, so be specific."

"Is Tex one of 'em?" Mater queried, highly doubting that the easy-going Texan Cadillac would have anything to do with the mafia all the way in Chicago.

Finn swiftly corrected him, "Not at all. But he's going to be in the city in only a few days, along with his rival, Miles Axelrod, who created a clean, alternative fuel that could possibly replace gasoline. Miss Shiftwell and I believed that the gang members were going to attempt to threaten him, or even both of them, perhaps an assassination in mind as well, in order to obtain the Dinoco Oil Company and Allinol. I'm sure that you're well aware of the price of such companies and how much they'd make out of it, correct?"

"More than I'll ever be able ta' afford, tha's fer sure."

"Quite right," the Aston Martin smirked, before quickly sobering. "And if those companies fell into those car's tire treads, well—they'd become wealthier than the Queen of England and the president of the United States combined."

"Well…tha's not good," Mater mused obviously, brow furrowing as he stared his newspapers down, as if blaming them for his current position.

"Not in the least. And I don't even want to imagine what Al Carone would do with that much wealth and power…"

There was a brief moment of silence, only filled by the flipping and shuffling of papers. With a sudden creak, the tow truck drew himself up, an excited grin adorning his grill, "Well then, what're we waitin' fer? I ain't had a case this interestin' in weeks!"

Lieutenant Lightning McQueen wasn't the kind of car anyone would expect to worry about anything.

He was one of the top lieutenants of the Chicago Police Department (CPD for short) and wore his silver/black paint with pride. There were only a few cars that had the ability to refuse his orders, two of them being the sheriff—simply known as Sheriff, and the late chief of police, otherwise referred to as "Doc".

And sure, the young police car did pass a worried thought or two concerning his fiancée, the light blue Porsche always casting away his concern. In lieu of this, Lightning usually worried even more. But even so, when Sally was safe at home (or better yet at the station); Lightning was swiftly put at ease by calling her every other hour when he was on patrol, if only to hear her voice.

This moment was nothing like that.

And of course, the young police car believed in Mater a hundred percent, and would always have his back, so to speak, but the tow truck truly didn't even put his own safety into account during his cases. Lightning had witnessed the private eye nearly drag himself back into his office more times than he could count, horribly bruised and battered, yet acting as if the entire excursion had been nothing more than a drive in the park. Looking back on the Big D case, if the police car hadn't arrived in time (having known most of the tow truck's sources already) Mater would've been quite literally "sleeping with the fishes". And he didn't even care.

Sally and Lightning both deftly hoped that their mutual friend would find a girl soon, someone he could finally settle down with, and that she would be able to knock some sense into him. But Mater pushed away all those that tried to get close to him, apart from his few friends.

Since the incident back at the police academy years ago, Mater hadn't even given the most stunning of women a passing glance. The loss of Officer Doreen had struck the tow truck to his core, promptly dropping out of the police academy to become a private eye, and as a result, find the young truck's killer.

Mater had no such luck.

And so, years passed and Lightning lost nearly all contact with his friend, until he became deputy and met with a supposed "Private Eye" concerning an enormous bank robbery. You could imagine his surprise when he found the investigator to be none other than the tow truck. But by then, Mater had changed.

Gone was the laid-back personality and round-about carefree attitude. He'd turned into a sharp private eye, like the ones McQueen used to watch on television as a child—and still did—hard-boiled and with an excellent wit. And the tow truck all but dropped the semblance of concern when he worked on his cases, and so the police car was forced to worry for him.

But the apprehension he usually felt around his friend only grew when he spotted the private eye leaving his shabby office building (Lightning having been on his way there to speak with the tow truck), followed by a silvery Aston Martin as they headed towards a far more dangerous part of town.

McQueen sighed as he watched them leave. He could only imagine what kind of danger Mater had gotten himself involved with this time.