There was a moment of silence just long enough for Judy to feel a flash of fury at the fox. She hadn't gone over the details of how to enter the club on their walk from the train station, but that was also his fault; he had spent the entire time complaining about having to walk while carrying his bag. Before she could say a word, however, Leroy burst into laughter, which was surprisingly high-pitched for a mammal with such a deep voice.
"Seriously, though," Leroy said, "You goin' steady or somethin'? Never thought you was a prey chaser."
"No manacle yet," Nick said cheerfully, holding up his left paw and waggling his fingers to show that he had no ring, "But you could call her my ball and chain. Isn't that right, sweetheart?"
He said his last bit turning to look down into Judy's face. She favored the fox with the severest glare she could muster, which didn't seem to faze him at all. "I don't let him out of my sight," she said, turning to face the peephole, then turning back to shoot Nick a meaningful look.
Leroy laughed again, but there was the sound of a number of locks being undone and the door swung open. He was a brown bear with the stocky build typical of his species, but his dark suit fit him perfectly. The apparent lack of intelligence in his voice carried over to his appearance; his brow was oddly protruding, making his eyes appear like dull pits underneath. The bear gave a chuckle that sounded like a kit's giggle. "'s true what they say 'bout bunnies and adding?" he asked in a loud stage whisper, tipping Nick with a slow wink as he ushered them in.
The bear apparently couldn't even get his speciest stereotypes straight—it was multiplying, not adding—but Nick gave a playful jab to the bear's midsection that Leroy gave absolutely no reaction to; Nick might as well have poked the wall. "A gentlemammal never tells," he said, giving Leroy a wink and a smirk in return, "Is my usual table free?"
"Sure thing," Leroy said, "You two enjoy yourselves, you hear?"
"Will do," Nick called over his shoulder.
"You shouldn't have done that," Judy hissed as she chased Nick down the hallway that connected the entrance to the dining area.
She was trying to keep her voice down so that Leroy wouldn't overhear, but she didn't need to bother; a quick glance over her shoulder showed that the bear was absentmindedly filing his claws while humming tunelessly. "Surely you're not asking me to lie, are you?" Nick asked solemnly, though there was a wicked gleam to his eyes, "I didn't think a Prohi would go for that."
"Don't feed me that line," she snapped, "You're trying to ruin my investigation."
Nick shrugged nonchalantly. "That's a very serious allegation, Agent Carrots," he said, putting a paw over his heart, "It wounds me to hear that you think I'd try to ruin your little case, it really does."
Judy's retort died on her lips as they passed through the curtain that separated the hallway from the dining area. She had to keep her jaw from dropping; even when she had stepped off the train in Zootopia for the first time and seen the buildings soaring into the sky around her she hadn't felt like such a country yokel. The interior of La Porte Verte was luxurious beyond anything she could have imagined. The floor was tiled in white marble shot through with threads of pink, and the walls were paneled entirely in mahogany with elegantly carved trim pieces in abstract floral patterns. The ceiling soared overhead far higher than what she had expected from outside the building, and a magnificent chandelier of cut crystal with what must have been hundreds of electric lights illuminated the club. The floor of the room had been built as a series of terraces so that even though there were at least two or three dozen tables in the main dining area of varying sizes they all came to the same height; even a table sized for an elephant and one sized for a mouse would put the mammals at each other's eye level. Around the edges of the room were private booths with luxurious velvet curtains of a rich maroon, some of which were closed to hide the mammals dining behind them. At one end of the dining room was the largest piano Judy had ever seen, behind which was a giraffe calling forth something classical that didn't threaten to overwhelm the low murmur of conversation from the various tables.
What caught Judy's attention, though, was what she could see the mammals at each and every one of the tables doing. To a mammal, they were all drinking; there was a goat holding a martini in one hoof and pontificating to a bored looking date with the other, a rhinoceros delicately sipping wine from a glass that would have been a wash basin for Judy, and a table of grizzled old squirrels toasting a much younger squirrel with champagne flutes. Even as all the mammals drank there were waiters and waitresses making their way around the room with a quiet efficiency, their trays loaded with even more bottles of alcohol in a staggering variety of shapes and sizes.
"Don't get too excited," Nick murmured; he was leaning down which made his words a warm tickle against one ear, "It's all legal."
"Legal?" Judy whispered back at him, "How is this legal?"
Nick's smile didn't change, but something about his eyes made him appear even smugger than usual. "They bought all the booze before Prohibition started. The club just stores it."
Judy frowned, but if what he said was true than he was right that it was all perfectly legal. "Brought some of it over myself, after the war," Nick continued.
Judy's frown deepened a degree. "Didn't you come back in 1920?"
Nick gave her a look of mock surprise. "My, you'll have to show me the file that you have on me," he said.
"I must have misspoke," he went on, entirely insincerely, "I meant that I arranged for it to be sent over in 1919—when it was perfectly legal and entirely above board—before I came back myself."
He looked as though butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, but Judy was not fooled at all. She wondered if bootlegging alcohol across the ocean had been the start of his employment with Mr. Big, or if he had been working for the shrew long before then. She dismissed the thought; her concern was supposed to be talking to Mr. Quill, not digging into the skeletons in her reluctant partner's past. Nick had led her to one of the private booths, which was sized perfectly for the fox and consequently somewhat too large for Judy; her chin barely cleared the top of the table. The instant that they sat down, before Judy had the chance to get a word in edgewise, a waiter appeared as though by magic, putting a glass of what looked and smelled like ice water in front of Nick. "A bottle for the lady, Mr. Wilde?" the deer asked, his muzzle held high and acting both as though he knew the fox and yet was completely unsurprised that a supposedly dead mammal had suddenly shown up at the club with a bunny in tow.
Before Nick could respond, Judy said, "Water is fine."
The deer gave an efficient nod and left them a pair of menus. "Very good," he said, and then closed the privacy curtain and glided off with a remarkable lack of noise considering he had hooves and was walking on marble.
"You try to get all your 'dates' drunk?" Judy asked; certainly she wouldn't put it past him to try to incapacitate her and she had noticed that the waiter hadn't even asked Nick what he wanted to drink before serving him water but had seemed quite willing to serve her alcohol.
Judy thought she saw a flash of something genuine in Nick's face—hurt, perhaps, or maybe contempt—before his infuriating smile reasserted itself. "Certainly not," he said, "Everyone here knows I don't drink, that's all."
"You don't drink?" Judy asked, somewhat amazed.
It seemed inconceivable that a mammal who had once been highly placed in the largest and most powerful bootlegging organization the world had ever known wouldn't partake himself. Nick nodded, and then his face vanished behind his menu. "I have the palate of a sommelier, but the tolerance of a gerbil."
"Tragic," she replied, completely deadpan.
"So you do understand," he said, apparently missing the sarcasm as he perused the menu.
Judy left hers on the table. "You know that the Bureau isn't going to pay for this," she said, "You order anything, and it's on you."
Nick looked up over his menu. "Then I suppose that it's a good thing that I don't pay here either."
Before her protest could leave her lips, he continued, "Eating for free here was one of my perks."
Judy shook her head. She supposed that it meant Mr. Quill must have been in rather deep if he had to give gangsters free meals at what had to be an expensive restaurant. She couldn't tell exactly how expensive, though, because when she glanced down at her menu none of the items had any prices listed next to them. Judy frowned. The fox had a real talent for distraction, and she turned her focus back to her goal for the evening. "We came here so I could speak to Mr. Quill, not so that you could stuff yourself," she said, "Where is he?"
Nick continued flipping through his menu. "Oh, he'll be around," he said vaguely.
"He'll be around?" Judy repeated, "That's not good enough."
The edge to her voice must have finally been enough, because Nick finally put his menu down and sighed. "Look," he said, "Leroy or Byron will tell Quill that I'm here, and he'll come around."
Judy assumed that Byron had to be the waiter, but his answer didn't satisfy her. "How long will that take?"
"Long enough for us to eat," Nick said brightly, "Do you like escargot or would I have to eat it all myself?"
At her blank look, he clarified, "Snails."
Although she didn't say anything, the look on her face must have been enough, and Nick shrugged. "Coq au vin it is."
She looked down at her own menu and considered. She did have to eat, after all, and besides a quick breakfast at her apartment before taking the train to Podunk she hadn't had anything all day. Grudgingly, Judy decided to give the fox a chance; if nothing else she'd get a free dinner out of it and have a better idea of exactly how closely she needed to watch him. When she actually read the menu, though, she had no idea what any of the items were; she saw that the escargot was listed under a section titled "Apéritifs," but she couldn't read anything else.
Nick must have caught her lack of understanding, because he leaned across the table, the candle that illuminated it throwing his features into sharp contrast. "You can't read it, can you?"
"No," she admitted.
He chuckled and settled back on his side of the table. "Salade Lyonnaise or le tourin d'ail doux, then. You do eat eggs, right?"
She would be loath to admit it to him, but the tourin, which turned out to be a creamy garlic soup, had been excellent. Nick's eyes had rolled back into his head in apparent ecstasy at the first bite of his own meal, which seemed to consist mostly of chicken. Although the service had been incredibly quick, the fox had been an aggravating dinner partner. His table manners had been surprisingly fastidious, but he had a way of sidestepping every attempt she made to press him for more detail on the Zootopia Organization in general or Thomas Carajou in particular. She wondered if he had really even been paying attention when she had spent the train ride back to the city going over the details with him; he seemed to delight in spinning drawn out stories that went nowhere and meant nothing.
Her sharp ears caught the click of nails against marble, and she hoped that it was Mr. Quill at long last. A moment later, Nick's ears swiveled towards the curtain, having apparently caught the same sound. "Why don't you let me do the talking?" he asked.
"Absolutely not," she said flatly.
Nick mimed pulling a zipper tab across his lips and then held up his paws in a gesture of surrender a moment before the curtain was swept aside, revealing a hedgehog that Judy recognized from the Thief of the Night. Mr. Quill was wearing a different, though equally dark, suit, with a pair of golden pince-nez hanging from a chain, but it was unmistakably him. He completely ignored her, turning his attention to her dining companion. "So you really are here," he said, a scowl darkening his chubby features.
Nick shrugged. "I'm just along for the ride," he said, and gestured towards Judy.
Mr. Quill turned his attention to her, and his scowl lightened into a confused expression. "You're that bunny," he said, "From the Thief."
Judy pulled her badge out and flashed it. "Yes, I am. Agent Judy Hopps, Bureau of Prohibition."
Mr. Quill sighed and pinched the bridge of his muzzle. "I've got a stack of receipts taller than I am showing it's all legal. Go ahead, take a look."
"I'm not here about this club," Judy said.
"And I already told you, the Thief doesn't serve alcohol," he said irritably, "Stop wasting both our time and beat it."
Judy turned briefly towards Nick, only to see that he was holding his head in both paws, his elbows resting on the table as he watched her talk to the hedgehog with obvious enjoyment. He raised his eyebrows in apparent bemusement, and Judy turned back towards the hedgehog. "I'm here about the murder of Thomas Carajou. Did you know him?"
Now Mr. Quill turned to look at Nick. "Where'd you find this rabbit?" he asked, but Nick just shrugged.
"Thomas Carajou," Judy repeated to get his attention again, "The wolverine murdered in the Thief of the Night. Did you know him?"
Mr. Quill shook his head. "Never even met Crazy," he said shortly.
"But you know his nickname?" Judy pressed.
"Everyone knows that!" Quill snapped, but Judy thought there was a tinge of desperation to his voice as he fussily polished his pince-nez.
"Look, a mammal like Crazy, he goes wherever he wants, right? I avoided him, he never tried to find me, and everything was copacetic. You got any more questions, talk to my lawyer," Quill said, calming himself with some apparent effort.
"And you never let gangsters make deals in your clubs, isn't that right?" Nick spoke up for the first time in the conversation.
The color drained out of the hedgehog's ears and he briefly fumbled his pince-nez before catching the chain. "That's right," Quill said, and Judy thought that there was a note of warning to his tone.
Nick shrugged and leaned back. "Well that's settled, then," he said.
Quill gave him a brusque nod. "That's not all that's settled," he said, "I don't know where you were or why you came back, but I don't care. I don't ever want to see you at one of my clubs again. Understand?"
Nick did not look surprised, and just raised his half-empty glass of water to the hedgehog in a mock salute. "Thanks for the last supper, then."
"Go chase yourself," Quill said, "Or do I need to get Leroy?"
"We were just leaving, weren't we?" Nick said to Judy.
She wasn't sure if she should be more frustrated with the hedgehog or the fox. The way that Mr. Quill had reacted to Nick's question made her think that he really did know more than he was letting on, but she wouldn't be surprised if Nick had deliberately antagonized the hedgehog to get them thrown out. "That's right," she agreed reluctantly.
She didn't have the authority to force Mr. Quill to let Nick stay in the club, and she frankly didn't trust the fox to stick around if she asked him to wait outside.
Quill strode off without a further word, his vast belly jiggling as it tried to escape the confines of his waistcoat. Nick delicately patted his muzzle with his napkin before carelessly dropping it on top of his plate, empty except for a bit of the sauce. "Better luck next time," he said as he stood up to leave.
Judy sprang up after him. "What did you mean, when you were asking him about making deals?"
Nick surveyed the dining room briefly before turning back to her. "Nothing, really," he said with a shrug, and he began to walk away from the booth.
"I know you're lying," she protested.
She was about to say something else, but her attention was suddenly caught by a booming laugh from one of the other private booths. The curtain was wide open, allowing everyone to see who was inside; she got the feeling that it was an entirely deliberate choice. Almost unthinkingly, she reached up and grabbed Nick's tie, forcing him to a stop as he made an undignified choking noise. "That's King Lionheart, isn't it?" she hissed in his ear, having pulled Nick's head far enough down to be able to do so and pointing across the room.
Nick firmly grasped her paw in his own much larger one and peeled her fingers away. "This is a silk tie, you know," he said as he stood up straight again and tried to get the wrinkles out, "But yes, yes it is. So let's leave."
Leodore Lionheart was an imposing figure. His vast bulk, which seemed to be all muscle, was encased in a suit that looked like it cost more than most cars. His fingers, which seemed practically bigger around than Judy's thighs, were covered with thick golden rings that probably worked just as well as knuckledusters if his wicked claws weren't enough. On his own, he took up nearly an entire side of his dining table, holding a bottle of wine that looked smaller than a beer bottle in one massive fist while a lioness dressed just above the edge of impropriety delicately fed him bites from a massive slab of seared fish in some kind of white sauce.
Lionheart might have passed for a wealthy businessmammal, albeit one with somewhat gaudy tastes, if it weren't for his face. It wasn't because he looked stupid or cruel; far from it, he seemed charmingly avuncular. It was the scars. Unlike Carajou, the scars on Lionheart's face didn't dominate his features or twist his mouth, but they were unmistakable, thin furless lines under his eyes and across his nose. They marked him as a mammal with a violent past, no matter how much he tried to drape himself in the trappings of luxury. They gave him the nickname that he reportedly hated above all else, the ones that only members of rival gangs dared to use: Scarface.
Lionheart much preferred to be called King Lionheart, and he was said to rule the North Side Pride with an iron paw. His temper, it was said, could only rise so far before explosively giving way. Judy knew his face and his reputation well from the files that the Bureau maintained; if even half of them were true, he was just as bad as Mr. Big, though a fair sight better at avoiding charges.
Nick moved to keep walking, but Judy grabbed him by the paw. "Didn't you say that Mr. Quill paid protection money to the Zootopia Organization?"
"Yes," Nick said, seeming to find her grip surprisingly strong, "Can we go now?"
"So what's King Lionheart doing here?"
"A mystery for the ages," Nick said, trying to pull her along.
When she wouldn't yield, he sighed and then leaned down to look her in the eyes with what seemed like a rather condescending air. "Look, I know you're just a dumb little bunny, but—"
She had had entirely enough of his attitude and she cut him off. "I am not a dumb bunny," she said, "And I am not going to let you do whatever you like."
Nick held up his paws in apparent frustration. "And I am trying to keep you from getting me killed!" he said, "Trust me, that's not a hornet's nest you want to poke."
"I'll poke it if I have to," she said firmly.
"Then I am going to—" Nick stopped and looked back at Lionheart's table, "Wait, where'd he go?"
Lionheart and the lioness who had been hanging on him were both gone from the table, and Judy realized that she had been so caught up in her argument with Nick that she hadn't seen them leave. Unlike Nick, however, she knew exactly where they were. "Nicky!" Lionheart boomed from behind the fox, dropping a paw the size of a platter on his shoulder with such force that Nick visibly staggered, "Having a little lover's spat?"
Lionheart's face contorted into an expression of sympathy and the lioness, hanging onto his other paw, gave a coquettish little laugh. Judy saw Nick's pupils narrow to pinpricks before he turned around, with some difficulty, to face Lionheart. "Oh, you know, just showing her around the city," he said, and his voice was somewhat shaky.
"And who is this charming little bunny?" he asked, removing his paw from Nick's shoulder and looking Judy up and down.
"No one," Nick said hastily, "Just a little country bunny here to take in—"
"Don't lie to me, Nicky," Lionheart said, a note of sadness in his voice, "You know I don't like lying."
He turned his attention to Judy. "So what is your name, my dear?"
Judy reached back into her purse for her badge even as she saw Nick's eyes bulge. The fox mouthed, "Don't," but she wouldn't let the opportunity pass.
"Agent Judy Hopps, Bureau of Prohibition," she said, showing her badge, "Mr. Lionheart, do you know anything about the murder of Thomas Carajou?"
There was a moment of stunned silence—Nick's ears drooped and his face fell, Lionheart's eyes widened a fraction, and even his moll looked surprised. Suddenly, though, Lionheart burst into a booming laugh, and he slapped Nick across the back in what might have been a playful swat for another lion but sent the fox sprawling to the floor. "Oh, a Prohibition Agent, is she?" he said, still chuckling, "You work out some kind of deal, Nicky?"
Any vestiges of smugness or self-assuredness had vanished from the fox. The look that he was giving Lionheart was full of panic, and for the first time Judy realized what she had done by bringing him back to the city. Nick hadn't even worked for Lionheart; he had worked for Lionheart's most bitter rival, and Lionheart seemed more interested in his act of betrayal than he did in that old conflict. Judy had read reports of what gangs had done to mammals who had betrayed them, and it was seldom pretty. She swallowed and stepped forward. She had promised to protect him, and she meant to do just that. "That doesn't answer my question," she said.
Lionheart shook his massive head bemusedly, and then reached into an interior pocket of his suit jacket. Nick, still on the ground, visibly tensed, but when Lionheart's paw emerged it held only a business card. "My lawyer," he said, giving Judy the card, "He'll answer any questions you have."
Lionheart stepped over Nick, and the lioness gave a delicate little jump to do the same, shooting a scornful look at the fox as she did so. Lionheart turned and looked down at Nick. "It was nice to see you again," he said, and then he grabbed Nick's paw in one of his own and pulled the fox to his feet, but he did not let go.
Nick's teeth were gritted and Judy could only imagine how tightly the lion was squeezing. "Let's not run into each other again, what do you say?"
Before Nick could respond, the lion's grip visibly tightened and he continued, his rich voice a low growl, "We can agree to that, can't we?"
"And... how..." Nick managed.
"Wonderful," Lionheart said.
He released his grip and pulled the lioness close to him, pointedly ignoring both Nick and Judy as he made his way back to their table. "Are you alright?" Judy asked, giving Nick a worried look.
"Just ducky," he drawled, fussing with his tie and apparently doing his best to collect himself, "Let's ankle."
Just before they made it to the hallway that connected the dining area to the entrance, Leroy appeared from behind the curtain. "We're leaving, Leroy," Nick said, holding up a paw, "You don't have to give us the bum's rush."
The bear smiled, and he grabbed Nick by the nape of his neck and effortlessly lifted him. "Boss insisted," he said apologetically, then turned to Judy.
"Said you could walk, though."
"Fantastic," Nick muttered.
Author's Notes: The title of this chapter, "You're Driving Me Crazy! (What Did I Do?)," comes from a Gene Austen song from 1930. Although originally recorded as a swing number, it's been covered as a big band song and there have been several jazz versions. As is hopefully clear, I think the title works equally well from the perspective of either Judy or Nick as they continue to irritate each other.
In an earlier chapter, I alluded to the fact that one of the issues the general public had with Prohibition was uneven enforcement, and La Porte Verte is one example of that. It's an important point that Prohibition made it illegal to manufacture, distribute, or sell alcohol, but did not actually ban the consumption of alcohol and didn't say anything about alcohol purchased before the ban went into effect. Thus, the rich stockpiled alcohol for their own consumption in the year between Prohibition being passed and becoming law. If Nick brought alcohol over in 1920, he would be breaking the law, but either bringing it over directly or just arranging for it to be shipped in 1919 would be perfectly legal.
This does mean that in 1927 La Porte Verte couldn't be selling alcohol, but if they're merely storing it for their members or otherwise not directly charging for it, they're in the clear. Of course, with a large stockpile of alcohol, who's to say if something of a somewhat more modern vintage slips in? Falsifying records to make newer alcohol appear to have been purchased legally before the start of Prohibition certainly happened among the upper class, but it was extremely rare for them to suffer any kinds of consequences for that.
Apéritifs is French for appetizers; following through with the name, La Porte Verte is a French restaurant, though I never did come up with a good animal pun for French. Furench seems a bit too on the nose.
Coq au vin is a traditional French dish of chicken in a wine sauce with mushrooms and lardons, although in the world of Zootopia the lardons (strips of pork fat) are presumably either omitted or something else is substituted. Salade Lyonaise is a salad made with a poached egg and usually bacon, but again I'm assuming that pork is out. Tourin is a French garlic soup, and while it is traditionally made with chicken broth (which I'm assuming Judy would not eat) water can be substituted. French cooking in general tends to have meat in most dishes, but considering that La Porte Verte seems to have a varied clientele I figure that the Zootopian version of French cooking is somewhat more herbivore friendly.
The "zip it" gesture that Nick makes to indicate that he won't question Mr. Quill would have been fairly new in 1927. Although the first true modern zipper was invented in 1913, the name zipper actually comes from a pair of boots first manufactured in 1923. The boots were called zippers, and the name ended up sticking for the fastener used to close them rather than the boots themselves.
Copacetic is a word not really in common use now, but as an expression to mean that everything was fine it dates to 1919 and was in common use in the late 1920s.
"Go chase yourself" is a bit of 1920s slang that means "get lost" and seemed particularly appropriate to be said in a derogatory fashion towards a fox. Foxes, in a very similar manner to dogs, do sometimes chase their own tails, and it's adorable.
I first made reference to Lionheart in chapter 2, when Stu refers to a gang led by a terrible lion, and Lionheart's gang, the North Side Pride, is first referenced in chapter 5.
While Scarface is probably now most closely associated with the 1983 Al Pacino film (which was a remake of a 1932 film), the nickname Scarface actually was used for Al Capone, who reportedly hated to be called that. While I applied a lot of elements of Al Capone to Mr. Big, some of them did make their way elsewhere.
Moll is a term that means a gangster's girlfriend. "And how" is a piece of 1920s slang that means strong agreement. "Ducky" means fine and "ankle" was slang for walking or leaving. "The bum's rush" means to be forcibly ejected.
As always, I'd love to hear what you thought of this chapter.