Judy looked up at Nick in disbelief. "What?" she asked, her mind reeling.

"Listen," he said, "If Lionheart tried killing me, it'd be public. Something that would leave no doubt he was responsible, but no evidence that could link him to it. Something that would send a message."

Judy had to admit that, of what she knew about gangsters, Nick was right. It was incredibly rare for one to simply vanish; their deaths tended to be spectacularly violent.

"But prohis and cops? You lot tend to have an awful lot of 'accidents.'"

Nick grinned, but there was no humor or cheer in it. "The public doesn't like prohis or cops, but they like it even less when gangsters kill them."

Although there had been no deaths in the Bureau of Prohibition during the time Judy had been a part of the office, the Bureau's past had a fair number of agents who had died under circumstances that were only innocuous if taken in isolation. Mammals got into car accidents, drowned, or died in fires all the time, after all, and Prohibition Agents were just as vulnerable as the general population. However, when over the course of seven years there had been nearly a dozen agents who had died in tragic accidents, it seemed more than a little unlikely that they all could have been accidents. "That means that there's someone who wants all of this to go away," Judy said, "Someone powerful."

Nick sighed. "You're not going to give this up, are you?"

Judy set her chin, looking across the street at her apartment building. The firefighters had succeeded in extinguishing the flames, but the building was a burnt husk with mammals huddled around it. She had made a terrible error of judgement, pulling Nick into this mess, but she had meant what she told him. She'd get him out of danger, and then she'd devote herself to solving Carajou's murder alone. Maybe she wouldn't be able to get anywhere on her own in a week, but if she couldn't solve a case without endangering others she didn't feel like deserved to be a police officer. "No," she said simply.

"Let's get you to the train station," she said, and started walking towards the nearest station, the one that she used to catch her train to work every day.

Nick nodded, but started walking in the opposite direction, limping slightly. His leg apparently wasn't broken or sprained, but she was sure that if nothing else he would end up with a nasty bruise. "Come on," he called over his shoulder, "My place is this way."

"Why?" Judy asked, stopping suddenly.

Nick looked back at her, and there was a ghost of his grin on his face. "Why?" he echoed, "I said I would help, didn't I?"

There was suddenly a warm lump in Judy's throat and she stammered through a response. "But— I forced... I said I— You could go back to..."

He waved it off. "We're probably safer together. For now, at least."

He smiled, and it seemed to light up his entire face. "The moment that changes, I make like a banana and split."

Judy laughed, and wiped at the tears on her face with one filthy paw. She wasn't sure she entirely believed him, and for once it made her glad.

It had taken some time, and the last of the money in Judy's purse, to get a taxi willing to take the filthy pair to the neighborhood that Nick's house was in. The driver, a cheerful lynx, had been the first driver out of the five taxis that Judy tried flagging down to stop, and after spotting their sooty appearances he had spent the entire trip yammering on about other fires he had seen in the city, not letting either Nick or Judy get a word in edgewise.

Nick's home was a greystone showing curious signs of neglect; though the small plot of grass in front of it was neatly trimmed, the stonework was discolored and the windows were nearly opaque with grime. The house was two stories tall, rather narrow, and surrounded on both sides by similar (though better kept) houses. The facade of the house was simple, all large and rough-hewn blocks of dull limestone with chunky arches over the narrow windows and door. The curtains were drawn and no lights were on, the small house giving every indication that it had been years since anyone had set foot inside. Overall, the impression that Judy got was that exactly enough—and no more—effort had been taken to keep the neighbors from complaining in the fox's absence. While she wondered at how and why Nick had bothered to keep the place maintained, he fumbled for a key on a ring he pulled from an interior pocket of his suit jacket.

He unlocked the door with some difficulty, the lock seeming almost frozen from disuse, but eventually he forced the door open and Judy followed him inside. As she entered, she couldn't help but notice that the door was unusually thick, and through the haze of dirt coating the outsides of the windows she saw that there were solid metal bars hidden behind the curtains. Inside, the air of neglect continued, though it was clear that some pains had been taken before the house had been abandoned. All of the furniture was covered with canvas tarps, and while a thin layer of dust had settled over everything in the house it seemed the place had been spotless before the door had been closed for the last time. The air was musty, faint traces of the sickly-sweet odor of moth balls competing with the stale scent of Nick's musk to take dominance over the general smell of decay.

There were spider webs with long-ago desiccated flies in the corners of the parlor, which Judy took in while Nick closed and locked the door behind them, leaving a thin clean arc in the dust coating the floor. He clicked a switch on the wall and a dim electric light turned on, weakly illuminating the room and filling it with hazy shadows. "You can use the shower first while I get everything uncovered," he said, gesturing at a bathroom down a narrow hallway past the stairs, "Hold on."

He rummaged through a linen closet and pulled out a faintly musty but clean towel and put it in her arms, then vanished into a bedroom. He reemerged moments later holding a green silk bathrobe and a plain button-up shirt of fine white cotton. "Doubt anything else I have is going to fit you," he said, somewhat apologetically.

Judy accepted the clothes gratefully, eager to clean herself off, and went into the bathroom. Despite the small size of the house, it was surprisingly large, richly tiled with a black and white geometric pattern that covered the floors and went halfway up the walls. The bathtub and the basin of the sink were both enormous and somewhat too high for her, but she was able to find some dusty glass bottles of shampoo in a large standing cabinet that seemed to be full of unused toiletries. After she stripped off her burnt and sooty clothes, Judy took one look in the full-length mirror that ran along one wall. She was absolutely filthy, and quite a bit grayer than normal, but she forced her attention away from the mirror; she was more concerned with getting the reek of the fire out of her fur than with how she looked.

Nothing happened at first when Judy turned on the shower head, but after a moment the long-dormant pipes gave up their water, initially brownish-red with rust. She let the water run for a few minutes until it became clear; the stinging cool water was pleasant in comparison to the horrible heat of the fire. The water that sluiced through her fur and down the drain turned an unpleasant gray from the combination of soot and plaster dust, and it took her longer than she would have thought to scrub the last of it out with the pleasantly clean and vaguely floral scent of the shampoo. She would have liked nothing more than to stay under the soothing spray of water, but she had a job to do, and she reluctantly shut off the water, which had just started to warm up. After toweling herself dry, Judy allowed herself to look in the mirror, and tried not to be surprised at how terrible she looked.

As she had cleaned herself, she had seen the patches where the fire had burned her fur, turning it black and making the brittle strands break away as she touched them, but being able to see her entire body had revealed how many of those patches there were. The exposed skin was reddish and hot, and she had blisters forming on her fingers where she had touched the closet rod. There were bruises she hadn't even felt and a number of small cuts that had already clotted. What drew her attention, though, were four parallel slashes on her cheek that she hadn't even noticed before getting in the shower as her face had been too dirty to see them.

The wounds were shallow, and as Judy touched one paw to the lines she realized that she must have gotten them when Nick had accidentally hit her in the face after she un-cuffed him. She winced, but it wasn't from the pain of touching the cuts. If anything had happened to her, Nick would have burned alive, shackled to a bed and trapped under a beam. It was hard to imagine a worse way to die, and she mussed up the fur on her face to ensure the claw marks couldn't be seen. Judy didn't know whether or not Nick would feel guilty if he saw what he had done, but she didn't want to give him the opportunity. It had been her fault for not being careful enough with another mammal's life, and she vowed that she'd never make the same mistake again.

When Judy emerged from the bathroom, she felt like a kit wearing adult clothes. Nick's shirt fit her like a nightgown, the hem almost touching the floor, and the sleeves were so long that even after rolling them up they still touched her fingertips when her arms were at her sides. She hadn't bothered with the bathrobe, which would have dragged on the ground anyway, but she had taken the fine silk belt from the robe and tied it around her waist in a mostly futile attempt to make the baggy shirt fit better. In her absence, Nick had pulled the tarps off of his furniture and seemed to have made at least a cursory attempt at clearing up some of the dust. She found him at work in the kitchen, finishing up a sweep of the floor. He took in her appearance with a bemused expression; while the borrowed shirt preserved her modesty better than most dresses, it must have looked ridiculous to his eye. He let it pass without comment, though, and picked up a bundle of neatly folded clothes topped with a towel that he had waiting on the kitchen table. He made his way to the bathroom and, before he closed the door after himself, promised, "I'll just be a minute."

Patience was not one of Judy's strong suits, but she forced herself to wait as Nick showered, the sound of him humming something she didn't recognize coming through the closed bathroom door over the sound of running water. Judy's briefcase full of files had been lost in the fire, so lacking any material to review she poked around the home, curious as to what it would say about Nick. Perhaps it was because everything had been put away in anticipation of a long absence, but as she moved from room to room the place seemed sterile. His kitchen was thoroughly modern; the appliances, including an empty refrigerator, were of gleaming white enamel with no sign of use and the cabinets were full of spotless copper pots and pans. There was no art on the walls of his dining room, no doilies or statuettes on the tables or cabinets; except for the furniture, there was no indication that the rooms had ever been occupied. No indication, at least, until she entered what looked like it had been a bedroom but had been entirely converted.

There was no bed in the little room, not that there would have been space for it with the other furniture. All of the walls were covered by shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. On the shelves was the largest collection of records that Judy had ever seen; there must have been hundreds, all neatly on display. One shelf even had a few dozen cylinder records, organized like wine bottles. In the center of the cramped room were a large overstuffed chair and a small table dominated by a couple of record players. What caught Judy's eye, though, was something that did far more to personalize the room than the collection.

Next to the cylinder phonograph was a framed photograph showing a middle-aged vixen sitting next to a young fox in the uniform of a private, her arm wrapped around his shoulder and her face beaming with pride. It took Judy a moment to realize that the fox in uniform was Nick, because while time had not done much to change his features she found it difficult to imagine the expression that the fox in the photograph wore on the face of the fox that she knew. In the photograph, Nick's face was expressive and open, his smile seeming completely genuine, touching his eyes in a way that the smiles she had seen never did. As she looked from Nick to what could only be his mother, she wondered what had happened during his service to change him so much.

"I'm handsome as ever, wouldn't you say?" Nick's voice suddenly came from behind her.

Judy gave a little start of surprise; she hadn't heard his approach. The fox's thick red coat shined again, free of the soot and dust that had made him dully gray. He was immaculately dressed in a slim black suit with subtle gray pin-striping, the muted colors offset by an almost shockingly green tie. Judy had to admit that he seemed to have weathered the fire better than she had, as the only sign of the ordeal visible on the parts of his body that she could see was the thin cut under one ear and the slight limp that he walked with. She hadn't been snooping, exactly, but he didn't seem particularly displeased to find her in what must have been his sanctum. "This was before you shipped out?" she asked, gesturing at the photograph.

Nick picked it up, glancing at the image. "Ten years ago," he nodded, "1917."

He set it back down gently, then clapped his paws together and rubbed them briskly. "But enough ancient history," he said, and Judy took it as an opportunity to change subjects.

"I've got to report in to the Bureau," she said.

It was almost seven in the morning, and while the office would still be largely empty she was completely certain that Bellwether would be in. Whether or not the sheep would be interested in the fire was another matter altogether, but Judy thought that her boss was too smart to see it as a coincidence. Nick sighed. "I'm sure Bellwether will love to see me again."

Judy looked up at him questioningly. She hadn't given it any thought when Nick had mentioned Bellwether's name earlier, figuring that it made sense for the former member of the Zootopia Outfit to know about the long-time head of the Bureau of Prohibition. It hadn't occurred to her, though, that he might actually know her boss. "She was..." Nick trailed off, rotating one paw as he was apparently searching for the right word, "...unenthusiastic about the deal I cut."

Knowing Bellwether, that was probably the politest way of putting it. "Well, you're helping me now," Judy said firmly, "I'll make sure she knows that."

"I wouldn't be much help from a jail cell," Nick agreed, "Speaking of which, you probably shouldn't mention this place to her."

It seemed a small enough stretch, all things considered, and Judy nodded her agreement. "I won't."

"What kind of budget are you working with?" Nick asked with a guarded look.

Judy hesitated to respond. In truth, she had no budget; everything she had spent so far had come right out of her own pocket with the hopes of later reimbursement. Nick apparently caught the meaning behind her hesitation, and asked with a carefully neutral expression, "What if I had a solution to that problem?"

Judy knew instantly what the fox was implying. Presumably part of the deal he had cut had been to leave behind his ill-gotten gains, which he had apparently done so only as much as literally leaving them behind in the city. Clearly, he had put some thought into ensuring that his belongings would remain safe, though she couldn't guess if he had planned on covertly coming back for them, getting someone to retrieve them for him, or if he had simply thought ahead to the unlikely possibility of being able to take back the trappings of his old life unchallenged. "If it's for the investigation..." she said hesitantly.

It didn't seem such a large line to cross, especially in comparison to what she had already done by dragging Nick into her investigation. Besides, refusing to use the money wouldn't undo whatever illicit deeds had been performed to earn it. "But only what we need," she said firmly.

"I can work with that," Nick replied.

Nick pulled a battered wooden cigar box out from a drawer hidden in the table. The cigar box looked identical to the one that Judy's grandmother used to store orphaned buttons and other little sewing odds and ends, though as far as Judy knew no one in the family, not even her grandfather, had smoked cigars. When Nick opened his cigar box, however, it didn't contain sewing supplies or cigars. It was full of tight little rolls of paper money, held together with bits of twine and standing upright. Nick pulled one of the rolls out and undid the knot, and as he uncurled the bills and flipped through them, she saw that the wad started at hundred-dollar bills on the outside, moving through fifties and twenties before coming to five-dollar bills at the center. She couldn't help but gape; if all the other wads in the box were similarly arranged, there had to be at least ten thousand dollars. It was more money than she had ever seen in her entire life, maybe even more money than she could earn in her entire life. Nick peeled off about five hundred dollars, mostly in smaller notes, and put them into a pale green wallet of a rough-looking natural material. "Why don't we get my car first?" he asked brightly.

Nick looked down at her, and then added, with a slight frown, "And maybe something that fits you better than a potato sack."

Judy pinched one baggy sleeve of the shirt. "It's your shirt, Slick."

Author's Notes:

The title of this chapter, "Together, We Two," comes from a 1927 Irving Berlin song popularized as an up-tempo foxtrot by Isham Jones, not the bubblegum pop Archies song from 1971. I guess it's not too surprising that a title like that got used by more than one song, though. In any event, Nick and Judy are (sort of) working together now, so it seemed appropriate. This chapter is admittedly a bit of a breather, but I think that it's important that there are character moments in between the action.

Banana splits, an ice cream sundae consisting of scoops of ice cream in between a banana split lengthwise (hence the name) and topped with whipped cream, were created in 1904, so Nick's use of the idiom works historically.

Public opinion really did turn against Al Capone as the result of the violent means by which his gang operated, and certainly there were plenty of cops and Prohis who died under rather suspicious circumstances.

The description of Nick's house as a greystone is accurate to real Chicago architecture; such buildings were common from the 1890s through the 1930s. As described, they were made of gray limestone, typically quarried from Indiana, and are largely equivalent to the brownstone townhouses that are common in New York City.

Mothballs were in use in the 1920s, and were particularly more useful in the time before synthetic fabrics were common; moths will happily eat a variety of natural fibers but don't have any interest in nylon. The chemical that would have been in common use in the 1920s, naphthalene, is rather flammable, but the chemical that replaced it, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, is carcinogenic. Both do have a distinctive sickly-sweet smell, however.

Shampoo did exist in the 1920s and would have come in glass bottles as a matter of course, as that was in the days before plastic bottles.

Records did indeed come in cylinders as well as discs; the very first records, manufactured by the Edison Company in 1888, were cylinders. Cylinders had a number of advantages over discs, including (at least at first) better audio quality, less degradation after repeated playbacks, and the ability of the record players to easily record as well as play back audio. However, their disadvantages, particularly the higher manufacturing costs, saw them lose one of the very first media format wars. It was somewhat similar to the format war between VHS and Betamax or Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, down to unhappy consumers stuck with a player that can't play the winning format. Production of cylinder records stopped in 1929, but through the 1920s production was pretty minimal anyway, cylinder records having peaked in the 1910s.

Like the vast majority of draftees from the US in WWI, Nick was not an officer, as indicated by being dressed in the uniform of a private in the old photograph.

$10,000 in 1927 would be worth a bit over $140,000 today, so that is a rather significant amount of money that Nick had stashed away. Granted, considering his house (which would be worth a fortune in any modern city) and his record collection, it's pretty safe to assume that he was doing quite well for himself as a mob accountant.

Nick obviously would not have a wallet made out of the leather of any mammal, but the wallet matches the description of one made from shagreen, a type of rawhide made out of sharkskin. In the 1920s, shagreen was very much in fashion, and it makes sense for him to have a wallet of this sort.

Thanks for reading! If you're so inclined, I'd love to hear what you thought.