After Nick and Judy had left the police station and grabbed a few sandwiches to go, Nick had tapped on the gauge labeled "Essence" on the Buchatti's dashboard that was nearing its left-most extreme before Judy had the chance to so much as unwrap her sandwich. "We're going to need to fuel up if we want to make it to Jerboliet," he said, "We'll need a map, too."
"You mean there's actually somewhere you don't know how to get to?" Judy asked, and Nick smiled at her gentle teasing as he delicately peeled the waxed paper away from his sandwich.
They had stopped at a deli called Donowitz's for the sandwiches, and while it had been built to such a significantly larger scale that not even Nick could see over the counter that the wizened old proprietor stood behind, there hadn't been a sign banning predators like the last place Judy had gone into for sandwiches. In fact, the bear making the sandwiches had even tried to pull them into a discussion about the Cubs; there was a radio tuned into a game that the bear seemed to be only half listening to, preferring instead to speak fondly of the 1908 World Series. The bear, who Judy guessed was Donowitz himself, had launched into the story of how he had watched the second game of the series through a gap in the fence with the ease of long practice, and there might not have been a way to politely extricate themselves from the conversation if the team the Cubs were playing hadn't scored another run and sent the bear into a fit of despair. The breathless voice of the announcer, tinny over the radio, had continued on as the bear finished the sandwiches and shook his head in silent disgust.
Nick had clearly noticed Judy's growing impatience and had taken the opportunity to pay, and they had hurried out the door, sandwiches and bottles of soda in paw, as Nick had called out a cheery, "There's always next year!"
Despite the turn of the bear's mood while he had been making it, Judy had to admit that the sandwich was delicious, and she savored the taste of timothy grass and mushrooms in some kind of sauce that brought out the flavors of both as Nick wagged his own sandwich of pickled salmon at her. "And here I thought it'd be a point in my favor I've never been to the lockup in Jerboliet," he said, "Not much work for an accountant in prison."
Judy nodded. "Did Mr. Big have mammals in Jerboliet?" she asked.
Nick took a moment to respond, as he had just taken a bite of his sandwich and had to finish chewing and swallowing it first. "I suppose he must have had a mammal or two get sent there," he said, "But most of them would have ended up at the county jail. Why do you ask?"
It took Judy a moment to try and figure out what to say, which she tried to cover by making her next bite of her sandwich last as long as possible. "What if someone recognizes you?" she asked.
"Ah," Nick said, "I wouldn't worry too much about that. It's not like they're going to be able to jump out of their cells and shank me, you know."
He shot Judy a smile, but he must have been able to read her expression, because he continued, in a more serious tone. "Look, by now I'm sure everyone knows I'm back in town."
Judy could feel a shameful blush creeping into her ears; although Nick hadn't been specific she had no doubt that he was thinking of their encounter with Lionheart in La Porte Verte, an exchange that kept returning to the front of her mind over and over again. Nick must have seen the insides of her ears changing color, because he quickly added, "I haven't exactly been trying to hide it," before he continued.
"This is probably the lowest risk we've taken this entire investigation," he finished, and Judy thought about it as she kept eating her sandwich.
He had a point, but Judy found that she was still uneasy, which was an almost frighteningly unfamiliar feeling. She didn't think that she was given to cowering in fear or panicking the way that everyone thought rabbits did, and she had spent her entire life proving that she wasn't afraid to take the risks a police officer had to be willing to accept just to do their job. Even in the Thief of the Night, when she had seen a corpse as the result of violence for the first time, she hadn't been afraid, but now that it was Nick who might be in danger she found it difficult not to be afraid for him. "Besides," Nick continued, "I seem to remember a certain bunny saying she wouldn't let anything happen to me."
Nick smiled, and Judy was struck again by the simple trust it showed, a trust that took any trace of cynicism out of his features. Judy swallowed her own unease, doing her best to return his smile, and they lapsed into silence until they had both finished eating.
Judy had pulled into the first gas station that she had seen after they had finished their sandwiches, which was built in an eye-catching way as a hexagonal pagoda of brick with a squat pyramid-shaped roof festooned with electric lights that spelled out the words "LEPUS GASOLINE" on the side facing the street. There were gas pumps set near the walls along five sides of the central building, which was a little office with the cash register and a variety of goods for sale advertised with words written in soap on the large windows on each wall. The gas station itself looked practically brand new and was scrupulously clean; the roof, which overhung each pump by such a margin that even a car three times as wide as the Buchatti would have been completely covered, was metal painted a brilliant white that didn't have so much as a speck of dirt or a streak of rust discoloring it. All of the electric lights set on the underside of the roof were burning brilliantly, despite it being early afternoon and quite sunny outside, and the overall effect made the gas station seem quite open.
The hare kit who had run up to the Buchatti seemingly the instant that Judy had pulled into the station was dressed in a pale blue set of coveralls that were just as clean as the gas station itself, and despite the fact that he couldn't have been more than eight or ten years old he was at most a head shorter than Judy was. "Are you a movie star or somethin'?" the hare kit asked, his tone respectful, "I ain't never seen a car like this."
Nick exchanged a wordless glance with Judy, and she could see his obvious amusement at the star-struck kit. "Something," Nick said, answering the kit's question without really answering it, although he did continue, "She's a prohi."
"Banana oil," the kit said contemptuously, "Everyone knows bunnies can't be prohis."
It would have been easy enough to let it go, but Judy was struck by the way that the young hare had said it. He wasn't a rabbit, but he was just as much a bunny as she was, and she wondered if he was repeating something that someone had told him. Judy pulled her badge out of her purse and showed it to him, and if he had seemed impressed before at the Buchatti his eyes all but bugged out of his head at the sight of the brass shield with its blue enameled center. "Wow," he said so softly that he was all but breathing the word, and he reached out a hesitant paw before catching himself and freezing with his fingers a few inches from it.
"Can I touch it?" he asked, and when Judy nodded, the hare brushed the pad of one finger against it with a slowness that was almost reverential.
"Wow!" he repeated much more loudly as he drew his paw back, and a broad smile split his face, "Are you gonna chase some bootleggers with this?"
He gestured eagerly at the Buchatti and then continued without even taking a breath, "Have you ever fought gangsters? Do you know Izzy? Or Mole? Is it true—"
Nick cut off the hare's increasingly high-pitched and breathless series of questions with one of his own. "What's your name, pal?"
The hare took a great gulp of breath before replying, "Sammy Lepus," as he gestured at the embroidered patch on his coveralls that read "Sammy" in a cursive script.
"Well, Sammy," Nick said, "I'm going to go grab a map, but why don't you fill up the tank while Agent Hopps tells you about being a Prohi?"
Nick jerked his thumb in the direction of the little store at the center of the gas station, and eased himself out of the car and ambled towards the door. Sammy nodded eagerly as he set about his preparations to fill the Buchatti's tank. The giant chromed lever of the gas pump seemed to take all of his strength to operate, and he barely managed to talk as he huffed and puffed with the effort it took to fill the clear cylinder at the top of the pump with gasoline. "Is that fox a prohi too?" he asked.
Despite Sammy's earlier enthusiasm, he managed to wait somewhat patiently as Judy considered the best way to respond in a way that a kit would understand, watching as the level of gasoline in the pump dropped as the tank of the Buchatti filled. "Nick's not a prohibition agent," Judy said, "But he's my partner."
"My mama says all foxes is liars an' cheaters," Sammy replied.
"Nick isn't," Judy replied, trying to keep her words from being too forceful, but Sammy took half a step back at her tone.
"Listen," she said more gently, "Any mammal can be a liar or a cheater. Being a fox doesn't make Nick bad and being bunnies doesn't make us good. I bet you get in trouble with your mother sometimes, right?"
After a moment to consider the question, Sammy nodded. "But you're not a bad mammal, right?" she asked.
Sammy shook his head vigorously. "No ma'am, Miss Agent," he said solemnly, and Judy had to stifle a smile at his awkward attempt to be polite.
"Every mammal gets to choose whether they want to be bad or good," Judy said, "I want you to remember that, OK?"
A frown crossed the young hare's face, but he nodded slowly. "Very wise, Agent Hopps," Nick said, having returned with a folded up map in his paws, "So what do we owe you, Mr. Lepus?"
Sammy giggled, the tension instantly gone from his face. "My daddy is Mr. Lepus," he said, but with his tongue poked out of his mouth in grim concentration he worked out the math in an untidy scrawl to figure out the total for the gas and the map in a grubby little notebook he pulled from a pocket of his coveralls.
Although Judy got the feeling that Sammy would have continued asking questions if he had had the chance, another car had pulled up as Nick pulled out enough cash to cover their total, and the driver honked impatiently. As though he had been slapped, Sammy scurried back to the register in the little store at the center of the gas station and rapidly made change before running back and dumping it into Nick's paws and then jogged over to his next customer. Nick took his seat in the car and only briefly unfolded the map and looked at it before folding it back up and stashing it under his chair. "It's easy enough to get to Jerboliet," he said, "It'll be a right out of here to start with."
Judy nodded, but before she could start the car, Nick added, "You're pretty good with kits, you know."
"I did have a few dozen younger brothers and sisters," Judy said, and Nick laughed.
"Are you planning on keeping that going?" Nick asked, and when he saw that Judy wasn't exactly sure what he was getting at he added, "Having a few dozen of your own, I mean."
"I—I really haven't thought about it," Judy stammered, startled at the question, "I've always been so focused on becoming a cop and…"
She trailed off and shrugged. "I haven't thought about it," she said, and Nick nodded. "Daylight's burning," he said, apparently content to end the conversation, and Judy started the Buchatti.
She couldn't help but feel, though, that there had been some kind of hidden meaning that Nick had been looking for—and that he had found it. The faintest hint of a smile played across his muzzle, and Judy pulled out of the gas station.
The drive to the Jerboliet Correctional Center made Judy realize how much she had missed some parts of living in the country. She didn't want to permanently leave Zootopia, but it was nice to say goodbye to the frequently bleak, gray, and angular buildings of the city and be surrounded by nothing but meadows and cornfields. Except for the road itself, and the line of telegraph and telephone poles and wires that ran alongside it, there was hardly anything mammal-made that could be seen. There would be a barn, painted a cheery red with white trim, next to a carefully cultivated cornfield, and then there might be nothing but grass and wildflowers for miles at a time. The sight of so much greenery made Judy realize just what she had left behind, and although the Buchatti was as ever too loud to hold a conversation in, she made a mental note to herself to ask Nick what he thought of the countryside. She was sure that he had badly missed the city while he was in Podunk, but maybe he could still be happy somewhere a bit more friendly to foxes. Maybe he wanted somewhere he could meet a pretty vixen and settle down.
With a start, Judy realized that after Nick had asked her if she wanted any kits she hadn't asked him the same. The realization cost her enough of her focus that she nearly missed the next turn that Nick called out, and she shook her head and tried to focus on the road in front of her again.
The Jerboliet Correctional Facility itself looked something like a castle. The central building actually had turrets, and everything was built of sandy stone. The windows in the part of the prison that must have been for the prisoners were gloomily small and the walls relatively thick. Guard towers loomed over the central courtyard and Judy got the impression that the prisoners themselves were always under watch. The prison might have actually been imposing if not for the fact that it was, at most, three-and-a-half feet tall.
The wall that surrounded the prison was significantly taller than the prison itself, which had obviously been built to the scale of its prisoners. There was perhaps fifty yards of open space between the prison and the massive outer wall, which was almost as thick as the prison was wide, and had to be at least fifteen feet high. The mammals patrolling the outer wall each could have easily knocked a hole in the prison themselves, and Judy realized that it was for precisely that reason that they were there—it wouldn't do if a prison break could be as easy as any mammal more than about two feet tall simply ripping into the walls.
The captain of the guard for the outer wall, a goat who was probably nearing retirement age but had the build of a much younger mammal, had looked at Judy's badge with curiosity when she presented it to him. Whatever doubts he might have had about her—or Nick, judging by how he kept glancing at the fox—he had retreated to the guardhouse, which occupied a footprint outside the main wall nearly the same size as the prison inside, and made a hushed call to the warden. "The warden will see you," the goat announced stiffly, "This way, please."
Judy had expected the goat to let them in through the wrought iron gate set into the wall, but instead he brought Nick and Judy into the guardhouse and down a long circular flight of stairs that led to a tunnel brightly illuminated by electric lights at regular intervals that banished any shadows. The goat walked off down the tunnel, which Judy realized must run underneath the wall and to the prison itself, and she hurried to catch up to his rapid strides. They reached a door and the goat pulled out a ring of keys, selecting the correct one with the obvious ease of long practice, and brought them into a room that didn't look anything like what Judy would have expected to see.
Like the tunnel leading to it, the room was brightly illuminated. It was perhaps twenty feet on a side, and the air was constantly rumbling with an odd hissing noise, almost like a snake, that came from a thick bank of metal tubes that dominated the center of the room and ran up into the ceiling. There were four squares formed by four tubes, spaced about two feet away from each block of four, and there was a square counter about three feet off the ground set into the grid of tubes. A little railing ran alongside the outside of the counter, and in the empty space between the tubes there were a number of small glass boxes with holes about the size of nickels in the top, which were covered with fine mesh screens. There was also what was unmistakably a tiny office, with a minuscule desk and set of office furniture set up and divided from the boxes by a privacy screen about six inches tall.
At the desk sat a kangaroo mouse dressed in a crisp dress the color of cornflowers that was a bit lighter than her vividly blue eyes, which stood out from her sandy fur. The warden was, Judy thought, nearly the same color as the prison above them, and at their approach she stood up from her desk and walked to the railing nearest to them and offered her paw. "Agent Hopps," the warden said, her voice high-pitched but not squeaky, "I'm Warden Pauline Dancer. I'm told you want to see Alphonse Biggliani?"
Judy delicately grasped the warden's paw, which felt as fragile as a piece of straw and was so small that she could barely make out the fingers, and gave it a single gently pump. "Yes ma'am," she said respectfully, and the warden nodded at the goat who had brought them to her.
"That'll be all, Henry," she said, and the goat nodded and left.
On his way out, Judy realized that there were two guards stationed on either side of the inside of the door, one of them a goat who couldn't be even half as old as Henry and the other a capybara with a bit of a gut. "I must admit, I'm surprised to see you," the warden continued, and she was looking up at Judy with an expression that, difficult to read as it was due to her small size, seemed to be appraising, "Biggliani doesn't get very many visitors. In fact, when Captain Boer said there was a prohi here to see him, I thought you might be Director Bellwether herself before he gave your name."
"Bellwether has visited Mr. Big?" Judy blurted before she could stop herself.
Warden Dancer pursed her lips, a frown darkening her features. "Yes," she said, "To gloat. I can't say that I approve. I respect the… position she holds enough to allow it, but with you I'll be blunt."
The warden's eyes narrowed, the brilliant blue of her irises barely visible, "If you're here for the same reason, you can leave now."
"No, no, that's not it at all," Judy said, even as she felt what little respect she had left for Bellwether dissolving.
If Mr. Big really was a shell of his former self, it seemed particularly cruel for Bellwether to want to taunt him with her victory over him. "We're here as part of a murder investigation. We thought he might talk."
"You're wasting your time," the warden replied sharply, and her expression didn't relax at all, "Who's the fox?"
"A former associate of his," Nick said, simply enough.
The warden's face actually got even more severe, which Judy wouldn't have guessed was possible. "If he can't speak to his daughter, I doubt he'll speak to you. But you can try."
The warden turned around and stalked back to her desk. She hit a button that seemed almost comically oversized and spoke into an intercom grill nearly as large as she was, telling the unseen mammal on the other side to send Alphonse Biggliani down. It was about ten minutes of awkward silence later, the warden pointedly ignoring both Judy and Nick as she focused on her paperwork, before there was a sudden whooshing sound and a tiny door set into one of the metal tubes that ran up to the ceiling opened. A metal cylinder inside the tube opened, and out of it stepped a mouse wearing a uniform identical to the other guards Judy had seen so far pushing a wheelchair with a shrew in it.
It took Judy a moment to recognize the shrew as Mr. Big because of how different he looked from the pictures Judy had seen. Mr. Big in his prime had been plump, with great black bushy eyebrows that all but hid his eyes under his beetling brow, and in every picture Judy had seen was always sharply dressed in expensive suits. The shrew in the wheelchair, though, was at most a ghost of that mammal. He was gaunt, almost skeletally thin, and dressed in a rough black-and-white striped shirt with matching pants. His eyebrows were as bushy as ever, but had gone completely white, as had most of the fur that Judy could see. The biggest difference, though, was in the expression he wore. Mr. Big had always seemed to exude an aura of confidence and control, an almost expressionless mask that hid away whatever he might be feeling. There was none of that in his face at the moment, though. His mouth was twisted open into a sneering and unnatural rictus, his jowls hanging loosely. A fine thread of drool ran from the open corner of his mouth and he seemed completely unable to do anything about it, his paws limply in his lap and his fingers curled uselessly.
As the mouse pushed the wheelchair closer to the railing, Mr. Big gave absolutely no indication that he understood what was going on; he didn't move or react in any way, even when Nick carefully and gently lowered himself until it was impossible for the shrew not to see him. "Hello again," Nick said, and to Judy's ears the cheer in the words sounded false and unnatural, "I bet you thought you'd never see me again, isn't that right?"
As before, Mr. Big didn't react. His head hung loosely over his emaciated chest, and the mouse who had pushed the wheelchair looked up at Nick, a pitying expression on his face. "You're probably wondering why I'm here, aren't you?" Nick continued, "I'm helping a prohi. Imagine that, huh?"
He jerked a thumb in Judy's direction, but Mr. Big remained motionless. "Do you know anything about what happened to Koslov? You remember Koslov, don't you? The gloomy polar bear who never smiled? Or Carajou? I always told you he was about to crack, you know," Nick said, and there was an edge to his voice that almost sounded desperate to Judy.
The mouse guard finally spoke up, his voice a surprisingly sweet tenor. "Biggliani can't do anything for himself anymore," he said, "Nothing. He can't feed himself. Can't… you know, when he has to make water. He's been like a baby ever since he had that apoplexy."
"I see," Nick said quietly, and then his features seemed to close over into an expressionless mask.
"I'm sorry," the guard said simply, and when he carefully maneuvered the wheelchair back around to the waiting capsule in the tube neither Nick nor Judy made any effort to stop him.
Once the guard had left, Warden Dancer approached them again. "I told you it'd be a waste of time," she said with a sigh, and her expression had softened somewhat.
"The guards will see you out," she said.
Nick hadn't spoken again on the walk down the tunnel or up the cold metal staircase, and even once they were back to the car he still seemed lost in his own thoughts. He climbed into the Buchatti mechanically, and before she started the car Judy gave his paw a brief squeeze. "Are you OK?" she asked, and as the words left her mouth she wished she had thought of something more meaningful to say.
Seeing Mr. Big so reduced had obviously had an impact on him, but Judy could barely guess at what he was feeling. Nick had been loyal to the shrew for many years, after all, until he had finally been asked to cross a line he refused to. How had he come to see Mr. Big in that time? Had Mr. Big only ever been Nick's boss, or had he in some way become the family that Nick had lost? Nick gave Judy a small and sad smile, and squeezed her paw back. "I'll manage," he said, and then he turned forward, his posture stiffening as his expression smoothed out.
The drive back to Zootopia somehow didn't feel nearly as pleasant as the drive out to Jerboliet. It was dark by the time they stopped for dinner, but Nick was no more talkative than he had been on the way out of the prison. When they finally pulled back into his garage and Judy had turned the car off, she couldn't handle it anymore.
During dinner, Nick had been like a pale imitation of himself. He had answered Judy's questions, and sometimes his expressions had even almost looked genuine, but he hadn't been himself. He hadn't teased her even once, or asked any questions, and when the silence grew too long he had seemed brooding.
Judy grabbed Nick's paw before he could get out of the car. "I'll listen, if you want to talk about it," she said, "I'll always listen."
She didn't expect him to respond, but he did. "You told that bunny that mammals can choose to be good or bad. You believe that, don't you?"
"I do," Judy said.
She was surprised at the direction Nick was going in, but if it was how he wanted to open up she would take it. "I…" Nick began, and then he swallowed hard before continuing.
"Do you know why I stayed with Mr. Big so long?" he asked.
Judy shook her head, and she could feel Nick's grip on her paw tightening a degree. "He was the first mammal, ever since my mother…"
Nick swallowed hard again, but his words were steady when he continued. "Ever since my mother to be proud of me and what I could do. He's never going to get the chance to change, is he?"
"Oh," Judy said, and she suddenly realized what Nick meant.
Mr. Big was guilty of terrible crimes, but he'd never get the chance to atone for them. He'd almost certainly spend the rest of his life trapped in his own body. Maybe that was justice, but it had an inescapable finality to it. Mr. Big would never have the chance to become a better mammal, and he'd never be able to see what Nick had become. It was incredibly idealistic to think that the vicious gang lord would change, or even be capable of changing, but Judy thought that Nick's cynicism didn't run as deeply as he liked to act like it did. "Probably not," she said, "But you know what?"
Nick shook his head slowly, and Judy reached over and pulled him into a hug. It was awkward, with them sitting next to each other in the car, but Judy managed it nonetheless, her head against his chest and tucked under his muzzle. She could feel the fur of it against her ears, and when she spoke into Nick's chest she felt a sudden wetness against them. "I'm very proud of you," she said, "I never could have done this without you."
They sat like that for a long moment, and Judy could feel the beat of Nick's heart against her and the warmth of his body. It lasted long, but not nearly long enough, and then Judy felt one of Nick's paws wipe his muzzle, delicately brushing past her ears. "Come on," Nick said, and for the first time since before they had seen Mr. Big the good-humor in his voice sounded genuine, "We've got a big day tomorrow. An early one, too, and I don't know about you but I need my sleep."
It was only reluctantly that Judy disentangled herself from him, and he smiled lopsidedly at her as they walked the short distance from the garage to his house. It was difficult to tell at night, with only the faint illumination of the streetlights on the other side of the house, but Nick's eyes were somewhat red and puffy. She didn't mention it, though, and while they didn't speak again as they took turns using the bathroom to go about getting ready for bed, the silence had seemed companionable again. Before Nick had gone upstairs to his own bed, he had paused on the stairs, almost entirely engulfed by the shadows. "Thank you," he said quietly, and then he was gone and Judy was left alone on the sofa for what felt like an eternity, her mind racing endlessly.
Tomorrow, she thought, it would all end. Lionheart would be behind bars, a position in the police academy would be hers, and she'd have the chance to ask Nick what he wanted. Her last thought before sleep finally claimed her was an odd one. It occurred to her, as she thought about Nick and where he would want to go after the case ended, that she never had asked Nick how he felt about having kits of his own.
Author's Notes:
The title of this chapter, "Jailhouse Blues," comes from a 1923 Bessie Smith song. The lyrics are mostly about how terribly lonely it is to be in jail, but I chose to use it more for the title, since it's not exactly a pleasant trip.
"Essence" is French for "gasoline" and is in fact how a real Bugatti Type 35's fuel gauge is labeled. That it had a fuel gauge at all put it a leg up on several other cars; the Ford Model T, for example, didn't have a fuel gauge. Instead, if you wanted to know how much fuel you had left, you had to insert a dipstick into the fuel tank, which you obviously couldn't do while the car was running. It meant that you had to be a bit careful about how frequently you fueled up to avoid running out. Due to the popularity of Model Ts fuel dipsticks were commonly given away at garages, gas stations, and other businesses.
It's at least plausible that the owner of the deli could have watched the second game of the 1908 World Series through a gap in the fence, as the game was played in Chicago. It's also something of a little joke that he's a bear and a fan of the Cubs. The name of the deli itself is also a little joke, as the character known as the "Bear Jew" in Inglorious Basterds was named Donny Donowitz. Nick's sandwich being pickled salmon implies that it's lox, a staple of Jewish-American delicatessens.
Back in chapter 30 I had noted that the date was Thursday, September 01, 1927, and it's still that same day as of this chapter. The Cubs played the Pittsburgh Pirates in an early afternoon game, which would have been ongoing at the time that Judy and Nick stopped by the deli.
Interestingly enough, the very first baseball game aired over the radio was a Pirates game in 1923, although the commentary wasn't aired live. Instead, updates were received by telegraph and the announcers described things on air based on those updates. This was still pretty typical even up through the 1930s; Ronald Reagan's career in radio started in 1932 as just such an announcer.
Somewhat depressingly, just like when I mentioned the outcome of a Cubs game in chapter 19, the Cubs lost their game on September 01, 1927. Based on the timing of the Pirates getting a third run, it indicates that the game was in the fourth inning at the time that Nick and Judy visited the deli; the Cubs went scoreless until the fifth inning, when they began to rally, but the final score was 4-3 in the Pirates' favor. Really, the phrase, "there's always next year" might as well be the motto of the Cubs.
Timothy grass is commonly recommended as a foodstuff for pet rabbits, as it is high in the fiber that they need to stay healthy, so I thought it'd make sense for Judy to enjoy it on a sandwich.
The gas station being called Lepus Gasoline is after the constellation Lepus, the hare. It's a reference to the real-world brand of White Star Gasoline, which was popular in the 1920s. Gas stations started really proliferating in the early part of the 20th century as cars became more popular, and the design of the gas station that Nick and Judy visit is loosely based off of a real design. The very first gas stations in cities tended to be street side, which meant that you had to pull over on the shoulder to fill up. This blocked traffic, though, so it wasn't long before the first drive in gas station opened in 1913. The design of the pumps themselves is also accurate to the 1920s, where the attendant would operate a manual pump to fill a visible reservoir with gasoline with markings in descending order. The reason for the reservoir to be visible, besides being a convenient way to see how much gas was dispensed into the car, was to help assure customers that they were receiving quality fuel without sediment and other contaminants in it. Because the pumps weren't automatic, it was also standard in the 1920s for the attendants to pump gas for customers, since they had to note how much gas was dispensed and then charge appropriately.
There are several differences between rabbits and hares (most obviously, hares are larger and have paw pads), but I think it makes sense that both groups would be considered bunnies. "Banana oil" was a slang expression the 1920s that's about equivalent to "baloney" as an expression to mean that something is nonsense. "Wow" as an exclamation of surprise is much older than you might think, with the first recorded usage dating to 16th century Scotland. Izzy and Mole were first referenced back in chapter 12 as a pun on Izzy and Moe, a real-life team of prohis who were quite popular in the 1920s.
The Jerboliet Correctional Center, as mentioned in the last chapter's notes, is based on the real-life Joliet Correctional Center, albeit at a much smaller scale. The way I see it, it makes the most sense for the primary guards of small prisoners to also be small, particularly when a mammal the size of a mouse also has human intelligence; they'd be pretty hard for an elephant to catch. The larger outer wall and the larger guards are more to manage the flow of larger visitors and also to make sure no one tries a prison break by driving a car larger than the prison into one of its walls.
Pneumatic tube systems, such as are commonly seen nowadays in the drive-thrus at banks, were first used practically in 1836 to transport telegrams within buildings. I thought that they'd also work pretty well as a transport system for a rodent-scale prison, since the tubes can be maintained at a vacuum so that it's not practical to try escaping through the tube, and rodents would easily be light enough to use the capsules for transport.
The warden of the prison is named in reference to Dune; the protagonist Paul Atreides goes by the name "Muad'Dib" after a fictional species of kangaroo mouse, and the novel is set on the planet Arrakis, which is derived from the Arabic word for Dancer. Pauline Dancer's vividly blue eyes are as atypical for a kangaroo mouse as purple eyes are for a rabbit, but in the universe of Dune people who take the geriatric spice Melange, found only on Arrakis, have their eyes turn completely blue as one of the side effects. Dune is one of my favorite books, and I highly recommend it.
Captain Henry Boer takes his name from the Boer goat. Although the Boer goat was purposefully bred as a livestock breed, and consequently presumably wouldn't exist in the world of Zootopia which lacked artificial human selection, the word "Boer" is Dutch for "farmer" and is a real surname.
Mr. Big has been tagged in this story ever since I first published it, and while his influence has hopefully been felt throughout, this was his first actual appearance. His non-responsiveness is consistent with a massive stroke; there'd be very little that the medical science of the 1920s could do for such a case other than to try to keep him fed and clean.
Well, this is it before the raid on Lionheart next chapter. This chapter tried to accomplish a lot, and I hope it succeeded. As always, I'd love to hear what you thought!