"And you're sure that Erwin Wustenfuchs and Lisa Patrikay... key... keyva... Lisa can't be involved?" Judy pressed, the seriousness of her tone somewhat undermined, she felt, by her inability to properly pronounce the vixen's last name.
They were sitting at Nick's dining room table, eating a late lunch of tomato soup that had come out of a can along with a stack of toast. The soup wasn't nearly as good as what Judy's mother made—it was far too salty for Judy's taste—but Nick had sliced the bread to exquisitely thin pieces of equal thickness and then toasted them over the stove top to a perfect golden brown without burning so much as a slice. A small smile had crossed his face at her butchering of Lisa's last name, but he seemed to take the question seriously, gesturing at Judy with a bit of toast. "I'm positive. Lisa Patrikeyevna," he said, emphasizing the foreign syllables of her last name as if it were as easy to say as Judy's own, "Is a vixen. I've met her a couple times. Real charmer, that one."
The bitter pang of jealousy that Nick's words evoked surprised Judy. It made no sense to hold either the words or the slightly wistful expression Nick had worn as he spoke against him; he had made absolutely no effort since returning to Zootopia to seek out either Lisa or any other vixen, and she had no reason to doubt his feelings for her. Still, the sense that there was a part of his past in which he might have shared with someone else what he now shared with her burned like a hot coal. Nick must have seen at least some of Judy's feelings on her face, because he brushed his free paw against hers. "She's also old enough to be my grandmother," he added, "Just too stubborn to retire, I suppose."
"Oh," Judy said, and her relief felt surprisingly complicated, colored with shame.
She already knew that Nick had a past; he had lived decades before even meeting her. Judy knew what could be only a fraction of his life's story, from his doomed military service to his work for Mr. Big, from hiding a fortune under the created name of Randall Steervens to living all but penniless in a tar paper shack. It didn't seem fair to him to think that all his life had consisted of nothing but low moments until they had met, and if he had found happiness with someone else before that meeting it meant only that it was a part of who he was, not that she was his second choice. Judy resolved to talk to him about it when they had the chance; she would have loved nothing more than to learn about Nick's past and what had given him the strength to stand up against a world that seemed bent on pushing him down. In the moment, though, Nick glossed over the unspoken topic and continued speaking. "She's a vixen," Nick repeated, "Whoever's in those pictures definitely isn't."
He did admittedly have a point there; although neither photograph was particularly good, the body beneath that tight-fitting suit did look masculine to Judy's eye. "And as for Erwin Wustenfuchs, well, he's a fennec," Nick said.
"Like Finnick?" Judy asked.
If Erwin was anything like the gruff little mechanic, it would explain Nick's confidence in him having no involvement; the fox in the picture was clearly about Nick's size and build and Finnick was shorter even than Judy. "Like Finnick," Nick said, "I've never met the fella, but from what I hear, he's a little taller and jollier."
A playful frown of mock seriousness crossed Nick's muzzle briefly as he paused in contemplation. "So really, nothing at all like Finnick," he said, and then offered Judy a wicked smile as he dunked the piece of toast he had been gesturing with into his soup and bit off a fastidious nibble.
She did her best to return his smile and then looked back down at her mostly full bowl of soup. They hadn't stayed at Zoya's apartment very long after the polar bear had described Brian Redfurred, and while she had done her best to tell them what she knew, it didn't amount to much. Zoya hadn't known where he lived and seemed to have only the vaguest idea of where he went about his business of running numbers rackets; her job had apparently mostly been to stand there and look menacing when mammals didn't want to pay what they owed. Judy strongly suspected that on more than a few occasions Zoya might have done a bit more than that, but neither she nor Nick had pressed the issue.
Zoya herself had only had one question for Judy, and after getting an answer had led both Nick and Judy to her front door. "I hope you find what you seek," she had said gravely, and then after taking a furtive look back over her shoulder to where Monarch still sat at the table she had added in a low whisper, "But unless it is life or death, maybe don't come back before tomorrow. Afternoon."
Nick had given the polar bear a wink, which she returned with something of a leer as she shut the door, and then he had turned to Judy, clapping his paws together. "Why don't we go back to my place and plan our next move?"
Although Judy had wanted to immediately go after Brian Redfurred, she had no idea of how to find him, and had reluctantly agreed, her mind spinning at each possibility she could think of on the drive back to Nick's house. Partway through the drive, a creeping doubt had begun to set in; what if Brian Redfurred wasn't the fox they were looking for? What if it had been one of the other two, or none of them? Or all three of them? Nick, however, had the look of a mammal who knew exactly what he had to do, and if he had any concerns about finding Redfurred it didn't show on his face. He had bustled about his kitchen, fixing their meal as though he didn't have a care in the world even as Judy's mind gnawed at itself until she couldn't contain her thoughts anymore. And although Nick's explanations as to why the mammal in the photographs couldn't be Erwin or Lisa made sense, all that did was bring her concern about finding Redfurred back to the forefront of her mind, and she asked as much. "So how do we find Redfurred? The DMV is closed today."
"It is," Nick said, "Which would only help if he has a car, but I'm not too worried about finding him."
Judy gaped at him for a moment, but if he was making a joke it didn't show on his face. "Why not?" she asked, and Nick responded almost instantly.
"Because he runs a numbers racket," he said, and when he saw that she didn't understand, he added, "If you want to run a numbers racket—or a successful one, at least—you need to be easy to find. Otherwise, how are the poor saps supposed to pay in?"
"So all we need to do—" Judy began excitedly before Nick interrupted.
"Is go to the neighborhood Zoya told us about and ask," he finished, nodding, "And that's where it gets tricky."
"But you just said you weren't worried about finding him," Judy protested, and Nick took a moment before responding.
"Look," he said at last, "The White Widow telling us about Redfurred was the first I've ever heard of him. I've got no idea what kind of mammal he is."
Judy thought over his words, but she couldn't tell the direction Nick was going in and so she waited for him to continue. "If he's had a polar bear around as a leg-breaker he might not be too popular. Or if he's given a few mammals some heavy sugar paying out on bets he might be everyone's best friend. I don't know," Nick said, and Judy thought she could hear the frustration in his voice on his last three words.
But after a moment's consideration, Judy realized she was wrong. It wasn't frustration she was hearing; if everyone hated Redfurred and was afraid of his retribution she was sure Nick could still find someone he could talk an address out of, and if everyone loved Redfurred she was sure it wouldn't take an ounce of charisma to get an address by pretending to be interested in making a bet. "You're afraid," Judy said, and Nick slowly nodded.
"For my sake," she said, and he didn't dispute it.
"We're getting close," Nick said, "Maybe someone already got to Redfurred. Maybe he caught a lucky break and they failed, or maybe he caught an even luckier break and Lionheart was arrested before he could order it. I have no idea what we'd be walking into."
Nick spoke his words calmly, and his face was set into its usual mask of aloofness, but Judy thought she could see the cracks in it. No matter what he had said to her about the little bottle of peppermint oil, which she had rubbed a few drops of into her fur before their trip to visit Zoya, he was afraid for her sake. "Neither do I," Judy said, and it was her turn to reach over and touch his paw, "But there's no one else I'd rather walk into it with."
Nick didn't move, and when he spoke again his words were quiet. "You're not a prohi anymore. If things go wrong..."
He didn't have to finish the sentence. If things went wrong, she didn't have a gun or backup or even a badge she could rely on. If they got in over their heads they would have to get themselves out. "Then let's figure out the best way of learning what we want before we go anywhere," Judy said, and as she spoke the words she could feel her own desire to immediately leave Nick's house fading.
The feeling didn't vanish, not entirely. Knowing that the fox who might be the one actually guilty of the crimes Nick had been accused of might still be walking around the city or else a corpse hidden away somewhere made stopping and thinking of the best way to learn more about him a kind of torture. "I really am rubbing off on you," Nick said, and his smile was in his voice as much as it was on his face.
"Only as much as I'm rubbing off on you," Judy replied.
She knew that Nick wasn't as callous and self-centered as she had thought him to be when they first met. She knew that there had been mammals—and yes, maybe even vixens—that he had cared about deeply before she had ever seen him. But she thought that it had probably been years since he had last been willing to show that part of himself to the world. He cared. And as much as being with Nick had changed her, she knew it had changed him.
Nick gave her a small nod. "I've had a few ideas," he began, and Judy settled back in her chair, ready to listen.
The plan that they had worked out was, in Nick's words, elegant in its simplicity. Although it could be reduced to simply being that Judy would find someone and ask where Redfurred could be found, Nick had brought up a number of concerns that the plan addressed. First and foremost was that while Feweler Park was a poor neighborhood, it was also a prey neighborhood.
He had mentioned that detail during their planning session casually, saying that anyone who lived there would simply assume that he was a gang member of some kind simply because he was a fox. Judy hated how he had mentioned it as though it was simply a factor to be accounted for, the risk of someone alerting an actual member of the Black Paw outweighing the potential help he could provide in learning the information that they wanted.
Once Judy was actually walking the streets of Feweler Park, she had to admit that he had a point. In many ways, Feweler Park looked a lot like the Yard. The buildings were rundown and falling apart in similar ways, and while the air didn't stink of the slaughterhouses the neighborhood felt equally grim. The businesses in Feweler Park did have something that none of the ones in the Yard did, though. It seemed to Judy that every business she passed, from the bodega with a selection of wilting rutabagas and turnips out front to the pawnshop with a filthy front window with rusty iron bars in front of it, had the same sign on their front doors. Some had been painted, some had been printed, some looked new and others were yellowed with age, but the words were all the same: NO PREDATORS.
Although Nick was safely a few blocks away, the car parked in front of the bustling little cafe he had claimed a booth in, Judy could hear his voice as though he had been walking besides her. "Try to find someone taller than you are," Nick's voice said, her memory of what he had said at his dining room table capturing what felt like the essence of his voice, "You don't want to seem threatening. You want someone who looks friendly, on the older side if you can."
It was a bit strange, walking the city without Nick by her side, and it felt painfully similar to when Nick had been in jail and she had been working to bail him out. Judy took what comfort she could in her memory of Nick's advice, and when she saw a middle-aged goat dressed in a plain dress walking along the street with a bag of groceries in her arms, she tried to put it into action. "Excuse me? Ma'am?" Judy said, making sure that her paws were visible and not in a threatening pose as she slowly approached the goat, who had to be at least two feet taller than she was, "Would you happen to know where I could find Brian Redfurred?"
The goat's expression, which had been one of mild disinterest, suddenly changed into a sneer. "As if it wasn't enough the way you bunnies breed," she sniffed, "You want to gamble? You ought to be ashamed, you Jezebel."
Judy found herself lost for words as the goat kept walking, her nose in the air. "You want to find someone who looks a little seedy, but not dangerous," Nick's voice offered helpfully in Judy's ear, and she sighed; it was her own fault for not meeting one of the criteria he had described.
It took Judy another twenty minutes before she came across a promising group; there were four rams sitting at a rough wooden table outside a barber shop, apparently enjoying the sunshine as they played contract bridge and exchanged light-hearted insults. Even better, the dark brown bottles on the table didn't look like they contained soda, and Judy approached the table. "Excuse me?" Judy said, and the four sheep all turned to look at her.
They all looked to be about fifty or so, with tightly spiraled horns and shaggy wool that made them look larger and heavier than they likely were. Although they were sheep just as much as Bellwether was, Judy thought that they had to be a different species; even the smallest of the rams looked to be more than twice the height of her former boss. "What d'ye want, bunny?" one of them asked, his tone light.
Judy offered him a smile. "Do you know where I could find Brian Redfurred?" she asked, and while none of the sheep reacted the way the goat had, the rams all exchanged glances before the one who had spoken to her first spoke again.
"He be owin' you a payout too?" the ram asked, "Ol' Mickey here's owed twenny dollars, the great lucky bastard, and he's seen not hide nor hair of that fox in two days."
As the ram spoke, he pointed carelessly at one of the other rams, who didn't seem to take any insult at what the first had called him. "Not my fault you're too thick to see a sure thing, Shaun," Mickey shot back, a broad grin splitting his face, "I'll buy you a drink if you admit it tweren't luck."
Shaun huffed and turned to one of the other sheep. "Don't your sister's daughter work for Redfurred?" he asked, and the third ram ponderously shook his massive head.
"No, it's me sister's husband's cousin—"
"Margaret?" the fourth ram, who had remained silent until then, broke in, and the third ram shook his head again.
"No, no. Liddy, it is. Liddy O'Sheared," the third ram answered, and the fourth ram's eyes brightened in recognition.
"The one what got pinched for stealin' silverware?" he asked, and the third ram nodded.
"Why d'you think she's workin' as a maid for a fox? Never was respectable, the poor thing. Never knew what me sister was thinkin', marrying into that family."
"She's my cousin too, y'know," Mickey interrupted, and the third ram waved his arms as if to disavow his words.
"An' what family is perfect, I ask?" he said, "Only—"
"Only you'd best choose your next words real careful-like," Mickey interrupted with his eyes narrowed, and then he slugged the third ram in the arm.
It didn't look to Judy as though he had hit particularly hard, and the third ram laughed. "Only Liddy's a bit of an odd one," he said, and Mickey and the fourth ram both nodded, their faces set in near-identical expressions of commiseration.
Judy felt as though the rams had completely forgotten that she was present, but she remembered one of Nick's other pieces of advice; sometimes it was best just to let the other mammal talk. She got the feeling that he might have been well-suited to interrogations if he ever became a police officer. Or if anyone ever let him become a police officer, at least. Although she desperately wanted to try to beg the rams to just answer her question directly, she had already learned some facts of value. Leaving aside the tangled chain of family between the four rams, who seemed to be loosely related, she had learned that Brian Redfurred hadn't been seen for a couple days, which probably didn't bode well for him still being alive. None of the rams seemed to particularly like the fox, but they also didn't seem particularly afraid of him; if they thought that predators were beneath their dignity that was their loss. She forced herself to keep listening as the conversation between the rams circled on and on, and while she didn't think anything else they had said was going to be particularly useful—unless she felt like taking Mickey's tip for the next Cubs game, which he had assured everyone present was another sure thing—they did at last manage to pull out of their collective memory the address for Brian Redfurred's apartment after first naming and describing every restaurant and deli worth eating at within four blocks of it.
It was nearly an hour and a half later when she met back up with Nick, who was slowly nursing a cup of coffee as he read a newspaper, and her heart warmed to see him immediately perk up when he saw her. "I was beginning to think I'd have to go after you," he said, and while his words were light Judy thought that he meant it.
"I'm not sure the mammals I asked even noticed I left," she said, and Nick smiled.
"But you did get an address?" he said as he left a few coins on the table.
"I did," Judy said, and Nick nodded.
"I knew I was rubbing off on you," he said, and he let his arm brush past hers as he pushed the door of the cafe open.
It was a small gesture, one Judy doubted anyone watching would have particularly noticed or given any significance if they had seen it, but the brief moment of contact was enough for her. At least, it was for the moment.
Brian Redfurred's apartment wasn't in Feweler Park, or even near it; it was actually only three blocks away from Nick's house. The apartment building wasn't quite as nice, but it was a perfectly respectable three story building neatly made of brick with a few marble ornamentations to break up its bulk. Somewhat surprisingly, considering Redfurred's line of work, there wasn't a mammal at the door and they were able to walk into the building and up the stairs to the top floor, where Redfurred had a corner unit. Although the hallway was bright and somewhat elegant, with clean white walls and plush red carpets, when Judy knocked on the door to Redfurred's apartment it swung open a fraction and she saw that the door frame was splintered where the lock had been broken. "It's not breaking and entering if the door's open, is it?" Nick asked.
Judy thought he was trying to keep his tone light, but she could hear the tension in his voice. "It's something of a gray area," she said.
She wasn't afraid as she pushed the door the rest of the way open, but what met her eyes wasn't quite what she had been expecting. The apartment looked as though it had been turned upside down and shaken, with the contents of drawers strewn across the floor and pictures in cracked frames hanging at crazy angles from the walls. But there wasn't any blood and there wasn't a body. Beyond those details, she couldn't see much; although it was mid-afternoon the apartment was gloomily dark, with only a few bright pinpoints of light coming in through a few uneven spots where the window had been painted black and the paint was chipping away. Judy reached into the room and groped for a light switch, but when her fingers found it and flicked it the wide frosted glass globe on the ceiling stayed dark. "The light doesn't work," she said, and she could hear Nick take in a deep breath, leaning his head into the room for a long moment.
Judy heard Nick sniff at the air and she could see his triangular ears swiveling in all directions before he finally withdrew his head. "He must like it dark," Nick said at last, his voice barely a whisper, "Do you hear anything?"
Judy strained her ears, but she couldn't hear anything coming from the apartment, just the sound of water running through a pipe somewhere and the muted sounds of the city around them. "No," she said, and her voice was as low as Nick's.
"We should really just call the police," Nick said, but Judy shook her head.
"Not before we have a look," she said, her voice a harsh whisper, "Someone on the force is tampering with evidence. We can't give them a chance."
Nick sighed, and when he spoke again his voice was at its normal volume. "I thought you might say that," he said, and he took a hesitant step into the room.
Judy was only a step behind him, and although they left the door into the hallway of the apartment building open it seemed as though the light was being sucked out of the room. It wasn't just the gloom that made the room eerie either. The room smelled like a male fox, but where Judy associated Nick's scent with its pleasantly floral undertone, Redfurred's apartment had a harsh and musky smell that set Judy's teeth on edge. She pushed the feeling down and made her way over to a bookshelf that had been knocked over, scattering the contents across the floor. Redfurred had apparently had little model trains and airplanes on display, and the models had shattered into their component pieces when they had hit the floor. There were also heavy cardboard books of foreign coins, an assortment of postcards with pictures of far-off cities, and a few well-worn books with titles that made Judy's ears burn. The contents of the bookshelf struck Judy as being not too different from what one of her bachelor brothers might have put together if they had had a bit more money (although after flipping through Redfurred's books in a fruitless attempt to see if any had been hollowed out she hoped that her brothers didn't have anything similar). It was, in short, junk, just a brief insight into the life of an idle mammal spending his money on whatever caught his fancy.
When Judy turned to ask Nick if he was having any luck, she was surprised to see him running his fingers against the floorboards at the center of the room underneath the light fixture. "What are you doing?" she asked, and it took Nick a moment to reply.
"The floor's scratched here. Can't you see it?" he said, and Judy shook her head.
She felt half-blind in the room, but apparently to his fox eyes it was bright enough. "C'mon," Nick said, "Help me take a look."
He lifted Judy gently until she was sitting on his shoulders and craned his head upwards to look her in the eye. "Take a look in that light fixture," he said, and once he had positioned them underneath it Judy did.
"There's not a bulb in it," Judy said as she felt around, feeling a thin layer of dust sticking to her fingers.
"You did turn the switch off, didn't you? I'd rather not the both of us fry," Nick said, and Judy felt a smile touch her face for the first time since they had entered the apartment.
The sudden and inappropriate thought had entered her head of playing a prank on him by pretending to get a shock, but she pushed it aside. It would have been cruel, and besides, sitting on his shoulders was a somewhat precarious although not unpleasant spot. His body was warm against her, his neck thick enough to wrap her thighs around without squeezing too hard, and Judy chuckled. "I did," she said, "Now hold still."
She angled her arm to feel around inside the frosted glass of the light fixture and was surprised when her fingers touched something cold and metallic that could only be a gun. When she groped for it, she put her fingers across a familiar-feeling knurled wood grip, and when she pulled the revolver free she understood why it had felt familiar; the gun in her paw looked identical to her own. "I found a gun," she said, gripping it tightly as Nick carefully lowered her off his shoulders and back onto the ground.
Nick looked at it for a moment before looking at Judy. "I'm not any kind of expert, but isn't that the same kind of gun you had in your purse?" he asked, and Judy nodded.
"I'm willing to bet that's what they were looking for," Nick said thoughtfully, "What do you want to bet that's the gun that Redfurred killed River and Zweihorn with?"
"That's not a bet I would take," Judy replied, carefully wrapping the gun in her handkerchief and tucking it into her bag.
She thought that Nick was right, though, and she could imagine how events had played out. Lionheart had hired Redfurred for the murders, but maybe the fox had been suspicious of the lion's motives and had held onto the murder weapon, not trusting him to leave him alone after the frame job on Nick was complete. Maybe Redfurred had already been murdered or maybe he had gone to ground, hiding somewhere. To frame Nick they might have swapped out the bullet that had been compared against the ones in the bodies of Zweihorn and River for one Redfurred had fired in advance. It would explain why a bullet from Judy's gun had supposedly been a perfect match, but to make sure that no one caught on to the switch in bullets they would have needed to swap the guns out too so that if the test was repeated it would still show a match. If Judy was right, it'd be possible to prove that Nick was being framed, but after excitedly explaining her new theory to Nick she paused a moment when he asked if she wanted to leave. "The gun must have been whatever the mammal Lionheart sent was looking for," Judy said, "But maybe they left something behind. We ought to keep looking."
"And then call the police?" Nick asked, and Judy nodded.
"We can call Bogo himself," she said, and he seemed to find the answer to his satisfaction because he turned to keep looking.
As they both made their way through the apartment, Judy found nothing else of interest, just more tawdry curios that seemed to only show that Redfurred had held a magpie-like interest in collecting things from stamps to bottle caps. Nick was working his way towards the bathroom, Judy nearing the bedroom, which was even darker than the main room; the curtains on the window were drawn and there wasn't a light fixture or switch she could see.
As Judy took a step forward towards the curtains to throw them open, she felt a sudden pain in her foot and let out a wordless cry, stumbling backwards as she tried to keep her balance. Her foot hit the floor again and the pain suddenly became eye-watering. "Dagnabit!" Judy swore as the pain made her lose her balance and she fell, landing flat on her back.
"Judy!" Nick said, and he was instantly at her side, "What happened? Are you OK?"
Judy winced. The pain in her foot was throbbing and she could feel a trickle of blood running down towards her heel. "I stepped on something sharp," she said, and offered Nick a smile she didn't feel, "I'll be fine."
Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulder and helped her up into a sitting position. "You're sure?" he asked, and even in the dim lighting his concern was obvious across his face.
"I'm sure," she said, "Could you get it out?"
Judy could feel whatever she had stepped on still embedded in her foot, and when Nick looked at the sole of her foot she saw his concern deepen. "It's bleeding," he said, and she nodded.
"I can feel it," she said, "Now can you get that lousy thing out of my foot?"
Rather than answer, Nick put his fingers against her foot, and she could feel him grasping at the object before there was a sudden tugging sensation. Having the object leave her foot hurt a lot less than when it had entered, and it hit the floor with a small metallic sound when Nick dropped it. Only after Nick had wrapped Judy's foot in his handkerchief, knotting it tightly, did he pick up the object and bring it over to where Judy could see it. It took her a moment to recognize it as an earring, the wickedly sharp stud red with her own blood. "I'm guessing Redfurred either had a lady friend or whoever ransacked this place had expensive tastes," Nick said as he offered the earring to her, "What do you think?"
When he rotated the earring to show her the decorative part of it, Judy saw that it was a mid-sized pearl, connected to a vaguely wing-shaped gold fitting inset with little chips of diamond, and her blood ran cold. The question that Zoya had asked before showing them out the door suddenly came to her mind. "Why aren't you a prohi anymore?" the polar bear had asked.
When Judy had said that she had been fired, Zoya had nodded. "That speaks well of you, I think," she had said, and Judy had laughed politely, understanding why the bear wouldn't think much of the Bureau of Prohibition in general or Director Bellwether specifically.
Now, seeing the earring before her, Judy could feel the pieces coming together, and when she spoke her voice felt as though it were coming from miles away. "No," Judy said, "No, that's not it. I recognize this earring."
Nick's eyebrows arched in surprise, but Judy barely noticed. "Really? Whose is it?" he asked, and Judy's mouth felt suddenly dry.
Of course she recognized it; the mammal it belonged to had bragged about the earrings at length when she had received them a few weeks ago for her anniversary, and had worn them on several occasions since. "Bellwether," Judy said, "It's Director Bellwether's."
Author's Notes:
The title of this chapter, "Among My Souvenirs," comes from a 1927 song by Edgar Leslie. I chose it because it seemed appropriate to how among the assorted collectibles in Redfurred's apartment there's also a far more important clue in the form of Bellwether's earring.
Condensed tomato soup in a can would likely be Campbell's, which was available in 1927. Campbell's introduced their tomato soup in 1897, and in 1927 the cans wouldn't really look too much different than they do today; Campbell's has left their branding mostly unchanged for more than a hundred years now. Recipes for tomato soup do date to no later than 1872 (for warm tomato soup, at least; gazpacho is significantly older) so it certainly could be something Judy's mother prepared. Canned soups do tend to be pretty salty, too.
Although it's something of a throwaway line that Nick had sliced the bread he toasted himself, it does reveal something kind of interesting. Pre-sliced bread wasn't available until 1928, so in 1927 if you bought a loaf you had to cut it yourself. It may be a little surprising that sliced bread is a relatively recent invention, and the popular expression "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is a play on the somewhat grandiose advertising used when sliced bread debuted of being "the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped."
Toasters were one of the very first electric appliances (alongside "personal massagers" but I won't get into that) that were commercially available and early models connected to the electrical grid using the same screw fitting as lightbulbs. Considering that electric lighting was the first widely available electric utility, this made perfect sense; familiar electrical outlets didn't come until later. As Nick has what is a very modern kitchen for the 1920s he likely does have a toaster, but he might find it easier to toast thin slices of bread evenly over the range than with a toaster.
As Erwin's last name literally means "desert fox" as mentioned in the last chapter, I thought it followed pretty logically that he'd be a fennec, a real-life desert fox. Considering that Finnick is the only fennec to appear in the movie, it's impossible to say whether or not his appearance is typical for his species. It's possible that Finnick is shorter than usual for a fennec, average, or tall for his species, but in this story I assumed that he's on the shorter side of average and Erwin is somewhat taller than average.
In Illinois, offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles are closed on Sundays, and most are also closed on Saturdays. As of this chapter, it's Sunday, September 04, 1927, so the DMV would be closed. Since death, unfortunately, does not take holidays, it's not unusual for the coroner's office to be open seven days a week, and due to the demands of printing a paper I thought it made sense for the New Yak Evening Graphic to be open on Sunday too.
Using the term "sap" as a noun to mean that someone is a fool was a pretty common bit of 1920s slang. As previously mentioned, whether you call it a numbers game or a numbers racket, it's a form of illegal betting. Organized crime isn't exactly known for being scrupulously fair when it comes to wagers (for example, 1927 isn't too long after gang kingpin Arnold Rothstein fixed the 1919 World Series by paying the Chicago White Sox to lose) so Nick isn't just being cynical.
Calling someone a leg-breaker as a euphemism for a mob enforcer is a phrase with origins that should be pretty obvious, the implication being that the person in question is willing to commit terrible but not fatal acts of violence as punishments. The phrase came into common use around 1920 so its use here is appropriate.
"Heavy sugar" was a slang term for a significant amount of money in 1920s slang; although the sort of numbers racket that would operate in a poor neighborhood would be unlikely to pay out huge sums of money, perspective is important. Even today, whether or not $50 is a lot of money depends on how much you have and what it's in relation to.
Feweler Park is a pun on ewe and Fuller Park, which is a real neighborhood in Chicago. It has historically been a poor neighborhood, from when it was created from the annexation of Town of Lake in 1889 and into the present day. It's currently Chicago's most dangerous neighborhood, with a high unemployment and violent crime rate and it was unfortunately much the same in the 1920s.
The Yards is the neighborhood that Nick and Judy visited back in chapter 18, which in this story was a poor predator neighborhood.
By calling Judy a Jezebel, the goat is referencing the biblical story of Queen Jezebel, whose wearing of fine clothing and makeup eventually led to her being used as a euphemism for prostitutes.
Bridge is card game that requires four players playing in two teams of two players each. In 1927, contract bridge was one of the most popular versions of the game, railroad executive and champion bridge player Harold Stirling Vanderbilt having published his rules for contract bridge two years previously in 1925.
It's an unspoken joke in this chapter that Liddy O'Sheared is the black sheep of the O'Sheared family, seeing as how she's apparently both a petty thief who stole from a previous employer and now works as a maid for a fox, much to the rams' collective horror. O'Sheared is a pun on the real Irish surname O'Shea and the word sheared, and one of the rams is named Shaun after the sheep spun off of the Wallace and Gromit series of stop-motion animated films.
"Dagnabit" is an old-fashioned stand in for the stronger (and profane) curse "God damn it." Zootopia, of course, has an obvious reason to not include swearing; whatever else it is, it's a children's movie made by an American company. However, I think that it also did a good job of establishing Judy's character such that her saying "cheese and crackers" in the movie seems perfectly in character for her. I'll admit, I have a hard time imagining Judy actually swearing; I imagine that one or both of her parents took a dim view of profane language and it's one of those habits she's simply never broken.
Earrings weren't quite as popular in Western fashion in the 1920s as they are today. Earrings really started surging in popularity in the US in the 1960s, and until about the 1970s basically the only men who would wear earrings were sailors so Nick instantly assuming that it was a lady's earring would be expected, even leaving aside the not particularly masculine style of Bellwether's earring. Still, earrings for women were common enough in the 1920s, and Bellwether's earring would have been reasonably stylish, if a tad conservative, for 1927.
As always, thanks for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!