Judy looked out the window as Russano pulled out of the midafternoon traffic of Tsavo Boulevard and down a winding warren of side streets. They had left behind Savannah Central main square with its plaza fountain and trendy shops nearly an hour ago. Shining office buildings and apartment complexes gave way to shorter old drab gray buildings. Boarded up shop windows and faded masonry pointed to an area that much of Zootopia had forgotten. The winding narrow streets and quick sudden corners quickly had Judy lost in the unfamiliar neighborhood.
"Looks like some old buildings in this neighborhood," Judy said, trying to spur at least some conversation. The badger had been mostly silent on the ride out and had given no hint of their assignment or destination.
"This is what the whole district was once," Russano replied, taking another quick turn down a side street, or was it an alley? "At least the nicer parts."
"So are you going to tell me what we're assigned to or am I just going to have to figure it out once we get there?" Judy asked, a small bit of exasperation creeping into her voice.
"Assigned? I've not been assigned to anything for a decade or more." He let out a small grunt at the look of confusion on his partner's face. "Bogo stays out of my way and I stay out of his, perfect relationship."
With that he pulled into a back alley and parked the car in front of a squat two-story building. Looking around, Judy saw that most of the surrounding shop windows were dark. A single rusty sign hung above the door, 'Ackson's' it read.
"What we do here will be the most important thing you do all day," Russano stated, his low voice echoing slightly in the alleyway. He stared at the door. "Watch yourself, and don't make any sudden movements and you should… probably be alright." He glanced to either side of the alleyway before walking towards the door.
"Wait, what are we facing!" Judy said, unslinging an expandable baton from her holster and regretting not having checked out an electrified version. Russano paused for a moment with his hand on the door before pushing it open and disappearing inside. As the door swung shut Judy heard an angry shout from inside. Cursing to herself Judy ran towards the door, extending the baton. With a swift running kick she burst through the door, her eyes struggling to adjust to the dimmer light. "Z.P.D.!" she shouted with all the authority she could muster.
The small bell attached to the door was still dinging as her eyes adjusted. The
wildebeest standing behind the diner counter looked at her with amused interest but continued wiping the counter. A weasel and fox in the far corner paused their card game and stared at the intrusion, while a startled doe gripped her fawn to her and inched towards the exit. The entire place was silent and all eyes were on the bunny.
"Well, the food might not be perfect, but I would hardly consider it an arrestable offence, Hopps," Russano said, letting out his first genuine chuckle. Judy felt the tips of her ears turning red with embarrassment and heard a smattering of snickers as the surprised patrons settled back down.
"Sorry, my mistake," she meekly called out towards the deer, who now shot her an angry look as she headed out the door. "You did that on purpose!" Rounding on Russano, her embarrassment turning to anger. "Most important part of the day!?"
"Lunch is very important, get the apple salad, and unless you're planning on smashing the lettuce how about you put the stick away." He gestured towards the baton still gripped in her paws.
"Great! Now you've gone and scared Mrs. Walters. First you arrest my best customer and now you're scaring away the few respectable ones left." The angry voice came from out of the back kitchen. Judy watched as an older beaver slowly came out from the back and made her way up a stepstool to the counter. Silver whiskers blended with gray fur covered most of her face. A pair of thick gold-rimmed glasses framed her eyes and made them appear twice as large.
"You've got a bunny following you," she observed, peering at Judy.
"Even after all these years, Martha, your powers of observation never cease to amaze." Russano found a bar stool at the counter as the beaver produced and poured a large mug of coffee, then used a small pair of tongs and dropped two sugar cubes into it before pushing it towards the badger.
"Besides, Mrs. Walters comes here for a sense of danger, certainly not the food. It's the closest her lot will come to the haunch. She'll tell all her friends at tea how she witnessed a big police raid," Russano said, taking a gulp of the coffee. "And the bunny here is Officer Hopps, trying not to get her killed."
Martha snorted and turned her attention on Judy. "Afraid you got the short straw with this one," she said, gesturing towards Russano. Looking more closely at Judy, she added, "You're the one from the news, the savage predators and all that."
"Yes, ma'am and sorry about earlier, my 'partner' here didn't exactly give me good information," Judy said as she sprang up into the seat next to Russano. She reached down and found the adjustment bar to raise her stool up to more even with her larger partner, it was one of the old style stools and required her to pump the handle a good half dozen times, Still it was better than having to request a booster seat.
"Oh, don't worry, you're not the first to fall for one of his so-called jokes. Well, good job, with Bellwether, I suppose, though you've certainly kicked a bit of a hornet nest round here."
"But why? I figured that once mammals knew that it had nothing to do with predator biology, there wouldn't be anything to be afraid of. I mean it was a sheep behind it all, not a predator."
"Dear, nothing works that simply around this city. Too much history. Some prey view that sheep as a hero. Now what can I get you?"
After a quick review of the menu she decided that Russano's suggested apple and walnut salad did look appetizing. While Martha returned to the kitchen, Judy looked around the small diner. The place was clean but was clearly old. The counter was polished wood as were most of the tables and chairs. Even the cash register looked to be from half a century ago, with manual levers and buttons. Narrow, dusty windows let in limited light, and a few hanging bulbs explained the diners overall dim lighting. Framed photos lined the wall behind the bar. Most looked to be photos from inside the diner, but family photos and other old and yellowing photos were scattered around. Judy recognized a younger Martha standing in front of the restaurant "ackson's" sign looking polished.
A few minutes later Martha came back with two plates of food, the salad for Judy and a thick crusted meat pie that she placed in front of Russano. "Eat up, I think your friend will be here soon enough." She headed over and shooed away the wildebeest working the counter.
"So other than the lunch, there is a reason we're here," she asked the hulking badger beside her. "Also... where exactly is here, anyways?" She gestured around the old diner. She thought that her months in the city had given her a decent if brief overview of the districts, Yet this old neighborhood with its twisting streets and dilapidated old buildings hadn't been on any of her regular patrol routes.
"This diner's been here since I was a cub. Her father built it." He tapped the wood counter. "Literally with his own two paws and teeth. Sure, it looked a bit newer back then," he shrugged as he looked around. "But I suppose we all did. Food's still pretty damn good. Don't tell her I said that."
On that point, Judy did have to agree. The green lettuce was mixed with spinach and topped with thick sliced red and green apples and toasted walnuts. A swirl of what she guessed was pomegranate dressing added an additional bite of flavor to the balance of tart and sweet. Compared to her normal microwave dinners and the quick in and out places near the station this almost tasted like home.
"As for the rest of your question, we're in the far north west of Savanah Central. The oldest and maybe last unpolished part of the city, or as people oh so affectionately call it, the Haunch."
The Haunch. Yes, that was a name that Judy had heard around the station. 'Shape up, Snorlov, or else you'll be patrolling the Haunch. 'Better fill that quota, Meercatsky, or you'll be filling it in the Haunch.'
It had always seemed like a bit of a police station joke. She had never really stopped to consider that it might be an actual place. "You mean to say that the Haunch is a real place," she said with a growing feeling of worry.
"Unless you mean to tell me I grew up in some sort of made up fantasy land." He let out something between a grunt and laugh.
"Sorry, I didn't mean..." but he waved his arms.
"It wasn't the Haunch back then, or at least no one called it that, most of the city looked about like this. Some of the other districts weren't even built yet when I was young."
How old is this guy? Judy wondered to herself. "So why do they call it the Haunch?"
"Because it's the ass end of Zootopia, it smells funny and if you spend enough time here you will too," he replied with the pattern of someone that had used that line enough that it had lost most of its humor. "The bright shiny metropolis that they love to put on postcards for little farm bunnies like you to wonder at doesn't have room for the folks that don't shine. They put up the towers and the malls and those that don't fit that shining city on the hill roll down here. Bogo won't even send most of his precious officers into the neighborhood without a response team on standby."
"So why are we here if Bogo won't send officers?"
"I said, he won't send his 'precious officers,' that title doesn't apply to me," he said. "Or you, as long as you're partnered with me."
The bell over the back door rang and a nervous-looking gray wolf stuck his head through the door and looked around till he saw Russano. Russano nodded towards the wolf, whose head vanished back out the door.
"Time to meet a friend," he said, as Judy started to get down from her seat. "Wait here, Hopps, this friend is not too fond of talking to cops." He paused at this, and at the look on Judy's face, "Well, most cops. Just wait here." With that he headed out the back door into the alleyway.
Well this is starting to piss me off, she thought to herself. Being dragged halfway across the district and not being told what the hell was going on was bad enough. Now her standoffish partner had left her behind to meet with a shifty mammal in an alley. At least Nick makes me laugh even when I want to kill him. She smiled at the thought of the fox beside her in the diner.
"Don't let him get you down, sure he can be a grump but he means well enough,"
Martha said as she came back over and up the step stool behind the counter. She started to box up Russano's half-eaten bug pie, and Judy now noted that the beaver walked with a slight limp in her right leg.
"Just trying to get a read on my latest and greatest partner," she said as she toyed with the last bits of salad on her plate. "So you've known him how long, Ms… Jackson?" Judy asked. This was going to be a long couple of weeks, or months if she was going to have to drag every bit of information out and it was only lunch!
"Oh, you could say that. Bogo and he used to sit over in that booth there when he was being trained." She waved a paw towards an empty booth by the front window. Its wooden frame was still strong but the upholstery was faded and worn from decades of use. "Dad would even play cards with them sometimes. Gave him a bit of a thrill to clean out the cops."
"Huh, so Bogo trained Russano." Judy pondered this. Even from the brief encounter back at the station it seemed clear that Russano and Bogo had something of a history. Was Bogo upset by his student, or Russano resentful of his teacher? It was something Judy would have to ask Clawhauser later.
Martha let out a snorting laugh. "The opposite. Russano had to practically drill through those horns to get any sense into that buffalo. Sweet enough calf but stubborn as an otter!"
Judy's eyes widened and her ears pointed towards the ceiling as she tried not to choke on a walnut. Finally, she succumbed to a combination of coughing and laughing and covering her mouth as she spit out said walnut. It was hard to decide which part was funnier or more surprising. Chief Bogo a sweet calf! Yep, that image won out and would be the first thing she thought of come next briefing. "Wait, Russano trained Chief Bogo?" she finally asked when she could speak.
"Oh, they were partners for years back then, saw them in here a couple times a week at least." She looked around her restaurant as if she could still see the patrons of decades' past. "Oh, I know it's not much to look at now, but this was once the best spot in the whole neighborhood. Heck, I'm not just bragging to say folks from all over the city used to come by."
"So what happened, can't say I sensed much love lost between them earlier," Judy said, recalling the stare down between the two of them hours before.
"Same thing that happened to this diner and the neighborhood, time and history." She paused for a moment before her face lit up and suddenly vanished as she hopped off the step stool. "Want to see them?" Judy heard her voice and had to peer over the counter as the beaver limped with surprising spryness towards the back hall of the diner. Judy followed until they stood in front of a wall of photographs. The photos stretched down the hall from floor to ceiling.
Most were framed but some appeared to simply be glued or taped to the wall. Martha scanned the photos and muttered to herself as if she was a geologist dating the sediment. "Poor Ms. Mazel here been dead ten years, Baby Jason there has kids of his own, oh there's Penelope's hat, we must be close," she said, moving further down the hall.
"Ahh, there we all are!" she exclaimed. Pointing up the wall, she said "Grab that if you can, this leg's not much for jumping."
With a quick spring, Judy came down with the framed photo, still covered with a thin layer of dust that Martha gingerly rubbed aside. "Proof that we were all younger once."
And it was exactly that. The color was fading and it had an orange reddish tint, but there was Chief (well, future Chief) Bogo sitting in the diner booth next to a younger badger, both in crisp and pressed ZPD uniforms. They both smiled up towards the unseen photographer, cards in hand and chips down on the table. Across the table from the officers were two beavers, one intensely focused on his cards while the other was half turned looking back over her shoulder grinning, thick-brimmed silver glasses framing her slender face.
"Like I said, Dad liked to try and clean them out of whatever he could. Free coffee but the poker will cost them." She smiled remembering them all around the table. "Kept them informed of local affairs and the news that didn't make the news, if you catch my drift. So, they all benefited I guess"
While she understood the concept of a young Bogo and a younger Russano it was still a bit jarring for Judy to stare down at the photo and their smiling happy faces. "Well you look as lovely today as back then but Russano looks, well… cheerful," Judy observed. Trying to square the image of the grinning badger with her new, grim partner.
"If he seems to be the bitter old mammal, he at least comes by it honestly." She sighed and looked around at the photos, many featuring the restaurant or herself over the years "Hard to grow up in these parts and not get the occasional dose of kicks to the teeth. 'Sometimes you're the tree and just have to dam it all' as my father used to say"
Judy took one last look at the photo before returning it back to the wall. She spent a moment looking at the other photos, patrons in booths, a young Martha holding a mop and scowling towards the camera. A group standing in front of the restaurant holding a banner "SPIKE' hand painted in big blue block letters. It took Judy a moment to pick out Martha standing in the front row wearing a blue jacket. It was an odd assortment of mammals: a lion in an overcoat stood on Martha's right and a young deer with a red old fashioned flat cap stood in the center, zebras, tigers, a gazelle, jackals and even a polar bear rounded out the group. As opposed to most of the dusty framed photos, this one seemed to have recently been cleaned.
"Yeah, I was one of those troublemakers back then, even held some meetings upstairs. Penelope suggested the whole tree thing right here, if you can believe it," She said with a hint of pride in her voice.
"Spike?" Judy asked. She had heard of the Moose Lodge and had driven by the Shrewners hospital, but Spike didn't ring a bell.
Martha looked up at her in puzzlement before frowning "They don't teach kids anything important in school now do they. Well, you're not from the city so I guess you've got some excuse, can't say I know much about Bunnyburg carrots or history"
Judy was opening her mouth and was about to correct the beaver; Bunnyburg was twenty miles further east of Bunnyburrow and known more for their radishes and turnips. Also, they couldn't grow a carrot that compared to Hopps Farm's to save their lives…. But she thought better of it.
"If you think tension between predators and prey are bad now… we're living in a golden age compared to when I was younger. Hell, you see interspecies couples living in the open, some got killed for that you know."
They had studied some history of species' rights' struggle and conflict, but in a small town made up primarily of, bunnies, sheep, and pigs, those sorts of things weren't talked about much. She still was ashamed to admit that prior to Nick the only other fox she had much interaction with was her childhood bully, Gideon.
"I guess I didn't realize it was ever that bad. Zootopia's supposed to be a place apart from all that, where anyone can be anything no matter what species, or that's what we're all trying to do here." I sound like an afterschool special.
Martha pulled the old photo off the wall, held it in her paws and sighed "Well if any of that is even half true you can thank Penelope for fighting for it." She taped a claw on the doe wearing a crooked red flat top knit cap. "Brought a bunch of predator and prey mammals together to fight for understanding and better cross-district relationships. Dark days those were."
The back door opened and Russano walked in and searched for a moment before spotting the two of them in the narrow hall. "Hopps, time to go, looks like we've got some actual work to do today."
He scowled when he spotted the photo in her paw. "You teaching old history lessons now? Don't you have enough trying not to burn another bug burger?"
"Someone's got to teach the history, damn it; we lived it," Martha said, brushing off a smudge of dust and placing the photo back on the wall.
Russano looked up at the photo for a few long moment, seemingly lost in thought before he shook his head and turned his eyes back to Judy. "Got a tip for us to follow up, so if you're done hopping down memory lane…" he said walking out the back without finishing.
"This 'drag me around without telling me anything' bit is getting old," Judy muttered toward the closing door.
"He's worked alone most of time – have to remind him what it means to have a partner again," Martha said, shrugging and slowly waddling back towards the counter. "But it doesn't seem like you'll have much problem with that... Oh take this bag out, will you? I threw in some extra apples for you." She held up the plastic bag containing the leftover beetle pie and a container of sliced apples.
As Judy walked back to the counter and grabbed the bag, movement from the front window caught her eyes. Walking to the front and peering out between the blinds she watched as the nervous young wolf climbed into the back of a large black sedan. Tinted windows made it impossible to make out the occupants, but as it drove away Judy saw a flash of white fur in the front seat.