A/N: A shout out to my anonymous reviewer! Glad you liked it. A visit to the brothel is next. ;) Thanks!
Chapter 21
"So how many people does that make?" Fiyero asked Lieutenant Zetti. They were outside the brothel. The raid had been quite the success.
"Well, we've ruined twenty-five people's nights, including Mr. Farhidi's. He's coming back to the Palace with us," the Lieutenant smiled as he brought the mill owner forward.
"Excellent. Now Mr. Farhidi, you are going to tell us what we need to know. Otherwise, your night, and possibly the rest of your life, are going to be ruined," Fiyero told him. The mill owner looked like he was going to pass out.
"Get him back to the Palace. Have Doctor Talib check him over. I don't want any medical emergencies," the Prince told Zetti.
"Aye, aye," the Lieutenant smirked, knowing that look was of a dead man walking. He loaded the mill owner into a carriage and took off.
"Anything else get interesting boys?" Fiyero asked Sergeant Schultz.
"We've got the owner of the brothel and she's not exactly wanting to cooperate. We did scare away her customers," Schultz admitted.
"Take me to her. We need to know if Mr. Farhidi was a regular," Fiyero told him. The Sergeant nodded and quickly led the Prince back inside the building. There, inside a back office, they found Corporal Kaplan, keeping an eye on the proprietor of the seedy establishment. The woman's street name was Madame Butterfly. No one knew her real name.
"Do I need to be checking your girls? Am I going to find that some of them are underage?" Fiyero started off the conversation to let her know that he meant business and that she was in trouble.
"My girls are of legal age. None of them are here against their will," the woman said.
"Corporal Kaplan, would you grab Corporal Roth and a few of the others? I want the women spoken to and I want her records searched," Fiyero was not swayed by her statement.
"Yes, your Highness," Kaplan nodded, leaving the two men alone with Madame Butterfly.
"Now that we have that out of the way. What do you know about Mr. Farhidi?" He pressed.
"He owns the mill. He's a loyal customer. Likes to spend his time with Candy," she told them.
"You're going to point her out and I'll have Kaplan speak to her. Meantime, you're going to tell us what else you know, or I'll shut you down," Fiyero threatened.
"You can't do that! I run a legitimate business!" Madame Butterfly objected.
"That has yet to be proven. I definitely can shut you down if I find you've got a criminal enterprise going on here. Drugs? Underage girls? Blackmail?" He wasn't going to back down and he could see that the last question he asked got to her.
"I don't do the blackmailing," she told him. Fiyero looked at Schultz, who was mentally taking notes about this interrogation.
"See? Now was that so hard?" The Prince wondered.
"I was approached by someone to keep an eye on Farhidi. He promised me that he'd fix the roof," she pointed toward the ceiling and continued, "It leaks something terrible and I can't have my girls getting sick and then passing it onto our clients."
"You didn't have the money for that? We pulled twenty-five men out of here tonight. You have to be taking a cut of the money they make," Fiyero raised an eyebrow.
"I'd gotten quotes to fix the roof. They all were at least two thousand dollars more than I could afford. It's not like those companies can use us as a reference. Most of the workers probably wouldn't be able to look their wives in the eyes after being here," Madame Butterfly gave him a look.
"Who is this charitable roofer? What does he want with Farhidi?" The Prince pressed.
"He only told me to call him Sam. I don't know what he wanted with Farhidi. All I know is that he wanted to know which girl he visited the most and how many times a week. Farhidi has a wife and kids back in Gillikin. He sends them money from the mill. That's all I know," she told them. Fiyero looked at Schultz. Farhidi had a wife and kids and didn't bring them with him? As far as they knew, he'd owned the mill for at least the last ten years. What exactly was the hold up? The man had a lot of questions to answer.
To Be Continued…