NOTE: changed flight time in previous chapter from 20 hours to 6 hours due to faulty initial research. Apologies.
I'm taking a ride with my best friend
I hope she never lets me down again
Promises me I'm safe as houses, as long as I remember who's wearing the trousers
I hope she never lets me down again...
Airports, it turned out, sucked almost as much as flying itself.
Sly drummed his fingers against the check-in desk as the flight attendant looked over his passport. When she gave him an irritated look for it, he stilled his hand and started tapping his foot instead. His gaze jumped back and forth through the crowds, avoiding eye contact as much as possible while scanning everyone around him for the slightest hint of danger. Inspector Fox had left to get them both some confections, having already checked in, and he found himself sorely missing her presence if only because she was the only face he could trust in this entire bustling building.
He hadn't been in a public airport since he was fourteen, but they had always been practically empty – not filled wall-to-wall like this. Someone hollered angrily nearby about bad customer service, and the raccoon tried and failed to keep his leg from bouncing as he winced. Thieves weren't built for crowds. They stuck to the shadows or at least traveled in disguise if they really had to, but here he was out in the open without anything to cover his natural mask.
A raccoon's mask was unique and unidentical to anyone else's, like fingerprints, and it made him twitchy that airport rules dictated he couldn't even wear his hood to shadow his face. The Five had spies everywhere; or, more accurately among them, he had spies everywhere. He would recognize Sly's face in a heartbeat, never mind the fact that the raccoon was supposedly still in their group's custody. If he saw him out and about like this, then it was all over.
The attendant gave his passport back and directed him to a seat to wait for the boarding call. He sat down, struggling to keep his legs from bouncing anxiously, and continued to glance all around the room. Restlessness had always been his nervous tell, and he hated that he still couldn't help it.
Another flight-goer met his eyes on accident, then lingered there. The raccoon averted his gaze immediately, feeling cold dread creeping up his spine. Shit, did they know? Would they tell? His hands gripped his knees, looking for the nearest restroom and calculating whether it'd be safer to hide there or just run –
"I'm back!"
Sly did not jump. He absolutely did not do that. "Oh, h-hey."
"Hey, yourself." The inspector looked him over and frowned as she handed him a miniature bag of chips and a water bottle. "Are you okay?"
"Peachy." His eyes darted to the person who'd been staring at him; they had lost interest and had started reading a book. He forced himself to look as relaxed as possible.
She pushed something else into his hands. He blinked and looked down at a box of Melatonin.
"There's a pharmacy here, but they don't offer anything for anxiety without a prescription," she explained when he stared at her. "So, I figured a sleep aid might be the next best thing."
"Huh. Thanks." It wasn't going to help much at all, he knew; the Five had to practically sedate him to get him on a plane. But he popped three tablets into his mouth anyway, at least to try and take the edge off.
The cop watched him do so with a furrowed brow. "Is there a reason you hate flying so much? Did you have a bad experience on a plane?"
"I don't want to talk about it." The intercom announced that their flight was ready; the people around them began getting up. "Can we please just get out of here and board before I lose my nerve?"
"Okay."
His legs felt like jello all the way across the boarding bridge and onto the plane itself. He staunchly refused to look out any of the windows and sat stiffly in a middle seat with Inspector Fox in the window side on his right. The sleep meds were making him dizzy but doing nothing to combat the sick sense of dread in the pit of his stomach.
As the last of the passengers found their seats, he felt the plane start up all around them. It rumbled like a jolt of lightning up his legs and into his chest. He sat, petrified, staring at the back of the seat in front of him and trying not to think about the fact that any minute now they'd be taking off into the air.
Into the air, thousands of feet above the ground, with nothing but the hum of machinery and the bitter wind and then he'd be falling, falling, falling –
"Okay, you need to relax. Seriously. Otherwise, we'll be paying for damages."
"What?" The voice snapped him out of his doom spiraling for just a moment, if only to register what it was referring to.
The fox at his side stared at him, then turned a pointed look down at their shared armrest, which Sly was currently gripping so hard that his claws, under his gloves, were digging into the upholstery. He pulled his stiff fingers off with more than a little embarrassment.
"Sorry," he grumbled, trying not to let that embarrassment turn outward into snappishness. The last thing he needed on this godforsaken six-hour trip was to anger his traveling companion.
"You really weren't kidding about that aerophobia, huh?"
"Why would I be?"
"I don't know. You've been making me think you weren't afraid of anything all this time, willing to go after some of the most notorious criminals still alive. I was starting to wonder if fear was a foreign concept to you."
Well, wasn't that a funny notion that he didn't have any fear. The raccoon breathed in and out through his nose, ready to make a retort, but then went rigid as the plane began moving towards the runway. His hands went right back to their armchair chokehold.
"Hey, take it easy, it's fine." Inspector Fox tried to calm him. "Is it harder being in the aisle seat? We can switch if you want the window –"
"I can promise you right now that would be the absolute worst decision to make," he said in a single stressed breath. "If I see the ground disappearing from under us, I'm going to call this whole damn thing off."
She fell silent, and he could see her contemplative expression when he risked glancing at her. Suddenly he feared she might go through with it so he would call things off – what a perfect way to lose the civilian who had coerced her into letting him follow her on her worldwide chase.
But she surprised him again. She was getting into a habit of doing that, it seemed.
"How would you like to hear about my very first case?"
The non-sequitur was enough to make him fully turn his head and stare at her. The inspector smiled, then coughed into her fist.
"It's not as exciting as everything we did in Mesa. And I was a lot younger back then. Younger and more, um…inexperienced."
Sly let out a tiny breath of a laugh despite himself and the terrible place he was in. "What, you're telling me that you weren't always Little Miss Perfect Cop?"
"Oh, far from it, trust me." Now that she had his full attention, the fox relaxed in her seat and began to talk more animatedly. "I was eighteen years old and fresh out of the police academy. The Chief Inspector, Barkley, had approached me himself about a case, because he'd been impressed with my work and wanted me to eventually become his successor. I was stunned, excited, and completely terrified."
"It sounds like the stuff of nightmares."
"It was! My worst nightmare and greatest dream all wrapped up in one single case where I was going to prove I had what it takes to jump straight into Interpol's line-up."
"Well, obviously you managed to do that, or you wouldn't be here right now," he said, following her cue to lean back in his own seat. Just a little bit.
"True, but it was still by the skin of my teeth, Ringtail. You see, it all started at the Parisian Opera House. We'd been asked to secure a famous jewel, the Diva Diamond, until its owner was ready to perform…"
It was snowing outside.
Sly pressed his cheek against the cold car window, watching snowflakes drift down like a billion tiny, hopeful dancers. They didn't stick to the ground but instead melted the instant they touched it. They were doomed to fail, and yet they were still falling, trying so hard to make some kind of impact, some kind of mark, before they disappeared off the face of the earth.
"Cooper."
Mz. Ruby's voice jerked him out of his zoning. He lifted his head and sat up straight.
"Yeah."
She stared at him from the front passenger seat with narrowed eyes. On the driver's side, the Panda King was watching their target unlock the front door of their home before disappearing inside. He didn't acknowledge Sly's presence, and Sly didn't acknowledge his.
"Stay focused," the alligator growled. "If this leads back to us cause you messed up, we're leavin' you in that house."
"I know. I won't screw up."
"The lights are off inside," the Panda King said to his partner.
"Alright." She turned back to the raccoon. "Two minutes, Sly. A second more and you ain't coming back out."
He was already out of the car. The chilly winter evening immediately made him shiver through his thin sweater, but it didn't slow him down at all as he took off across the street from where they were parked and into the front yard of their target. On the second floor was a window cracked for air – why anyone would want that this time of year, he didn't know – so Sly took a running leap to grab onto the edge of the overhang and haul himself up onto the first-floor roof.
The raccoon opened the window just enough to shimmy through into what looked like a private study. He padded out to the hallway nearly silently, and his eyes landed on a smoke detector blinking harmlessly halfway up the wall.
Sly climbed a low-end bookcase and breathed a soundless sigh of relief when he was barely able to reach the thing by his tiptoes. One hand removed the covering, then the batteries, while the other pulled out an identical pair from his pocket, which was then replaced into the smoke detector.
Identical except for the fact that these batteries were dead.
Two upstairs, and one downstairs. That was what Mz. Ruby had told him. Sly hurried through the rest of the house like a gray-and-blue ghost. On his way to the one in the kitchen, he made a pit stop at the fireplace to drop two cigarettes and a handful of crumpled paper inside. More paper was scattered to cross the threshold between brick and carpet.
The countdown in his head was at a minute-fifty when he finally crawled back out onto the roof, closed the window, and dropped down onto the cold wet grass.
He wasn't lucky enough to melt away like the snowflakes.
Mz. Ruby pushed open the door for him from the inside when he reached the car. The moment the raccoon slid into the backseat again, the Panda King aimed a tiny rocket out his open window. It hissed as it went off, flying up into the air in a beautiful display of golden sparks. Then it died, right above the house's chimney, and all three criminals watched as those sparks trickled down and disappeared within the smoke stack.
As a final touch, the alligator twisted her hands, conjuring up a shimmering purple barrier around the house. It was almost impossible to see to the untrained eye.
"That will stay up about twenty minutes," she said to King. "Plenty of time to get the job done. You sure those sparks got all the way down?"
"My craft is second to none," the panda rumbled as he started the car and they began to drive off. "If there is any fault tonight, it will not be with me."
Mz. Ruby hummed, already looking into the near future. "Nah. No failure. That house is going to burn, and that nosy Interpol officer ain't never gonna do any detective work again."
"I don't know why you had to make it look like an accident," Sly murmured to himself, watching roads and buildings go by behind a blur of white specks. "Didn't know 'subtlety' was our M.O."
"And I don't know why you are speakin' when I never asked for it." The alligator turned around in her seat to jab a threatening claw at the teenager. He closed his mouth immediately, and she shook her head in annoyance. "Disrespectful little thing. I don't know how you put up with him for so long, King."
The Panda King gripped the steering wheel tight, eyes forward, and didn't say a word.
"Anyway," she continued with a warning glance in Sly's direction, "we still have an appointment to make tonight, so you better be on your best behavior or else you'll be scrubbin' chicken coops for a month. Got that?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Stay in the car," was the only thing Mz. Ruby hissed at him before she and the Panda King got out. Sly watched them walk out into the dark snowy night, but his nocturnal eyes easily kept track of them.
When they stopped several meters from the car, another figure stepped out of the distant shadows, flanked by two hulking forms.
Sly cracked his window and listened.
"Is it done?" Asked the stranger in English, with a German accent.
"Yeah, it's done," Mz. Ruby replied, crossing her arms. She stood with her back to the car, but Sly could see every tense muscle in her body. "That detective won't be sniffing around your dirty laundry ever again, so you better keep up your end of the deal."
"Of course, of course. I never back out of a contract. Consider all traces of him gone from our database."
The raccoon sunk down in his seat to stare up at the inner roof of the car, not caring about the conversation anymore. They'd taken the keys when they'd left and the chill of the night was starting to creep back inside. He watched the way his breath puffed out in a mist, and how it disappeared almost immediately afterwards. Here one moment, gone the next, just like the snowflakes.
A sudden loud tap on the window jolted him to awareness. He looked up to see the Panda King standing just outside.
"She wants to meet you," he said without any emotion in his voice as he opened the door.
Confused and nervous, Sly slid out of his seat and into the cold. He shrank away from the panda when his giant hand moved as if to touch him. King paused, let his arm drop, and the two walked to the strange little gathering without another word or gesture towards the other.
The snow beneath Sly's shoes crunched loud despite his best attempts, and he winced when it brought the stranger's red-eyed gaze down on him. It took all his willpower not to curl in on himself as the five huge adults surrounded his tiny, lanky form. Instead, he held his head high and pretended the trembling was because of the cold.
"This is him?" The stranger asked. There was amusement in her voice as she looked him up and down like he was a piece of art to be appraised. One clawed hand reached up to flick snowflakes out of her hair, and the raccoon realized with a start that she was a spider.
"I know he doesn't look like much," Mz. Ruby said, reaching out to loop two clawed fingers at the nape of his neck, "but he helped us out on the job tonight. Did his part flawlessly."
Sly's eyebrows drew together in confusion. The alligator almost sounded proud of him. She was never proud of him. None of them were. Well…
He glanced at the Panda King, who didn't glance back.
Not anymore.
"How quaint," the spider practically purred. "How old is he?"
"Fifteen, now," the mystic continued. She barred her teeth in what could be mistaken for a smile. "And already moves like a little wraith, don't he? Could barely hear him in the snow."
Sly would've argued otherwise. Sly wisely kept his mouth shut.
The stranger's eyes narrowed, and she began to step forward with her followers – vulture bodyguards, it seemed – right behind her. Mz. Ruby's grip on his neck tightened just a fraction, but she didn't pull him backwards like he knew she wanted to. They both stood where they were until the stranger stopped barely a meter from him.
"Hello, Sly Cooper," she said quietly, as if sharing a secret only with him. "I am the Contessa."
Sly held very, very still. Something about this woman's gaze made him feel like he was not allowed to do otherwise. He stared up at the Contessa, who stared back with such intensity he wondered if she could see straight to his soul. Her eyes flickered up to Mz. Ruby, and whatever passed between them made her give a thin, unpleasant smile.
"Have you ever asked him what he knows of his legacy?" She asked the alligator even as she looked back down at him. "Does he know about the things his father stole? Or where they might be now?"
"Ain't ever asked," the mystic replied, voice curt. "Do you have a point you're tryin' to get to?"
"I could find out."
A chill went up Sly's spine.
"It wouldn't be so hard," the Contessa continued, already lifting one hand towards the raccoon's frozen form. "With a mind as young and tumultuous as his, it would be like cracking an egg. If he knows where Conner Cooper hid his fortunes, I can make him tell us right now, and we could split it between the three of us."
Without waiting for permission, she lunged for him.
Sly didn't even get the chance to blink before everything that happened next. One moment he was trapped in place, helpless to do anything but watch as the Contessa reached for him, intending to break his mind open. The very next, he was yanked back with such force it had him gagging as Mz. Ruby pulled him clear of the attack at the exact same time the Panda King caught the Contessa's wrist, stopping her in her tracks.
There was the sound of crossbows being drawn as the Contessa's bodyguards aimed at the two Fiendish Five members for daring to lay a hand on their boss. Everything came to a standstill; the vultures ready to shoot, King's fingers still wrapped tightly around the Contessa's wrist, the spider herself frozen and contemplative, and Mz. Ruby holding a gasping raccoon almost possessively against her stomach.
"You will not touch him." The Panda King's voice was a growl. His hand sparked in warning of an incoming inferno. "We have fulfilled your requirements for this deal, and now you must fulfill yours. Cooper's only involvement is in the records we have asked you to erase."
Tense silence filled the air as the Contessa looked at him, then at Mz. Ruby, then at Sly. Her red eyes narrowed for a few harrowing seconds before she bowed her head in assent, a sign which prompted her bodyguards to lower their weapons. King let her go and she skittered away from the three with as much dignity as she could manage.
"They'll be gone by this time tomorrow," the spider stiffly promised. "So long as I do not hear any news of foul play in that officer's death."
"You won't hear a single word," Mz. Ruby hissed, daring her to argue otherwise.
The Contessa didn't take the bait. She simply gave a curt nod, left one last lingering look at Sly, then turned and disappeared into the night with her entourage. Neither member of the Five relaxed.
"We're leaving now," the mystic said, pulling the raccoon along and practically shoving him into the backseat. "King! We're leaving."
The car was silent for a long time as they began making the long drive back. Sly's heart was still pounding out of his chest, and he accidentally made eye contact with Mz. Ruby through the rearview mirror. Instead of ignoring or snapping at him, she puffed air through her snout and shook her head.
"That snake-in-spider's-clothing works for Interpol," she explained. Contempt dripped off every word. "Fancies herself an 'expert' in hypnotism and dark arts."
"She is not someone to be taken lightly," King said to her, not to him. "We should not underestimate someone like that."
"Don't patronize me! She don't even know the difference between a ghost and a ghoul." The alligator's lip curled as she rubbed the space between her eyes like she had a headache. Then she pointed at Sly. "You'd do best to remember this night, child. Police are as corrupt as the rest of us, and Interpol is the worst of them all. Count your blessings that you got picked up by us and not by the likes of her."
With that warning solidly in place, Mz. Ruby cranked up the heat in the car and began grumbling to herself. The Panda King looked back, once, with an unreadable expression, but Sly paid him no mind. He drew his legs up to his chest, laid his head against the cool window, and stared at falling snowflakes.
Solid land had never felt so good in all of Sly's life. He wobbled like a newborn kit as he hurried off the plane and into Haiti's Aeroport International Toussaint Louverture. It didn't matter that this airport was even busier than the one in the States to the point he was practically brushing elbows with three other people at all times; what mattered was that he was finally out of the damn sky and back on safe ground.
Inspector Fox was just as eager to leave as he was, and after grabbing their luggage and flagging down a taxi, they were well on their way to the hotel she'd booked. Sly watched the bustling streets and busy people with rapt attention while the fox furiously scribbled in her private cop notebook.
"How are you feeling?" She asked after a few minutes, chewing on her pencil as she worked out a thought in her head.
"Loads better," he said and meant it. "Who would've thought my own personal story-time about Interpol's Funniest Cop Bloopers could do the trick?"
The dig made her look up from her work and narrow her eyes at him, but there wasn't any real heat to his words and she seemed to realize that, because all she did was nudge him roughly with her shoulder.
"Ha, ha, very funny. Maybe next time we can distract ourselves with some of your most embarrassing close calls, hm?"
"My life isn't nearly as exciting as yours. I'd run out of things to tell within ten minutes."
"I highly doubt that, Ringtail. But even if that was the case, I'd listen anyway." There was a half-smile on her face as she went back to her notes, and he was surprised to find he was happy to have caused it.
The hotel that Inspector Fox had chosen was in much better shape than the dingy motel on the outskirts of Mesa, but thankfully not anywhere near gaudy. Sly eyed the door leading to the stairwell as his partner got their keys, then followed her into the elevator and up to the fourth floor.
"I get my own room this time?" He joked as she handed him a key card. "I feel spoiled."
"I think it will be easier for both of us to have our own space this time," she said with the slightest tinge of pink under her fur. "That way I don't have to worry about you seeing anything confidential, and you don't have to worry about accidentally seeing, uh…"
"Yep." The raccoon swiped the card against the door it belonged to and began dragging his suitcase inside so she couldn't see his own growing blush. "Love the arrangement. Great foresight, Inspector."
"Sly, wait, don't disappear on me just yet!"
She put her foot in the door before it swung shut behind him. He turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow.
"What?"
"We have about five days until –" the cop cut herself off, glanced up and down the hall, then leaned towards him with more of a whisper, "until the date and time where the exchange is supposed to take place. I've already been in contact with the local Interpol branch and we're going to set up a plan for infiltration. You won't be allowed to join those meetings…unless I introduce you as my civilian consultant."
His mouth thinned. "I don't want my face put out there, Inspector."
"I know. I just wanted to give you the option anyway." She hesitated. "This will probably end up being another covert operation, but there's a less-than-zero chance I'll go in with a team. If that's the case…"
Then he wouldn't have much of a choice unless he wanted to sit this one out. Sly grimaced as he considered the situation.
"We'll figure it out when it becomes a problem, if it even does," he finally said.
"I figured you'd say something like that." She shook her head with a conceding shrug. "Alright, well, I promised I'd meet up with them as soon as I got settled in here. Will you be alright for a while?"
"I'm sure I'll find some way to occupy my time."
"Okay. Great."
The fox lingered another moment, as if wanting to say something else – or perhaps not wanting to leave just yet – but then she gave him a firm nod and turned on her heel. He could hear her boots thumping harshly on the carpet all the way back to the elevator. Noisiest person I've ever met in my life.
The thought was not entirely irritated.
Once she was gone, Sly quietly closed the door, did a quick sweep of the room for surveillance, just in case, and then closed the window blinds. He sat down with his backpack in his lap and pulled out both his cane and the loose pages of the Thievius Raccoonus. He hadn't dared bring them out at any point after rejoining the inspector, and holding them now was like quelling a deep ache he hadn't even realized he'd had until it was gone.
Sly thumbed the pages almost reverently, just appreciating the fact that he had them at all. Then he stood up, determination in every line of his body.
Time for a bit of practice.
Five days passed in the blink of an eye. Inspector Fox was gone more often than not, and more often than not she came back stressed as hell. Sly didn't know what kind of simple planning caused a reaction like that and he was almost afraid to ask. It wasn't like she could tell him, anyway.
He, meanwhile, had taken full advantage of his alone time to practice the precious moves he'd gleaned from those pages. Tennessee Kid Cooper's rail walk and rail slide were incredible but difficult, as he'd had to learn how to completely redistribute his weight when walking along thin wires and fragile branches. Most of his practice during the day was up and down the hotel's stairwell railings, where he could be undisturbed for hours. At night, with the dark as just a bit more cover to hide him despite the never-sleeping city, he risked scaling rooftops to run across telephone wires, clotheslines, and anything else he could think to try.
The day before the infiltration was supposed to happen, the raccoon was woken up early in the morning by Inspector Fox stomping down the hall, cussing out a storm in Spanish. He waited and listened as she stopped in front of her door, went quiet, then shuffled over to his room. Her shadow darkened the crack under the door and he could practically hear the internal battle she was probably having with herself over whether she should knock and risk waking him.
With a wry pull of his mouth, Sly got up and padded silently over to open it before she could run back to her room.
"Can I help you?" He asked, leaning against the doorframe with his hands folded over his chest.
The cop looked like a deer caught in headlights. "Oh – uh – I'm sorry, I didn't – mean to wake you, um –"
"Didn't wake me," he lied, studying the bags under her eyes. "Did you need something?"
For a moment, it looked like she was going to retreat anyway, but then she slumped.
"I came to ask if you were superstitious," she mumbled, in a tone he couldn't tell was embarrassed or frustrated.
Sly blinked. He had been expecting a lot of things out of her mouth, but that was not one of them. "Uh…why?"
Inspector Fox seemed to suddenly get back some of her spark, because she grabbed his wrist and tugged him in the direction of her room. Knowing she wouldn't spill the beans until they were out of a "public" area and not about to offer his own room when he knew his cane wasn't currently tucked out of sight, the raccoon followed her. The moment the door was shut behind them she threw her hands up in the air.
"What is wrong with the officers here?!" She whisper-shouted, looking like she wanted to punch something. Sly took a step back just in case. "They were so excited to help me apprehend Mz. Ruby until I told them about the location of the planned exchange, and then suddenly they were all acting like children hiding from the monster under their beds! They're supposed to be Interpol, for god's sake!"
He pretended to be surprised. "What, they're that scared of her?"
"They're scared of the place she's in," the fox stressed. "Apparently there's a lot of bad blood in that whole area, and it's pretty much uncharted because of it. Which, fine, that might be a little cause for concern, but every single one of them has refused to come with me because of it! No matter what I say, no matter the reassurances, it's like they think stepping one foot out there will pull their souls straight from their bodies and down into hell!"
It had been a long time since Sly had been in Mz. Ruby's territory. He wondered how many of those fears were legitimate, and how many were the mystic's insiders spreading rumors everywhere they could. Probably a mix of both.
"Maybe there's corruption inside the force," he offered, because it was the closest thing to the truth he could think of.
The inspector's eyes flashed in an almost manic kind of anger. She spun around to face him; her braided hair spun in a wide arc behind her like a second tail.
"That's what I think," she hissed conspiratorially. "I think that alligator has a lot of these officers in her pocket, and they've been using all the scary stories to keep people from finding her, even accidentally. The lead detective has at least offered air support by helicopter, but only after I can guarantee we can apprehend Mz. Ruby quickly and without 'disturbing the local forces' there."
"Huh." Sly would have laughed at the incredible sense of déjà vu if it didn't risk the cop biting his head off for it. "Sounds really familiar, doesn't it?"
It took her a second to connect the dots. When she did, the fox heaved a giant sigh and rubbed her face.
"I'm starting to wonder if this is why it took so long to find any of the Fiendish Five," she muttered. "Am I the only competent officer on this damn force?"
"I'd certainly say so."
"That was a rhetorical question, Ringtail."
"I know."
Inspector Fox sighed again, then ran a hand through her hair. Standing here in the middle of a dark room, looking like she had no options except borderline suicide, all alone with no one to back her up again…
Sly took a step forward.
"Well, I may not be an officer," he said, when her eyes lifted to his. "But I'm not exactly incompetent, either. Hopefully that counts for something."
Slowly, the fox's hands fell from their stressed fidgeting. She looked at him a long moment, took a deep breath, and somehow found it in herself to smile.
"You're right," she replied. "We did this once already with even fewer resources. We can do it again."
"Exactly."
And this time, with a little more confidence and two new moves under his belt, Sly smiled back.
A/N: TIL that Interpol has indeed employed officers to Haiti, apparently because its local police force is very, very small for the size of its population. The more you know!
Y'all don't know how pleased as punch I was to fit a proper Contessa cameo in this fic. I wasn't sure I'd find a place for one in the first draft but I'm very happy I could squeeze it in here. Guess we know why Sly has such a chip on his shoulder about cops, huh...
I cut off Carmelita's Diva Diamond story early, but I'd like to think that she actually managed to apprehend the real criminal without Sly there to complicate things for her. It was still by the skin of her teeth and very disorganized, though, which is why he's teasing her about it.
Now for the most important question: Mz. Ruby or the Contessa?