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Marquis de Carabas

I

It was about ten AM in west Los Angeles, and the sun chose not to hide itself behind the clouds that gathered around it. The morning was far too hot, especially in the suit I was wearing. But I was willing to make sacrifices, even waking up early, for the kind of cash the job promised. A lot of money would get any man's attention, and from what the client said over the phone, that's part of the problem.

I parked my car on Wilshire, stepped out, and made some last-minute adjustments in the side-view mirror. A kind of job like this, a millionaire client, you couldn't be too careful. A millionaire knows private dicks would kill for a job like his, maybe even literally, so I didn't want to give the man any reason to turn me out. I pulled my tie a little closer to my throat, pinching the knot with my fingers. My mane was well-kept, although I'll admit a little shaggy, even underneath my black fedora. I figured my fresh shave and ability to string sentences together properly without sounding like a hired goon would make up for that. The white coat on my face, hands and hooves was properly washed, glistening clean, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I decided it was best to not leave a client waiting and moved on. His house was easy enough to find: it was the biggest one. I walked over about a half-mile of fresh green turf and through a forest of potted plants, a neatly-trimmed gravel path crunching underneath my hooves. I came to a set of enormous brown doors, old and authentic, probably hand-crafted. The doorbell was exactly that: a large brass bell hanging from a post. I smirked at the old man's style and grabbed the knotted rope, tugging twice and watching the bell swing as it announced my presence through the heavy oak double doors. After the sound of a heavy bolt unlocking, one of the broad doors swung open, held in the wing of a tall, purple-feathered raven. The curve of his obsidian-black beak was a little stronger than most, giving him an appearance both stern and condescending. There was an exchange of greetings. His eyes narrowed somewhat as he allowed me past him into the mansion, directing me to see Ser Norris Waldron in a room he called the "observatory." He embellished the word with a tone of superiority and pronounced it slowly so a typical meat-head stallion like myself could understand. I grunted and strolled down a hallway of marble, following a bright red rug past oil paintings of violent Bible scenes and busts of magnificent conquerors. The red line ended at a set of cloud-white steps, which I ascended slowly to an open door, a faint yellow glow and a long shadow tracing the frame. Inside sat a very gray and very thin bear. From his throne, he watched all of Los Angeles. The room was circular, nothing but floor to ceiling untinted windows, white carpet, and a high-backed chair with the frail-looking bear sitting in it silently. I approached him, and he didn't seem to notice me at all until I was close enough to touch his shoulder. His gaze raised slowly, from the busy streets below to the towers in the distance, then finally to my eyes. Ser Waldron tried to smile at me, but found the weight of his lips too heavy to move. "Good morning, Mr. Rielly."

"Good morning, Ser Waldron." I said respectfully, removing my hat. He didn't feel the need to continue our stare; the strain of holding his eyes upward to my face was too much for him, so he dropped his lids a little and watched Los Angeles go. There was silence for at least a minute.

"You'll forgive me. I've never had to rely on private help before. I'm not sure how to properly handle issues like this. Instead, I'm going to tell you the nature of the problem I find myself in." Every sentence was slow; he spoke with precision because he could not afford to waste breath on unnecessary words. There was no reason for me to say anything in response, so I didn't. I just made it clear that I was listening, intently.

"Yesterday, I moved my personal effects from my home in Bel Air to this one. I want my things close when I die." I said nothing. "Last night, someone stole my briefcase from me, from one of the vans. It is black leather, with gold clasps. I don't know who took it or why. I would like for you to return my briefcase to me." I turned a little towards him, and he read the movement before I could speak. "I do not want to involve two hundred...officers...in this affair only to have them turn up nothing. I will involve you, not because I trust you, but because you are good at what you do. And good at keeping secrets. Exactly four people know about my briefcase. You, myself, my butler, and whoever stole it. This is how it will stay." His breath came in hard gasps for a few words at the end there, and it exhausted his energy. His next words were soft, barely audible, even in the silent room. "The contents of that briefcase...are very special to me. Very special to me." His neck creaked a little as he again turned towards me, something beautiful in his dying eyes intriguing me. "Please, Mr. Rielly. I just want my things returned to me."

"I'll bring your briefcase back to you, Ser Waldron. I promise." His honesty inspired my confession. I rarely make promises. I put my hat back on and turned, leaving just as I had entered. Before I descended the steps, I glanced back at the dying old bear. His black silhouette floated on the clouds above the skyscrapers. His stillness, and the depth in his eyes, made me feel terribly sorry for him, but I knew he was already as good as dead. Something in this city had drained his life away until he was as hollow as a corpse. My job was to find out what killed him.

II

My first hunch was to check out Gary's place. He ran a strip joint that was just the right kind of seedy; someone there would know about it, if not Gary the Rat himself. Gary actually is a rat, you see, and one day someone had a stroke of genius and came up with the nickname. Most people found it rather fitting, although Gary didn't like it. As I drove over to his place, I remembered what happened the last time someone had called Gary a rat to his face. I was there, and I was a little younger than I am now. Gary sat behind his desk, the same exact desk that every crime lord has, with a smoking cigar and a smoking shotgun, double-barrelled. Some poor bastard's hand was missing, and he was cursing and crying and trying to pinch off the blood spurting from his wrist but couldn't. "How about we call you Stumpy, huh?" Gary sneered at him, letting his rage break through the veneer of his cool mafioso attitude. "How you like that, Stumpy?" It was getting a little cloudier now, and Los Angeles was coming to life underneath the blue-grey sky. I drove by the homeless, the young, the rich, all just shuffling, flashing images out the window of my car. As I kept on down Wilshire and into the heart of Los Angeles, the hue of the buildings began to change; bright, fresh white and tan turned slowly into cement grey and muddy brown as I sunk deeper into the sea of skyscrapers. Even the newest ones looked old, like spears from primitive times preserved in a museum. They separated the streets like a loosely-built fence, and you could just barely see past the cracks between them. I pulled into an empty space about two blocks from Gary's place; I needed the walk, and I knew better than to leave my car outside of a strip club at eleven in the morning. I strolled casually up to the building, which to anyone with eyes and a decent amount of sense was clearly a front for shady business. The cops knew it, the patrons knew it, and some of the wiser patrons knew the cops knew it. The police let Gary run whatever kind of joint he wanted, because every now and then he would slip them some information, usually something one of his girls overheard. It was a stressful business; at any time, the cops could put Gary out of a job, and Gary the Rat could do the same. It reminded me of something I heard on the radio: Mutual Assured Destruction. I kept my hat on as I walked inside; there wasn't even a bouncer out this early. The room was dark, cramped, and overly-air conditioned. Two girls sat at the bar, noticed me, started to get up to do their routine, saw that I wasn't interested, and settled back down in their stools. One was a vixen, scarred, overweight, and smoking. She had applied her makeup sloppily that morning, and as she pulled her cigarette away from her mouth, her lips had left a bright red circle around the filter. The other was a snake, green and brown scales, neatly polished, eyes like emerald. Her tail curved and twisted beneath her stool. I was interested in her, but as I walked towards the back of the room I tried to remain as professional as I could be. Both the fox and the snake made eyes at me as I passed, making it clear that either of them could be bought for a price, but I turned away before I could do the math in my head. I walked straight into Gary's office, and no one stopped me. The boss was there, leaning back in a chair that looked over-stuffed, feet up on his desk, counting money or doing something else cliche.

"Well if it isn't my old friend, Mr. Rielly! Here for an early-morning dip?" The amount of smoke that left his mouth when he talked always surprised me; Gary the Rat smoked even when he wasn't smoking. "What can I do you for?" His voice had a note of bitterness in it, but was mostly curious. He was dressed in pinstripes and white leather shoes, and generally looked like a clown that would kill you for laughing at him. "Looking for a girl? I've got two lookers out there already. Shame I have to pay 'em even when there's no one in the place, but they make their pay, they do."

"I need information about a crime that went down last night." I felt it best to be direct. I didn't want to spend too much time with Gary the Rat. "Well shit, Rielly, can't you even pretend that I run a respectable business 'round here?" he chuckled, probably both amused and slightly disappointed that I treated him based on the way he was rather than the way he presented himself. He put his feet down and stood, leaning over his desk, claws on the greenish felt. "What makes you think I know anything about a crime that happened last night?" "It would have been sometime in the evening. A briefcase went missing from a moving van, plain, black, gold clasps. I'd like to find it." I stood in the center of the room, as far away from touching anything as I could be, my hands in my pockets. Gary frowned for half a second, narrowed his grey eyes at me, then got his claws busy finding, cutting, and lighting a very cheap cigar. It was a full minute or more before he spoke again. "Supposing one of my girls overheard some of my patrons chatting about knocking off a rich man's moving van last night. Supposing she knows their names, and where they were headed after they pulled their job. What would you say?" He sent a puff of smoke in my direction, partially obscuring his over-wide grin. "I would say I'd like to talk to this girl. Privately." That might have come out more sexual than I intended it, but if the rat took it that way, it only impressed him. He chuckled a little and swiped a claw over his dirt-brown snout before inhaling another lungful of thick smoke. "And how much would you pay her for her time?" The words crawled out of his sneering mouth like insects. "Whatever she asks for." I was always kind to women. "She don't determine the prices around here, I do. And I think, 'cuz she's such a swell gal and all, that she's worth quite a bit. Two hundred, for a friend." I couldn't recall the last time I had two hundred dollars in my pocket, but I decided not to tell him this. "Whatever she asks for," I repeated, my chin turning a bit in a gesture that signalled consent. His smile somehow grew wider, showing me his sharp, stained yellow teeth before chuckling villainously and walking over to his door. He pulled it open and gave a shout. "Evelyn, you're off for the day. You're gonna have a little talk with Rielly here." I felt his long fingernails pat me on the back as I walked out, and that was an experience I was willing to forget. I tilted the brim of my hat up a little bit, my eyebrows lifting as I saw the snake gal stand up and walk towards me. She knew how to use her hips. "What are we gonna talk about, Missster Rielly?" she said in a sultry kind of whisper, making sure I could get a good estimate as to how long and agile her red forked tongue was. She stood exactly far away enough for me to feel the presence of her body without actually touching it. "I just want to ask you a few questions." She responded with a coy giggle, like that was something all her Johns liked to say while they were role-playing cops and robbers. "Get dressed and meet me at the door." That got a pretty different reaction. She closed her jaw tight and stared at me for a few seconds before her eyes shifted to Gary. I could see his snout nod once behind my left shoulder, probably smiling his disgustingly broad smile. She pushed past him on her way to the dressing rooms while I walked to the door. The pudgy vixen tried to say something sexy to me but gave up when I didn't acknowledge her, coughing slimy cigarette smoke. Her rolls shook a little bit. I couldn't contain my grimace and got the hell out of there as fast as possible.

III

When Evelyn met me outside, the sun's rays were struggling to break through a layer of smoggy rainclouds. She looked completely different now, more natural, and more beautiful. There was genuine life in her eyes, something you come to appreciate when you get to be as old as I am. But there was something else there too, something she had carried with her from inside. She pouted a little and pulled a raincoat around her body as if to hide it from me. "Ssso are you a cop or sssomethin'?" she said, rolling her ses perhaps unintentionally. "Private investigator." I started walking, then paused and turned, waiting for her to follow. She kept staring for a few seconds before keeping up with me. She still moved her hips very, very nicely. "What do you want to know?" "Let's not talk about it here. Wait until we get to my car." We walked step for step, as her legs were quite long, back to my parked sedan. I held the passenger door open, which upon reflection might have been a little stupid, but if she thought so she didn't mention it. She got comfortable in her seat as I popped my door open and sat with a sigh. She watched me as I took off my hat and stroked my fingers through my mane, wishing I could pull the stink of the Rat's place from my body and just throw it out the window. As I glanced over at her with a grin, I caught a look that told me that she understood the sentiment completely. "We'll go to my place and talk. After, I can drive you back here. That sound fair?" "Yesss." I couldn't quite read her response, but there didn't seem to be any guile in it. I revved the motor until it caught, then shifted into gear and drove off. The carefully selected, yet entirely non-indigenous trees and bushes formed a steady greenish blur in the window as I sped past. Evelyn looked out her window most of the way, but I caught her taking occasional glances in my direction, which I did not mind one bit. I let myself think that she was checking me out, not just sizing me up. "So how long have you been working for the...for Gary?" I asked, tilting my head in her direction. There was a pause long enough to make me think she ignored me until she responded. "Too long." I decided to leave it at that. I drove up to my place, a perfectly modest little building off of Franklin, near Griffith. I could maybe call it a house, but I preferred to think of it as an apartment. Evelyn stayed silent as we walked up to the door, her smooth body not making any sound either. I led her inside and thanked myself for cleaning up the place a little bit before I had left this morning. "Make yourself comfortable, please," I said earnestly. "Would you like anything to drink?" "Well that dependsss on what you want to talk about." She smirked, taking off her coat and tossing it casually on a free hook. She sat on the loveseat and crossed her legs, sending her green gaze at me, waiting for me to start talking. I nickered a little. "Well then I guess I better get you something strong. I hope you like bourbon." I didn't mind drinking early, and I guessed that Evelyn didn't either. I smiled and hung up my coat and hat, heading for the bar which I kept well-stocked. "Why do you wear a fedora? Mossst guysss nowadaysss don't. It'sss old-fassshioned." "I'm not most guys." I said without looking over my shoulder at her, dropping two ice cubes into both our glasses and pouring enough bourbon to get the Pope talking. When I went over to her with an outstretched arm, presenting the glass, she touched my fingers as she reached for it. I was positive she did so intentionally. Our eyes met, and I sat down in a chair facing her without blushing. She turned her head slightly but kept her half-lidded eyes on me, tilting the glass to her lips sensuously, swallowing the bourbon without protest. She uncrossed then crossed her legs again, the whole motion taking plenty of time. Her fangs showed a bit when she smiled and relaxed back in her seat, stretching her shoulders backwards, expanding her chest. I sat and stared, but did not move. I glanced down at my drink, at my hands and hooves, and their color looked to me like a smattering of white mud, as if I had fallen face-first into a white mess and couldn't clean it off me ever since. I looked up at her again. "There was a robbery last night," I started. Her expression changed very slightly, even though I could tell she didn't mean for it to. "Someone knocked off a moving van, stole a briefcase. Black leather, gold clasps. Gary said you know something about it." The tip of her tail stroked up her calf to her skirt. There was no chance in hell I wouldn't notice a flirt like that, but I let it go. I simply sat and waited for her. A switch turned off behind her eyes. She huffed loudly, then grinned at me. She took a big swallow of bourbon this time. "How much did the Rat tell you to give me?" she asked, amused at something, her lips parted. "He asked for two hundred, but I told him I would give you whatever you asked for." I phrased it that way to imply that these need not necessarily be the same thing. She understood and laughed again, shaking her head. "He wantsss me to sssleep with you, then charge you three hundred for the lay and I wouldn't have to tell you anything. If you didn't pay, he'd either blackmail you or sssend hisss bulldog to break your legsss." She found far more humor in this hypothetical than I did. "What a clever man Gary the Rat is." I took a slow drink from my glass and tried to sort things out in my head before speaking again. "Shouldn't you be telling me this...after you've seduced me?" "There'sss no point. You aren't the kind of man who can be ssseduced ssso easssily." She set her glass down on the table between us, then rested back against the cushion, her posture far less intentional than before. "You're different. The kind of man who remindsss me that...sssome men prefer honesssty." She wasn't laughing now. She stared out the grey window. "Please. I need your help. If you know anything about the robbery..." "Did you mean what you sssaid? That you'd give me whatever I asssked for?" she questioned me urgently, turning her head to face me straight. "I mean everything that I say." "I want you to help me get out of the Rat'sss place. I hate it. I hate being the exotic one, the dangerousss beauty, putting on thisss act for every John with a dick and casssh. I need to get out of there, but the Rat will never let me go," she pleaded. "If I help you...will you help me?" "I don't like making promises." "I don't need you to promissse you'll get me out. Jussst promissse me you'll give a damn one way or the other." We watched ourselves in each other's eyes for a while before I drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "I promise I'll do anything I can to protect you from the Rat." She gave me a genuine smile, and I could tell that she didn't get the chance to do that often. "There are three guysss you're looking for. One'sss a nasssty-looking dog, the other two are catsss, black and white. Twinsss I think." I wrote it all down in my notebook as she spoke, looking up after I had it. "You'll find them at the abandoned fire ssstation on Hoover and Jefferssson." That was a part of town where I didn't want to be, but my job often put me where I didn't want to be. I stood and put my overcoat and hat back on, then checked my breast pocket, making sure my pistol was right where I left it.

"Stay here. The Rat doesn't know my car or where I live. You'll be safe." I glanced out the window; rainclouds darkened the view. "I'll be back by sun-up."

"Be careful!" Evelyn's anxiety grew with every step I took towards the door.

"Anything for you, beautiful." I tipped my hat to her with a grin, then stepped out into the gathering darkness.

IV

It was drizzling in a light mist by the time I reached downtown, and the sun was struggling to stay above the nearly-solid Los Angeles skyline. I parked a good distance away and walked the block parallel to the station, stopping when I could see it across a dark alleyway. The dog stood at what functioned as a door, but he couldn't see me through the shadows of the buildings and the falling mist. I waited until it got even darker, dark enough so that even the white on my hands was undetectable. Sneaking up on the hound wasn't difficult. I had my gun up to his ribs before he even knew I was there. "Don't you start barking now, dog. You're gonna be a smart little pooch and run on home, aren't ya boy?" I felt that my handgun made me quite persuasive, a master orator. "What are you, a cop?" he said gruffly. I didn't like that he still had his hands in his pockets, but I knew that was just a tactic. He was a pushover; I could feel his guts with the barrel of my pistol. "That doesn't matter. You're a smart boy, and you want to keep on being a smart boy. It's that simple. Walk away and don't turn around." "But I'm a good guard dog--" "No, if you were a good guard dog, you'd be dead. I'd have shot you three times in the belly, and you would be crumpled at my feet bleeding and howling like a bitch. But you aren't a guard dog. You're a smart dog. You're better than this, aren't ya?" I dug the metal of my gun further into his side, in case he didn't quite get my drift. He grunted and stared straight ahead, into the thick mist. Rain started coming down on both of us. He blinked, but my fedora kept the drops out of my face. I could see everything clearly. "I'm a smart dog." "That's right. Run on home, rover." And he did. He even stopped pretending he had a gun in his pocket. Smart dog. I watched him disappear into the sheet of rain, then pushed the heavy metal panel that blocked the doorway aside. With my gun levelled in front of me, I stepped inside the abandoned shell of a building. There were voices, two voices. The sound of heavy rain on the roof of the hollow room masked my footsteps. This was the garage where they used to keep the fire engines, but now it kept only shadows, a single lantern, two cats, a small table, and a briefcase. I made my presence known only after I was sure I wouldn't miss if I needed to shoot one or both of them. "Evening." Their hairs raised as they sprung around. Neither of them had guns, a fact which amused me enough to make me nicker. Their eyes were huge and glowing in the dim light. "Who are you?" the white one asked, startled and almost shaking. "And what the hell are you doing here?" hissed the black. I could tell he really wanted to have a gun in his hands; I recognized that trapped look in his eyes. "Name is Rielly. That briefcase there on the table belongs to a friend of mine. I'm here to take it back." My voice echoed in the chamber, even through the steady bass of rain. The cats looked at each other, decided something in the glance, and started backing away. "You can have the _______ thing, pony. It's worthless," said the black one. The white cat had already cowered away, probably out some back door. The dark one stayed and watched me close the briefcase, then pick it up. "It's only worthless to you," I replied, keeping my gun on him. I started backing out the way I came, but the black cat wasn't going to let me have the last word. "You think you're doing the right thing, pony? You're just like me, only you have a rich man backing you up. We're the same." His gaze sharpened as the lantern flickered. "Well golly, I sure hope not," I responded sarcastically, grinning stupidly at him, two steps away from the exit. "Go ____ yourself." That was the last I heard from him before I left, hopefully never to return.

V

I arrived at Ser Waldron's estate rather late, but the lights were still on in the house and I figured that the old bear would want his briefcase back right away. I made the trek over his lawn to his front door with something of a smile on my face, walking slightly hunched to keep his briefcase from getting too much rain on it. I approached the entryway and gave the thick brass bell two solid rings that carried through the wet, black night. The same raven opened the door with the same cocky expression, but his face revealed a bit of shock when he saw what I was carrying. "I believe this belongs to Ser Norris Waldron," I said proudly, smiling as I handed it over to him. He took it from me without changing his expression, or moving his body much at all. "Thank you for your services. The payment will be wired to your account tomorrow," he said in exactly the voice you'd expect him to have. He started to close the door, but I put my hoof down before it could swing closed. "Eheh, I don't want to be rude or anything, chap, but I think I'd like to see the old bear myself. Tell him about the job well-done. Just a personal policy of mine, I don't leave a job until my employer tells me I can leave it." The raven's eyes were black, blank, and unblinking. "A dialogue with my employer would not benefit either of you. Ser Waldron died but a few hours ago." I felt my hooves take a step back. I might have started to say something, an apology, condolences maybe, but the door was shut in my face before I could finish what I had to say. The rain poured and poured. When I got back to my house, it was still black outside. I found my front door open. Evelyn was not inside. She had taken some of my money, and my spare pistol that I kept in my desk drawer. She left a note, but I don't remember what it said.