Chapter Text
You are Diamonds Droog and your boss has sent you to gather intel.
“Gather intel”, he said! He must have felt awfully smart using words like that. As it is you don’t really see the point. Problem Sleuth and his cohorts hardly pose a threat to the Midnight Crew and it’s a waste of time trying to assess their weaknesses or whatever it was Slick told you to do.
Slick is spending the day following Sleuth about, and Deuce and Boxcars are both tailing Dick. You presume that, even with their combined wits, they won’t come up with much. You got stuck tailing Pickle Inspector.
The interesting part comes when, as you listen to the wiretap on his phone, Sleuth asks the Inspector to tail you. Gather intel, assess his weaknesses, all that jazz. Sometimes it makes you sick how similar Sleuth and Slick are.
So when Pickle Inspector steps out of his apartment building you make sure to walk by and not notice him. You continue not noticing him as you go about your usual errands, going to the tailor, to the post office, mundane things like that. You make a point of ignoring him when he accidentally sidles into your field of view while you’re buying stamps and you especially do not groan when he knocks over a shelf at the grocery store while trying to get a better look at you.
The fact that he really thinks he’s doing a good job is almost cute.
At about half past one you take a seat on a bench in the park. You reach into the paper bag you brought from the grocery and produce from it two sandwiches wrapped in cellophane. You set the second one down on the empty space next to you.
“Care to join me for lunch, Inspector?” you say.
He stumbles out of the bush he was crouching behind. He doesn’t look surprised at all, just embarrassed. “Ah, yes,” he stammers, “Thank you.”
He sits down, taking the sandwich and slowly picking away the wrapping. “I’ve been very rude, I think,” he says to you as he ogles the bread. “I forgot to bid you a good morning.”
“That’s quite all right,” you reply.
“I’m really very sorry,” he insists.
“Don’t worry about it,” you say.
He takes a bite out of his sandwich. His discomfort is palpable and he avoids eye contact with you the whole time. Clearly this is not a man who enjoys much social contact. He finishes eating before you and proceeds to twiddle his thumbs and stare at his bootlaces while he waits for you to finish and break the silence.
You take your time.
You don’t know why Slick thought you’d need all day to figure this rube out. Everything there is to know about him is written all over his face. Awkward, clumsy, probably got picked on a lot as a kid. Polite to a T, almost as if he’s waiting for his mother to come scold him if he’s even a little bit rude. You’ve heard of his intellectual prowess and you suppose his intelligence suits him, but a man like this is easily intimidated into submission.
He’s no threat. Sleuth or Dick may require you to get your hands dirty, but this one? No. He’s little more than a scared puppy.
When you’re done you carefully fold up the used cellophane, place it in the bag, and stand up. You straighten out your suit.
“Thank you for your company,” you say, taking the wrapper from his thin hands. “We really must do this again sometime.” You turn away. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Wait.” There’s urgency in the Inspector’s voice. When you turn around, he’s on his feet and holding a key.
“Oh my,” you say, not bothering to sound scared. “Watch where you’re pointing that thing.”
“L-look,” he says, “I don’t like… I don’t like violence. I don’t want a fight. But you guys keep causing trouble and hurting my friends and—and it’s really rude! A-a-and, and I can’t stand it!” His hand shakes, uneasy with a dangerous weapon. Well, an object that could potentially be a dangerous weapon. You wonder if he means for that key to actually be a key or if he just forgot how to make it a gun. “Please. Please, leave us alone.”
You should come up with some sort of cold, biting quip right now, but the scared puppy analogy keeps creeping back into your head. Suddenly you’re imagining a tiny little puppy barking at a wolf. It takes everything you have not to burst out laughing.
You pull together your composure and take a step toward the Inspector. You lean in close, until your mouth is right next to his ear, and he shudders at this intrusion of his personal space.
“Make me,” you hiss. Cliché, you know. It’s hard to come up with clever comebacks when little puppies are barking in your head. What sort of fantasy is this, anyway? You’ve been spending too much time with Slick and his stupid Scotty dogs.
All those thoughts of dogs fall away at the sound of a gunshot. You put a hand to your side and bring it back up bloody. He shot you? He shot you?
“I-I—I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his voice cracking. “But you said…”
You clutch the wound. You’ve seen worse, but damn if this suit isn’t ruined. You just have to go get yourself patched up. You have to get to—
“You should be okay though,” Pickle inspector continues in that damn sorrowful voice of his as he pocketed his key. “I-I didn’t shoot you anywhere immediately vital. And your favorite underworld doctor-type fellow has an office just down the street from here, I think, doesn’t he? And I believe that, lucky for us, the doctor is indeed in today.”
You blink at him blearily. How did he know that?
He smiles faintly at your expression, and you realize. You underestimated him, and he planned on that. You smile back, a bitter smile you reserve only for when you’ve truly been bested.
“Yes,” you say. “I’ll be going.”
“Do—do you want me to walk you there?” His concern is genuine. You resist the urge to slit his throat and spill that neurotic, courteous blood all over the damn sidewalk.
“Yes,” you say through ragged breaths. “Yes, I would like that.”
He hesitates, then slips his hand in yours. His fingers, those long, bony things, intertwine with yours and he lets you lean against him as you struggle to not look like you’re walking around with a bullet hole in your abdomen. He hands you a handkerchief to try to slow the bleeding. He says you can keep it, if you want. He starts talking about something else, but it’s irrelevant drivel. You assume that he’s trying to distract you from the pain, but you don’t really need it. You’ve been shot before and will probably be shot a few more times before you finally bite the big one.
He leads you into an alley and finds the door.
“Again, I’m really, really sorry,” he says. “And the suit, too, I’ve ruined it, haven’t I? I—I—I can’t pay to replace it, oh gosh now that I look at it it’s so nice, I’m such a heel, I’m sorry…”
“Shut up,” you say.
“S-sorry,” he says again, then softer he says, “Mister Droog,” like he doesn’t feel worthy to address you.
“Perish the thought,” you say, gripping the doorhandle like it’s the only thing between you and the distant bottom of a ravine. “Perhaps you can make it up to me by treating me to dinner sometime.”
“Ah, yes,” he says, playing with his tie. “That sounds wonderful, yes. Please pick a time and a place, I would love to.”
“I’ll send for you, now please.” Your vision begins to dim. You think that maybe the Inspector shot you in a more vital area than he thought. “Leave me to my doctor.”
“Ah! Yes. Sorry. Thank you for lunch. Goodbye.” He turns and slouches away, his hands in his pockets and his ambling gait disguising a purpose that even now you hardly understand.
You push open the door to the office of your morally-questionable doctor. As he gets to work stitching you up your mind wanders.
A time and a place…?
By the time you leave you have just that figured out.