Work Text:
A shot rang through the night.
A man slumped to his knees and fell to the ground. Two dark figures watched him fall. Crimson blood trickled out from his body, staining the immaculate carpet.
One figure fled. The other stayed, watching silently.
Above, a lone cloud trailed across the vast, dark sky.
--
Kings, as a rule, are rarely found without Queens. Cowboy Charlemagne had been no exception. His fiancée, a youngish Prospitian carapace of small frame and gentle temperament, underwent all the usual mourning rituals: releasing press statements, requesting privacy from reporters, being investigated as a prime suspect in his murder. What made Spades Slick knock over his bowl of grubflakes that Sunday was a photograph of the grieving lady—or, more specifically, a woman photographed standing next to the grieving lady. This particular woman had not been seen in over three perigees, even with the aid of advanced surveillance. Though she appeared in the newspaper disguised in a sensible suit and veiled hat, the confidence in her bearing was unmistakable. Snowman had re-emerged.
Slick was a man who lived in the moment. As such, he experienced a knee-jerk reaction to Snowman’s unexpected newspaper appearance, and knocked his bowl of grubflakes to the right without considering that Diamonds Droog sat there. Droog, absorbed in a men’s clothing ad, did not notice the flying grubflakes in time to dodge. When Hearts Boxcars arrived on the scene and slipped in the splattered lusus milk, spraining his ankle, the two had progressed from blows to harder blows.
Luckily, Clubs Deuce got home from shopping just a few minutes later and distracted everyone by dropping a carton of eggs. The stab wounds, cigarette burns, and other injuries, Boxcars’ sprain included, were soon dressed and bandaged as befitted them. Droog put on a fresh suit and regained his composure. Slick stabbed the table a few times. Deuce went out to buy new eggs. By the time he returned, the slapstick atmosphere had dissipated and everyone could go back to being hardboiled again—including the eggs, although they had been raw before. Even the toughest gangsters have to eat.
Boxcars, after darting a covetous glance at the eggs boiling on the cooktop, proposed that they drop by the nightclub and see if they could drub up some answers.
Droog said nah. Picture was in the paper; she already knew they knew. Best thing to do was play it cool until trouble showed up. Besides, it was a Sunday. Nightclub was closed.
Deuce wondered what reason the Felt would have for bumping off Charlemagne. Droog thought the wife probably killed him and this was blackmail. Boxcars considered it must have been a hefty sum indeed to necessitate Snowman’s involvement. Slick made no comment.
Deuce suggested that they drop by the nightclub tomorrow night anyway. Droog agreed. Boxcars found no issue with this suggestion. What about Slick, what did he think? Slick thought you bunch of horny imbeciles could fuck off, thanks. He was leaving. He was a busy man. Had stuff to do, places to go, important business to attend to. He built this city, you know. Shut up, Droog.
--
Then he doesn’t see much of anything, besides the rungs of the fire escape and eventually the pavement under his feet.
He’s four blocks away before he realizes he’s no longer holding the copy of Terrier Fancy.
--
It would be exceedingly humiliating to admit to anyone—let alone his…well, we’re not going there, let’s just say Snowman—that he’d attempted to kill a man over the discontinued publication of an alternative lifestyle magazine. (Inasmuch as terrier fancying constituted an alternative lifestyle.) And Slick had no intention of doing so. That was why he was going to break into Charlemagne’s apartment and try to retrieve the damning publication. It was almost definitely still lying around somewhere. Despite what the Exile Times claimed, the police here were not that thorough.
After nightfall, it was simple enough to do what he had done before: sneak into the building, hide in a janitorial closet, and break into the apartment a few doors down while the lone security guard left to use the restroom. This being a high-falutin’ hoity-toity rich people apartment building, almost every apartment had a balcony. Slick merely climbed from each to each, stabbing the mortar in between the weird is-it-living-or-is-it-stone Alternian bricks when he felt an extra handhold was necessary.
Charlemagne’s apartment was quiet. Too quiet, in fact. The shelves in the living room had been searched, and there were piles of papers all over the floor. No telling whether this haystack’s dismemberment would help him find his needle.
He was contemplating how many papers could fit on the blade of his knife and any ways this might impede his escape when she stepped into the room. Snowman.
She looked revoltingly beautiful. The curves of her waist were nauseating. The way her mouth moved was hypnotically disgusting, as was the manner in which she removed a gun from her jacket and casually asked Charlemagne’s fiancée to come into the living room.
Slick had just enough time to grab a box of papers off the floor before leaping onto the fire escape and making a mad dash for the street.
--
On the back of the illustration, in the same childish handwriting:
PUBLISH. OR PERISH.
--
On his next birthday, an unknown benefactor renews Slick's subscription to Terrier Fancy.