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"Are you sure Grumman's dead?"

"I'm sure, kid. I talked to the morgue lady myself to confirm it."

"Damn...I didn't know. I'm sorry for making you go all the way out--"

"It's fine," I chuckled despite the circumstances. "Heading back right now. After dinner, we can discuss what to do next, alright?"

"...okay, Markus. Okay. See you soon."

Hanging up, I tossed my phone into the left coat pocket while moodily walking past passerby, all of them as cranky as I was when a small downpour began in the evening. Luckily, Cherry had enough foresight to check the weather and bring an umbrella with me before investigating our last lead. Now I didn't have to mutter to myself while navigating the dirty streets in rain-drenched clothes.

Goddammit.

The past week had been spent investigating six leads who could be responsible for Cherry's attempted murder. Dealing with Kendall Osbourne still left a bad taste in my mouth, so I got to work on researching the leads. It did not do much good.

I found the first lead living as a squatter with his other junkie pals. The ferret's parents (believing I was a private investigator) told me didn't have a clue where he went. A couple days later, I found the skeletal, neurotic mess hiding in some abandoned house on the other side of Lakertown. Couldn't care who Cherry was, let alone pay two men to shoot up a motel.

The second lead moved all the way to Mountainburg, became a born again Catholic, and got married with three vixens and two kits. During my mercenary years, I'd met and worked for dangerously religious furs capable of committing genocide the same day they graciously attended mass. This guy wasn't one of them.

The third lead was a teacher Cherry let fuck him during his senior year. Since Cherry had been eighteen back then and not even in the same class, it didn't make me feel as vile as Kendall or the sixth and final lead. The middle-aged Labrador didn't hold any real motives, having started advocating for LGBT rights soon after retirement. From what I gathered on social media, Mr. Landers not only divorced his wife, but also had a loving boyfriend too.

The fourth lead (whose family kicked him out after finding a video of him balls deep inside Cherry) turned to Buddhism following graduation. When I visited him in the nearest temple, the Zen otter told me he accepted his sexuality a while ago, having found peace in his suffering. He ran a café beneath his apartment too, uncaring if he lived a lavish life or not.

Before departing once I politely listened to him explain to me the Four Noble Truths, the otter expressed hope that I would find inner peace one day. As would Charlie Rochford, the ocelot he hadn't seen in two years.

The fifth lead was his high school principal, a fifty-six-year-old grizzly bear who was not only married but had two grandcubs and was highly respected by his friends and conservative community. Yet nothing I found in his computer system or the rumor mill indicated he hated homosexuality. Liberalism maybe, but to hire two broke college graduates to cover up his several flings with Cherry? The ocelot himself even told me that the old bear, despite being strict and staunchly Republican, would burn his own Bible before committing murder.

As for Patrick Grumman, the former high school coach who became the ocelot's first customer at age fifteen? Get this: the rhino died in prison. Cherry hadn't even heard about it until now because the bastard got shanked not long after the lad took to the streets. It made sense, given how even the vilest prisoners out here held morality against Grumman's kind of evil, but that still led me and the ocelot to another dead end.

Who else hired those two wannabe thugs?

Then I paused on an intersection. The rain had cleared into a drizzle, allowing pedestrians to stand or walk freely as the cloudy afternoon transitioned to twilight. Seedy bars, pawn shops and neon lights already started to brighten up to life, and as I gripped my umbrella tight, my eyes fell on a familiar sight:

Scantily-clad call girls lined up along the road bordering our city's red-light district.

***

_ It was around half past one in the morning when my stop came. Hauling my guitar case and luggage with me off the emptied bus, I dropped them off for the bellhop to bring up to my room (when you're known to give tips in the triple digits, they know not to pry where they don't belong) before deciding to take a short walk. The air was cool and the sky clear, making it the perfect combination for an after-midnight stroll._

_ Passing a deep alleyway, I didn't get past the block my apartment was on when--_

_ "Fucking let go of me!"_

_ I whirled around to find two figures struggling in the darkness, one of their smells oddly familiar. An ocelot in denim shorts trying to squirm from the iron grip of a slim Bengal tiger, who wore a bright orange, almost illegally 1970s tuxedo as he leered over the smaller feline. Anyone looking for a good time knew the big cat as was one of the city's top pimps and residential assholes._

_ "Ya know this is my territory, Cher, but I'll let it all side of ya put your services under my payroll," the tiger spoke in a painful accent of indeterminant origin. One could tell though he did not grow up in the South. "Been a while since I'd had a cute twink like you work under my wing. There's a buncha players all over town that'll sell their house and wives for a piece of that tail of yours, boy! Nasty motherfuckas who got a taste for twink pussy. What do ya say then? Work for me and I'll treat ya sweeter than cherry pie."_

_ "Didn't you hear what I said, Stripes?!" he snarled, still trying to pull himself away to no avail. "I work solo here, so let me go and piss on off!"_

_ "Wrong answer, faggot!" the Bengal smacked him in the cheek, extending his talon-like claws downward. "I was gonna give ya five percent like I do for my bitches, maybe even ten, but I'm gonna make an example of ya and other fellers trying to--"_

_ I finally decided to step in. "Walk away. Now."_

_ "Get outta here before I...I..."_

_ The Bengal tiger's confidence shriveled into a coma at the sight of me. Although we were the same size, the Bengal knew I had more muscle. I showed it by pulling the lightweight tiger with one paw and having him dangle half a foot off the littered asphalt ground. When he tried slashing at me, I gripped his paws together with one paw. All while I lifted him by the other. To say he looked terrified would've been an understatement._

_ "L-L-L-Listen to me, b-buddy," Mr. Barclay stammered between panicked breaths and a twitching tail, "I got myself a buncha hoes ya can have--"_

_ "He said he doesn't work for you." I stated between deepening, venomous growls. All I saw in this Bengal were the terrified eyes of my last target. "Intimidate this boy again or so much as glance at him across the street, and nobody will be able to find your body."_

_ Without a single word, I brutally tossed the tiger out and watched him stagger back into his outfitted ride And without another verb or form of diction, I knelt by the shivering ocelot sitting against the brick wall._

_ "Hey, you..." Cherry chuckled, wincing as he rubbed his furry cheek. A small cut from the tiger's slap had led to a cut form in the swelling bruise. "Ow, ow. I, uh...hope your business trip went well?"_

_ Sighing, I carefully helped the ocelot to his feet. "Come with me."_

***

Desmond 'Daddy Stripes' Sylvester.

Born and raised as the runt of a massive tiger family in the seediest side of the Midwest, this thirty-something Bengal cat practically owned the west side of Lakertown's red-light district, which bordered along my apartment complex by a block or two. I'd occasionally see his 'hoes' wait outside either the lobby or a neighboring hotel, waiting for a john to show up. Their 'Daddy Stripes' was known throughout the city's underbelly to be a micromanaging, temperamental, narcissistically suave sleazebag. Any man who crossed his bitches would be beaten to a bloody pump, while any bitch who tried stealing from him lost their teeth. Until I saved Cherry that day, no other prostitutes--especially high-valued twinks--sold their services in the feline pimp's claimed territory.

A grin crossed my muzzle. I had a new suspect.