Wild Tiger Chase - Chapter 5: Chapter 5

— Rob —
Rafaela Tapir got up from her chair and batted the folder on the desk with such violence, Rob's shoulders jumped. In front of them, Marlo Soares, their boss, didn't even flinch.
"This is ridiculous!" Rafaela shouted. She slapped her hands on the old table and bent forward to level her eyes with Marlo's. "You can't let her go, boss. This here"—she tapped a finger on the badge pinned to her chest pocket—"is not to be used as damned political leverage! I don't fucking care whose daughter she is. Connie Travone won't leave this place if not to be escorted to prison!" She punched the table and huffed.
Rob massaged his forehead, and the tips of his fingers slid to the bridge of his nose, pressing it as if to shield him from a headache.
Marlo rocked in his chair, checking his fingernails as if used to her outbursts.
"Believe me, Miss Taiguara, I'm as frustrated as you are. But what you have to understand is that her father is offering full compensation to every single civilian affected by the landslide. And she won't be off the hook. All we have to do is transfer her to LIPD, that's all. They'll prosecute her there."
"My ass! We all know how dirty General Bernero is. I don't have an ounce of doubt daddy almighty will just post bail for his daughter while the General takes half of it." She growled. "A little boy is hospitalized, boss. She needs to pay for what she did."
"Her father will, Rafaela. With money and influence," Marlo said in a harder tone. "He guaranteed he can move the kid from Cidade Santa to Los Indes for treatment. We both know the kid has no chance to ever walk again if we keep him here. Dr. Dickens is a blessing, but our hospital doesn't make miracles. It still has the same equipment we used in the twentieth century." Marlo let out a long sigh. "It's a small town, Rafa. We care for each other around here, and if that little kid—"
Rafaela scoffed, interrupting him. "Listen here, boss—"
"Rafa," Rob said, getting up. He agreed with his older sister, of course... but the more he lived in this village, the more he saw the world and its justice system were much less black and white than he believed. And as frustrated as that made him feel, he also had to worry about the populace. And about him and his sister losing their job, of course. Life was hard in Old Continent, and they needed both their paychecks to keep afloat and under the radar.
Rafaela pursed her lips. Her eyes studied Rob's before she moved them aside and sighed. "Fuck you, Rob," she growled in a low voice. There was pure frustration in her gait as she stormed out of the room. The door closed with a bang.
The silence was broken by the clink of Marlo's mechanical fingers closing around the rim of his glasses. He said in a low voice, "With the amount of money he's offering, we can feed the people here for almost a year, Roberto. The food and housing division could finally expand our substance-recovery program, we could have better food in our shelters, and we'd even be able to pay our psychiatrists!" He shook his head. "We wouldn't starve for a whole year, Roberto, even with the storm coming. More, if we're smart about this—it would really be as if NC had helped us. Can you imagine how people would feel around here?"
Rob scratched the back of his neck and clicked his tongue. He munched on Marlo's words for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah. All right, Marlo. I'll talk to her."
"We need her signature, Roberto."
"I know."
"By the end of the day, or the deal's off."
"I know that too."
Marlo pulled an electronic cigarette from his pocket and hung it between his thick lips. He took a puff and breathed out a cyan-colored smoke that made his icy blue eyes even sharper. "If the deal's off, Roberto... I'll see you both out of the force. Understood?"
Rob sighed as he bent forward and reached for the folder on Rafa's desk. The tips of his teeth grazed over the dry skin of his lips. "Yeah, Marlo. Understood."
"I can't believe you'll force me to do something like this!" Rafaela growled.
It was a sultry afternoon in Old Continent, and the woman had trails of sweat marking her temples. A bystander could think she'd been crying, but Rob knew his sister didn't cry—not in front of other people.
"I don't want to force you to do anything. I'm only here to talk." Rob leaned on the wall behind him. "C'mon, sis. You're far too naive if you think we'd keep Travone in prison this time."
"I'll pretend you didn't just say that." Rafaela snatched the folder from Rob's hands and opened it, reading its contents out loud. "Arrested for smuggling of exotic fauna, financing terrorism, criminal conspiracy, inhumane trace experimentation, and illegal mining activities." She closed the folder and set her eyes on Roberto. "And just to remind you, this last one ended up in a landslide that destroyed one-quarter of the 17th ward, kicked 83 families from their houses, and put a 14-year-old kid in a hospital bed, probably for life." Rafa let the folder fall on the broken concrete outside the 4th precinct. "That's the woman we're dealing with, brother. Do you really want to set her free?"
Rob licked his lips and grimaced while scratching his growing beard.
How the bloody hell had he ended up in this situation?
Once he left New Continent, he swore he wouldn't play hero anymore. He swore he'd focus his time and energy on helping his sister and then on finding a way to restore Léon's powers... still, there he was, in the back of a police station using a fake surname and fake glasses, ready to prosecute the woman who would cause him to be another unemployed civilian in Cidade Santa.
"Seriously, Rafa..."
"It's difficult not to take things like this to heart, you know." Rafa rested her back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting beside her brother. "Cause we've been fighting to end this shit in New Continent—"
"Or we thought we were," Rob corrected.
Rafa grimaced. "Or we thought we were," she echoed, "all the while there's at least twenty times the number of people in Old Continent suffering shit like this on a daily basis. I feel I need to... I don't know, Beto...."
"Make up for the years you lived lavishly in New Continent?"
Rafa gave him a look of pure disbelief and bobbed her head. "Yeah. Yes. That's exactly it."
Rob chuckled and rested his head on his sister's shoulder. He was thankful for having her back and less thankful for the situation they were in. "I got it, sis. But... if we don't go along with this, if we don't guarantee those homeless families will receive this money, who will help them?"
"I mean—"
"No. We can't house that many people, Rafa. Our house has, like, two and a half bedrooms."
Rafa twisted her lips and huffed. Rob knew the self-righteous fire in her eyes—he used to have it too, years ago, when he thought he was the only one who knew what was right or wrong. He wished he could show that to Rafa. He wished he could tell her how dangerous that was.
But he didn't know how to.
With a frustrated groan, Rafa rubbed her face. "I just.... What's stopping her from continuing her dirty work after she gets home? I wished she got what she deserved after everything she did." She lowered her eyes. "I wish she were punished."
She.
Rob gave Rafa's shoulder a firm squeeze. He knew she wasn't talking only about Connie Travone. She was talking about herself too, and the guilt she felt for helping The Mayor.
Sometimes he wondered what Léon would do in his place. Rob looked down at the tips of his fingers. When things got really tough and he got really lost, he'd always try to remember the texture of Léon's fingers between his or how warm his lips felt on his cheek. He'd close his eyes and try to listen to his voice, remembering the sweet nothings they often exchanged.
Bloody hell, he missed Léon so much.
He balled his hand.
"Listen, sis." Rob leaned in to whisper, "I don't think there's an easy way out of this. I know you want what's fair and just here. I want it to. But...." Rob looked at his palms. Léon's hands. His voice. His wisdom. "But we have to play with the cards we've been dealt while we prepare to take a new card, right?" He took her hand. "Sis."
She refused to look at him at first, but Rob nudged her arm, tugging at her sleeve like he used to do when they were kids.
"Oi, sis. Oi! Sis!" he tried again, stretching that O.
Rafa looked at him, and despite her angry, watering eyes, she couldn't stop a smile. "Go on, you brat. Say it."
"Let her father finance the PD's shelters. Let him give us the money we need to make life better around here. And when Connie steps out of the line again—if she has the courage to step out of the line again—we'll be there to arrest her." He leaned heavier on her. "And we won't sign any transfer papers this time. I promise."
Rafa stared at him. Her eyebrows furrowed more, and the anger kept building inside her until she finally let out a long, deep huff.
"There are some times in this life that I really hate you, Beto."
"Aw. I love you now and forever, Sis."
She chuckled. "Tacky."
"Dr. detective, sir?"
Rob and Rafaela turned around. The latter opened a tender smile to the lanky young man in front of them. Afonso—or this was what he called himself these days—answered her smile with one of his own, his cheeks blushing.
"And hello, Miss Rafa," Afonso said. He had dark skin, indigenous eyes, and thick, wavy hair that looked like the flowers of a passionfruit.
Rafa curved down to kiss his cheek as a greeting. "Always good to see you, Fofo. I'll let you and Rob talk. I need to sign some papers." She turned around and stretched a hand towards Rob.
"Thank you, Sis," Rob said. He got up and handed Trovone's folder to Rafa.
She raised it. "I'm signing this for all those families, Rob. Not for Marlo and not for you."
"Right," Rob said, placing his hands on his waist. He chuckled as Rafa walked away and disappeared behind the back door of the 4th district. Once the door closed, he rested his eyes on Afonso. "And?"
Afonso's sweet smile disappeared, and a smirk appeared in its place. "Hello, Roberto." He narrowed his eyes and rested his hands on his waist, mirroring Rob's pose. "That Marlo human wants to talk to you."
"Right now?"
"Right now."
Rob groaned. He crossed the crowded main hall of the department and climbed the narrow cement stairs to the Chief of Police's office. With a knock, he entered. "Wanted to see me?"
Unlike moments ago, when Rob and Rafa had talked to him, Marlo looked sick. He was pale and had a breathing mask on, taking in deep breaths of purified air.
"Yes," he said with a muffled voice. He took the mask off and massaged his red temples. "I have something for you." He opened a drawer and pulled a plastipaper folder from it, then threw it on the desk with a dull flop. "Read."
The only plastipaper folders in Cidade Santa were those sent by the police departments in New Continent, so Rob knew this couldn't be good. He raised an eyebrow and hesitated. "What is this, Marlo?"
"Just read it, Roberto. Please."
Rob fought back a chortle, taking the folder. He opened it and ran his eyes through the many paragraphs of bureaucracy and bullshit that had New Continent written all over. "What's this? I don't speak rich city."
Marlo scoffed. "Considering your reports, you don't write it, either."
"Why is grammar so bloody important? For fuck's sake, Marlo."
Shaking his head, Marlo leaned back and crossed his fingers on his lap. "After everything that happened with The Mayor in NC, you know the police department there is basically begging for a chance to prove their worth, right?"
"There's nothing new in that." Rob closed the folder and tossed it on Marlo's desk.
"There is something new, Roberto. Something that's happening in Old Continent. Something that might be just what NCPD needs to go back into the public's good graces."
Rob's expression soured. Marlo was talking about the sickness spreading all over the coast of Old Continent. "Let me guess. They're so desperate about finding the reason behind the sickness that they're ready to step down from their altars and look at us, mere mortals."
"That's... a non-official way to word it." Marlo glanced at his datapad. He stretched a hand and pressed the small button at its side until the device shut off. "They want you to be part of a joint force to understand the sickness. They're apparently sending people from several divisions to work with us. They should be arriving today or tomorrow, before NC closes its borders."
"Wait, me?" Something cold swirled in Rob's stomach. People in NC were much more familiar with Grizzly Bear than OC. If even one of the officers recognized him as a traitorous superhero, he wouldn't know what would happen to him and Rafa. "Marlo. Why me?"
"Your sister refused."
Rob frowned. "Wait, you asked her first?"
Marlo groaned and rubbed his temples. He pushed the folder across the desk.
"Think about it while you heal your bruised ego." He clicked his tongue. "To be fair, I'm not excited for any of you to be part of this shit cause I know precisely how things will go down. We'll do the hard work, and the New Continent officers will get all the laurels of glory once the case is closed." He shrugged. "Orders are orders, though. Now, please." He gestured towards the door.
Still stunned, Rob took the plastipaper folder again.
He had a bad feeling about this.