Magnus tented his fingers as Jacob sat down in one of the creaky office chairs at Leo’s, facing the big horse.

“Amin tells me you’ve been doing bang-up work, Jacob.”

The malinois squirmed in his seat. “Doing my best, Magnus. Watching and observing pays off.” He noticed the horse was eyeing the fake torq on his wrist. Studying it. Magnus’s eyes narrowed. Jacob wondered if he knew it was a replica and swallowed hard. He hoped it was good enough to fool the old mercenary.

Magnus pulled up the corners of his maw in what could be considered a grin. Jacob had never seen him smile before, so he wasn’t sure what was going on now.

“One by one, we’ll weed out the shitheads and losers that are trying to rip me off. I’m fucking glad yer on board with that, Jacob.”

Jacob licked his nose nervously. “You know it.”

“Loyalty will get you far,” Magnus extended a meaty hoof towards his monogrammed satchel and undid the buckle. “Do you wanna know what we do to those who aren’t so loyal? Like that barback you told us about?”

Deep down, he didn’t really want to know, but, out of fear, he nodded anyway.

Magnus reached into his satchel and pulled out a clenched fist. He then reached in again with his other hoof and produced a metal tool that had four prongs on it. It looked like a diabolical ratchet wrench with two handles.

“Do you know what these are?” The big horse had a wider grin now.

Magnus opened his palm. In it were about a dozen small plastic rings, each less than the diameter of a pencil. Jacob swallowed hard and shook his head uncomfortably.

“They cut off blood flow to the testicles. Pop one on using this spreader tool and it makes it easier to snip ‘em off. Less mess, too.” Magnus wrapped one of the rings around the four metal spikes of the tool and squeezed the two handles together, making the ring stretch out to a diameter that could easily accommodate most nutsacks.

Jacob wanted to vomit, but held it in. His eyes grew big as he held his breath.

“You keep finding me thieves and I’ll take care of them for you, dog. Hell, maybe I’ll get ya to help me out some time.” The horse’s eyes lit up with what could only be described as evil glee. “You could do the honours!” He let out a deep, dark laugh.

Jacob worked the rest of his Wednesday shift at Leo’s with a mixture of dread and nausea.

On his break, he flew out the door and texted Sarah and Marcus from a decrepit bench just off Pirate’s Alley. He needed to see both of them at the same time.

The next morning, coffees in their paws, Jacob and Marcus were in Sarah’s office at the museum. Marcus was barely awake.

“We have to tell the authorities, Jacob,” Sarah crossed her arms. “But if we time this wrong, that psycho horse is gonna go after you and it’s bye-bye Jacob Caesari.”

“They can only arrest him on the spot if there’s definitive proof that the goods are in his possession,” Jacob barked. “Which means we need to get inside those boxes in the basement. And by we, I mean you and Marcus.”

Sarah nodded. “I kinda figured as much. I’ve already gone through our security department’s files and taken pictures of each of the archival photos of the stolen artifacts. I can compare what we find with what was actually removed from the museum.”

“Sarah, you are brilliant,” Jacob wagged his tail.

“You mentioned Magnus and Amin never arrive before 17:00,” Sarah held one elbow in her paw, gesturing with the other. “So, if we can somehow get inside the building before then…”

Marcus started to doze off in Sarah’s guest chair.

“I’m one step ahead of you,” Jacob rumbled. “I ran into Emma and Evan on the weekend.”

“Who?”

“The Vignola ‘twins.’ Biggest property owners in the city. They own the building that Leo’s is in,” replied the malinois. “I let them know about Leo and it turns out they have a bit of a shared history. I also kinda sorta told them about Magnus.”

Sarah stared expectantly at Jacob, a concerned look on her face. “Told them what, exactly?”

“That I suspected something criminal was going on. They know about the boxes now. It is their building, after all, and they wanna get rid of those creeps. They also gave me a key. A skeleton key to the whole damn place.”

Sarah’s eyes grew wide. Marcus was snoring now.

“I trust them, Sarah. They’re good folks. They want to help Leo and help me, and us, get out of this fucking weird situation.”

Sarah let a wide smile stretch across her maw as she began to put two and two together. “You had sex with them, didn’t you?”

The tips of Jacob’s ears ran hot. “Is it that obvious or do you just assume I…”

“It’s fine, Jacob,” Sarah laughed. “It’s actually pretty fucking admirable. If screwing them gets this case solved then I will forever be impressed by you, Jacob.”

A sudden, loud snore from the shepherd got their attention.

“Marcus!” Jacob sounded irritated. “Wake the fuck up. We’re making a plan.”

The shepherd opened his eyes groggily. “Plan?”

Sarah cleared her throat. “Marcus… you and I need to get inside Leo’s to look inside those boxes. If the artifacts are in there, we take photos and get the hell out. Jacob, are there any security cameras or other things we haven’t thought of?”

“I can check. I didn’t see anything obvious but I kinda doubt it. Those two horses are pretty manual creatures.”

“We also need to make double sure Magnus isn’t there,” Sarah added. “Can you set up some kind of meeting with him somewhere else during the day while Marcus and I go inside?”

Jacob looked down at the floor and crossed his arms. “I… I might. I can think of something. We can pick a day when I know Magnus is off. I can get him to meet me at a pub.”

“Wait, what?” Marcus rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Um. But what if Amin is there when we let ourselves in?”

“Emma can produce a fake work order that you can show Amin,” Jacob replied. “She can fabricate some kind of basement leak complaint that’s affecting the building next door, which they also own. Evan is sending over some official company overalls you can both wear and hopefully won’t make the horse suspicious. I have some of her business cards which I’ll give to you. If Amin wants to call her directly, she can back up your fake repair story.”

“Are you sure either of those bastards don’t know who we are?” There was a hint of worry in Sarah’s voice.

Jacob gritted his teeth. “Magnus knows Marcus exists, but I don’t think I’ve ever described what he looks like to him.”

“You… think… you haven’t?” Marcus sounded worried, too.

Jacob stared at the floor, racing through memories, trying to piece together every conversation he’d had with Magnus. He couldn’t recall a time he talked about Marcus other than mentioning his name.

“I’m about 99% sure.”

“Uh, okay. I’m okay with those odds,” Marcus looked away, clearly worried now. “Shouldn’t we have some kind of backup plan?”

“Emma and Evan said they’d be able to get some of their security team to camp out nearby,” Jacob licked his nose. “If, say, you don’t message them within a certain time frame, they can rush in and, uh, neutralize the situation.”

Sarah turned her head. “Neutralize? What the hell does that mean?”

Jacob shrugged. “That was Emma’s word. I shoulda asked her, but my head was getting full at the time.”

“Okay, so maybe none of that shit happens,” Marcus wagged his tail once, which thumped against the leg of the chair. “We pop open a box, take pics and send them to the police?”

“No,” Jacob barked. “Send them to the Vignola security team. They’ll connect with the cops and report the stolen goods that are on their property. They’ve already put together a file on the horses that they can forward to the detectives right away. Emma said they’d be taking undercover photos and video of them as they come and go over the next few days. They also have the photo I took of them from that newspaper article we saw on the fiche reader.”

“Basically, we’re doing all the detective work for the police,” Sarah grunted.

Jacob shrugged. “Someone has to. Those two have evaded the authorities for almost three decades. All it takes is for us to prove they have the artifacts.”

“What if they don’t?”

Sarah and Jacob stared at Marcus.

“Like, what if it’s something else in those boxes?” Marcus looked back and forth at Sarah and Jacob. “What if they’re full of, uh, rubber ducks or, um, something not stolen from the museum?”

Jacob cleared his throat.

“Then you run like hell and we all go back to our normal lives.”