Joey knew he had to tread carefully if he wanted to extract some sort of confession from the comedian.
"That was a great routine there, Rusty," Joey offered cheerily. "I recognize you from that other club."
Rusty smirked. "Yeah? Well, the rest of the audience at Chuckles Unlimited didn't think I was very funny." Rusty's voice was raspy, as though he had smoked one too many cigarettes.
"That's because they missed the explosive ending!" Though Joey chortled out loud at his joke, he was secretly baiting the raccoon.
"I'm not so sure about that!" Rusty returned the laugh, his with an edgy undertone.
"Huh? What do you mean?" questioned Joey, playing dumb.
"You mean you didn't hear?" the raccoon asked incredulously. "Apparently there were some 'bangs' and a fire over there." He paused and added wickedly, "There may not have been many laughs at that club – but they still got excitement!"
Sensing a breakthrough in the case was coming, Joey anxiously urged the conversation forward. "An explosion? What kind? From what?"
Rusty frowned and guardedly said, "How would I know? I left right after my routine. I was so annoyed at messing up in front of a high-profile agent that I knew was in the audience."
Joey's intensity was rising. "So you left the club in a rage?"
"What? What's that supposed to mean?" Rusty was shouting now and Joey could see the small veins in his temple starting to boil. A wave of suspicious realization settled over Rusty's face. "Wait a sec…if you saw me at Chuckles Unlimited, how come you didn't know about the fire?"