The shit hit the fan on the 8pm news broadcast, Pamela "Poison Ivy" Isley should have seen it coming, she always knew that working for the Joker was going to be the death of Harley Quinn one day. It was another of the Joker's madcap schemes involving mass murder (as usual) and cheap novelty items (how original) climaxing in a reckless roof top chase across Gotham with the Batman in tow. People were beginning to think that the Joker and the Bat were seeing each other on the sly by the frequency of their moon light meetings.

This time round the green haired clown must have royally pissed off the Bat because he got the crap waked out of him pretty bad even by the Bat's standards. The bloody rag doll in the cheap suit being man handled by Gotham's finest on the WNN news channel a stark testament to the history of violence between the Capped Crusader and the Clown Prince of Crime. The Bat had thrown Jack "Joker" Napier off a multi-storey fire escape and forgotten to catch him on his way down. Broken leg, broken jaw, multiple lacerations, black eye, and bloody face. The cops would put it down as just another domestic dispute. Some pansy in a purple suit got beaten up by some guy he knew in a rubber one. So what? Happens everyday in the big city. They won't about to go chasing the Bat round Gotham for Jack Napier.

There was no word on Harley Quinn. Isley got on the phone to Harvey "Two Face" Dent fast.

"Harvey, I need ........yes, the news I know ........about Harley"

Harvey Dent and Pamela Isley went way back - they used to date. Things didn't work out but they kept in touch as friends and business associates. In Gotham, everyone who was anyone networked, you didn't burn bridges unless you had to; burning bridges was just plain stupid. Isley knew Dent never did like Quinn; he thought Quinn was some upstart hack from Bluehaven with her cheap polyester clothes and too much face paint. Them Bluehaven groupies were always wanting to make a splash in the big city; Gotham drew them to her like kids to candy. Only thing was no one ever told them pretty boys and girls that sugar kills. Dent could never say no to Isley. That was the problem when you had too much shared history together.

Dent had connections in the force, if they had picked Quinn up in the mop up operation; he was the man who could find out. Isley knew that having Dent bruised and battered in the holding pen at Gotham Central was a way better option than having her out on the lam from the Bat. The guys at Central never gave you flying lessons, but you could never be sure with the Bat. That man had his moods.

It was after 10pm before Dent's point man in the Major Crimes Unit could confirm that Quinn was not among the Joker's goons they had rounded up in the aftermath. They had ID most of the clowns they had picked up for the day. The Joker's main men were all present and accounted for; Bongo, Giggles, Bozo, Cooky even Charlie. The last anyone saw Quinn she was with the Joker, and that was just before all hell broke loose.

"Petal, it doesn't look good. They didn't pick her up..........."

Dent's prognosis was that Quinn must have lucked out and evaded the dragnet or the Bat got her good which meant that she was either dead or the next best thing to it. Word was the Joker got too personal with the Bat again, and the Bat had extracted a pound of flesh in payment. In return the clown got a one way ticket to the hospital wing at Arkham with a leg in traction and a jaw broken in 3 places and wired shut. Mr Happy wasn't going to be laughing at anything soon; the Bat had made sure of that. Dent was never a man to mince his words. He didn't have too. He believed in the luck of the draw. Heads or Tails. Fate ruled the affairs of mankind with no recognisable order.

Isley listened quietly and politely turned down Dent's offer to come over.

"Harvey...I need to be alone to think this out"

"Sure Petal, anytime...."

Harvey Dent ended the call on his mobile. He had expected Isley to get in touch when the news about the Joker broke. Women were so predictable. He didn't pretend to understand what it was between her and that Harley Quinn; although Isley had always preferred the company of men, she had found strange comfort with Quinn. It was a toxic relationship, often ending in a sunless isolation cell in Arkham. Dent knew that by the time he managed to wrangle the paperwork together to spring Isley, the good doctors would have made sure she was even more stir crazy than she was when she went in the first place. It was as plain as night and day that Quinn - that pathetic clown - was no good for her. Quinn was nothing but trouble with a capital "T".

He could see that it would end very much the same again - only this time it was going to be bad for everyone else because the Bat was taking whatever those two clowns did way too personally. That was the problem with them vigilante types, everything was personal.

Harvey Dent believed in Gotham. We the people establish justice, provide for the common good, promote general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for posterity.

Dent wished he had a dollar for every time one of them hard core vigilante types got caught up in their own urban myths and lost sight that the individual who persecutes his fellow because he is not of the same opinion is a monster; to declare in the administration of criminal law that the end justifies the means, that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution. You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?

Harvey Dent believed in Gotham. We the oppressors deny justice, enforce poverty, breed ignorance and perpetuate a class structure conspiracy to rob and degrade all others.

Dent wished he had a dollar for every time one of them sappy pencil pushers types got caught up in their own due process fairy tales and lost sight that they sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because real men stand ready to kill, maim and destroy on their behalf; what difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless whether destruction is wrought under the name of good or evil? Violence, naked force has decisively settled more issues in history than has any other factor. The end excused any evil.

Dent looked at his lucky silver dollar. Gotham was his city once. Was he going to let the Bat tear her apart looking for that creature Quinn? Split his city into good and evil?

He flipped his coin.

The silver dollar turned in the air and fell scarred side up.

The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance.

Live to fight another day, Detective.

Continues in Chapter 2 –