9:22pm, January 11; The Iceburg Lounge; Edward Nygma
Three days later and he was back at the Lounge. This time he was alone.
He hadn't been able to keep the short encounter of out of his head. It had eaten away at his brain the whole night and into the next day to the point that he gave up on trying to focus on work and instead ducked into the records annex and trolled the files for any mention of the Penguin he could find. There was an entire cabinet dedicated to the crime lord in the main records room, but he didn't have access to that unless he was actively working on a case that necessitated he be in there. All files in that room were strictly controlled as they represented active and current investigations as well as sensitive subjects. The annex was a little more lax. General public still couldn't be in there and all files had to stay in the precinct, but anyone with a security badge could have access.
Kristen had been there when he arrived and asked what he was looking for. He wasn't exactly comfortable with lying to her, so he'd skirted the truth and said any files about Penguin's known current and former associates. There were plenty of cases that involved the man's underlings and hirelings, so it was technically plausible that he was gathering information about one of them being potentially involved with something he was working on. it wouldn't stand up to intense scrutiny or further questioning, but fortunately Ms. Kringle hadn't cared to dig any deeper. She just reminded him to sign out on any files he took back to his office so she could account for them and pointed him toward two cabinets in particular. After about a half hour of him rooting through and browsing the files, she'd gotten up to take care of something elsewhere.
Her filing system grated on his nerves, but it had a basic logic to it, so he was able to find a few leads that were potentially enlightening. Files on some recently deceased middle and upper level mafiosos. Chaff that had been cleared out in Penguin's rise to power. Their files had confessions and transcriptions of recordings taken from meetings secretly taken by moles who'd eventually been exposed and executed. Penguin had been beyond ruthless in his takeover. There was no question of that. But the personality Edward had pieced together from overheard conversations between Gordon and Bullock and the laments of Captain Essen and so many others didn't fit with the image of the man he'd met in the dark of the loft. He needed to do a more thorough analysis and for that he needed more examples to study.
In the end, he signed out on four thick files and a single box of notes on very low-level gang members who had had run-ins with Penguin before he'd left the shadow of Fish Mooney.
The transcriptions were the best sources of new data. They were largely unusable as evidence since most of them couldn't confirm that the words being attributed to Penguin were actually his. It was largely based on people saying they recognized his voice rather than confirmed sightings of him entering the buildings at the time of the recordings. He could be a ghost when he wanted to.
He'd read many of the transcriptions before, but he'd imagined a loud, angry man, practically frothing at the mouth, screaming his head off. Volatile and more than a little exaggerated in his anger, like an actor on stage over-performing so his expression could be seen even in the very, very back.
Now he imagined the words being said with a soft, just slightly amused tone that held a quiet confidence that the person speaking could do whatever they wanted and nothing would be able to touch them. It painted an extremely different picture. A refinement that seemed almost natural rather than a caricature of what a child might think the upper class should sound like. There were times where it was noted that 'Penguin' sounded particularly displeased and angry, and for that he wondered if there was, in fact, some truth in his previous assessment. But not an overwhelming, constant thing as he'd been assuming. Just moments before the man caught himself and pulled himself back to the calm, level tone he'd used with Edward.
The files were still in his office. He had them memorized but he was still going to go over them again. And again. As long as this curiosity consumed him.
Tonight, though, he was at the Lounge. At a smaller table with a different bird than before making sure he had everything he needed. He sat there, nursing first one, then two, of his favorite drinks, for a couple of hours. He had picked a spot where he could see directly down the back hall and then he'd waited. There was a security guard at the far end this time so he needed to wait.
When the line to the bathroom finally started to get to the point of not-quite unruly, he stood to go join it. There were four doors and logically a single line would have worked fine, but the herd mentality had decided that four doors meant four lines. He made his way to the line for the door closest to the guard. He did so carefully, knocking into only one person, who turned to face him but found themselves looking at a woman instead. The guy was at the point of being fully drunk. He had a friend who'd guided him down the hall and was keeping him focused on waiting for the door. But he was the angry sort of drunk who took offense to everything.
So he did what was only natural to his small, intoxicated brain. He called the woman a bitch and told her he'd knock her teeth in if she did that again. He wasn't clear on what 'that' was, but the woman's escort - another woman with more piercings than where healthy - dared him to try it. Too much alcohol among the group and a fight broke out with only a few outliers trying to get away from it, Edward included.
The incident wasn't one the guard could ignore. And once he'd pushed past Ed to try and break up the knot of people, Ed made a dash for the end of the hall. This time he did actually jump the cordon. He stumbled on the landing and had to bite down on a pained cry so that it came out as a pained hiss. It took a second to recenter himself, then he hurried the rest of the way up the stairs.
Once around the corner and out of line of sight, he let himself lean against the wall and bite a knuckle to try and trick his head into ignoring the pain in his shin. It didn't quite work, but it was enough of a distraction that after a minute or two he could focus on the hall in front of him. As the cordon had indicated, the Loft was closed again. The hall dark and the light from below the burg the only thing leading him forward.
He stopped at the point that the hall of private rooms ended and the Loft spread out before him. He kept himself hidden right at the corner in an attempt to case the room and see if Penguin was even there before he made himself known.
His attempt was foolhardy as that soft voice called out to him just as he picked out the figure of a man sitting at a table on the other end of the U from him.
"Hello, friend. I see you're trespassing again." There was a more clear sense of amusement this time around. "How did you duck security this time?"
He let out the breath he'd been holding and grinned, straightening up to start the trek around the room, "I started a fight in the line to the restrooms then hopped the cordon."
"That's close enough," the voice murmured, warning, but still amused. Silence followed and he could just make out the shape of the man lifting a glass to take a drink. He shifted his position slightly, body moving into the light from below as he leaned himself against the back of the booth he was in. It sat directly against the railing around the burg.
"Did you know that there are only seventeen species of penguins and they're all exclusively found in the southern hemisphere in the wild? There is no such thing as a 'Northern Penguin'." He couldn't help himself as the detail spilled from lips and was followed half a second later with: "Except for you." and a giddy little grin.
He took another drink, expression turned contemplative, "You know who I am?"
"Oh yes. I recognized you the first time. Well, not right away. But it wasn't hard to figure out. You're very well known-"
"At the GCPD? Yes, I know," he interrupted. "You aren't the usual sort I see Detective Flass with."
That caught Ed off guard. He assumed Penguin knew a great many of the detectives at the precinct, but to be familiar with Flass enough to know his usual crowd or and that Ed was an outlier...
"Are you surprised I know who among the cops frequent my establishment, or that I know you're with the GCPD, too?"
"Neither," he answered immediately. "Well, not that you know which officers come by, but that you know their, as you said, usual sort. It's not a detail I would have expected you to care about. I'm certain it's relevant enough at times, but I would have thought it's something someone else keeps track of for you."
"I didn't get where I am by trusting everyone else to have all the facts," he answered and this time a smile did crest his lips, shadows pulling at the edge of his cheek, keeping his eyes mostly in the dark.
"So." he said it forcefully, clearly making a change in topic as he set his empty glass down and focused his attention on Edward. "Tell me. Knowing what you know and how dangerous it is for you to so brazenly enter my domain, why have you returned? The first time I understand. I've seen it happen before. Not here, but in other clubs I've worked at. But surely you couldn't have thought this would be a good idea?"
Ed laughed, his shoulders pulling up to his ears and his nose scrunching, "Actually, I thought it was an excellent idea! When else does someone like me have a chance to meet someone like you? You're..." He paused, mouth open, searching for the right words, excited beyond measure. "You're the Penguin. In less than a year, you wrested the warring gangs that have fought over Gotham since it's founding from the very hands of the oldest crime families in the city and forced them all to kneel and kiss your hand and acknowledge you as their superior. You united forces under your heel that no one else has ever been able to lay low. You took what was a once a tepid pot and brought it to a frothing boil that couldn't be contained and orchestrated the single greatest takeover of a mafia group that has ever happened in this city. You...
"You're amazing," he finished, nearly breathless. "How could I not want to try and meet you again?"
He was staring at him, looking as though he was trying to fight his own face-splitting grin. He pressed his lips together and turned his head, putting himself in the dark once more. "That's not exactly a healthy outlook for someone in the police department to have."
"I'm in forensics." A short paused and then he added on, "I'm allowed to have hobbies."
A laugh broke through the room. It was unrestrained and beautiful and made him momentarily desperate to see what the man looked like when he made such a mesmerizing sound.
"You should get going, friend," he was told as the laughter died away into a chuckle. An arm slipped off the back of the booth and into the light, thin fingers gesturing toward the bar, "Take the service exit. There will be less questions."
The dismissal was disappointing, but Ed shuffled toward a second set of stairs hidden behind a low wall that was only visible once he got close. He stopped, turning to look toward that back corner now so shrouded in shadow he couldn't make out anything. His only assurance that the man was still there being the lack of any noise indicating he'd gotten up and left.
He grinned and waved, biting back on the temptation to say anything more before taking the stairs down. He hadn't been sure what sort of encounter he might have the second time around. He hadn't dared fantasize about. He could easily have been killed. Rightfully, probably. Here, in the heart of Penguin's empire, someone could get murdered in the middle of the dance floor and there would be no witnesses. No one would talk. And they'd all be back the next night, not realizing or maybe not even caring that next time it could be them. The danger of it all, the open secret that the proprietor of the Lounge was the most powerful criminal in Gotham... that was the draw.
No one really expected to see the man himself, however.
No one but Edward. Now that he'd had a taste of it. Now that he'd gotten away with it.
He was going to try it again.
He had to.