(AN: Apologies for what is likely going to be a erratic posting schedule. Also apologies for the short chapters. I'd like to say it's Chandler-esque but I think that's overestimating my abilities.)

When was the last time he had gone a day without a smoke, Commissioner James Gordon wondered as he packed the bowl of his Billard pipe with a pinch pungent tobacco. Decades at this point, before Sarah and the kids had entered the picture, the week after joining up with the Marines. Basic training had been hell, and no one had any sympathy for the guy wheezing through the exercises, especially his drill instructor. What was his name? Orenstein, he thought. What a hardass.

At the time he had never really missed it, but when he and the family had moved to Gotham it seemed like the habit quickly resurfaced. At first it was just a quick smoke after he had gone home from work, but as the days went on and the work kept piling up, with all the killer clowns and costumed gangsters crawling out of the woodwork, that moment seemed to come earlier and more frequent every time. In some ways, it felt like the only real constant in his now incredibly chaotic life, a small bit of control that eluded him everywhere else in this damn city. Or maybe he was just making excuses to justify indulging in an addiction. God knows there was enough of that in this city too.

"So, do either of you want to tell me how one of Gotham's most notorious criminals just waltzed onto a crime scene, started playing Columbo, and every single one if the officers on site were powerless to do anything to stop him?" Gordon released a slow trail of smoke across his desk. "Because I'm all ears."

Officer Maria Chen shifted in place, feeling a surge of embarrassment shoot from the base of her spine through her entire body. There was something about being called to the Commissioner's office first thing in the morning that smacked of mischievous elementary school children being sent to the principal's office, a scenario that hadn't been unfamiliar to her growing up. Not that she had a problem with authority necessarily (she was a police officer after all), but the idea of standing in front of someone who had her future in their hands, judging her, that had always been slightly unnerving. She pushed it away as best she could.

Drexel, perhaps to his credit, seemed nonplussed.

"Well sir, it was a, um, calculated risk." She replied. "Having studied the file on Edward Nygma's tendencies, as well as that of Gotham's other costumed criminals, I was aware of his more violent tendencies. Rejection could lead to retaliation, which would have possibly put members of the GCPD at risk. Also, as I attempted to explain to Officer Drexel at the time, feeding into his ego might have lead to Nygma tipping his hand on any information on the murderer or the murder itself."

"And did it lead to any new information?"

"...No, sir. Most Nygma's observations had already been made by the Batman earlier in the night."

"So what you're saying is that let a former super-criminal contaminate a crime scene on the basis of a hunch?" Gordon asked, his pipe jiggling slightly as he talked. "Is that your assertion?"

"Yes sir. I accept full responsibility."

A moment passed, and Chen could feel Gordon's stare pierce right through to her core. Then it was gone, and he was the same kind, slightly sad man she had met on her first day of work.

"Chen, I know things are different in Opal. These 'super villains' are much more rare there, much easier to handle, especially with that star guy of yours around. Not to disparage the work that Commissioner O'Dare does over there of course, the crime rates speak for themselves. This isn't Opal City, however. The criminals here are violent, they are sadistic, and a large portion of them are legally insane, which them difficult to predict and twice as dangerous. You have to keep these people at arm's length, because they will exploit every angle, take any opportunity they can to manipulate you to their own ends. Especially when it comes to high-profile criminals like Edward Nygma." Gordon said, tapping his finger on the bowl of his pipe in a contemplative manner. "Every year I tell our rookie's that same thing, and every year we still lose some. Because they see these people in flashy costumes and they underestimate them, and they end up dead, or maimed, or about a dozen other things that shouldn't happen to a decent person. You're a good cop Chen, and I'd like to keep you around for as long as possible."

"Thank you sir." Chen replied, a small grin on her face. "I'll try to make you proud."

"That's exactly what I was trying to tell her yesterday Commish." Drexel jumped in. "Gotta watch yourself around these loonies. That's GCPD 101 right there."

The Commissioner turned his gaze on Drexel, his expression shifting to the polar opposite of how he had been with her.

"Cut the horse hockey Drexel. You've got a list of offenses going back to the Loeb administration, and if the things Officer Chen brought to my attention are true, then you haven't changed a damn bit ince. Death threats and attempted extortion? In case you weren't aware, Detective Drexel, you're supposed to be a police officer, not Sal Maroni!"

Drexel raised his hands in the air, which to an observer could have been either a shrug or a gesture of commiseration. His expression, at the very least, failed to show remorse. "It was an act sir, all an act! You know the Riddler is a sucker for theatrics, and he loves to think he's some kind of grandmaster. So I set up a, what do ya call it, a honey trap, by setting Chen up as the victim. He takes the bait, and then we get Chen as a double agent, feeding us info on his plans. There wasn't time to tell her it was a con, and if she was in on it at the start then he might have caught on."

"Oh yeah, clearly you were only doing what was best for your fellow officers ," Gordon shot back "and when people wake up a day from now chained to explosive rubik's cubes, we'll know who to thank for antagonizing the criminally insane."

"Come on, Commish-"

"Can it! I've got Freeze threatening to turn Gotham Harbor into a sheet of ice, Joker sending explosive get well cards to cancer patients, and a rash of poisonings that looks like Poison Ivy's handiwork, but don't assume my need for able officers means I won't bust your ass down to meter maid if I hear about one more case like this. We're trying to keep Gotham held together here, I don't want or need people in my department tearing it down! Am I understood, Detective?"

"Yes sir." Drexel grumbled, with a sour look on his face.

"Good." From Gordon's tone, it was clear there that was the end of it. "Now, about the Yeager case, the boys in forensics dig up anything yet?"

"Nothing much sir." Chen replied, handing Gordon a manila folder. "Forensics has confirmed that Yeager was murdered by blunt force trauma to the back of the head, caused by a stone bookend she had in her room. No prints on the weapon, unfortunately. In fact, there's no evidence that anyone besides Erica Yaeger was in the apartment at all, except for the one strand of hair we found on the body. Lab has identified it as belonging to Mortimer Drake, alias The Cavalier. Surveillance footage from the hotel lobby and numerous eyewitness accounts from the hotel and Zeroes, some local nightclub, also place Drake with Ms. Yeager the entire evening prior to the murder."

"Except that ol' Morty has been stuck in Arkham ever since he tried to pull that job at one of Bruce Wayne's rich guy parties." Drexel added.

"So he's being framed, then?" Gordon asked, as he skimmed the documents in the folder. It seemed less a question and more a statement of fact.

"That's what the Batman seemed to think when he showed up." Drexel replied. "Said Drake had a 'psychological aversion' to harming women; didn't fit his M.O."

"So whoever it was didn't bother to do the research beforehand, which means this probably wasn't an attempt at ruining Drake's reputation, what little of it there is." Gordon mused. "Have we been able to get ahold of Alex Yeager yet?"

"Not yet sir. Communications out of the U.K. are still down due to that business with the JLI. We'll keep on it."

"Good." Gordon leaned back in his chair, stretching out muscles that were already starting to ache so early in the day. "In the meantime, I want you two to head up to Arkham, see if you can get anything useful out of Drake. See if he got on anybody else's bad side recently. Go through Yaeger's known associates and employees too,. could be that one of his buddies was trying to score brownie points with the chief by bumping off the unfaithful wife."

"Yes sir."

"Alright then, dismissed." Gordon waved them off with a wave of his hand. "Remember what I said Drexel."

"Yes sir Commissioner sir." Drexel replied, firing off a lazy salute as he sauntered out the door

Gordon watched him go, that stern frown back in full force. He thought back to his first year in the GCPD, back when Loeb, Flass and their little gang of jackbooted thugs had treated the city and the department like their own private playground. Then he thought about Sarah and Barbara, and how his adopted daughter had changed from a rambunctious teenager into a beautiful young woman, and yet it didn't seem like Gotham had changed one damn bit since then. In fact, it seemed like it was even worse, even with good people like Batman around. Every year, another Joker, another Black Mask, another Scarecrow, a legion of lunatics and killers that had to be dealt with. It's all just a continuous downward spiral of misery, of crime and death and despair until the whole town just crumbled to dust, and nothing that he had did with his life would amount to anything.

Then he took a puff on his pipe and got back to work.

Edward Nygma was a smart man. Indeed, there were some (Edward Nygma in particular) who would call him an unequivocal genius, living proof that the human race could be more than the brutish, small-minded neanderthals that typically populated the cities of the Earth. That his prodigious talents should go to waste here, attempting to bring these witless subhumans out of the darkness of their own ignorance was truly one of the greatest tragedies of mankind. They certainly hadn't earned it, and they definitely didn't deserve it, but part of being possessed with such an awesome power was the obligation of applying it responsibly and fairly, and the great Edward Nygma was nothing if not fair and responsible. Inspirational even, like the Buddha or Jesus Christ

So if it seemed like he, the great Edward Nygma, was looking a bit undignified as he slowly regained consciousness, dragging himself up off of the floor, then that simply wasn't the case. It was true that occasionally the stress of being a role model for the unwashed masses was not completely missed by him, and that perhaps his behaviour could be...erratic. However, that he didn't mean he was crazy, it didn't mean he wasn't in control over himself, like some people liked to imply. It just meant that he was eccentric at times, and it was only the willfully ignorant who described eccentricity as a negative term.

He stood up, unsteadily, and attempted to regain homeostasis, as well as his bearings. He was in his apartment/office, as he had suspected, across the street from what used to be known as the Ventriloquist Club (what Scarface lacked in creativity and general mobility he made up for in mutilations), a modest yet secure refuge from the world that he had picked up while extorting the City Council and had never gotten around to disposing of it. It wasn't really up to his standards of course, the furniture was a thrift store nightmare and the computer system was barely adequate for his purposes, and there was this particular neon sign advertising a local den of iniquity that managed to pierce through even the strongest of window blinds. However, it seemed like plebeians were more willing to accept something if it appeared to come from someone on their level, so here he was. Slumming it up.

Suddenly, Edward came to the realization that the omnipresent pounding that he had been hearing since he had awoke wasn't just from his recovering head, but from his door as well. The former super-criminal considered the possibility that it could be an assassin, sent by any one of a number of enemies that he had accrued during his time as The Riddler, maybe even that thick-skulled jackanape Detective Drexel. Then his head twinged in pain again, and he decided he would take his chances.

The view from the peephole didn't reveal anything extremely impressive about his guests: Two males, late 30s, brown eyes, one balding and carrying a brown leather briefcase, the other with grease-slicked hair, both rather 'dumpy' to use the common parlance, which they attempted to hide with tailored suits and expensive watches. If they were assassins (and Edward assumed they were not) they certainly didn't look the part, and in Gotham City a trained killer that didn't look like one was something of a rarity. So he opened the door.

"Ah! Good morning to you sir!" The grease-slick man said cheerfully, extending his hand. "Mr. Edward Nygma, I presume?"

"Brilliant deduction, genius." Edward replied testily. "Did the question marks give it away? Listen gentleman, you've woken me from a particularly pleasant nap, so I'd suggest that you get to whatever it is you're here to do before I lose my patience."

"Yes, of course. Our apologies, Mr. Nygma." The grease-slicked man said. "My name is Joseph Kahn."

"And I'm Milton Andrews."

"We understand that you have been selling your services as a private investigator. Well, we represent the interests of Mr. Karl Courtney, who wishes to employ your services for a delicate matter."

"We were referred by Mr. Cobblepot. He spoke very highly of your abilities."

"Of course, Oswald Cobblepot is a fantastic judge of character. If only more people in this town shared his level of insight, it might just become livable." Edward just barely managed to suppress a grin. "Well, my schedule is currently free, so I suppose I could take a look at your case. See whether it's worth my time, you understand. No offense, but I'm not going to traipse through seedy back alleys to take pictures of unfaithful spouses, even if you can afford my fee."

"We recognize how precious your time is, Mr. Nygma, and believe us, what Mr. Courtney is asking is far more important than a simple domestic squabble."

Kahn made a subtle motion towards Milton, who nodded and held up the leather briefcase level to his waist. With a click, the lid flipped open, revealing that the case was filled to the brim with stacks of money. A veritable herd of Benjamin Franklin's, which stared unblinking at Edward Nygma with the same sort of bemused expression that he was giving them.

"We want you to solve a murder."