Carl Bennett had been an inmate of the Motor City minimum-security prison for the past ten years, and to a man who was already an angry, explosive, violent sort, this did not improve his disposition. He wasn't a dangerous man per se, which is why the judge had confined him to the minimum-security facility rather than the high-security one for the more unstable inmates. Carl was surrounded by other white collar criminals similar to himself – formerly rich and respectable businessmen who had embezzled funds and committed other non-violent crimes, who were living out their sentences in relative peace and comfort.

It wasn't a bad situation to be in, all things considered, but Carl Bennett resented being in it. He resented that he had been locked up thanks to the machinations of a criminal lunatic, a man a thousand times worse than himself, who had murdered thousands of people. Carl had never killed anyone – people had died as a result of his inaction, but that wasn't the same thing. That wasn't like pulling the trigger on the gun. And he had hired the assassin Deathstroke to kill the Joker, but that wasn't the same thing either – the Joker deserved to be killed. He had taken the lives of thousands of innocent people, and it was only right that his reign of terror could be stopped before he could take thousands more.

Not that things had gone according to his plan – the assassin Deathstroke had betrayed him by exposing his crimes and confining him to jail, which is what the Joker had wanted all along. He had taken a shine to Carl's daughter, Janey, and had saved her from his neglectful care by allowing her to go and live with her mother, whom Carl had determined would never see her again. The Joker being heroic to help a child wasn't a funny joke to Carl Bennett. It was an infuriating bit of interference in his affairs that had cost him his job and his freedom. And Carl Bennett wasn't laughing about that. He had sworn to himself if he ever saw the grinning manic again, he'd put a bullet in between his eyes himself. He never could have imagined the circumstances of him seeing the Joker again.

He had just completed a round in the prison golf course and returned to his cabin, a freestanding, spacious structure on the grounds without fences or walls of any kind. He picked up a newspaper while waiting for the prison chef to pop round with his prepared, requested meal of lobster bisque.

The knock on his door came, and Carl rose to open it, checking his watch. "You're ten minutes later, Jeff, the lobster better not be cold…" he began, but his jaw dropped in shock and horror when he saw, instead of the chef, the Joker standing there.

"Sorry, it ain't room service!" he chuckled, shoving his way past him and looking around the spacious cabin, whistling. "Geez, you call this a prison? This ain't a prison – it's a corporate spa!"

"What the hell…are you doing here?!" hissed Carl, his shock instantly being replaced by fury.

"I came to bust you outta this dump, but I can see that I vastly underrated this particular dump and how easy it would be to bust outta it," said Joker. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why you'd wanna bust outta it under normal circumstances – they give you a house and requested meals and expensive leisure activities…clearly I need to commit some more white collar crime! It's like a daycare for wealthy scumbags."

"I'm gonna kill you, clown!" roared Carl, throwing a punch suddenly. Joker's reflexes were quick through years of avoiding Batman's punches, and he easily avoided this one, catching Carl's arm and twisting it behind his back.

"Woah there, cowboy," he snapped. "I didn't come here to fight."

"That's too bad, because you started a fight a long time ago!" snapped Carl. "When you put me in here and turned my daughter against me…"

"Hey, you're the one who turned her against you, pal," retorted Joker. "By being a crap excuse for a parent, as well as a crap politician. Bit redundant, I know, since all politicians are crap, but I came here to let bygones be bygones, and rectify the mistake I made ten years ago. I'm here to get you outta here and reunite you with your daughter. Because that's just the kinda selfless guy I am."

Carl stared at him. "What kinda sick joke is this?" he demanded.

"It's not a joke!" snapped Joker. "Putting you in here – that was a joke. Me doing a good deed and acting heroic – joke. But this is just helping a fellow criminal out. So are you coming or not?"

Carl's glare didn't fade, but he nodded slowly. "Good. Then stop trying to punch me and just follow me," retorted Joker, heading for the door. "Your kid's gone to Gotham to see me, so we'll head there. I really hope this convinces her that I'm no hero – if it doesn't, nothing will."

He paused suddenly, and turned to face Carl. "Wait a minute – you haven't suddenly become a nice, good guy, completely reformed and seen the errors of your ways, have you? I don't want this backfiring on me by unintentionally doing another good deed by reuniting you with your estranged daughter."

"No," retorted Carl. "I haven't."

"Good!" said Joker, beaming. "So when you see your daughter again, be sure to treat her like crap, and that way my work will be done!"

Carl said nothing. For now he was going to play along with the Joker, but inwardly the desire for revenge still burned deep inside him. Carl was a short-tempered man, but also a clever man, and his years in prison and as a politician had taught him that cooperation was a useful tool to getting what he wanted…until he had what he wanted, of course, and then he could dispense with the cooperation. If the Joker was really stupid enough to let one of his worst enemies out and travel to Gotham with him, he would reap the consequences of those actions very quickly and painfully. Carl Bennett would see to it.