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11.
A green van stopped at the corner, a short block from the Luna restaurant. The back doors opened wide, splitting the Tech Labs logo in two as one figure after another leaped out to the street.
Before long, five silhouettes stood shoulder to shoulder in the shadows between the streetlamps; five electronically controlled lab technicians armed and dressed as the storybook characters Tetch had programmed them to play.
Tetch also carried a weapon: a Taser-like gun, into which he carefully inserted the microchips his lab rats had recovered from the police station. Snatching his top hat from the van's front seat, he closed and locked the doors, tucked his pre-programmed control cards into the hat's outside ribbon, and placed the tall hat on his oversized head.
The Mad Hatter then turned to address his waiting minions.
"Remember my instructions," he commanded. "When we get to the restaurant, you may do as you please. Attack, destroy, demolish! But Alice is not to be touched. She is not to be harmed or handled in any way, even if she should stand directly in your path! Do you understand?"
The mind-controlled techs mumbled an absent acknowledgment, and the Hatter smiled.
"Excellent! Then, follow me," he said, already leading the way. His costumed followers fell into a slow, somnambulating march behind him as he sang, "The moon is shining sulkily, the puddles are wet as wet can be! Callo-Callay! That clown will pay! We're cabbages and Kings!"
Jack… Jack was running…running toward the end zone with the ball tucked under his shirt. In his dream he saw him clearly… Jack his old pal, scattering banana peels across the playing field, mining the path of any who might catch on to their scheme too soon…
Gotham's underworld ran its operations in the half light, casting long shadows of its own. The boy had grown up in that shaded darkness…navigating the craggy depths between the cracks…
He returned there now, climbing down from Valestra's high-class lair in a tailored suit and spotless spats, his shoes polished to a mirror shine…and a bag of red ski masks in his white-gloved hand.
Jack knew what to look for in a henchman; how to approach the angry, the disaffected… The bitter, small-time hoods dragged down by the rip tide of Gotham's corrupted justice system. Used as leverage by lawyers and cops, perpetually on the skids, these hired goons served out their lives in nickel and dime sentences, all so the big bosses could pretend like they were squeaky clean, living large on their laundered millions…
"It's just business," Valestra would say into his phone, a yellowed haze of cigarette smoke collecting over his mahogany desk as, with a silent gesture, he ordered another hit, another body in the river. "Business like any other…"
There was no thought of repercussion in anything these mob heads did, no fear of arrest or jail. They and their lawyer sidekicks had an act for every audience, a face for every crowd. Distract the eye with one hand, deceive it with the other…
Showman Jack knew that game. He'd lived it for over a decade, playing from the sidelines with one prize in mind. His private, driving obsession.
Achieving Jack's perfect revenge…
The man with the silver tooth had a name, a wife, an ex-wife, three mistresses, five kids, a pet ferret, two dogs…
And a routine.
One night, while the silver toothed man was walking home, a hood in a red ski mask pulled a burlap sack down over his head and shoulders, then shoved the aging drug dealer in the back of a van.
After a long, circuitous ride through the city and an awkward trip down some stairs, the man was pushed into a folding chair and the sack was pulled away, revealing the yellowed lighting and decaying concrete of a long-abandoned parking garage.
The cavernous space was dusty and cold as a tomb; the air stank of motor oil, of sweat and urine and worse.
The man quaked and shivered in his chair, but when he tried to stand a sharp shout rang out in the darkness. A teeming throng appeared from the shadows - snarling men with hardened faces, all dressed in solid black.
The crowd parted and a tall man in an impeccable black suit strode forward. A red helmet obscured his features, its seamless surface as smooth and polished as the rest of his ensemble. For a fleeting moment, the man with the silver tooth wondered how he could see…
Then he realized. It had to be like sunglasses, or those mirrors at police stations. The man in the hood could see out, but no one could see in.
"I…I know you," he managed, rising cautiously to his feet. "You're that Red Hood - the guy that's been pullin' all those heists lately. Wha—what do you want with me?"
"We have some unfinished business, you and I," said the man in the hood, and his snarling gang hooted their approval.
The silver toothed man paled and swallowed.
Behind the hood, Jack's green eyes hardened, and his grin grew deathly cold…
It had started small, Jack's 'Red Hood' gag. A scheme designed to hit the mob right where it hurt the most.
Their bank roll.
He began with three ex-Falcone goons, recruited the night he'd returned to his old neighborhood. He'd gone to the pool halls, the corner bars, pretending to be just one in a long line of red mask-wearing vigilantes passing the torch, and the message, to the next guy. There was no need to take an oath or vow of secrecy, he'd said. Those involved were bound by their discontent, their resentment of the big bosses and the lawmen and judges sewn up in their pockets.
Jack's anti-Falcone message struck a chord that resonated through Gotham's neglected docklands and slums. Interest in the new gang spread like a secret fight club as, dressed in rented tuxes and tails, Gotham's disaffected cast-offs put their skills to use against the mob, pulling heists in territories controlled by Gotham's infamous Five Families. From bakeries to banks, garbage disposal to real estate, chemical companies to casinos, the Red Hood Gang would hit wherever the mob had invested its dough, the seemingly random acts spreading terror and mayhem throughout the city.
The papers latched hard to the mystery this set for a police force already overwhelmed by mob activity and violence. Before long, speculation about the Red Hood's true identity became a city-wide preoccupation.
But, speculation was all it was. There was no established order to this gang, no clear membership or hierarchy. It operated like a game of tag, with the leader of the last heist selecting the leader of the next, who then chose his own companions. With no official members and no consistent cast, the Red Hood Gang could hit a target then dissipate like a wave against the shore, leaving no trace, no team, no membership the cops could play against each other.
And no trail back to Valestra's 'Sonny' Jack, who remained his most trusted and reliable henchman…
Right up to the day he disappeared…
Jack had let the man with the silver tooth go after his gang meted out a relatively minor beating. Some broken ribs, a few scars…
And, more importantly, a lingering terror to shadow his footsteps wherever he went.
After all, Jack's aim had not been to kill the aging creep. At least, not right away.
He wanted watch the monster look over his shoulder on the street, see him jump at every movement, every sound, know that he was feeling the helpless, angry fears of the boy he used to be.
For the next few weeks, while his injuries healed, the silver toothed man was gaslighted at every turn, his terror rapidly blooming to full-on paranoia. He hired a bodyguard, bought a bullet-proof vest…
But, when the bandages came off, the treatment stopped completely.
A month went by, then two…
He began to reduce his bodyguard's hours - the expense of round-the-clock-protection beginning to overtake his fear of being without it. Now and then, he left the vest in a drawer, feeling a little safer in his skin…
That's when Jack decided the joke had gone on long enough.
The timing was right to deliver Jack's punchline, and really make it sing…
To Be Continued…
References Include - The Marx Brothers' movie "Horse Feathers"; "The Godfather"; "Fight Club"; "The Dark Knight"; Batman: The Killing Joke; The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told; Batman Black and White Volume 2: Case Study; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Batman The Animated Series: Mad As A Hatter.
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