Batman and associated characters and concepts are the property of DC Comics. This story is for entertainment purposes only.

Chapter Fourteen: Here's to the Night

It had been a grueling few months, but the payoff was worth it. All the maneuvering, the killings, the untidiness. It had been decidedly unpleasant work, the Czaritsa decided, but then, what is easily gained is prized cheaply, and easily lost again. Anything worth having is worth working for, and her throne as the empress of the Gotham undergound was very much worth having. She now controlled or had direct influence over two-thirds of all organized crime in the city. And unlike her immediate predecessor, the Black Mask, her syndicate had not been haphazardly thrown together from existing parts, a Frankenstein's monster of crime; no, thanks to Scarface's preliminary work and her own further edicts, along with the Mad Hatter's assiduous efforts at enforcement, the syndicate was now a thoroughly modernized, organic business. Even if the syndicate's size did not translate directly to absolute control of two-thirds of all the territories, it did mean that she was the undisputed most powerful crime boss since the death of Big Boy Caprice in 1938.

It was no small achievement for a woman who'd grown up in the shadow of her big brother Viktor, whose ambitions had never extended higher than being some day the boss of the whole of the Odessa mob in the West End of the city. As she stood at the expansive windows of her huge office, overlooking the city below, she saw that it was good. As she stood at the windows of what had once been the office of Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, who had once been the most powerful boss Gotham had seen in decades, but whose power was much less than her own, she saw that it was good. She smiled. It was good to be tsaritsa.

The Gotham she now ruled — or at least dominated — was different from the Roman's Gotham. That had been back in the Cold War, before the great changes that had re-shaped the world. Many of the new outfits had either been modestly-sized operations subservient to the Five Families, or else had not existed at all. The Gotham Yakuza, the Burnley Town Massive, the Escabedo Cartel, the Latino Unified Gang... None of them had even been on the map back then. Nor had there been any of the freaks in those days, with the exception of Albert Wesker, whose severe personality disorders had not yet become so acute. The Five Families had been the alpha and the omega of organized crime, and the Roman had been a giant among men — but even then he'd had to share power with Sal "The Boss" Maroni. Today it was a different world, and a different Gotham; the Czaritsa was a giant among giants. The stakes were higher — the players much rougher — than ever before. And yet she had triumphed. Comparing her to the Roman was like comparing Stalin to Mussolini.

"Your car is ready, Alexandra Fyodorovna," said one of her bodyguards, a man who had served her family since before she was born. It was for this reason she permitted him to call in such familiar terms. Business was one thing, but one had always to look after family.

She smiled and allowed him to help her with her coat of luxurious mink fur. It was good to be tsaritsa.

The ride to the parking garage was uneventful; her personal security detachment was well-paid to ensure that it was always uneventful. Likewise the car ride. No one in Gotham had a more extensive or better financed corps of bodyguards — no one, not even the mayor, not even the corpulent 'aristocrat of crime' Oswald Cobblepot. It may be good to be tsaritsa, but she certainly had no illusions of imperial sacrosanctity. She knew all too well what had happened to the last Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias.

The Czaritsa was not a terribly devout person, but she'd been raised Russian Orthodox, and much like the Italian mafiosi and the Roman Catholic Church, a part of her retained that lifelong obedience. Only part, of course — her religion did nothing to regulate her business practices, but she was a believer and she gave generously to the Church. Every year, in addition to the usual solemnities and occasions to be seen, she made her way down to the St. Athanasius's Cathedral in the West End — built with Kosov money — to mark the anniversary of her father's death. This year would be no different. The regularity of the trip made heightened security a priority.

The arrival, as so much else, was uneventful. It was a truly beautiful church — easily on the same scale as St. Thomas Aquinas's, the Catholic cathedral downtown. That was important. The Romans had to be reminded of their place every now and then. She headed to the analogion near the iconostasion, where she was to meet her spiritual father. The Romans would call him a confessor.

To her great surprise, it was not her spiritual father who arrived.

"How did you get in here?" she demanded.

"I walked through the door," the man said in accented Russian — accented, but nevertheless quite fluent. "Knock, and the door is opened. That is what you believe, is it not so?"

"What do you want?" she was decidedly angry at this unexpected turn of events. Her head of security was going to receive a visit from the Mad Hatter. "Where is Father Grigori?"

"He is in good company. I am here to talk business."

"You profane the church with your — "

"Please. Do you often lie before your God? I am no more profane than you."

"You are not even Christian!"

He shrugged. "How often do you wash before you pray? If my presence offends you so much, why don't we step outside?"

The Czaritsa snorted. "And be gunned down by your men? I think not."

"If I wanted you dead," he said, his breathing coming in steadily and with a strange rasp to it, "I would have killed you already. As you said, I am not Christian. This building is not sacred to me."

She glanced at her personal bodyguard, the man who had been with her family for decades. He was looking at her visitor with surprise and outright hostility. She waved him off. As he said, if he'd wanted her dead... "Very well. We will go outside. But not the door, no. Come. We will go upstairs. There is a balcony on the third floor."

He followed her up the stairs, making no comment as they walked. He was all business, no fuss. There was a kind of steely charisma to him, an aura of naked power. It was easy to see why he had done so well in the last few months.

"Your Russian is excellent, for an Iraqi," she said casually once they'd reached the balcony. "Where did you learn?"

"Leningrad, 1979. Are you done with small talk?" All business, indeed.

"What do you want?"

"I want the killings to stop."

"And I want President Ryan to die a humiliating death. We do not always get what we want."

"Do not insult me by feigning ignorance, woman," he said, his voice as raspy as ever. "This Joker, this Red Riding Hood. Both were inflicted on us by your man. I have endured their outrages as long as I will endure them. Seven times they have made attempts on my life. They have threatened my men. They have threatened my business. It stops. Now. Or I will show you pampered Americans what war is."

"Pampered? American? If you think — "

He grunted. "You are American citizen, with American rights, and American comforts."

"My... dear sir," she said, her anger solidified into an icy ball in her stomach, "If you think you will intimidate me, you are mistaken. If you think me ill-equipped to settle accounts with you, by all means, please try."

They glared at one another, each calm, confident, dangerous. Despite the drastic differences in age, gender, nationality, and culture, they were distinctly cut from the same cloth.

He shook his head slightly. "I have said what I came to say. The killings stop. Or the killings will start in earnest. It is your — "

The shuriken came in at lightning speed, carefully aimed directly for his throat. But the man's reflexes were fast — far faster than anyone the Czaritsa had ever seen; what should have torn his throat wide open instead was deflected by the sleeve of his coat.

She had her pistol out in an instant, scanning the horizon for — there! A flutter of red, a figure dressed in black. The Masked Red Death, here? A whuff of air as the grapnel gun latched onto the wall just above where they stood. It would be only seconds before the killer was among them.

"Faithless drab," he hissed, as his fist crashed into her side, just beneath the ribs. Her chic business suit offered no protection from the blow.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded, scrabbling away from him and trying to straighten herself out. "He's coming, you idiot!"

He plucked her pistol from her hands.

"I came in good faith," he growled, his face an ugly mask of blackest anger, as he. His white leather glove closed around the pistol's grip. "And again you send your killer! Again you send your Red Riding Hood after me! No more. I warned you."

The last thing Alexandra Fyodorovna Kosova, Czaritsa of Gotham, ever saw was the barrel of her own pistol being pressed against her good eye.

The door of the executive suite in the Iceberg Lounge swung open with unaccustomed speed as the raspy-voiced man entered, and eyed his fellow tetrarchs. Well, strictly speaking, two of his fellow tetrarchs, and the third's representative. The Penguin, Two-Face, and the Tally Man, representing the Great White Shark. Together they represented less than one-third of Gotham's organized crime. At the same time, however, they represented the best-funded, best-organized, and best-equipped networks in the tristate area, and what they lacked in quantity was more than made up in quality. Not for them the gaudy shows of power that befitted a Black Mask or a Czaritsa. Let them run Gotham; this shadow tetrarchy owned the city itself, and the county, and more beyond. Let the boss of bosses intimidate the mayor; this shadow tetrarchy now owned the speaker, the governor, four congressmen, and both senators.

"Peace be upon you," said the Penguin in Arabic, the cigarette lighter making its way from one side of his mouth to the other as he spoke. The Mullah had been surprised to find that he spoke surprisingly literate Arabic, as well as a fair amount of Turkish, Kurdish, and Farsi. It should have not been surprising, in retrospect; the Penguin was nothing if not a man of culture. His family had conquered Qurac for the British Empire, after all.

"And upon you be peace," he said, tossing a pair of white leather gloves to Two-Face. "A souvenir," he rasped. "If anyone was less fond of her than I, it was you."

Two-Face took a generous puff of his cigar as he examined the gloves. "This is blood," he said.

"Sometimes a man has to get his hands dirty," said the Tally Man, examining one of the bottles he'd retrieved from the mini-bar's exquisitely stocked inventory. "De la Vega '42? Who'd you have to kill to get ahold of this, Penguin?

"As you say, Tally Man, sometimes a man has to get his hands dirty," the aristocrat said, wiping his monocle on a silk handkerchief and screwing it back into his eye socket. "I take it your meeting with our beloved imperatritsa was infelicitous, effendi?"

"There is no honor among the Russians," he said, shaking his head.

The Penguin arched an eyebrow at this. "Some things never change, my friend." Long ago, Oswald Cobblepot had been refused military service in Việt Nam due to his weight, despite the plethora of letters of recommendation from general officers from six different countries. He had instead served as a spymaster for the CIA across the Iron Curtain, covered as the third secretary in the American embassy in Markovia. Perhaps more than any other among the first rank of Gotham's criminal elite, he understood the Mullah's hostile opinion of Mother Russia.

He held up his coat sleeve and pointed to the tear in the fabric from Red Riding Hood's shuriken. "She brought her pet assassin. It is fortunate I have learned from other men's mistakes. No doubt the weapon was laced with poison."

Two-Face removed the cigar from his mouth and regarded the Mullah with a wry look. "I take it this is not your blood, then."

"What is it your Marion Barry said? B— set me up."

The Tally Man allowed a thin smile. "For a man who hasn't spent much time in America, Salih, you seem to know an awful lot about our culture."

He shrugged. "I had reason to become familiar with it."

Two-Face stood and turned so he was actually facing the other three. "Well, gentlemen, as glad as I am to hear that jewel-eyed tart won't be bothering us anymore, that doesn't solve our immediate problem."

"Do you think the Hatter will take control? Or another of Kosov's inner circle?"

"Difficult to say. The Hatter is definitely responsible for some of the troubles of late. He's one of us, though. If possible, he should be spared."

"If possible," Two-Face agreed, exhaling smoke. "Ball's in his court on that one."

"I disagree," said the Mullah. "As he sows, let him reap."

"Two in favor, one against. Tally Man?"

"My employer feels the Hatter is too valuable to lose, if the loss can be avoided."

"Very well. The question before us, then, is twofold. Who will succeed Kosov, and what shall be done about the killings?"

"This Joker is your friend, Oswald bey. Can you not speak to him?"

"A friend of sorts, I'm afraid. You know what he's like. He has done the courtesy of sparing Two-Face and me too much trouble," said the Penguin, ejecting his extinguished cigarette from its long holder. "He won't extend the courtesy to you or the Great White, nor will he tell me what he's up to. Notoriously difficult man."

"We should kill him and be done with it," said the Mullah.

"Not a good idea," the Tally Man said, shaking his head. "The last time someone deliberately tried to rub out the Joker... well, they're still finding pieces of him all over the city."

"It's usually best to leave him alone," Two-Face said, gesturing vaguely with his cigar. "The bat'll get him eventually."

The Mullah grunted. "'The bat.' I am not impressed."

"You haven't met him yet," the Tally Man shook his head again. "Just wait. You'll see."

"Keep your eyes on the prize, boys," Two-Face interrupted. "Leave the clown to the bat. Kill the kid in the red cape. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Inelegantly phrased, but nevertheless I concur."

"Agreed."

"And the syndicate?"

"We need more information before we can act," said the Tally Man. "My employer is uneasy with the lack of actionable intelligence in this matter. The Hatter is our only lead."

"I haven't got anything," said Two-Face. "The street's still talking about that Holiday garbage Scarface was touting."

"To that end," said the Penguin, walking to his magnificently-appointed desk. "I have taken the liberty of inviting a guest to join us for tonight's session." He touched a switch to activate the intercom. "Please find my guest and show him in, Miss Horton." The Penguin's mild language did nothing to reduce the absolute power in his voice. For a man of such corpulent build, he contained a surprising amount of steel.

"And who's your guest?"

"Come, Two-Face, do you really have to ask? Who, indeed?"

The door opened and the guest entered, bowler and cane in hand. "Riddle me this, gentlemen: When is a door not a door?"

The Riddler grinned. "When it's ajar."