8. Collapse

Dora ripped the orange biohazard sticker off the Alibi's front door. Her mother Anita struggled to get the police tape off the gaping opening that would have been the bar's plate-glass window, so Dora helped her out. "Hopefully all that was enough to keep out looters," Dora said, balling up the tape.

"In this city? On Park Row? I doubt it," said her mother.

The GCPD had taken two whole days to catalog the evidence, and the crime scene cleaners took another two to do their jobs—getting rid of all the blood and gore left behind by the bodies. Dora's mother had given the cleaners keys to the bar so they could lock up the kitchen, office, and bathrooms when they were done. However, anyone walking down the street could have just stepped through the tarp that covered the broken front window and take anything they wanted from the main barroom. Dora did just that—it was quicker than walking through the front door.

"Dios mio," Anita gasped.

The crime scene cleaners had stripped down the barroom to its bare bones. Most of the floor panels had been removed, baring the concrete foundation underneath. The upholstery from the booths had been ripped out, the couches and armchairs from the lounge area were gone, along with a lot of the tables and chairs. An entire wall had been stripped of its wood paneling, and another had a hole in it big enough to step through to the bathroom behind it. The copper piping was missing. Anti-septic fumes lingered in the air.

"What the fuck happened in here?" Anita stared at the hole in the wall. "And what happened to the pool table?"

When Dora had told her mother what happened that night, she had left out Carla and Holly's participation, and had glossed over the gory bits—like the man that had basically burst like a water balloon and splattered blood everywhere when Red Hood's motorcycle slammed him into the pool table. "You don't want to know." She felt her stomach lurch just remembering it. "At least they left the bar alone."

Anita scoffed. The bar was still there, but the wood was cracked and pockmarked with bullet holes. The tap handles were bent or missing. The liquor shelf behind the counter was a ruin and the wall itself was Swiss cheese; the mirror was shattered and all the shelves were gone, along with the bottles that had been kept there. In fact, all the drinks were gone, including the kegs underneath the counter—and the area still reeked of alcohol. Dora wondered if that was the work of the cleaners or looters.

"Some hero that Red Hood guy is." Anita ran her hand across the scarred bar top, brushing off debris. "He saved us from getting robbed by those gangbangers, but it was the cops that fucked us over."

"What do you mean?"

Anita sighed. "The cleaners will take almost all of the insurance payout. The check is coming, but it's not going to be very much. Paying to fix this place up will have to be out of our pocket mostly."

Dora's heart sank. She remembered the last time they completely renovated the bar—ten years ago. Her parents were in debt for years. It wasn't until President Luthor's emergency relief bailout after the earthquake that they managed to get out of debt, but soon afterward Black Mask took over the rackets on Park Row. The Alibi never stayed pristine and new for very long.

"Don't worry, it'll be alright," Dora said, placing her hand on her mother's shoulder. "We got through it... twice, three times? We can do it again. It's about time, anyway. This place needed an update."

Anita shrugged off Dora's hand. "No. I don't think we can do it this time around. We don't have the money, mija. Black Mask took most of our savings with his damn racket, and the tenants are breaking off their leases because of all the crap that keeps happening here. Entiende, who wouldn't move out with three murders on their doorstep—todo dentro un solo año? We just don't have the savings or the income to rebuild... We..."

No, don 't say it, Mami.

But she did. "We have to sell it. Cut our losses and leave this place behind. Let it be someone else's problem."

"But this place, this whole building, has been in our family for generations, we can't just leave it behind..."

"Your family, Dora, not mine."

That stung, a lot. While Dora loved her father, she wasn't a fan of his side of the family, and neither was her mother. Dora didn't want to call the Montgomeries racist… but her no one in her father's side expressed more than tolerance for Anita and her children. She used to get a Christmas card with a hundred bucks from her father's mother every year, and that was the extent of it. And even that stopped when he died.

When Anita divorced Monty, she had tried to make firm boundaries between them, and not take out a handout. The Montgomeries always thought she was a golddigger, so she wanted to set the record straight with the divorce. However, Monty convinced her to continue to manage the apartments on the upper floors as supervisor and landlord while he ran the Alibi. Anita thought it was ruse to win her back,, but she begrudgingly accepted, needing the livelihood.

When Monty died, Dora inherited ownership of the building and the first thing Anita wanted to do was sell it back to the Monty's brother, Dora's Uncle Ray. Dora said no and took her father's place as owner and manager.

Taking a breath, Dora tried to settle her emotions. "If we sell, how are we going to support ourselves in the long run? This place is your job, Mami—and mine. You're not qualified to do anything else. You don't even have a high school diploma!"

"Look here, mija, I managed this bar and a dozen apartments, and kept books on all of it, by myself for over twenty years. Your father never did that shit, it was me. I have more experience than any fucking CPA or landlord or super in this city that's worked as long. That has to be worth something to somebody. We could take the money and start a new business."

"Do you really want to start over and figure out a new gig? Yeah, it's not easy, but we already know how to run this place. You said so yourself. Twenty years, almost half your life. You divorced Dad and he still believed you had a right to it. As much as you don't like to admit it, this bar wasn't just his lifeblood, it's yours too. And I'm your daughter. It's his legacy, our legacy."

Dora couldn't tell if her mother was angry or sad, but either way she was on the verge of tears. "Yo queria mas para ti que esto." I wanted more for you than this. "You were in college, Dora. You were supposed to be a doctor, not a bartender. And you threw it all away for this dump."

Dora grabbed her mother's shoulders. "For the last time, I didn't quit just because of Dad. I told you about what happened between me and Leslie."

"Pero…"

"Let Carla be the doctor in the family. Let Mercedes be a lawyer, a broker, or an engineer or the fucking president or whatever. This is my choice, my path. Let me invest in this place to give them those opportunities. Like you did for me."

Those words broke the levee. Anita rummaged through her purse and pulled out a tissue to dab her eyes with. "Fine," she sighed, then cupped Dora's cheek, looking into her face. "You may have gotten my looks and my last name, but you were always his kid more than mine."

#

Over the next few days, Dora and her mother worked out the finances.

The insurance check was chump change like Anita had expected, so they got a loan from the bank. However, the bank only approved a small amount at a ridiculous interest rate because the Alibi's accounting was a nightmare—poorly kept and inexact, with unexplainable losses and gains all over the place. Her mother was insulted, but Dora couldn't hold it against her. Her mother was a great bookkeeper. Their books were only in such terrible shape because of Kosov's and Black Mask's extortion and money laundering over the years.

To supplement the loan, Dora had to take out a title loan on her father's vintage 1969 Chevy Impala, which almost broke her heart. Sometimes she felt like the car was imbued with his spirit more than the Alibi itself. It, too, had been in the Montgomery family for generations.

But even that wasn't enough. It took hours of debating, but Anita was finally able to convince Dora to re-mortgage the Montgomery building, meaning they sold it to the bank for liquid cash and re-bought it with a loan.

And with that, they had enough to rebuild the bar, but at the cost of the heaviest debt Dora had ever known in her adult life. Just thinking about the exact number made her sick to her stomach. She knew how she was going to pay it back—it was just daunting to think how long it would take. She couldn't rely on the income sources she had once taken for granted. For once, she began to regret her decision to keep the building, but her father's memory made her persevere.

Some of the Montgomery building's tenants had already moved out in the wake of the shooting. More said they weren't going to renew their leases. The remaining renters united, demanding lower rent or else they would move out as well. Dora negotiated with them, at first leaning heavily on sympathy, but she eventually had to convince them that Red Hood was their ally, not a threat. He would protect them if anything ever happened again—which was unlikely because by now every gangbanger, narco, and mafioso on Park Row knew not to mess with the Alibi, the Montgomery Building, or anyone living in it. She wasn't certain of any of it, but she had to say something.

Dora and the tenants agreed to some terms, but it led her to think about Red Hood and if he would actually extend his protection to the tenants like she had promised, not just to her and the Alibi. Lately, it seemed like he was actually protecting her, giving her an uncomfortable new sense of the term "protection money"—the literal sense. The monthly fifteen percent she still owed him weighed on her conscience as much, if not more, than her other debts.

Red Hood had saved her life on two occasions, but she couldn't forget that he was a criminal as much as he was her personal hero. He killed people, ruthlessly. Only bad people, but nonetheless, in the eyes of the law they were people that were entitled to due process before a death sentence. On top of that, he ran the brothel that Holly worked at now, technically making him a pimp and possibly a human trafficker.

And Dora had learned through Holly what became of the cocaine Carla had brought into the bar—Red Hood had sold it. That didn't sit right with her, but it relieved her somewhat to know that Red Hood sold the cocaine not on the streets of Park Row, nor Gotham's other ghettos like the East End, Backport, or the Narrows. Instead, he sold it to the spoiled gentry in the Heights—with their privilege, they could afford the addictive habit and the rehab that eventually came with it.

Dora had no idea how Red Hood would react when she told him she couldn't make her first payment, let alone the second, or the third, or possibly the fourth. The Alibi wouldn't bring in revenue for at least a month because of the remodeling, and they wouldn't make a sizable profit margin for years because of the debt... And that was only if the bar actually survived that long. She wasn't certain if any of her customers would return, especially if her dwindling tenants were any indication.

When Red Hood wasn't shooting people and cutting off their heads, he seemed like a relatively nice guy... Would he understand? Fifteen percent of zero was still zero.

As days went by, Dora started to doubt herself more and more, believing she had financially ruined her family, like her father almost did—ten years ago, during the last renovation. The risk had paid off then, but only because of a lucky government bailout had saved them from bankruptcy.

#

"Well, this is the last of it." Carla grunted as she pulled the crowbar back, ripping what remained of the ruined cabinetry away from the wall. The wood cracked, splintered, and finally snapped. She kicked the debris into a pile in the corner.

"Great, thanks," Dora said, not looking Carla's way, busy calculating the cut she had to make on the tile in her hands. She marked it with a pencil and lined it up with the whirring buzz saw.

"Why don't you let the contractors do that?"

"Because they'll charge us." Dora swapped her glasses for safety goggles.

"So?"

"Every penny counts, Carla."

"Be careful, Dee."

"I know what I'm doing." Pretty much. Dora was thankful she had learned a lot about home improvement from her parents when she was younger, having helped them maintain the apartments upstairs as the super. Lesson one was how not to pay a professional for simple little tasks you could do yourself—if you weren't lazy. Half the reason you hired contractors was to use the tools they left behind overnight yourself.

Satisfied with the cut, she blew the dust off the tile and set it on a sawhorse. "You should head home," she said to Carla, looking outside. "It'll be dark soon."

"Mami said to pick up dinner on the way back. What do you feel like eating tonight?"

Dora fished through her pockets and pulled out a few crumpled bills. "Here, get something from Fausto's."

Carla looked down at the money. "You're not coming with me?"

"Nope." Dora picked up another tile and went to a corner. She knelt down and penciled in some reference marks. "I'll be home in a few hours. The contractors are coming tomorrow, so I have to finish this today."

If she didn't, and continued tomorrow with the contractors around, she would have to endure a pack of beer-bellied undocumented Priscans her mother insisted she hire (to save money) telling her what to do—whether it was because they thought a woman's handiwork was inferior, or as a pretense to flirt with her.

"Um..." Carla hesitated. "Okay, I guess I'll see you later."

"Yeah. See ya. Don't forget to get a flan for Mercy. You know how she loves those."

Before her sister had even left the bar, Dora was back to work. She had lied to Carla. She knew it would take her more than a few hours to tile the floors—easily all night. But the bar was closed indefinitely, so she could sleep in tomorrow while the contractors worked. Even still, if she wanted to minimize how much she had to deal with them, there was no time to waste.

A few hours later, her back was aching and her knees were sore from all the crawling around... but she was only half done. She still needed to do the lounge area, the pool and darts area, and cut down more tiles for the odd corners by the doors to the office and bathrooms... She groaned as she stretched and popped the kinks in her back. She needed a piss and a cold drink of water before continuing—and maybe some coffee... or maybe some whiskey.

In the bathroom, she washed her face in the sink and ran some water through her hair. As she dried off, someone knocked on the back door.

Dora froze. The knock came again, harder. She fumbled for her glasses and slid them on.

When she started renovating the bar a few days ago, the first thing she had done was replace the wooden front and back doors with ones made of industrial-grade steel with magnetic RFID locks. She would have installed a proper security system, complete with cameras and an alarm, but there simply wasn't enough money in the budget.

She poked her head into the kitchen. "Go away! We're closed!"

Whoever was behind the door didn't answer; they only knocked again, more insistent.

Maybe the new steel door was too dense to hear through. It might be Holly, Dora thought. She usually came around at this time of night when she got off work for a free drink and some conversation. But just to be careful, Dora reached for the crowbar Carla had been using earlier, wishing Red Hood hadn't borrowed her father's gun. She felt vulnerable without it now.

She unlocked the back door and it swung open. No one was there. The alley was empty; obscured in darkness except for a dim flickering lamp overhead. She gripped the iron bar tighter.

"Holly? I'm here," Dora called out, stepping outside. "Hello?"

Gravel crunched behind her. She wasn't alone.

Without stopping to think, Dora turned around and swung the crowbar.

Notes

Song Reference: "Collapse" by After the Burial

Version 41.1