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Chapter 4: The Voice
Tobacconists' Club, Gotham City - 10:00 PM
In a city like Gotham, there were many clubs for all to enjoy nights of entertainment and debauchery. The Tap Room, the Peregrinator's Club, and the Iceberg Lounge, just to name a few. However, there were few like the exclusive gentleman's club known as the Tobacconists' Club. Once ran by Rupert Thorne to conduct his criminal activities, the club had fallen under new management in recent years, that of Danilo "The Ghost" Maroni.
Loud music blared throughout the club, along with flashing lights as various exotic dancers entertained some of Gotham's wealthiest men. On the upper level was Maroni, who sat in his office with a group of his men, trading stories. Wearing his finest cream-colored suit, Maroni moved a strand of his medium-length black hair out of his face and took a drag on his cigar.
"I was only about what, 15? Yeah, 15 at the time. The schmuck didn't know who the hell I was mind you, and tried to shake me down for some cash in that alley. I took one look at him, didn't flinch, didn't look scared…" Maroni chuckled. "And I told him 'do you know what my last name is?' The guy looked confused, like a retard for a second. I said 'ask me what it is, go ahead'. He did just that…and when the name Maroni came out my mouth, he ran so fast that Speedy Gonzalez couldn't even catch up!"
The men surrounding him erupted into laughter, as did Maroni. He grabbed a glass of liquor off of the small table in front of him and took a sip from it.
"I tell you boys, ain't nothing like a little fear to make a grown man piss all over the place. Respect is good and all, but when your name strikes fear into somebody, that's something different," Maroni said with a smug smile.
Outside of the window to his office, a bat-shaped drone floated in cloaking mode, recording the entire conversation. The drone flew around the building, stopping at different points and surveying the area, before flying off again.
One of his men chuckled. "So uh…Rose Thorne. You think she's for sale?"
Maroni's smile faded instantly. A serious, confused expression spread onto his face.
"What?"
"...Y'know, in our pocket? L-Like Adams was?" the man responded with caution.
Maroni furrowed his eyebrows at him before sighing and shaking his head. He took another sip of his liquor and leaned in closer.
"Johnny...for a kid who graduated college, you ask some stupid ass questions. Her last name is Thorne for Chrissake. If she's like Rupert, she knows which hands to shake. Hell, she's probably doing some buying herself," Maroni said before leaning back in his chair. "When the time's right, we'll have a talk. I gotta see what the competition looks like first-"
Before he could finish, the lights in the club shut off, leaving them in complete darkness.
"Aye! What the hell?" Maroni's voice could be heard in the darkness.
"I don't know boss, maybe we got a fuse problem?' one of the voices belonging to another one of Maroni's men could be heard on the other side of the room.
The lights turned back on, revealing the Batman standing in front of Maroni and his men. Several of them flinched, but not Maroni. Instead, Maroni merely leaned back and raised both eyebrows.
"Whoa! Look who decided to pay us a visit boys. The Batman…" Maroni chuckled. "I suppose you ain't here for a lap dance, are ya?"
Batman focused entirely on Maroni and no one else. If looks could kill, the Ghost would've become one right then and there.
"Did you have Matthew Thorne killed?" Batman asked in his usual low, rough voice.
Maroni raised an eyebrow at the question. "What? You kinda question is that?"
Batman took another step towards Maroni, prompting his surrounding goons to draw their weapons and aim them at the vigilante. He didn't even pay them a glance.
"The kind that you're gonna answer," Batman responded.
"Oh is that right?" Maroni asked with a small chuckle. "Well I don't see a badge on you, so you don't have a warrant, not like the pigs could actually draw one up because I didn't have anything to do with the doctor's death."
"You were the last person he spoke to before he died," Batman countered.
Maroni scoffed and wiggled his fingers mockingly. "Ooh, you got me," he said sarcastically. "Tell me, how many times did you find yourself the last person someone talked to before they died? It happens. Now unless you got some kinda...hard proof you wanna throw at me, see yourself out."
Maroni took another drag off of his cigar, leaned back in his chair, and blew a puff of smoke up at Batman. It was a sign of disrespect, that much was clear to Damian. However, what it also was, was a sign of a lack of fear. That was something he couldn't allow to stand. His eyes shifted to the thugs on either side of him. It was time to give Maroni a proper reason to fear him.
Batman knocked the gun out of the head of the goon to his left and followed up with a hard right hook. The goon to his right fired his pistol, but the bullet merely ricocheted off of the armor-plated cowl. Batman turned toward him—prompting the goon to fire again, for the same effect. Batman grabbed the goon by the throat, lifted him off the ground, and slammed him through a small table.
Across the room, two of Maroni's thugs fired their pistols repeatedly at Batman. The vigilante brought his arm up to allow the bullets to ricochet off of the armor, though one managed to get through to his side. He grabbed two Batarangs from his belt and tossed them at the thugs. One of the Batarangs lodged itself in the barrel of one of the thug's pistols, resulting in the gun blowing up in his hand. The other Batarang caught the second thug in the throat, causing him to fall to his knees, clutching the wound.
The thug whose gun exploded screamed out in pain and clutched his now bleeding, twisted hand. Batman sprinted towards him, leaped through the air, and launched a spinning back to the chest of the thug. Beside him, another thug broke a glass bottle and rushed forward. He attempted to slash and stab Batman with all of his might, but the vigilante easily parried. He slapped the thug in both of his ears, fired a flurry of punches to his chest, and finished off with an uppercut. The force of the uppercut caused the thug to hit the wall and bounce forward.
Before Batman could deliver more punishment, another thug tried to attack from behind but found himself elbowed in the gut and hit by a right hook for his troubles. Batman turned his attention to the other thug and fired a push kick to his chest that sent him back into the wall, but this time he slumped to a seated position. The same thug from behind grabbed a hold of Batman's cape to try and gain the advantage, but it only seemed to anger the caped crusader. Without even looking back, Batman stomped on his feet and elbowed him in the face.
He turned around to punch the thug in the throat, followed by a hard knee to the gut and a downwards elbow to the back of the thug's head. This left Maroni's right-hand man, Johnny, as the only man left standing. He snuck behind Batman and stabbed him in the back with a knife, causing the vigilante to emit a rare hiss of pain. Batman grabbed Johnny's wrist and forced him to pull the knife out, despite him struggling against it. Batman snapped Johnny's wrist upwards, breaking it.
Johnny let out a pain-filled scream, but that was soon to be the least of his worries. Batman brought his free hand up to break Johnny's arm for even more damage. He backhanded Johnny pulled the knife out of his hands and ducked under Johnny's arm to slash him across the stomach. Johnny fell onto his front, clutching his stomach as blood began to rapidly escape the wound.
With the room full of Maroni's now severely injured or dead men, Batman returned to his prior position. He stood in front of Maroni and tossed the blood-soaked knife at him. Maroni jolted and quickly threw the knife off of him.
"Come on! This is a cream-colored suit Goddamn it, do you know hard this is gonna be to get out?" he asked, incensed.
Batman grabbed Maroni by the lapel of his suit and hoisted him out of his chair.
"It'll be your blood next," he threatened.
"Alright, alright!" Maroni said, holding his hands up, showing a bit of fear for the first time. "I didn't have anything to do with doc being murdered! I was on the phone with him when it happened, I heard it all…and I even talked to the guy who did it afterward."
Batman narrowed his eyes at Maroni. It was a piece of information that he didn't expect to hear, and now he was even more curious. He released his hold on Maroni, causing the mobster to fall back into his chair.
"I don't know. Never heard the guy's voice in my life," Maroni said as he brushed himself off. He reached into the inside of his coat and pulled out a phone. "I recorded the conversation. I was thinking of getting one of them tech geeks to try and find a match for his voice or whatever the hell they do."
Maroni scrolled through his phone to find the recording. Once he did, he turned the volume up and allowed the recording to play.
"Hello…Danilo," a deep, muffled voice could be heard from the recording.
"Who the hell is this? And where do you get off calling me by my first name like you know me or something?" Maroni's voice could be heard asking.
"Oh, I know you. I know your kind. There's been so many like you, that you're not even special," the voice responded.
"Is that right? What happened to the doctor? Did you kill him?" Maroni asked.
There was a brief pause.
"I took away from you the man who fixes and patches up your goons. It was merely the first step in taking you down."
"So what, you're some kind of mercenary? Somebody paid you to do this shit?" Maroni asked, his voice rising.
"Money is of no importance to me, what's important to me is that this city has one less mob boss, thinking he can ruin it without consequence."
"Listen here jackass, I don't know who you are—but you best believe I'll find out. You don't mess with me. You don't mess with my business! You don't mess with my money! So you can go tell whoever it is that sent you, the Ghost ain't going nowhere! You'll have to put a bullet in my head to get rid of me!" Maroni yelled.
Again, another period of silence.
"I'll take that under consideration."
The ending of the call could be heard, along with the ruffling of Maroni moving his phone.
"Hello? Goddamn it-"
The recording ended, prompting Maroni to look up at Batman with a smug grin.
"See? I had nothing to do with Doc Thorne being killed. I would never do anything to him…not without finding a replacement of course. He would've patched up my guys here-" Maroni paused and gestured to the bodies of his men littered across the room. "The ones still breathing, anyway."
Batman held his arm up and pressed a button on his gauntlet. He pulled a small chip from the gauntlet and grabbed Maroni's found, prompting the gangster to let out a small yell in protest.
"Hey! What the hell are you-"
Batman placed the chip into the phone's charger port. After pressing a few more buttons on his gauntlet, he took the chip out and tossed the phone back to Maroni. He placed the chip into his gauntlet and turned to leave. Maroni caught his phone and looked at Batman with a confused expression.
"What is that it? You're just gonna leave?" Maroni asked.
"You didn't kill Thorne, you're no longer of any importance to me regarding the investigation," Batman responded without giving him so much as a look over his shoulder. Damian knew that a comment like that would strike Maroni's ego. Those like Maroni never wanted to hear that they weren't important, especially to someone like Batman.
Maroni scowled at the comment. He stood from his chair—now having one of his fists balled up. "I can tell you who I think that guy's working for. I do have an expert opinion on this kinda thing."
Batman came to a stop. For what it was worth, Maroni could likely point him in a relevant direction, given his understanding of the criminal underworld.
"Who?" Batman asked, turning his head to the left to listen for Maroni's response.
"Falcone," Maroni said with a hint of betrayal in his voice. "Tony and I, we've had our agreement, our working relationship. However, in this game, it's not uncommon for the man whose hand you shake today, to put a knife in that hand and stab you in the back tomorrow. That guy, whoever he is, said he wants one less mobster in this town. I don't want this to be the case, but I know Tony's capable of getting greedy. He probably wants me out of the picture finally so he can have the whole pie to himself."
Once the information was processed inside Damian's mind, he knew his next move. There wasn't any guarantee of Falcone's involvement, but it was plausible enough to take it somewhat seriously.
"I'll look into it."
Next Chapter 5: Pulling the Trigger
