2.
~ Bruce kept an eye on the time, he was itching to go on patrols tonight. Sadly, he was on a dinner date with Vicki Vale that evening, and besides all the frequent stares from the other patrons in the restaurant, it was going well.
"Vicki." Bruce said after he half listened to her talking about the paper and the story she was working on. "What do you know about Penguin?"
"The flightless birds? I saw the documentary." she said with a shrug.
"No, I mean the Penguin. The mob boss." Bruce explained.
Vicki shrugged.
"Never heard of him. Is he in Gotham?" she asked.
Bruce had to admire her innocence. She was his age but she seemed so fresh to the world. Everything she knew now had come from other sources. She reported things on the outside of the glass in a way. She had thankfully never seen how truly horrible Gotham could be.
"To tell you the truth, I want to get out of the crime reporting. It's so depressing." she sighed.
Bruce glanced at his watch.
"I mean, just the other day, I interviewed a girl who killed her family and burned them inside the home because her parents wouldn't let her date some boy. How insane is that?" she went on.
She ate half of her dinner and had the rest packaged to go.
"So what do you want to do?" Bruce asked.
She looked dreamily off in the distance.
"I think I would like to work as some kind of correspondent. You know for law makers and politicians? It's history in the making and those are the people that will change the world." she said sadly.
"You should do it." Bruce told her encouragingly. "I'm sure if you spoke with your editor, he would put you on whatever you want."
"You'd think so wouldn't you?" Vicki laughed. "My editor only want to see me as a crime reporter. He says I made my mark reporting on crime in Gotham. Fortunately, there is a lot to report on. Especially with that masked lunatic running around beating up drug dealers and such."
"What?" Bruce asked in surprise.
"Some asshole in a scary motor cycle helmet keeps attacking street thugs." Vicki told him. "No one knows who he is. Probably some ex cop or nut case who wants to be a big man. Gordon's only comment is that the city docent tolerate vigilante justice."
"Just a corrupt police force." Bruce said bitterly.
"Well, corruption is all subjective." Vicki told him. "You should talk to our crime editor Harold if you want to know more about this Penguin. He knows everything about the city and it's crime."
"Harold? Harold at the Gotham Harold?" Bruce teased.
"Yeah, but don't bring that up, he hates it and I need him on his good side. He knows were all the bodies are buried in a way." Vicki told him.
"Can we go there now?" Bruce asked.
Vicki looked shocked.
"I thought we were going back to your place." she said.
"The night's still young." Bruce said.
"Why do you want to talk to Harold so badly?" Vicki accused. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"To be honest, I need a research topic for a class on… economics and I thought studying how organized crime has managed to influence growth in the bull market-"
"Fine." Vicki interrupted and rolled her eyes. "I can't believe you actually like that kind of talk."
~ "See, Penguin started out holding Fish Moony's umbrella. He was an underling." Harold told Bruce in his small office at the Gotham Harold. "He managed to weasel his way to the top in just a few short years. He ratted out everyone and got away with it."
"Why didn't one of the Don's just eliminate him?" Bruce asked innocently. "You know, sleeping with the fishes?"
"A few tried, but Penguin was as slippery as they come. Now, he runs the red triangle gang in the narrows and has expanded to other parts of the city. He still hangs out at his old club."
"Club?" Bruce asked. "What club?"
"That gross little dive bar down on old market street. It used to be really classy when Fish ran it, but she was taken out by mysterious circumstances. No one has seen her in years. Penguin ran it ever since. Now, it's just a seedy place where all the murders are rumored to have gone down." Harold said with a giddy smile.
"Why didn't Gordon arrest him?" Bruce asked.
"Ah, because nothing sticks to Penguin." Harold told him. "Like I said, he's slippery."
"But if he's killed people." Bruce said.
"Yeah, but Gordon and Bullock either couldn't or wouldn't trace it back to him. It was like they were afraid of him." Harold said.
Bruce leaned back in his chair. Vicki looked bored sitting beside him.
"Jim Gordon afraid of Penguin." he said.
It was hard to imagine anything frightening the Gordon he knew.
"Can I look at some of your research on Penguin?" Bruce asked.
"I don't think it's a good idea, kid." Harold said. "You don't want this guy putting a target on you."
"I'll change the nick name. It's just for a college paper anyway."
"Well, so long as it stays that way. We make it a policy to not publish anything about Penguin here. I cold be wrong, but I thing our editor in chief might be under his umbrella if you catch my drift."
"Under his umbrella?" Bruce asked.
"Penguin has dirt on everyone. Rumor has it he gets intel from Commissioner Lowe and uses it to blackmail people." Harold said. "I take you down to the basement."
Bruce stood while Harold shifted his large body off a well worn office chair.
"The basement? Why?" Bruce asked.
"I don't keep my records on computers. I'm a trust no one kind of guy. It's why we have the vault." Harold told him and lead the way to the elevators.
"The vault?" Bruce questioned. He was liking Harold already.
"It's like an underground bunker here at the paper. We keep all the old editions down there as well as all the photographs, notes and research in general." Vicki explained as she followed them downstairs. "If you want to know what Harold there had for lunch on the paper's dime twenty years ago, you go down to the vault."
"Excellent." Bruce said happily.
~ "Gotham Harold has been in business since before the civil war." Harold explained as Bruce looked out over a massive maze the size of a football stadium. They were standing on a balcony and Bruce could hardly believe that such a thing existed. The shelves were at least twenty feet high and loaded with white boxes with intricate file markings. Little file clerks went from one box to another using rolling ladders and were in a constant state of research.
"Tell me again why this isn't on a computer." Bruce asked. "Seems like it would be easier."
"Our rival papers were hacking into our data bases." Vicki explained. "Then there were concerns about the government spying on us as well."
"Back in the day, we reported on real news. Corruption was everywhere and the G.H. wasn't afraid to take it down. Not like now." Harold said.
"So, the only way to find notes on penguin is to come here." Bruce said sadly. This would make things a lot more complicated.
He quickly stashed the tracking device back in his suit. If only Harold here kept his research and files on his computer like a normal person. All Bruce would have to do is put the tracking box on his hard drive and then he could see everything that the crime reporter wrote or stored away.
No, this would be much harder.
"We don't make copies." Harold was saying and filled out a form for one of the clerks to get the paperwork out. "So you'll have to write it down. You can list me as a source. We don't let anyone who doesn't work here check stuff out, so don't expect this favor again."
"I won't and thank you. But what about that vigilante?" Bruce asked hopefully.
"The nut job in the bike helmet." Vicki said bitterly. She was obviously growing bored with this date.
"The Batman?" Harold teased.
"The what?" Bruce asked.
"Yeah, it's what some of these street thugs are calling him. The guy wears a scary mask and lurks on the rooftops dressed all in black. You know, just like a bat." Harold told him.
"Yeah." Bruce nodded. A bat wasn't exactly the image he was going for.
Harold signed out another box for all the reports on the vigilante and Bruce was allowed to used a little table to go over them. He spread out the manilla folders and looked over faded surveillance pictures, old news paper clippings and all the information the Gotham Harold had on Penguin and the unfortunately named Batman.
It was a gold mine. Reporters were able to find out anything Bruce had ever wanted to know about the weasel like man who ran the last crime family in Gotham. Bruce wondered why so many of the stories on Penguin failed to ever be published. So many of them were rejected by the editor and stored away. Harold must be right, everyone must be under Penguin's umbrella.
"Bruce." Vicki snapped.
Bruce was pulled out of a world of Penguin and his rise to power by Vicki Vale's angry glare.
"What?" he asked.
"Bruce, you said we were going out and having a good time." she complained.
"We went out. We're having a good time." Bruce explained.
"Bruce, we're sitting in a basement library at my work reading over old crime notes." Vicki complained. "We might as well be at your house with me watching you play video games all night."
"I don't play play video games." Bruce told her.
"Bruce, this isn't romantic." she said hotly.
He wanted to continue his research on penguin but knew it would have to wait.
"You're right. I'm sorry." he said.
"Why don't I just go home?" she said hotly.
"Good idea." Bruce said. That would work out for everyone. "Can you call yourself a cab? I'd hate to wake Alfred to have him drive you home."
Vicki looked horrified. Was she upset Alfred wasn't driving her home?
"You are really going to sit here and let me leave?" she asked.
"You said you were going home." Bruce said.
"Good night." Vicki said and grabbed her coat. She sounded angry, but Bruce shrugged it off.
"Night." he called out and went back to his reading.