4.
~ Bruce stayed well into the night looking over Harold's notes on Penguin. The vault never seemed to close, as there was always something to do down there. Some file to pull or story to finish before deadline.
Bruce used Harold's pass to pull every conceivable angle on Penguin and the red triangle gang.
He was surprised to see so many notes on his own parents death. How shocking it was, how Gotham would never be the same. He had always thought his mother and father's murders only hurt him, but it seemed to have caused a ripple effect in all of Gotham.
Just after his parents were murdered, Penguin, then known as Oswald Cobblepot made his first entrance in the GCPD. He had claimed Mario Pepper, the assumed killer at the time, wasn't the guilty party at all.
What followed was years of bad blood, mysterious deaths and GCPD cover ups. Most of this, Bruce already knew from his own research of the GCPD data banks, but Harold had interviewed a number of people over the years about the Penguin. All of them telling the same story of an insecure little man who literally killed to be on top.
His involvement in the red triangle gang hadn't appeared on the radar until a few years ago. Penguin's plan of hiring petty thugs and thieves to commit crimes and divide police attention so that no one paid attention to the real criminals at work.
Causing confusion within the GCPD was point A.
Diversion of police around the city with bank robberies and other endeavors that were doomed to fail was point B.
This left point C. Penguin and his crew ripping of the real targets. These could be futures brokers or anyone with enough power to control the money. It was an elegant system and worked time after time.
Point A leading to point B and then to point C. Perfect triangle of crime and blood. Hence the nickname.
Bruce had to admire Harold for cracking it. No wonder he wasn't allowed to print the story. He would be a dead man if this saw the light of day.
Bruce quickly memorized the names Harold had mention of suspected cops who helped Penguin. He was sad to see Gordon was among them. What was Gordon's connection to a man like Penguin anyway?"
~ "Nice drive isn't it?" Ivy was saying. Selina hadn't paid much attention to the scenery while in Fish's vintage Roles Royce car. She was still suffering from the effects of whatever Ivy had given her. Colors of streetlights were so beautiful, they looked like candy. Then, they suddenly changed and morphed into disgusting insects right before her eyes. No, nothing about this was lovely.
"Don't worry, Cat." Ivy said. Her old friend, if Selina could still think of her like that, was sitting in the back seat with her while Fish drove. "The drugs will be out of your system soon. Although I can't say there won't be irreversible damage."
"What?" Selina whispered. She couldn't live like this. Ivy had flowers and green plants growing out of her hair all the time. One second she looked fine, another, weeds and greenery were blooming out of her and her skin melted away and was a talking skull.
"Now, don't scare the girl, Ivy." Fish said with the ease and comfort of a mother. "We need your little friend to feel comfortable and confident if she's going to do a good job."
Ivy smirked at Selina's suffering and pulled away from her.
"Cat, dear?" Fish said. "This is where you'll be staying and working from now on."
The car was pulling to a stop and Selina looked out the window. It was dark and raining still, but the yellowed outdoor lights showed an historic gothic style mansion. The lack of lights inside must mean that it was abandoned or no longer kept up at all.
"Home sweet home" Fish said as Ivy roughly pushed Selina out of the car. Her head was still spinning and the great house looked like a monster to her.
"I'll admit it isn't what it used to be. The old girl was once such a beauty and now she's been left to rot. Happened when the Wayne's were murdered. A lot of Gotham's old money vanished overnight when they were killed. I think some investors were trying to spruce it up before they relinquished it to us." Fish told her.
Selina watched Fish play with her smart phone a moment and the whole house lit up like a christmas tree. The place was massive and decorated with real victorian flare.
"So the Adams family moved away huh?" Selina asked casually. She was trying to control her fear. Even without the aide of the drug, She knew she was in real trouble.
Fish only smiled.
"Ivy needed a greenhouse. A large one, for all her research." Fish said. "That's a thing that's hard to find in Gotham."
"Ivy, dropped out of school when we were kids." Selina laughed. "What research can she do?"
"Schooling or no, Ivy is a bright girl." Fish said quickly.
They were climbing the steps to the front porch and Fish quickly pushed Selina inside.
"A lot of self taught information I guess you could say." she said. "I even had her tested and her intelligence couldn't me actuality measured. So, I enrolled her in some classes under a fake name. Botany, biology, chemistry, physics. Less than a year, she was creating the most amazing things. We just needed a home base with a laboratory, a greenhouse and privacy."
What a home it was. Selina had to admire the beauty of the house Fish had chosen. The original owners must have left town quickly, because there was still evidence of repair work long abandoned in the large rooms.
"The Adams family didn't leave willingly, did they?" Selina asked.
Fish smiled.
~ "Let me show you the conservatory!" Ivy said happily. She pulled Selina to the glass room like they were still girlhood friends and Ivy wanted her to see her bedroom.
Selina tried to slow down, tried to take in everything about the house, but Ivy was pulling her.
What Selina did see was that there were locks and bars on every window. Normally, that wouldn't worry her, she could get out of worse, but if Ivy and Fish kept her drugged, she wouldn't stand a chance.
Ivy pulled her reluctantly into a large conservatory where the temperature had radically changed to warm and muggy. Exotic plants were growing everywhere. A few, even reaching the glass ceiling with their massive leaves pushing towards the sun.
"Isn't it amazing?" Ivy said happily. "I've managed to gain a cutting of almost every sample the botany department at Gotham University has. I'll need more space soon."
"What do you do with them?" Selina asked. She was eyeing the doors in and out of the greenhouse.
"Don't even think about it, Cat." Ivy said darkly. "Fish had dogs that roam around grounds of the house. If you try to leave, they will attack you. I know how much you hate dogs."
Selina gave Ivy a hard look. Ivy only shrugged and smiled.
"As for what I do with my plants, it's complicated. I have a small lab in the basement where I can either create a new line of hair care products using plant based material, or create a subversive poison that is deadly to when touched and untraceable." Ivy said.
"Cool." Selina nodded sarcastically. "Is that how you got your hair to look like that? Cuz I can't do a thing with mine."
Ivy looked amused. Selina was happy to see the drug was already wearing off. Although Ivy still looked like she had plants wanting to consume her.
"So, what have you been up to, Cat?" Ivy asked. "It's been over a year."
"This and that. You know me." Selina said.
"Bruce Wayne? Is he considered this and that?" Ivy asked.
Selina rolled her eyes and pretended she could care less about Bruce.
"I was hurt a while back. You were gone and I needed help. I used whatever lingering feelings Bruce had for me. He took me back to his mansion and when he found out that I was breaking into jewelry stores…" Selina felt a slight pain in her heart. "He sent me to a hotel alone until I was better."
"Then he started dating that Vicki girl." Ivy finished for her.
Selina remained silent.
"At least you came out alright in the end." Ivy said. "You found a nice apartment."
"Sublet." Selina lied.
"And a job with the DA of Gotham." Ivy said with a grin.
"Like I said, he has a crush on me." Selina told her. "Speaking of Harvey, I need to call him. Tell him I quit or I'll be out for a little while."
"Why?" Ivy's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Some genius you are." Selina laughed. "If I don't show up to work, Harvey Dent is going to freak out. Like I said, he's hopeless. Then people will be looking for me. We can't have that."
"No, we can't." Ivy said.
She took out a smart phone from her pocket.
"You'll do this in front of me, and don't try to tell Mr. Harvey Dent what's up because I'll will kill you. It will all be for nothing to because this phone is untraceable. Fish makes sure of it." Ivy said.
Selina shrugged and gave Ivy the number to dial.
Ivy kept her phone on speaker and Selina heard it ring twice before picking up.
"Hello?" came the voice of a man.
Selina spoke quickly.
"Harvey! Hey, it's Selina Kyle. Listen, I've had something come up and I won't be in the office for a while. Some friends and I are going out of town."
"Selina?" came the man's voice. "This-"
"Listen, Harvey, I won't be at my place anymore either, so don't bother." Selina interrupted. Her voice sounded louder than normal.
She looked at Ivy who seemed to approve of everything she was saying.
"So, we won't be able to have that dinner date at the Fox Run. I was looking forward to it, but I just can't make it. I'm sure you'll understand."
"Selina, what's happened?" came the man's voice.
"Listen, Harvey." Selina said with a laugh. "It's over. I'm not into you and I think it's best if I just quit my job now and move out of Gotham. Leave me alone."
Ivy hung up the phone and look annoyed.
"That was a bit dramatic." she said suspiciously.
"I had to sell it." Selina said.
~ Bruce Wayne held his cell phone in hand at the abrupt cut off. There was something strange in the way she talked. Why did she think she was calling Harvey Dent? Why was she leaving Gotham? Who were these friends of hers?
He quickly tried to reverse dial the call and found it was blocked.
Instead he called the only person he could.
"Alfred, it's going to be a long night. I think Selina's in trouble."