5.
~ Bruce looked around Selina's loft apartment. How many times had he watched her from across the street without her knowing? Things look so different from this side. There was no sign of a fight. If Selina had been taken out of here against her will, she would have fought back.
Her door had been left unlocked, her purse looped over the coat rack and her cell phone was charging on the kitchen counter. Who left their home without a cell phone these days?
Bruce answered his own question.
'Someone who was kidnapped.'
But Selina was a fighter. Surely the doorman would have reported any incident to the police if he saw Selina being taken from the building. None of this made any sense.
A black cat seemed to appear out of the shadows and meowed loudly for something. Bruce didn't like cats. They were too mysterious and fickle in their attentions.
'Not unlike Selina.' he thought miserably.
He found the dry cat food and refilled the black cat's food dish. Now that it was fed, the little beast cared nothing for him.
Bruce used his own key to lock the door to Selina's apartment again.
~ "Well yes, sir." the door man said eagerly. "Miss Kyle left here with a really pretty red headed young woman. I thought she was one of her friends from whatever movie she's working on."
"Red headed woman?" Bruce demanded.
"Yeah." The doorman said. "Really tall and really pretty. Long red hair."
"Did Miss Kyle look like she didn't want to go?" Bruce asked.
"No." The door man said. A puzzled look on his face. "She waved at me and said she was going out with her friend. Smiled and…" The door man paused.
"What?" Bruce demanded harshly.
"Well, I guess the girls had been drinking a little." The door man chuckled. "Miss Kyle looked a little tipsy. Not that it's my place to say anything."
"Did you see what kind of car they left in?" Bruce asked.
"Oh yeah!" The doorman said eagerly. "Real beauty. A classic Rolls Royce. It looked like a 59' or maybe even a 60'. I can't be sure. But it was a real nice white car."
"Vintage Rolls Royce." Bruce muttered.
~ "Might I remind you, sir." Alfred said sarcastically. "That Miss Kyle may have just skipped town with her friend? I think we both know how unreliable she can be."
"Maybe." Bruce said. He was in the downstairs bunker Alfred had started calling the cave due to it's dark, gloomy atmosphere.
"It wouldn't be the first time she's left without warning." Alfred added.
"She left the cat." Bruce said.
"What?"
"She had a cat in her apartment." Bruce said as if that proved something. "Why would she leave for any period of time and leave the cat unfed?"
"Maybe a neighbor was taking care of the cat." Alfred offered.
"Selina isn't friendly with people." Bruce said. "I doubt she would let someone into her home. Even if it was just to feed the cat."
"Good thing you have your own key." Alfred said darkly.
"Alfred." Bruce's voice was harsh. "Selina is not a kept woman. I'm not the kind of man who… who keeps a woman."
"Of course not, sir." Alfred said curtly. "She was dating Harvey Dent after all."
"She called me on my cell, and then she talked to me like I was Harvey." Bruce grumbled. "That's not proof she's dating him."
"She dialed you by mistake. Thought she was talking to Mr. Dent. Wrong number." Alfred said. Bruce didn't want to admit that might be the case. It was easier to think Selina was in trouble rather than Selina dating the oh so charismatic Harvey Dent.
Harvey Dent had been very interested her at the dinner party a few months ago. he had also given Selina a job in his department. Harvey was good looking, charming and could easily understand women. He was all the things Bruce wasn't.
"It's not my concern who Selina is dating." Bruce said finally. He had finished running the search on his computer for the elusive car Ivy was driving.
"No reports of any high end vintage cars stolen." he sighed. "There was a Rolls Royce from 1958 that matches the doorman's description. It belonged to car collector in Gotham some time ago."
"He sold it?" Alfred asked. "To Miss Ivy?"
"Says he relinquished the title to a Mister Oswald Cobbelpot." Bruce said in surprise.
"Penguin?" Alfred asked. "Well, that's very interesting."
~ Penguin's foot was acting up again. A dull pain that pills and booze didn't help anymore. He had never been right after the violence of his first year in dealing with the mob. Sometimes he would wake up, still thinking he was in the river. That maybe Gordon had shot him and he had drowned and was long ago eaten up fish in Gotham River next to Arkham Asylum.
He decided to stop drinking for the night. His thoughts were becoming a little too grotesque.
The club he had inherited was silent and still. His bartenders had long ago left and he was alone. Sometimes, he missed the simpler days. When Fish carried all the weight and he only had to worry about her umbrella. He had been so young. So young and thought he knew it all.
When the sound of broken glass reached his ears, Penguin didn't look up. He knew who it was. He had been expecting this visitor for a long time now.
"Don't be afraid." Penguin said. His speech was slightly slurred and the expensive merlot he had been drinking was making his brain feel fuzzy. "Come out of the dark and we can have a proper conversation. We're two businessmen after all."
Penguin had learned the hard way to always be aware of his surroundings. That he always had someone who wanted him dead. He had felt the hatred for so long, it actually kept him warm at night.
"No worries." Penguin told the shadows with a little smile. He was feeling generous tonight. "You were expected. Look."
He placed his hands on the table.
"I'll keep my hands in plain sight the whole time."
He watched a dark figure emerge from the rafters and slip down into the darker parts of his club. Who knows how long this creature was watching him.
"I take it you're here to negotiate some kind of protection." Penguin said. "You've been disrupting my shipment of booze as well as my side businesses."
The shadows said nothing.
"It's rude not to speak when spoken to!" Penguin snapped. His blood was racing and he could feel his anger mounting.
"Whatever it is you want, you won't get. I don't give into street thugs. You're so uncivilized." he said. He felt as if he was talking to himself. "However, you've demonstrated to me that you're very skilled at certain things. Maybe, there could be a place for you in my organization."
Penguin watched as the figure stepped out of the shadows. he took in the black body armor, the helmet with the night vision built in. It made the man's eyes look red. Like some kind of demon standing there in the darkness.
Perhaps it was his reckoning.
"Pass." the figure said.
Penguin laughed.
"I can see why they call you a bat." he chuckled. "Look at you. All dressed in black. You must be terrifying."
"What is your relationship to Jim Gordon?" the dark figure asked.
"We're the best of friends." Penguin said cheerfully. "Sometimes we pick flowers in the field behind the GCPD. Then I braid his hair and he does mine. Then we have our girl talk."
Penguin found this very funny and smothered a laugh.
"The truth." the figure said.
"I make it a policy to never tell the truth." Penguin told him. "You wouldn't believe me anyway so why bother?"
"If you don't tell me about Jim Gordon, why he was investigated by internal affairs and the mayor, this rat whole will burn to the ground tonight." the figure said.
"I take offense to that, sir." Penguin said. He couldn't mask the hurt in his voice. "This club is very clean. I make sure of it. Didn't your mother ever teach you manners?"
The figure stepped closer and with simple flick of the wrist, the table Penguin had been sitting at all evening was flipped over.
"Such a good merlot." Penguin sighed.
"Gordon." the figure said.
Penguin rolled his eyes.
"I'll tell you what I know. But only because I want you to leave. Gordon isn't a dirty cop. Yet, he does things a dirty cop does. They all do. Everyone in the GCPD has made some deal with the devil." Penguin said. "But who's to say I'm not lying about that? Maybe Gordon just crossed the wrong people. Maybe they only way to survive in Gotham is to be a little bad."
The figure leaned away from him as if thinking.
"Your car. The white Rolls." it said.
"Oh, my baby." Penguin sighed. He felt a real heart break whenever he thought about his car. "I loved that car. It was unwillingly given to me as a birthday present a few years ago. I miss it so much."
"Your friend was seen driving it." the figure said.
"I don't have friends." Penguin said with a smirk. "Whomever you saw in my car, is no friend of mine."
"Then who?" the darkness asked.
"Probably whoever took her." Penguin said. "She was stolen from me in the middle of the day. Right outside the club. My two bodyguards were killed in the street for her. Can you believe it? This city has really gone to the dogs."
"How do I know you're not lying about that?" the figure asked.
Penguin smiled.
"Well, I guess you don't." he said sheepishly. "But if you get my baby back for me, I would be very amenable to working with you. You'd be surprised to learn all the things I've heard over the years."
"Your gang is on notice, Penguin." the darkness said. His voice was like gravel. "Leave this city. I'll be back in a week, and if you're still here, things will get messy."
Penguin felt, rather than saw the figure leave. He sensed the darkness swallow him whole and could heard him leaping up the rafters and onto the roof.
"I'll be right here if you want to talk! Maybe call next time!" Penguin shouted.
No one ran Penguin off. Not Fish, not the Dons, not street thugs and certainly not some freak in body armor.