«The sobbing is distracting», Oswald said. «Make it stop.»
Victor took a single step towards Gilzean, and stared him down. The pitiful, broken, whiny thing froze and went silent. He was «ready», according to Zsasz. It had only taken one week, which was quite the pleasant surprise for Oswald, who had been prepared to go without Butch's assistance for much longer. The wretch was a traitor and a liability, doubtlessly, but the club did run more smoothly under his supervision. Cobblepot would have managed the venue perfectly on his own, but his attention was required elsewhere. The war was over. The city was cut apart between his territory, Maroni's, and that of a few overreaching simpletons who were holding positions they could not possibly defend for long.
Oswald had gained control of most of Don Falcone's holdings - most - and was endlessly disturbed by imbeciles who could not figure out how to run a casino or how to get harlots to walk the streets. He spent his life at his new desk, the one he had taken from Carmine just as the rest of his possessions - and dedicated most of his precious time to phone calls with nincompoops. There were a few hiccups (as Oswald's underlings were woefully incompetent), but business was starting to take off again. Money was streaming in again, though not in quite so large numbers as it had used to. The young mob boss had no doubt he could restore the family to its former glory before the end of the month, as long as some obstacles were removed from his way.
He snapped his fingers so Victor would turn away from his victim. Gilzean jumped. Zsasz, still smiling, looked to Oswald.
«I have a contract for you», the younger man announced, trying not to recoil.
It was ridiculous. This was Oswald's desk, his office, his MANSION, yet the hitman's presence was crushing. The monster's aura seemed to fill the room, and he moved around with the same easy confidence as if he owned the place.
The hitman smiled.
«You do?»
Oswald drummed his fingers on his desk.
«Giulia Maroni needs to die. How much would you charge for her demise?»
Victor chuckled and said nothing.
«How much?»
The freak tipped his head left, then right, thinking about it, then chuckled again.
«Two million dollars», he replied after a while, with an uncanny smile that made the corner of his lips twitch.
Cobblepot stared at him. The estimate was so astronomically extravagant that he could not process it.
«I beg your pardon?»
«Two. Million. Dollars», Victor repeated.
Oswald glared at him, and huffed.
«Are you by any chance inflating the price because you do not believe yourself competent enough to handle the task?»
Zsasz answered that with a crazy giggle, then clicked his tongue, and explained himself in slow, exaggerated syllables, as if conversing with a toddler.
«I would have to go through a great many people to get to Mrs. Giulia. So this is not a price for one, but a price for a dozen, including Cristiano Di Antonio, whom I would call… Evenly matched with me, in our particular area. And, after that, a great many people would come after me for revenge, and I would have to handle them
all.»
Cobblepot glowered. The man knew no shame. He was offered an endless supply of victims, and his reaction was mockery. He didn't want two millions dollars. He wanted to humiliate Oswald and to toy with him. The younger man was having none of it.
«Very well. I'll find someone else», he snapped, earning one more chuckle. «And I'll have to reconsider any future involvement with you. Your lack of professionalism is astounding.»
Victor shrugged, and gave a slight kick to Gilzean's shoe, prompting the man to jump to his feet with a whimper. Oswald stood up too, before he could stop himself, as he realized the hitman meant to take off with the blubbering fool.
«Where are you taking him? I already paid you for his services!»
Zsasz smiled again, so slowly you could tell he was unsure of how to do so properly. He paused for far too long before answering.
«I thought I was unprofessional», he said. «I didn't, ah, imagine you would want to keep him.»
«Don't be ridiculous, he has a job to do.»
Oswald looked at Butch and nearly reconsidered. The man was a sniveling mess, which might have been satisfying, but greatly hindered his abilities as a club manager. Moreover, he didn't seem able to keep himself in check. Maybe letting him go back to Victor's basement was the better choice: Cobblepot could enjoy both a large refund and the certainty that the pathetic turncoat was suffering.
Gilzean looked at him in despair.
«Don't let him take me back», he mouthed.
Oswald took a deep breath and sighed. One of those days, his own generosity would be the end of him.
«The clown stays», he ordered. «He has duties to attend, and I had not expected you to be so slow at 'fixing' him.»
Victor stared at him, the corners of his lips moving up and down in small contractions. He nodded and walked to the door. Cobblepot feigned indifference and sat down, pulling a sheet of paper to him and pretending to focus on it.
«Oh, and deal with Nabokov. I assume he can be disposed of for less than fifty-thousand dollars?»
The freak stopped and laughed, perfectly silent, then looked back.
«I will», he said, going through the door.
Oswald took a long, shaky breath, trembling with rage. Gilzean crumpled to the floor and started sobbing again.
###
All things considered, maybe killing Maroni had been a bit of an overreaction. Well, not an overreaction, per se - the guy had it coming - but… Yeah, an overreaction. Fish had not done it because she had to, but because she was vexed. She had not cared about her people at all. She had jumped the shark and a lot of people had died.
Still.
Cat did not want her dead. She was pissed, and she would give the lady a piece of her mind if she ever found her, but she wanted her alive and well, and… There was no body, so there was hope. Not that Cat was overly optimistic or anything. But there was no body, so she was looking, and she wasn't the only one. The first few days, the docks had been crawling with Maroni and Cobblepot's men. They had mostly given up, though a few teams were still searching the riverside, farther and farther away from Falcone's safehouse. They weren't expecting to find anything. Selina had eavesdropped on both sides, and the men were mostly walking around to keep their bosses around. As far as they were concerned, Fish Mooney was 'sleeping with her pals'. «Ha ha ha».
Not everyone had given up. Cat had a feeling, and she trusted her intuition a lot. It had served her well. And someone else trusted his gut as much as she trusted hers, because that someone had been steadily walking along the river for three evenings in a row, stopping every now and then to inspect this or that. If this hadn't been Gotham, and if he hadn't been him, he could have pretended he was just taking a stroll or something. He didn't especially hurry, and he littered the paths with cigar butts, and he wasn't about to do anything to get himself out of breath. Selina had always thought he was kind of a smelly, lazy ass, and he was not giving her any reason to change her mind. Then again, Fish had trusted him, and he was looking for her. It was a point in his favor. Cat had checked him on him regularly from afar since she had first spotted him, in case he got lucky.
He didn't. Cat didn't either. So she ended up dropping next to him from her perch on a warehouse's roof, on that third evening, and got a gun to her face for her trouble.
«Wooooohhh!» she exclaimed, raising her hands.
«What the… You just gave me the scare of my life, kiddo!» Bullock snapped, not lowering his weapon.
«Yeah, right, what about you point that thing elsewhere, old man?»
«What, you don't like it when you're on the wrong end of the barrel? It's not pleasant, is it?»
The guy could hold a grudge. At least he was exercising proper trigger discipline - probably the only discipline he had ever exercised - and his finger was resting on the side of his gun. Not that it was reassuring, or safe, for that matter.
«You've made your point!», she shouted. «Drop the gun already!»
He grunted and put the weapon back into his hostler.
«Thought I'd never see your face again. A smart kid would be halfway to the west coast by now.»
Selina shrugged.
«Then again, it's not like you're smart», Bullock added as an afterthought. «What possessed you to join Fish's little circus of horrors?»
Fish had talked about him, a little. «Strange bedfellows, aren't we?», she had said. She had called him a friend. And, when they had caught Jim, and Falcone, and the psychopathic weirdo that was Oswald Cobblepot, and Bullock, in that safehouse… Fish had spared him. «We're cool». And he'd been standing right next to Butch while Salvatore Maroni was getting himself killed. Of course, right after that, he had tried to escape with Falcone and Gordon. He was not what you'd call a faithful friend, unless you were Jim douchebag Gordon.
But he was still searching for Fish.
«Find anything?» Cat asked, choosing to ignore the insults.
«Now what would have I found? I'm just taking a stroll.»
Selina snorted. He stared her down.
«Go home, kid. Or go wherever. Just let it go. She's not coming back.»
The girl shrugged.
«You don't know that.»
«Like hell I don't.»
«You don't know that. If you knew for sure, you wouldn't be looking.»
He shrugged, and lit a cigar.
«Whoever brings her corpse to Cobblepot gets two hundred grands, didn't'cha hear?»
«Yeah, right, I wouldn't trust the guy to pay, if I were you.»
Bullock rolled his eyes and walked away. He was tall but heavy, and his pace wasn't the quickest. The teenager followed. He was set on being silent, and she let him. They were going the same direction anyway, and she was probably safer with him and his gun.
«You really didn't find anything?» she asked again a while later, as he crushed his cigar on the ground with his heel.
The night was falling, and she stared at the dying orange sparks among the ashes for a second or so.
«You're not about to drop it, are you?» he grumbled.
«Prolly not.»
The detective sighed.
«Get it through your thick little skull: she ain't company for a teenage girl. If she came back - and that's a big fucking if - you'd do well to keep the hell away. For a start, kid… Organized crime? Really? How much of a dumbass are you?»
«Better benefits than unorganized crime», Selina pointed out.
The cop glared at ther.
«And be that as it may, benefits or not, Fish is nuts. Batshit crazy. In case you failed to notice. Nothing good can come of sticking with her.»
The teenager was not blind, but snorted as if Bullock's words didn't make sense.
«Aren't you her friend?»
«Yeah, well, she was not crazy when I met her. What's your excuse?»
«I'm not her friend. I don't even care», Cat retorted.
The man stared at her, not exactly saying «I see through your bullshit», but thinking it loud enough. She fidgeted and looked away, shrugging once again, and then once more, sharply.
«You really found nothing?» she asked again, in a slightly broken voice, when he failed to talk or look away.
He paused, and sighed, and shook his head.
«Jack shit, kiddo. Let it go.»
She huffed and shrugged again, then she just put on her best unconcerned expression.
«Too bad. Good luck, then», she said, climbing on the nearest wall to run away.
He watched her go, which she knew, because she watched him in return, well after she got out of his sight. Then she stalked him for the rest of his «stroll», until he returned to his car, sank into the driver seat, and pulled a dark piece of clothing from a duffel bag on the passenger seat. It was a dark coat, black and red, lined with fur.
###
Sabrina put on some eyeliner, and smiled, and some lipstick, and smiled, and took a step away from the mirror, and smiled.
If she cried, as she was inclined to do, her collar started beeping.
It had been a week. After six dates with David, she was starting to get a better understanding of the rules. On that first evening, after her abduction and their first date, he had walked her «home». «Home» was a mobile home underground, in a «street» made of six identical prefabricated buildings, with a sky made of painted concrete and rows of floodlights. The street and homes were surrounded by «woods», or rather a forest themed wallpaper, with photographs of birch trees. At the very end of the street, there was a gigantic screen, where their instructions were printed. So, after David had led her out of the restaurant through the back exit - the only one usable - they had found themselves at the very end of the street, facing the screen, and her new address.
«Sabrina Bakerton, 4 Gardenia Lane.»
And David had walked her home, and told her what a great evening it had been, and attempted to kiss her. That was when the necklace had beeped for the first time, when Sabrina had jumped away. She had frozen at the noise and at his panicked face, and braced herself. Then he had kissed her. After making sure the camera on the side of the door caught their profiles.
«If you need me, I live right next door», he had said, pointing at number three.
He had squeezed her hands, nearly crushing them, so she would be ready for what she would find inside, but she had not been. She had opened to door to be greeted by Fishstick, her cat, her living tabby cat, the one who was supposed to be waiting for her in her flat in Burnside. She had found her own coat laying on the sofa, and her own clothes in the closet, and her own sheets on the bed. Everything had been brought straight from her apartment to her cell.
She had panicked. She had screamed and shouted and wailed and ran outside to try to find a way out, following the walls of the gigantic room «Gardenia Lane» had been built in. She had tried to find an exit, and located stairs going up, up, up, to the ceiling. But when she had tried to climb them, David had caught her. He had pointed at his collar and gestured a «hush» - that was how she knew there was a microphone in the damn thing - and then he had brought her «home» again.
The next morning, after she had passed out in a corner of her living room, she had found the instructions under the door. They were simple, and illustrated with colorful clip-arts. «Beep… Beep… Beep…» meant «smile». «Beep Beep Beep» meant «explosion».
So she smiled, and went on dates with David when the screen at the end of the street prompted her to.
###