Oswald tapped his fingers on his desk.
«What, pray tell, is so complicated about murdering a stay-at-home mom and her two ten years old? You disappoint me. Oh, it's not just that you disappoint me: I'm thoroughly baffled by your astonishingly unlikely failure. I even went out of my way to keep Cristiano busy!»
Victor paced, nervously playing with his rings.
«You have a mole», he snapped. «She was warned. And not just warned! There was a full blown rescue team prepared to extract her! I had vehicles on every street. EVERY STREET! And what happened? Several of those cars were blocked, attacked, and taken out. Right as the target arrived on location. So someone snitched.»
Oswald stared at him.
«Has it occurred to you that the most likely culprit would be one of your men? They were privy to your plan.»
«You were privy to the plan!»
«And we both know I didn't go and protect the bitch. So it has to be someone else, and I assure you my hiring process is very strict. So, again, it has to be one of your men.»
Zsasz stopped pacing, and walked to the desk, leaning forward until his face was nearly touching Oswald's.
«It is not one of my men», he repeated.
The crime lord moved back, ill at ease.
«Very well. It's an absolute mystery. What did you manage to extract from the warehouse?»
«Nothing. As I told you, several trucks left it, and I couldn't gather a new team quickly enough to follow them, especially since the trucks were defended and opened fire on us. All that was left in the building was Giulia's car.»
«And, of course, we don't know where she found refuge after that. She did not resurface. She was not seen at her house. My spies in her lieutenant's employs say the lieutenants have not been able to contact her.»
Oswald mused on that. Giulia's absence could have been a very nice opportunity to attempt to take over some of her holdings, but it was very likely that she was merely holed up in some safe house, monitoring the city. Her remaining lieutenants were also able to hold their own. No, there was no way to salvage the catastrophic events of the day. He whirled in his chair, stood, and walked to the window, turning his back to Victor.
«The contract is still on and I expect you to complete it. Find her.»
There was a lengthy pause.
«Find your mole», the hitman replied. «You will receive no information on my plans until you do.»
###
«We're getting burgers», Harvey announced when Jim picked up his ringing phone. «You and the lady and, apparently, my lady. I'm picking you up in half an hour.»
Jim blinked. He had not heard of Harvey since Leslie had left the hospital, three days before, and they had spent that time holed up in her apartment. Jim did not want to leave her alone with Barbara on the loose, and she was still shaken by her abduction. He had cooked and ordered in so she would not have to use her hand for that, but every motion caused her pain, and every gesture brought her attention back to her maimed finger.
She only allowed herself to collapse in private: when Jim was out to get groceries, or alone in the bathroom. She spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. Jim spent an inordinate amount of time sitting in front of her apartment door with bags of fresh food, because it was clear by that point that Lee did not want him around, but he could not leave her unprotected. She had been abducted at the orders of a cop, and even if Flass was dead, what did it say about the force? No one else could keep watch.
Jim was not sure she'd be up for an evening out.
«You have a lady?» he asked, rather than giving a direct answer.
«Yeah, I have a lady, which you'd know if you'd bothered asking.»
«I think you gave me leave to never ask when you said your love life was a short and nasty open book.»
«The crap you extract from casual conversation baffles me.»
«So what's her name?»
«You'll have to come and ask you herself, asshat. That'll teach you.»
«I'll see if Lee is interested. I'll call you back!»
Forty-five minutes later, Jim and Leslie made their way to the closest burger joint, a block away. The cop felt paranoid, and his eyes kept scanning the crowd for any sign of blond hair. Barbara had tried to kill Leslie twice. He didn't put it past her to try again. Cobblepot had not found her, and her body had not - as he had expected it to - washed up on the riverside. Then again, half of what sank into those waters never surfaced again, so maybe she had been killed and disposed off. It would have been a re-.
He caught himself before he finished that thought.
His mind wasn't at rest. He kept picturing what would happen if Barbara did appear. Maybe she was hiding in plain sight under a hooded coat and would stab Lee as she passed next to them. Maybe she would just slip out of some dark corner an point a gun at Jim's face. In both scenarios, he could see her large, crazy grin.
«Hey!», Harvey called as they arrived. «Look who's finally here»
He was waiting in front of the dinner's doors, and waving to them.
Jim grinned, then froze as he recognized the redhead standing next to his partner.
«Oh my god», he gasped. Then he turned to Bullock. «You jackass! You didn't say anything! Why didn't you say anything?»
He ignored the man's grin and his «Didn't hear you asking!» and turned to Scottie Mullens, composing himself.
«Miss Mullens, I'm glad to see you again.»
She laughed, greeted him, then let herself be introduced to Lee. Once that was done, she turned to Harvey.
«You really didn't say anything?»
«And miss that look on his face? Hell, no.»
«You're an ass», she replied, chuckling. «Did I ever tell you you were an ass?»
«Several variations of it. I might even start to believe you. So! I'm starving! Who is starving?»
They walked into the dinner, picked a table and ordered. Leslie didn't even pause to consider, and asked for fries and chicken nuggets. She usually favored cheeseburgers, but nuggets only required one hand. The thought turned Jim's stomach, but tried to put it out of his mind as Harvey started regaling them with gossip on the GCPD (among other things, Miss Kringle had eloped with her boyfriend, officer Dougherty, and no one had any clear idea of how to find anything in her records). The mood grew cheerier.
Jim quickly gathered the invitation had been an ambush of sorts, as Scottie and Leslie had quite a few things in common, starting with «working with the mentally ill», and ending with «having been brutally abducted». The two of them clicked. Scottie had a lot of stories to share, both from her job as a career counselor and her years running her support group.
«Let's face it, I'm way more scared of pools than I am of serial killers, so I wasn't about to close shop», she explained when Leslie expressed surprise at her not giving up after Crane's attack. «And I want to swim again someday, so I'm not giving up.»
«Wasn't it hard?» Lee asked with mild curiosity, as if making small talk.
She still touched the bandage on her fingers, hands shaking. Scottie smiled.
«Therapy will do wonders - I know, Harvey, you don't believe in therapy.»
«I haven't said nothing!», Bullock replied, faking indignation.
«As I was saying… Wonders. My therapist is amazing, a specialist in trauma counseling, I've known her years. She worked closely with a few of the people from my group. Amazing lady.»
«I… I'd like her number, if you think she might be available. I've been looking for someone I could talk to.»
Jim did his best not to stare in wonder. Scottie was working magic.
Instead, he turned to Harvey, smiled, and mimed and mouthed his thoughts.
«How did you manage this? Entirely too good for you!» he teased, subtly pointing to Scottie.
His partner grinned and wrapped an arm around her, beaming with pride. She paused in her discussion, gave him a cheeky smile and a kiss, then resumed talking to Leslie.
Jim and Harvey didn't quite need to fill each second with words, so they ate in comfortable silence, with the odd remark about the food. Every now and then, the dinner's door opened and people streamed in, and both their hands inched towards their guns, though they had not discussed Barbara.
###
«So, what do you think?» Mrs. Valentine asked. «He's handsome, isn't he?»
Nate took a sip of his soda and kept the straw right next to his mouth, pretending to be focused on the drink.
«I don't know», he commented of the man he'd been ordered to observe. «He seems fairly depressed to me. You might want - maybe - someone with a more cheerful disposition. Especially with David not being in top shape at the moment.»
Gordon was the gloomiest of his group of four, and the most reserved. The redhead and her husband were very cheerful, and the brunette was a bit withdrawn, but Jim Gordon was just dark, and tense, and never quite relaxed, even when he laughed.
Mrs. Valentine clicked her tongue.
«Nonsense. He's a soldier. Well, a cop, but you know what I mean. A soldier at heart. He is a war hero, did I tell you? And he caught the Electrocutioner. It was on TV.»
«I'm sorry, Mrs. Valentine. I must not have been paying attention.»
«I've been keeping an eye on him for a while now», the old lady said, stabbing her salad (her heart could not take burgers anymore, she had announced as they ordered). «He's a real hero. The one good cop in Gotham. He went after that serial killer the police would not touch, too. The Ogre, who murdered all of those poor girls.»
Nate did not stab her through the throat with his fork, but only because Shawn would have died in the crazy woman's basement. Bashing her skull in would only mean she wouldn't be there to input the secret code that reset the timer on their necklaces every day. It would slowly count down to zero - eighty-six thousand four hundred hundred seconds at reset - and then detonate the bombs. No one could disarm the damn things. Those who had tried had ended up a gory mess for Nate to clean up.
«Do you intend to bring him in today?» he asked.
His jailer shook her head.
«I don't know who to pair him with yet, and I don't want him to be bored for days like David was before I found him Sabrina. It's just too much work bringing the unmatched party out, and having him interact with random women until I spot one who clicks. No. I'd rather observe him, see if he has chemistry with someone… Though I'll admit, the redhead is a nice surprise. She's sparkly.»
«They both have significant others», Nate pointed out in an empty voice.
It didn't matter to Valentine. He wondered, every now and then, if his wife had remarried. It was more than likely after so many years. Hell, their daughter was nearly out of elementary school.
«Yes», Mrs. Valentine spat back with indignation. «And what horrible choices they have made. That… Girl, that Leslie? She is so bland. No spine, no personality… And mangled, too. Didn't you hear them talk about an amputation?»
Nate had not. The old bitch had a much better hearing than his, which was surprising, considering her age. He shook his head.
«And that beautiful red haired girl?», Valentine continued. «She can do so much better than that crude, dirty swine of a man.»
«If you say so, Mrs. Valentine.»
###