Hello readers, here is this week's update. I'm back to work, so the updates won't come as quickly as they did around the New Year but I'm glad that you're tuning in.

Twilight Warrior 627: I was surprised people didn't figure it out in the very next chapter where introduce Beck with Sam by his side in the board meeting: a long haired guy and a blonde rob the place then the next chapter, a well known long haired guy is paired off with a blonde…

Jeremy Shane: I hope you enjoy this chapter and thanks.

Challenge King: Going through a traumatic event can have that happen to you. However, there is a newness to meeting each other for the first time and having one's expectations being a surprise.

Beck's reasons does put an interesting twist on the fact that he's suppose to be the designated villain and this universe's version of the mad Crown Prince of Crime.

Boris Yeltsin: Arleen Sorkin is Harley Quinn, just like Kevin Conroy is Batman and Mark Hamill is The Joker.

Fanfic-Reader-88: Carson is a means to an end and of course there will be heartbreak when truths are revealed.

Illusorygentleman has updated his horror story, so you should check it out and still weighting patiently on updates from Fanfic-Reader-88 and PD31.

Rating T

Chapter 4

Freddie walked into to his small, but adequate hotel room after Jade's driver dropped him off in front of the hotel. The Planet hadn't exactly been generous with the budget for a place to stay while he worked on his piece and he had opted not to spend his own money to upgrade his accommodations as he didn't see his trip as a vacation.

He flipped on a light switch then shut the door behind him before walking further into the hotel room. He pulled his jacket off and tossed it to the cushioned chair next to his bed before walking over to the police scanner he had set up on the small desk to his room since he didn't have the same connections on the Gotham police department or the more unsavory elements of the city as he did in Metropolis. He hoped it would pay off in hearing about events in a reasonable amount of time. It didn't exactly work out that way when the scanner crackled to life and the voice reported, "All units in the vicinity of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, we have multiple 'one-eight-sevens' at that location. We have reports that it may have been a gang hit. Use extreme caution."

A cold expression formed on his face as he loosened his tie and started unbuttoning his shirt to reveal the neckline of the blue garment he wore underneath his shirt…

Interrogation Room

Gotham Police Headquarters

There was the signal knock on the door behind the cop and D.A., causing Detective Vega to turn away from the sweating and nearly panicking criminals. After nearly twenty minutes of sweating under the lights and debating whether they should accept Robbie's deal, he heard Robbie mutter as he opened the door and exited the room, "Gentlemen, my offer is for a limited time."

He immediately looked on a senior uniformed officer and asked, "What's going on?"

The older gentleman quickly answered, "David, we have a phone call from your daughter. She was very insistent in speaking with you."

David's heart clenched and he quickly followed the officer to one of the desks where a younger police detective was holding a phone with his hand over the mouthpiece. He quickly handed it off to the senior detective and Vega quickly asked, "Tori?"

"Dad? I just got a strange call. Someone told me to call you to tell you that Steven Carson was left on the roof of police headquarters."

The muscles around his eyes tightened in surprised and he snapped out in confusion, "What?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but that's what they said. They know you're a detective and that I was here to make sure the word would get passed to you. They didn't trust any of the other cops to let you know."

David Vega turned and snapped his fingers to one of his fellow detectives to get her attention and whispered, "Jenny, I need a patrol car at my house right now."

The woman quickly nodded and picked up the phone from her desk and started tapping a number on the phone keypad.

He turned his attention back to the phone and quickly asked, "Tori, did they say anything else? Has anyone else called? Are you safe?"

"I'm safe. All the doors and windows are locked. They didn't say anything else. They hung up and I called you right away. Whoever it was sounded pretty desperate to make sure I got the message to you and only you."

"Okay, don't leave the house. I'll be home as soon as I can and in the meantime, I'm sending a patrol car to the house. Stay safe."

"I will dad."

"I love you."

"I love you too dad."

He hung up the phone and quickly turned to head back to the interrogation room, ignoring the curious expressions from his fellow officers. He opened the door and motioned his head out, "Mister Shapiro, a word please?"

The glasses wearing D.A.'s eyes squinted in confusion, but decided to hold back his question in front of the crooks. He looked ot the pair and stated simply, "Think about it gentlemen." He turned and headed out to join the detective.

The pair stepped outside and Vega caught the door handle to make sure the door was closed then quickly spoke, not wanting the other observing officers overhear them, "Tori just got a call from an anonymous source to tell me where Carson is."

"Really? Where?"

"On the roof."

Robbie blinked with a dumbfounded expression on his face. "On the roof?"

"Yes, you want to check it out?"

Robbie nervously laughed, "Probably a prank, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to check. I could use a breath of fresh air and they could take a few more minutes to stew."

Vega glanced over to one of the younger detectives observing and ordered, "Make sure they don't do anything stupid. We're grabbing a coffee and letting them think over the D.A.'s offer, so make sure no one goes in there and I mean no one."

He nodded his head then the pair walked off.

Less than a minute after leaving the interrogation room, Vega was the first one out of the rooftop door and cautiously walked into the windy night. Shapiro nervously walked behind him, eagerly scanning the surroundings to see if he could spot the gangster.

The police detective walked only a few more paces before stopping in his tracks when he saw Carson sitting with his arms tied behind his back and his hastily, but well bandaged up knee with a clearly visible blood stain seeping through the bandage and a tourniquet tied above his knee.

Detective Vega whispered, "Son of a bitch…"

The officer and D.A. quickly ran to the tied up gangster. Vega knelt down and pulled he gag out of his mouth and down over Steven's chin and the gangster immediately started rambling, "Get me to a doctor! Beck shot my knee and threw me out of a window to kill me! He's the Joker! He's real! The Joker's real! And the Bat! The Bat is real too!"

The detective and D.A. glanced to each other, seeing if the other had heard the near ramblings.

Carson's Former Suite
Ritz-Carlton Hotel
Gotham, NJ

The hotel was nearly as silence as a tomb as for the moment it was the resting place for the four gangsters as no one had dared attempted to go on the floor to see what had happened. The only thing that broke the silence was the occasional gust of wind blowing out of the broken window.

That sound was soon joined by the sound of something like a sheet or curtain fluttering in the wind. The material fluttering turned out to be a red cape being worn by a muscular young man wearing a dark blue formfitting bodysuit/armor made of some material not of the Earth.

He slowly glided through the frame of the broken window and into the room, hovering above the floor as to not to disturb the scene. He could smell dozens of different smells including of the previous cleanings of the room and gunpowder with of course the dominating one being the stench of death.

He looked around the room with his enhanced telescopic vision to see the devastation of bullet riddled wall, table and of course the deceased men, thrown down like rag dolls as they were sprawled out on the floor and having soaked the carpet around them in their blood.

He looked into another band of the EM spectrum that the press had dubbed 'X-ray vision', but had the characteristics more akin to a sonogram, to look upon the bodies and the surrounding areas. He saw the more than a dozen common .45 caliber bullets in the bodies, lodged in the table and the wall. He turned his gaze to look for shell casings, but saw that there weren't any littering the floor. He slightly frowned at that development, but was somewhat impressed that the killers were smarter than other gangsters when making a hit.

He turned in place to look around the rest of the suite to see another spot of blood, smaller than the rest, near one of the shattered windows. The spot actually turned out to be the beginning of a small trail leading to the broken window. He glided to the opening and looked down to the ground more than two dozen stories down. He focused on the area and with the use of his telescopic vision, saw the faintest of blood spots on the pavement.

The scene was clear to him that someone had been injured and went through the widow in some fashion, but hadn't hit the ground. As he contemplated the inconsistency, he noticed a thin line gently blowing in the breeze with one end attached to something against the side of the building just two floors down from the room.

His focus wasn't entirely looking at the line as his enhanced hearing could hear several individuals making their way down the hallway towards.

Two officers in body armor holding Thompson submachine guns to their shoulders slowly walked into the apartment, fanning out to the left and right, walking around the dead gangster still lying just inside the threshold of the room. Gary soon followed and the three scanned the surrounding scene as a few other armored and uniformed officers joined them. Once the room was cleared of any potential threats, the tension among them dropped.

Gary holstered his weapon as he looked down at the dead gangsters. He shook his head and muttered, "Carson was certainly hit hard."

Another detective joined him and asked, "Are we sure this is related to him? That these are his guys?"

He glanced to the younger detective and patently remarked, "That's what he was muttering as they were taking him to the hospital."

"Okay, but by who? Someone mad that they hit the fundraiser? Or maybe someone taking the opportunity to hit him while the heat's on him?"

"He's yelling that it was Beck."

"Beck?"

"Beck Oliver, a guy he works with. Sounds like a desperate attempt to take one of his enemies down with him. The guy is friends with my partner's daughter and he never struck me as that tough of a guy—just made people think he could handle himself. I don't believe for a moment he had the spine to do such a thing."

The muscular man dressed in blue with a red cape had gently moved downward out of sight of the police officer, but remained to overhear their conversation. They began to canvas the scene and idly chat while waiting for the forensic team to arrive and do a proper forensic investigation.

He moved by his will towards the beginning of the line and noticed a silver color dart was stuck in the metal beam between the floor to ceiling windows of the hotel room above and below the metal beam. He reached out and gave the gentlest of tugs to feel that it was pretty well embedded into the metal and with the knowledge of the thin line attached to it, realized that it could perhaps hold a person's body weight.

Someone had caught the person—Carson—he quickly realized and he figured only one person could have caught him—'The Bat'. The Bat had to be involved.

Could 'The Bat' have killed Carson's men kidnapped him to deliver to the police?

But there hadn't been any reports that he had killed anyone, especially this violently.

But if that was the case, why was he saying Beck was the one that tried to kill him?

He had more questions now than when he arrived and it spurred him on. He turned his focus on the area of the metal just around the dart. The next moment the metal started to heat up and melted as his right eye looked around the dart in a near perfect circle. He stopped just before he would cut the line then moved it to the side and finished cutting out a circular piece around the dart with his heat vision.

He pulled the dart and metal it was embedded then looked down to see how far the line fell before quickly rolling it up in a blur of motion. After he finished winding the line, he descended downward until he reached the second broken window where the end of the line once reached.

The sense of smell hit him again and it was the smell of the drying blood was the overwhelming smell in the room, but there was another, fainter smell of a second person, presumably 'The Bat', that lingered in the room. He took a moment to realize that it was familiar, one that he had smelled earlier in the evening. However, he quickly dismissed the possibly choice and his mind just playing a trick on him with the smell.

He saw another trail of blood where the smell originated in the hotel room and it leading to the door. He saw another punctured mark in the wall near the door from the corner of his eye and saw that the hole was about the same size as the dart in his hand and filed that away in his mind for the moment. He looked through the door to see the trail down the hall then around the corner, seeing through other walls until he saw where it ended at a side exit of the hotel.

In a blur if anyone had saw him, he flew out of the window and around to the side of the hotel where Carson and the Bat had exited. He continued to follow the trail until it abruptly ended in a secluded spot behind the hotel. Since the ground was still wet from the previous night's rainstorm, he could make out several sets of tire tracks, one next to the other for what looked like a total of six tires. There were four trailing tires were larger and looked something from a tractor trailer. The tire trail led off to an exit onto the main road and was of course lost among the few passing cars at this time of night.

Seeing nothing else to be gained from remaining, he looked up and soared into the dark night.

Mason Thornesmith's Penthouse

Mason sat behind his desk about an hour after Dickers and his officers had cleared out of his penthouse looking at a number of his top caporegimes except for Beck. As soon as he was alone with his associates, he had put out the hit on Carson and another bounty on whoever had broken into his apartment and stole his property with the instructions that if anyone had the idea of somehow blackmailing him with the material if he or she recovered it, he'd kill them too.

However, he wasn't expecting news this quickly from his captains and the look on their faces told him that it wasn't good news that they were about to deliver.

He looked to Ryder, knowing full well that he and Carson were friends. Putting a bullet in the young man's head and tossing him in the West River would have been the prudent thing to do in case he was involved in the attempted regicide, but the last thing he needed to show to his underlings and the other bosses was that he was paranoid and flailing about at striking at any perceived threat.

"You look like you came back from a funeral. Is Carson dead?"

Ryder frowned and looked to his boss with a guarded expression, but the mob boss could see the angry look in his eyes. "No, he's not dead, the suite Carson likes taking his girls was shot up less than an hour ago and a number of his guys are dead, but he's still alive."

Mason slowly asked, "Who hit his place and where is he then?"

Ryder cleared his throat then answered with a hesitant tone, "Our sources on the police force say that Carson was delivered on the rooftop by… by 'The Bat'."

The mobster slightly tilted his forehead forward and softly questioned, "The Bat?"

"Yes, he was screaming his head off to anyone that would listen about how she had saved him… after the Joker—Beck—had killed his guys and threw him out of the window."

Mason's mouth became a thin line then slowly asked, having a hard time believing he was asking such a thing, "The 'Bat' is a woman and he said that Beck is the 'The Joker'?"

"Yes."

The mob boss relaxed back in his chair, contemplating the news that Beck could be the joker fellow that was robbing him and burning his places down. It would be an interesting development and had a ring of truth to it: Beck was out of paying his monthly cut to him if someone else was robbing him and his fellow gangsters. However, he put that aside for a moment to deal with the immediate threat and quietly asked, "Where's Carson now?"

"He's in the hospital in surgery. Beck apparently shot him in the kneecap before trying to throw him out the window. Vega and Shapiro are waiting for him to get out to talk to him about what happened. They're saying that the D.A. is going to offer him a sweetheart deal to get him to talk about everything. Carson's boys they caught were ready to roll on him, so he could do the same to the rest of us."

He glanced away towards his window in disgust and hissed out, "Get me Dickers on the phone. We got to shut him up before he talks then someone get me Beck on the phone."

"And if we can't? Get him to shut up I mean."

He looked back at the friend of his attempted murderer and hissed out, "Do I really have to answer such a question?"

Gotham Community General

Detective Vega anxiously paced about the hallway outside of the operating room. He hadn't been this nervous since waiting for his daughter to be born. Carson may have been only shot in the knee, but there was still the possibility that he could bleed out or short of that have a stroke and be useless to question.

Robbie was far calmer as he had a seat. He was just as eager to speak with Carson, but he wasn't as windup as the detective and feeling an abnormally high amount of self confidence that everything would turn out alright especially after getting those tough gangster to the point of spilling everything to him.

"Of course you feel confident, you just janked Valentine so hard on one of Jade's spare beds you had the girl seeing stars. That would make anyone confident," an urban accented voice laughed in his head.

Robbie instantly shot his left hand up and pressed his pointer and middle finger to his temple and hissed out, "Rex!"

Vega stopped his pacing and turned to the D.A. hearing him hiss, but not understanding what he said, "Mister Shapiro, are you okay?"

Robbie dropped his fingers and looked up at the police detective, but he was fortunately saved from answering when the doctor walked out into the hallway, stealing his attention. He quickly walked over and asked, "Doctor? How is he?"

Doctor Levinson pulled of his cap and answered in a straightforward professional manner but then quickly trailed off, "The bullet shattered his kneecap and he did loose some blood, but he should pull through just fine. He'll probably never walk correctly unless he gets one of those magical leg braces being made by NevelCorp. I hear they're coming up with wondrous things in Metropolis. That whole place is like the World's Fair of thirt—"

"Never mind that, can he talk?"

The doctor quickly focused and answered, "Yes, we only gave him a local and they're rolling him to a private room right now. He was afraid if we put him under he'd never wake up again."

Vega remarked as he passed the doctor to catch up to the rolling gurney, "He has a lot of people that want him dead."

Robbie was hastily got up from his seat to follow the detective. They had almost caught up with him when the elevator opened and Commissioner Dickers walked out with two detectives. He quickly spotted his detective and the D.A. "I just heard the news with Carson: someone tried to kill him and 'The Bat' saved him?"

"Yes sir on both accounts." Vega motioned past him towards the gurney moving around the corner. "He's just out of surgery. We were about to talk to him."

Dickers looked to his left to see the nurse rounding the corner then looked back to his detective. He suppressed the rage in his gut that the idea that 'The Bat', some damn vigilante, was really out there and about to make him look like a fool for denying its existence for so long. However, he had more important things to worry about than some nut in a costume. He politely asked, "Is that such a good idea to talk to him right now? I'd hate for any convention to be tossed out on some technicality about him unable to assist his own defense after coming out of surgery."

"They gave him a local for the surgery, so he's not under any kind of mind altering drug and he can answer any questions and make any decision under a sound mind."

"What about waiting for his lawyer? I know he's smart enough to had to demand one by now."

Vega shook his head. "He doesn't want one. He's ready to spill everything because he knows we're not letting him go and with a busted knee, he's not going to be able to get away before one of Mason's guys puts a bullet in his head."

"Detective Vega, I do not appreciate the unfounded and blatant slanderous accusation against Mister Thornesmith who I consider a friend."

Vega hid his disgust for the man of being so blind or worst, complicit with the Mob's activities. He calmly replied, "I wasn't trying to make one sir, just repeating what he believes: Mister Thornesmith wants him dead after trying to have him killed tonight. If he believes that then we can get him to tell us everything he knows about the Mob of Gotham."

This time Dickers didn't suppress his frown as he almost offhandedly dismissed, "I still have serious doubts of such a thing as organized crime other than a handful of gangs that we are trying to eradicate detective."

Vega patiently answered, "Be that as it may, he may have something to offer us."

The commissioner suppressed the urge to make any other suggestion on waiting to talk to Carson would look too blatantly suspicious. He instead put on a smile and asked, "Do you mind if I sit in on the questioning? I want to hear firsthand what he has to say."

Vega hated playing politics, but he could play the game, so he smiled and answered in an easy going manner, "Of course not sir. I think him seeing you realize how serious we're taking him executing an armed robbery with the attempt to try to kidnap or possibly kill Mister Thornesmith."

Detective Vega was the first to enter the room followed by Robbie and the commissioner, but leaving his two detective escorts outside with the uniformed officers taking up their position to guard the hospital room.

Robbie cleared his throat and nervously asked Carson as the young mobster was trying to get comfortable sitting upright in his bed with a pillow under his right knee, "How are you feeling Steven?"

He gave Robbie a disgusted expression and snapped, "How am I feeling? Beck put a .45 into my knee where I probably will never walk right again and he threw me out of a twenty-five story window to kill me, how do you think I feel?"

Robbie frowned at the hostile reaction, but didn't get a chance to reply as the sandy haired gangster pointed to Dickers and shouted, "I want him out of here. I'm not talking with Mason's bitch in the room."

The commissioner gave him a death glare and looked like he was about to walk across the room and strangle the life out of the young man.

Carson retorted to the look with a harsh snap, "Don't give me that outrageous look. I know how much Mason pays you to keep the police off his back. Does anyone believe you afford your lifestyle on your salary?"

The commissioner snapped back in an instant, "Trying to toss out outrageous accusations isn't helping you. I know about your two guys that were caught at the fundraiser and they're squealing like pigs. What's going to help you is to tell the truth and save us all the expense of a trial and maybe you won't be spending the rest of your life in prison."

Carson confidently smiled and answered, "This is the truth: Mason runs this town and you, the mayor and the city council are all his bitches because he pays all of you very well to keep it that way."

In possibly an uncharacteristic display of defending his boss, Vega retorted, "And how would you prove that? A fake ledger with money payouts? Do you have my name in it too? Or Shapiro's? Hell, do you have an entry that says you paid off Santa Clause to get yourself off the naughty list too? You're not a numbers man to make it look believable."

"Beck's the numbers man!"

Steven quickly shut his mouth the instant he realized he spoke the name.

Robbie looked to Steven just as annoyingly and cold as the commissioner, clearly upset that the guy would try to smear Beck (the exact thing he was worried Mason would try to do to him) and take Beck's legitimate business skills with numbers as a way to try to bolster his claims.

Vega crossed his arms over his chest and casually walked to one side of the bed. He looked down at the bedridden mobster and dismissively remarked, "Beck is going to help you? You said he's the one that shot you and threw you out the window… as 'The Joker'."

He knew making the statement would get under the commissioner's skin at taking the clown seriously almost as much as openly admitting that there was 'a Bat', but it was necessary to rattle Steven's cage.

"I did. Beck is the Joker. He's the one that's been robbing then burning our places down."

Vega snapped, "Beck's the Joker? Then how come it was your guys wearing the clown masks that robbed the benefit tonight? We got two of them in an interrogation room ready to spill everything."

Steven deeply frowned at the detective, but saw it as pointless to deny it. "I stole his racket without realizing it to throw off suspicion, but he's the Joker and he's our bookkeeper. Now go arrest him for trying to kill me and while you're at it, his crazy bitch of a girlfriend for killing my boys."

Robbie rolled his eyes and dismissively laughed, "Oh, so Sam's involved now? So, Beck's the crazy clown that's robbing from you, but he's your bookkeeper while the commissioner is a dirty cop?" He walked around to the opposite side of the bed that Detective Vega was standing and in a surprised amount of confidence, stated, "You think any of that chizz is going to get you out of me prosecuting you for masterminding an armed robbery? I need the truth about you, the robbery and what other dealings you have with your mob buddies or you're going to be doing hard time for the rest of your life very much alone."

Vega softly muttered, "Assuming someone doesn't finish the job as soon as you get there."

Steven heard the detective's remark, but ignored it and shouted, "It's the truth! We all know everyone I mentioned is on the take and Beck obviously is making some kind of play with his whole Joker act because he's finally tired of paying Mason his cut. You might not believe me with Beck because he's your friend, but I can prove it even without Beck's ledger I know he keeps at home." He looked to Dickers and finished in a chilly tone, "I'll tell you how, but he has to leave the room, you have to make sure he or his boys don't kill me first and make it worth my wild to not drag this out in a messy and expensive trial where you get nothing on Mason and the rest of them."

Robbie glanced at the detective and the commissioner in a manner that suggested he wanted to speak with them outside.

Steven continued to wear a cold expression as the three exited the room and walked a few paces down the hallway so that the guarding officers wouldn't overhear their conversation. Dickers was the first to speak with a slightly annoyed tone, "He has nothing but self serving accusations to try to muck up what is a clear cut case of him masterminding the robbery tonight, possible kidnapping of Mister Thornesmith and possibly being this 'Joker' so we can add a few arsons to the charges. You don't need to cut him any deals. We've got his boys willing to roll on him with the obvious M.O."

The D.A. shared the briefest of glances then diplomatically continued, a far cry from his nervous and reluctant nature that haunted him throughout high school, "I'd like to see what he has though. The more he spills the more evidence I have to nail him for tonight."

Dickers frowned and remarked in an almost accusatory tone, "Even if they're lies like accusing your friend of being the one that really is behind the fires and tried to kill him tonight?"

Vega spoke up, "We'll be able to discern facts from his lies."

"But will a jury when he finally gets one of his crooked lawyers here and in the courtroom?"

"It won't get that far. He'll give up all the small gangs and finally eradicate almost all the rest of the crime in Gotham to keep from spending the rest of his life in prison."

The commissioner didn't look convinced, but he couldn't bully Robbie as the D.A. nor did he want to sour the working relationship they had develop in the few short weeks the young man had the job. He blew out a breath and reluctantly finished, "Then I'll leave that to you detective. I'm going to check with your partner about how his investigation is going at the hotel and see who really is behind trying to kill him. Please keep me up to speed on this."

He turned and quickly walked towards the elevator, quickly joined by his waiting escorts without waiting to hear a response from either Vega or Robbie.

Vega immediately looked to Robbie and whispered, "I know Beck's your friend and he's been a friend to Tori for nearly ten years, but could Steven be right that Beck could be this Joker? Could he really be working for Mason in his crimes and not just innocently working for one of his front companies?"

Robbie directed an angry look at the detective and dismissively remarked with an incredulous look on his face, "This is coming from the man that cheated on your daughter and is saying 'The Bat' is a woman. The only things I'm believing from him is what I know to be true and that is that Mason is the head of the Mob."

The detective softly chuckled, "Point… 'The Bat' a woman?" He motioned with a nod of his head back to the room and lightheartedly spoke, "Let's see what he has to say and see if he can prove it."

In the elevator, Dickers pulled out his wireless phone from his pocket and quickly dialed a number. The moment the other end of the line picked up, he harshly whispered, "Get to Carson's place and his office and take every shred of paper then trash the rest. He's spilling his guts, but it'll be pointless if he doesn't have the proof to back it up." He pressed the end call button and shoved the phone into his pocket.

His escorts had learned when to ignore their boss and this had been one of those times.

Author's Note: Not a lot of action, but it did move the plot along with seeds of doubt planted and future development. I hope to have the next chapter out by next weekend or sooner. Thanks for reading.

Useless bit of trivia, but the actor that plays Doctor Levinson is the voice of Robin from the Animated Series.