Chapter Two: Where does home Lay? In the Trust you once gave.
The sale was still on! She could get three for the price of two. Holly smiled at the painted window displaying the buy two get one free with an artistic drawing of what resembled scones. It was these mundane things such as waiting in line for coffee that she lived for, being the only person in that line with a satisfied smile. Not even the howling of police sirens surely heading toward the bank around the corner could ruin her mood.
As she became the called, "Next." Holly stepped to the counter and started to grab her wallet from her jacket.
"Hello," even her voice reflected her improved mood, "May I have six of those," she pointed to the glass case next to them holding the treats, "and an americano."
A cup was taken from the many lined up behind the counter space and the woman working the register put a marker to the side of it, "May I have a name for that order?"
"Holly, may I give you my number?" Holly smiled softly.
"Oh," the barista chuckled awkwardly scribbling the name onto the cup, "I've uh, got someone I'm seeing."
Holly stuffed her wallet back into her jacket and put both hands up in front of her chest, debit card in between her fingers, "Sorry, I mean my Sunbucks number – I've got a free coffee on the app, but you are my kind of cute. One lucky fellow you've got."
"Yeah…" she took Holly's app ID number and added it to the order, getting the woman a free coffee, "That'll be ten forty-two," Holly held out her debit card and the woman processed the transaction quickly, "and I'm just going to go die of embarrassment now, your coffee will be ready soon."
After the awkward exchange, Holly caught the woman at the end of the counter when there were no more people in line, "Hey really, sorry again. I forgot this part of town is notorious for flirts, so I get it." Half of Gotham was cat-call territory. "If you keep being hit on, get your guy to come in sometime smooch ya or something. Usually keeps the weird ones at bay."
The woman nodded a few times with an award smile, "She'd definitely pick someone up and toss them outside or break their spine if she saw them hitting on me; she's a club bouncer."
"That's intimidating as heck."
"For sure. Her biceps are like this," The woman put a hand to her arm; was her girlfriend a friggin' gorilla? "but her legs are twice as thick. I once saw her bend a lead pipe on her thigh."
"Oh, I'd love to introduce her to a few people she could bend the spines of." Holly chuckled thinking first of Steve.
"Yeah, but she's a sweetie, anyways. I should be the one saying sorry, I didn't mean to assume. Holly right?" She pointed to the cup with the name written on it and Holly turned it making sure she could read it, "I used to know a girl named Holly, she was super sweet too. A little weird at times, but aren't we all?"
"Might be a Holly thing, but the longer we live the weirder us weirdos tend to get." Similar to how she was in her youth around others Holly fed off the positive vibes this woman put out, mirroring them.
"You take care." The barista smiled as she spied another wave of customers coming in through the doors, giving Holly a tiny wave.
"Thanks," Holly had finally checked her nametag, "Melody."
Holly did not return to the office. She'd gotten the call from Steve just after leaving Sunbucks that the bank had in fact been robbed. Successfully too. It was a little shocking. Instead, she waved down a cab and decided to take the rest of the day off.
They'd been hit by a man calling himself the Joker, the psychopath apparently shot all his guys once they were done with their jobs and took off with the entire vault in a school bus. The best part is that no one had any idea it was a school bus getaway until the bright yellow vehicle was long gone. Salvatore would be furious for sure, and not just him, all the families had been working together more and more as the new district attorney cracked down on them. They were being slowly cornered by Harvey Dent; Gotham's newest white knight. He had her vote even though he was likely to put her in jail too.
The cab dropped her off at a retirement home. One of those more socially dignified places where the residents took care of themselves for the better part but had staff around the clock just in case. Holly knew where she was going in the halls, carrying the brown bag of scones in both arms she came to stand before door forty-three. She stood there for a long time just staring at the door. Every second that ticked by Holly felt less and less like herself. She tried to breathe but almost felt she could not and her arms clutched tighter around the brown bag. After Fear Night many of Gotham's citizens were offered free therapy by charity organizations, Holly had gone to many of those group sessions. Apparently, she like many others was just feeling a form of existential dread, and if she just calmed down and counted to ten everything would be fine.
What a load of batshit that was. Decades of feeling as if nothing mattered only to find the things that she'd come to recently make matter were being torn away from her now one by one, and counting to ten was supposed to solve that. Numbers were magical but they had their limits.
Holly let out a sigh. Her knuckles rapped upon the wood and she held out the brown bag with a beaming smile, "I brought goodies!" She called and the door creaked open slowly, "You're looking good Tony."
"Those better not be weird mac-a-mac French cookies like last time."
She jostled the bag getting him to take it, "Macaroons? They aren't, promise."
He made an apprehensive face before looking into it, "Well, come on in. I just ate lunch."
"At this hour?" Holly followed Tony into the living space, it was very much like a smaller apartment with just the essentials and his model car hobby. She sat upon his sofa, bouncing on the springs some. Tony went to sit in a reclining chair, popping his socked feet up.
"Yeah, bunch of cooks went home ta check on their families an' the nurses had to figure out how ta feed a bunch of us – said some bozo in a clown mask hijacked a school bus earlier today. They found the driver not too long ago." He gestured to the television that sat on the news channel muted.
Holly sucked in her teeth looking at it then back to him, "Yeah, they used it to rob the bank today." She tried not to sound too apathetic about it.
Tony blinked, "Fuckin' criminals getting' ta be too much these days. First, we got a Batman jumpin' off rooftops using honest workin' men as punchin' bags now we got freaky fuckin' clowns commitin' armed robbery."
"I don't how honest those men are, but, you're right. Batman seems kind of excessive." Holly was still a fan of the dark knight, "Oh – as for the bank. He got away with it too, crazy fuck robbed a mob bank."
"Mob bank?" It took a few moments of Tony rummaging through the brown bag and pulling out the scones before it clicked, "Wait-wait a second. Not your bank?"
Holly nodded her head, "Steve's still alive, unfortunately." The dark humor made her give him a cringy smile – she knew it was bad.
Tony narrowed his gaze at her before biting down on the scone then giving the bitten treat a questionable look, "Glad you're okay then…" Tony swallowed and he spoke as a friend who cared, "You know he'll get himself in hot water eventually. I don't see why you hate on the guy so much still."
"In your great wisdom Tony should I not hate on him still?"
"Probably not. He's not worth the effort." Some say true hatred is when you simply do not care.
They exchanged stories for a while, telling much better jokes than her dark humor too. Tony had lost his wife in Fear Night. He lost his grip on life – becoming unmotivated to even eat some days. Once Holly had claimed the insurance money from the warehouse fire she spent it damn near all on Tony. She covered his funeral costs, set him up in this place for early retirement, and would visit him from time to time. Holly was never oblivious to the fact that the driver had been trying his best to be there as her friend – she just didn't want him to be for a long time. She still did not feel like she deserved it. Tony was growing old, he was much older than Holly and his time would be sooner than she'd like.
For now though they laughed as old friends should.
She was laughing with tears in her eyes when she caught sight of the muted news, it was a simple flicker of her eyes but she double took, "Tony… turn that up." Her suddenly serious tone had his chuckling fade.
He grabbed the remote clicking up the volume.
"—than Crane has yet to be taken into custody. Authorities are saying that the former doctor of Arkham Asylum is highly dangerous and if you see him, please call 911 immediately…" It was another PSA. The media was still a bit deceiving without hearing what they had been saying she assumed the good doctor had been arrested. It did not seem the case, he must have fled Gotham by now, right?
"Hey, isn't that the doc who asked you out for coffee?" Tony looked at her as the woman stared at the screen. Jonathan Crane's profile was put up on the side of the news anchor, it was a photo of him from when he taught at Gotham University.
Holly sort of wished he had not been brought up, "Yeah."
"You should stay away from him." He spoke lowly. If Tony ever saw the man he knew he'd try and kill the freak.
"Haven't seen him since that night. Batman's not caught him either. He's long gone."
"He's still here, in Gotham."
"More wisdom from those great mafia instincts?"
"No. The boys still come by to see me too, one of my Ruskie pals let slip they buy drugs from him." He made a gesture like they had all been drinking when he learned about it.
"Honestly? Who buys drugs from a wanted psychopath that used drugs to commit terrorism?" Even Holly felt she was not that stupid; she would rather snort crushed chili peppers before taking drugs from a guy calling himself the Scarecrow. Not that she used drugs all that often anymore. Now she just sat there wanting a plain old cigarette.
"The desperate kind. Dent fellow is good at his job, puttin' away the right men to cut off the mob like hacking away at tree limbs."
They both looked over to the news anchor's chipper face and more chipper voice, "—nd it looks like all kinds of criminals are running scared due to our very own Harvey Dent…" Dent's reel of his election into office was being put on display.
"Yeah right, they're scared all right but that don't mean they gonna be runnin'."
"Small fries have been flakes lately," she admitted, "they are running."
"An' what happens when Dent presses too hard on big fish like Maroni and he don't run? Huh? Who's he gonna throw in Dent's way first ya think?" Holly knew Tony had meant her – and Steve. And anyone else that was now just a human legal shield. If they didn't take falls they got merc'd before court. No more mishaps of Joe Chills if they could.
"Well… Promise you'll come to visit me in jail sometime, Tony." She smiled as she jested.
"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his eyes and muted the news, "Hey, I got somethin' for ya." Holly looked at him with piqued interest, saying nothing and just watching him shuffle out of the recliner. He went into his kitchen, opened a drawer, shuffled around things in it, and came back holding up a set of keys, "I don't drive anymore." He tossed them at her.
She caught them in her lap with both hands, "Tony," she began sullenly.
"I ain't got nowhere to go anyway. This bum leg might work enough to keep doing taxi shit if I need to and I don't get calls no more from the boys out of respect for the retirement, but without… without her it's not the same, ya know?" He flopped back down on the recliner putting his legs back up, "No more sunset drives with Mary…" Holly couldn't say anything, she did not have the means to console him on his loss. Tony sniffed and held back the emotions, "So just, shut up an' take the car all right. I want it to go to someone I like and trust."
Holly handled the keys looking down at them with a short pause, "I'll treat it like a lady herself, Tony."