CHAPTER 9

“No, Jim, you tell me right now, what’s going on?!”

Barbara Gordon looked at her husband plaintively, and then down at her children while Officers Skarsgard and Hartman waited by the front door. The two officers had gone to the Gordon home and packed up anything that Barbara said she needed while also sweeping the house and checking for anything suspicious. A patrol car had been appointed to go by the house once every hour, park outside, and the officers checked all doors and windows for tampering.

This can’t be happening, she thought. Not this craziness. Not again. It just can’t be.

Barbara had packed up as soon as she had hung up the phone with her husband, left her home, and now stood in her friend Alison’s house. Alison was at work, but had given Barbara and her family free reign of the house.

Barbara had fled. She had fled her own home—their home. A needle of ice had gone through her heart when she had first read through those riddles, and then icy-cold terror had gone over her whole body when she had heard the concern in her husband’s voice. Now here he was trying to put on a face of calm. He was trying to look composed and unafraid, for her and for the kids.

“We’re not sure what’s going on right now, Barbara,” her husband was saying. “But we’re working on it. I’ve called everyone, the chief, the mayor’s office, they all know what’s going on and they’re gonna make sure we have all we need. They’ve been by the house and so far they’ve not found anything suspicious.”

She heard the words, and also what they hid. Jim had always done this to her, always tried to keep her in the dark despite the fact that he knew damn good and well what she had seen in her own life. “Jim, talk to me. What’s really going on here?”

Jim sighed, and then looked down at their son and daughter. Their eyes were wide, confused, looking to the grownups for guidance and answers. “Kids, why do you go into the next room? Let Mom and Dad talk alone for a minute.”

“But don’t go outside, James,” she called after her son. “And watch your sister.” Barbara turned around to look at her husband. “What?” she said.

“You don’t have to be worried.” He reached out to touch her shoulder.

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t pretend that this isn’t serious. I know that you’re just as concerned as I am.”

Jim sighed, and took his glasses off to rub at his eyes. “Yes, Barb, I’m a little worried. But we don’t even know what this means yet. It very likely means nothing. It’s probably just some moron who read about riddles being left at the crime scene and they thought they’d goof on the police commissioner’s wife for kicks,” he said. “Like the people who hack into police computers just to get the pictures of murder victims so they can post them on the Internet to hurt the families of the dead—these are sick people, Barb, no doubt, but it doesn’t mean it’s the same people who—”

“Are these the same riddles that were left at the crime scenes?” she said, setting her tone to demanding in no uncertain terms. “And don’t lie to me Jim, I know you’ve seen the evidence and you’ve spoken with all the investigators.”

“No, Barbara, the riddles in your e-mail are different than the ones left at the other crime scenes.” He reached out to take her in his arms, and Barbara relaxed, but only a little. She had been married to this man for a decade now, had loved him all that time and had stuck with him even after that fiasco with Sarah Essen. She’d told herself back then that there was nothing that they couldn’t endure together, but now, she was beginning to wonder.

Jim had recently been away from home more than ever before. Barbara understood that, as police commissioner, his job entailed a great deal more meetings than he’d had as Lieutenant Gordon, and he was forced to balance the two worlds of law enforcement and politics, only both of them appeared to be in decay in Gotham lately, one bringing the other one down while the city crumbled around them and new gangs cropped up to “honor” the example set by the Joker and others.

And then there was the bat. That damned bat. Jim had earned the trust of Batman for good reason; he had been the only real decent cop on the force years ago, or at least the only one that anyone could be sure about since he’d never once been hassled by Internal Affairs. And the bat had also earned Jim’s trust by doing what no one else had been able to do. Despite many valiant attempts by outside political forces, it appeared that Gotham City was mostly on its own, to fend for itself in a kind of island or no man’s land, a completely unsolvable problem to the Powers That Be. Barbara had initially supported him in everything he did, but the arrival of the Batman had been their first major fight as a married couple. She hadn’t liked it. Having worked in law offices, Barbara didn’t like the idea of a masked vigilante, if only for practical reasons; virtually nothing a vigilante gathered as evidence could be admissible in court, all it did was damage the state’s case further, actually, since it made it appear as though the Gotham City government supported some kind of off-the-books black operations task force, which constitutionally they could not do.

But Jim had won that argument, if only by storming out into the night, searching for the next piece of evidence that the vigilante would give him. Barbara had to admit, though, she had never been more attracted to her husband than when he was bound and determined to do what he felt was right, and she had never been more proud of him than when he had actually started making headway against Gotham’s criminals, and the corruption in the GCPD.

But then, it had struck home. All of it had. The disaster with Harvey Dent, the collapse of so many investigations still in progress, the Joker, the Suns, the resurgence of the Falcones.

And now this, Barbara thought, clutching her husband tight. Another maniac was out there, one with an ability to maneuver in a way that had, so far, left him perfectly faceless, an absolute unknown to the Gotham City Police Department. Just over a year ago, she had told Jim that if anything he ever did threatened their family again, and if he refused to quit whatever it was he was doing, she would leave him. And she had meant it.

That was the unspoken worry between both of them as she pulled away from him, that they might both be forced to stick to their guns. “Jim, give me your honest opinion,” she said, looking at him through tears. “Are we safe here?”

Jim looked into his wife’s eyes, and nodded. “Yeah, Barb. Yeah, we’re safe.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Now, it was time for the real question. “What if it’s not?” she said, her eyes starting to water even as she tried to halt the tears. “What if, just what if, this person is coming directly for us now? Are you going to keep us in the crossfire?”

“Crossfire’s a harsh term, honey.”

“It is not. It is the right term.”

“Barb…what would you have me do, just up and leave all of these people?”

“Yes.” The word leapt from her mouth before she knew it was coming. And she meant it. To her bone, Barbara Gordon was no longer interested in sticking by Gotham City, not if this craziness was returning, it wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth losing their children over it.

“Barb, you were behind me when I took this job. All the way.”

“People can change their minds, Jim,” she said. “Just like you can change yours.”

“You want me to turn my back on the city we’ve lived in all our lives, our home, because of some silly riddles?”

“If things become any more serious, yes.” She didn’t know why he was being so obdurate about this. A year ago he had been reluctant to take the job of police commissioner. And now all he wants to do is stay? Why? Because of the bat? Because of some romantic idea that they can actually clean all of this up? Barbara had once held that belief, had clung to it hard like a religious zealot, but time and experience changed a person, gave them new perspective, and granted them the knowledge they needed to make wiser choices in the future.

Gotham’s finished, Barbara thought, feeling the gravity of it. Her heart ached as she realized it was utterly true, no one could deny it. Something’s wrong here, something in the air, a sickness. And there’s no cure.

“Barb, listen—”

“Jim, go into the next room, and look at the faces of your children,” she said. “Go on, just look at them. They know something’s wrong, just like they know that Mommy and Daddy are having a fight right now. Nothing gets by them, Jim! They live in fear ever since what happened…what happened last time…” She almost started sobbing at the thought of it. The gun aimed at herself and at her children, the rapidity with which her life had spiraled out of control and she had nearly lost everything.

No, she thought. Not again. Not ever again.

Jim said, “Don’t do that, Barb. Using the kids…that’s…that’s unfair.”

Maybe it was unfair using the children, but it made it no less valid. “They’re your children, Jim. Your children. And I’m your wife. If this insanity keeps on going, sooner or later it’ll catch up to us. These people, these Falcones and Suns and Juarezes and Jokers, they’re going to close in around us eventually. It’s just…it’s all gotten so…so…” Finally, she cried, and she collapsed into his arms. The emotions had been building for years, especially in these last twelve months, and the stress had finally shifted something inside of her tectonically. Changes had come to Gotham, and the winds of change had reshaped them all.

They talked for another hour, and eventually Jim got up to make a few phone calls, one to the mayor’s office, but it didn’t seem like he got through to anybody. He came over to kiss her on the head, and then kissed his two children and said, “I gotta go, sweetie. I gotta drop off something, I’ll be back in a couple hours. Don’t wait up.”

Barbara looked up at him, and gave him a brave smile. Gotta go talk to the bat, right? Since no one else will listen, she thought, but didn’t say. She wanted to tell him to stop, just stop right now and think what all had happened to others holding office in Gotham City, what had happened to the last police commissioner, but all she managed to say was, “Be careful.”

He looked at her, smiled through that bushy mustache and said, “I will, sweetheart. I love you.”

She watched him go out the front door, whisper something to one of the cops standing guard on the porch, and then went off into the night.

As she watched him go, she realized that all Jim Gordon’s hopes for saving the city, and his home, rested in the Batman. Whether he realized it or not, Jim had invested too much time in him to quit now, just as Barbara had invested time with her husband and her family. She went to the window, watched him crank his car and leave. She thought, If he doesn’t leave the bat, I’ll have to leave him. The knowledge brought on more sobs. She’d never thought such a thing in her life.

Barbara suddenly remembered a quote from her mother’s favorite writer, Ernest Hemingway: There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough, and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter. She sincerely hoped that wasn’t true of her Jim. She wanted him for herself, at least some of the time, and right now all she got was what he was willing to share after each hunt had ended. And it was only a brief respite, before he was off on the hunt again, chasing other quarry.

As though having a sense for bad timing, her son entered the room and found her there, crying. “Mom?” James Jr. said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, sweetie,” Barbara Gordon lied. “Mommy’s just got something in her eye.”

* * *

THERE WAS A large swath of graffiti spray-painted across the side of the Cheshire Bank & Trust that said “TELL CITY HALL TO KICK THE BAT OUT!” It appeared in large, red letters underneath the bank’s name, and had no doubt been placed there within the last hour because the paint was still wet and running. Beneath the message in sloppier letters was the warning: “DON’T MESS WITH THE MOB”, which was the slogan of the Molehill Mob, a wild band of feral punks roaming the streets these days. It was a prosaic but no less illustrative example of some of the problems Gotham City now faced.

Mayor Walden looked out his window in the back of the car, and watched the rest of the city slide by. They were moving across Harvey Dent Highway, through the business district, headed towards Meadow Street. Besides the graffiti, there was no other indication that gangs were slowly encroaching on the city’s more proper sections. But they are, he thought. Walden knew the truth of it, and he had plans to solve it, if only he was given enough time.

A police helicopter whup-whup-whupped overhead with its spotlight turned on, indicating that they were looking for something, or someone. Make that two indicators of encroachment by the dregs.

His driver checked his rearview mirror and flipped on his turn signal before switching lanes. They pulled into Middlestone Park and directly head was their destination, the home of one of Walden’s constituents. It looked like a house straight out of Malibu, with palm trees in the front yard and pink flamingos, real ones, floating about in a large artificial pond. The gates that opened before them were made of iron bars, and they drove around a U-shaped driveway lined with hedges tightly kept. The driver pulled to a stop underneath the large carport, which was two stories and supported a balcony, and was held up by four large white pillars, making the front of the house look almost like the White House.

Walden waited for his driver to get out and open the back door, not just because he believed powerful people seemed all the more powerful whenever others opened doors for them (he did), but also because he had been told to wait by his E.P. team, or executive protection team, when he took his oath of office. Things had obviously been very dangerous for past mayors, police commissioners, and other holders of various offices in this city. With the clown finally locked up, many people thought it cause for celebration. Others, such as Aaron LeConte, the head of Walden’s personal E.P. team, believed that things might just be getting started. Walden didn’t believe in taking chances, he believed in preparing against any eventuality. Hence, why he had come to know the person who owned the Malibu-like house in Middlestone Park so well.

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The phone call had come just as he was on his way home, and Walden found that irritating. He didn’t like being called, by anyone. He preferred being the summoner over the summoned. The only people who had the right to tell him what to do were his wife and Pamela Brighton, and even those had their limits, everyone else shouldn’t have that sort of power over a city mayor. It wasn’t their place to order him around. The man who lived in the Malibu home had to be handled…delicately, though.

They walked up the steps together, the four E.P. team members forming a diamond around him, and Aaron was the one to ring the doorbell. When the door opened, a boy in pajamas answered the door. “Who are you?”

“Can you tell your dad that the mayor’s here, young man?” Walden said, smiling down at the boy.

“Cole, who is it?” said a woman, walking up to the door in her robe and tying it off. She looked up at them in surprise. She was a beautiful young lady of dark skin, with her wet hair pulled up into a towel. “Oh, you’re here!” she said, smiling. “Seth’s in the kitchen. C’mon in.”

They did, and Barney, the bodyguard bringing up the rear of the diamond, quietly shut the door behind them. Aaron stayed near the mayor, while Barney and the other two bodyguards fanned out across the large atrium, scanning the room for anything they felt was out of place. Of course, as E.P. specialists would do, they had already sent a two-man advance team to this house at least fifteen minutes ahead of the rest of the team, knocked on the door, and checked the home out before Mayor Walden ever showed up. The advance team acted as heralds and informed people that the mayor was on his way to visit them. They also made sure the area was secure and there were no threats waiting on him.

“Seth?” shouted the woman. “Seth! Mayor Walden’s here!”

“Send him in,” said a man in a British accent.

This rankled the mayor a bit. Once again, he was being summoned to a location and not met. All was not right with the universe.

The woman came out to wave them in, and once they were in the kitchen, she left them. At the center of the kitchen was Seth Blair, chopping onions and tossing them into a boiling pot. He was shirtless, displaying numerous prison tattoos that had faded through the years, and at least one scar from a close shave. Otherwise, the ex-con was the pinnacle of dashing, with well-groomed hair and teeth so straight and clean that it was disarming to see him smile, which he did when he glanced up at the mayor and said, “How ya doin’, Marcellus?”

Mr. Mayor, he thought, and glanced back at Aaron and the others. “Could you leave us alone for a bit, fellas?”

“Yes, sir,” Aaron said. “We’ll be right down the hall in the atrium should you need anything.” He gave one last look of uncertainty at Blair, though it was fleeting, and then turned away. Walden knew that his E.P. team didn’t like Blair, since all of them were either ex-cops or ex-soldiers, and had probably had negative run-ins with sorts like him in their past. But Seth was reformed now, a businessman who had bounced around opening successful businesses in other cities throughout the country, and then selling them when they started to peak.

Blair chopped a couple more onions, sniffed, and said, “Want some soup?”

The mayor put his hands in his pockets. “I’m not a big fan.”

“Ah, but this is Soupe à l'oignon, French onion soup, and nobody makes it better than me.”

“No thanks.”

“Lotta history in onion soups,” Blair said, licking his fingers. “Did you know that? Been popular since at least Roman times. They were always seen as a food for the impoverished, because onions are easy to grow. Nowadays, depending on how ya make it, it’s a delicacy. My secret is in my beef broth. A lotta people think all the flavor comes from the caramelized onions, but I submit to you that they just don’t know how to do a fine enough broth. See, a good cook has to experiment if he wants to get at the essence of the ingredients he’s working with, not just accept the dogma that others spout. Believe me, in the cooking world, people can be very dogmatic.” He pulled out another bag of fresh onions, and spilled a few onto the cutting board. “But some things do go wrong when you stray outside of the common rules, I can’t deny that. Like with me today, I just can’t get this soup right. I’ve been trying all day, and this is my fourth attempt. Just something’s not right.”

“You didn’t call me here to talk about soup,” Walden said, taking a couple steps around the table. “At least, I sincerely hope not, because my wife’s waiting on me at home right now. She has dinner ready.”

Blair popped a small slice of onion in his mouth and started chewing. “Did you meet my family?” he said, using his chopping knife to point into the next room. “My wife and son? They weren’t here the last couple times you came. They were in Argentina visiting family.”

“I saw them. Very nice.”

“Mm,” he said, and went back to chopping onions. After a few seconds, he finally said, “Nate’s getting impatient.”

The mayor took his hands out of his pockets, and placed them on the table between them. “Don’t say that man’s name in my presence, do you understand me? Especially with other people around.”

“Why not?” Blair said, popping another slice of onion in his mouth and looking Walden square in the eye. “If you’re so afraid, Marcellus, then maybe you shouldn’t make friends with people that you can’t talk about in mixed company.” He smiled. “Or maybe you should do what our mutual friend says, and make your move now, while you still can. It kind of sets the wrong impression with some people when you accept their help but then don’t reciprocate. Yep, sets a very wrong impression.”

“In case you and our ‘mutual friend’ haven’t noticed, I’ve had a crisis thrown into my lap in the last forty-eight hours. A pretty serious one, maybe you heard about it? It’s been on the news?”

Another onion went in his mouth. “We’re not concerned about some idiot bomber or the problems he gave you any more than you’re concerned about what’s wrong with the ingredients in my soup, Marcellus.” He snorted. “You’ve had plenty of time to get to work on our mutual enemy, and yet he’s still there, still skulking out into the night, still doing his thing and interrupting our business, and then I turn on the TV this morning and there you are, with a perfectly good opportunity to condemn not only the attacks, but the person who started this unfortunate chain of events.”

“You want me to turn a moment of remembrance for victims into a damn rallying point against someone else who, for all their faults, had nothing to do with this? For what, just to score another few political points against vigilantism?”

“Why not? It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it? Scoring points.”

“It’s not exactly easy to segue from talking about twenty-seven dead in a suicide bombing into lambasting a vigilante and the police commissioner who coddles him!” Walden had to remember to keep his voice down, Aaron and the others were just down the hall. He took a deep breath, and tried to simmer down. “Look, it’s important to me that you understand that your efforts haven’t been forgotten, nor those of our mutual friend, but you have got to give me more time. This isn’t as easy as it looks to you on the outside—”

“Being mayor isn’t easy, Marcellus,” Blair said, popping another onion in his mouth. “Somebody should’ve told you that before you took the job. Oh, that’s right, we did! We warned you multiple times about what you were getting into, about the people you would be dealing with.”

“I’m not going to have this conversation with you. I’ve already done what you wanted and I’ve been working on ways of getting rid of our problems. I told you that the last time we spoke. And I don’t—”

“Well, you’d better speed those efforts up, Marcellus.” Blair put the knife down, and Walden watched him carefully. He wasn’t sure any longer exactly what sort of man this Blair was. He knew that he wasn’t honest, that much was clear, but he wasn’t sure just how far into Nate’s world this man went. “Marcellus,” he said, stepping away from the table and walking over to the stove to heat one of the eyes, “you’ve made some remarkable changes since you took office, many of which don’t get the respect they deserve. For example, you were one of the driving forces behind extending the two-term limit on the office of mayor to a three-term limit, which effectively means that, if all goes your way, you could be the first mayor ever in Gotham City to serve twelve years in office.” He sighed, and moved back over to the chopping table to collect the remaining onions and toss them into the pot. “But a lot can happen in twelve years, and you won’t make it that long without the right friends, not with voters as finicky as they’ve been in recent years, always flip-flopping and electing younger and younger candidates because they’ve gotten to where they don’t trust old people—old people remind them of older, corrupted establishments—so you’ll need all the help you can get if you wanna stick around. If you can’t adapt and cooperate, then the voters will just find someone else who can.” He looked Walden in the eye. “And so will our mutual friend.”

“I think you overestimate our mutual friend’s reach.”

“You’re supposed to give a policy statement on public healthcare later this week,” Blair said. Walden looked at him, wondering where this was going. “You’ll be talking about a variety of things, yeah? Healthcare’s very important right now. It’s a hot button for voters all across the country.”

Walden shook his head. “What are you getting at? I’m not interested in voters across the—”

“Oh, please, Marcellus! We know you’ve been interviewing people for the position of presidential campaign manager. You’re covering all bases, keeping your options open. If something goes wrong with your position as mayor, you’ll want an avenue to slip into the presidency with. I can respect that. And our mutual friend, he can help with that, too. You’ve already got a few who would definitely support your run. But without our mutual friend, you don’t see your next term as mayor.”

Blair went to pick up his pot of onions to carry over to the stove, and Walden reached out to grab his wrist. The ex-con stared at the mayor quizzically for a moment, supremely unafraid of the man who ran Gotham City, and that infuriated Walden. “That door swings both ways, Seth,” he said. “And you know it. If you don’t have me, then who’ll even give you the time of day?”

Blair looked at him a beat longer, and then smiled wide. “You gotta be kiddin’ me, right?” he said. “You’re actually asking me where I’ll find another crooked politician?” He laughed, and waved his free hand around him generally, encompassing the whole world. “I guess I’ll just have to take my shoe off, walk outside, and throw it at the first person walking into City Hall. That’s a good way to pick ’em.”

Walden held his gaze. In that moment, his rage was enough to choke the life out of something, and it showed in how hard he squeezed Blair’s arm. “I’m no crooked politician,” he said.

“No? Then what were those bribes you took from U&E Planning, eh?”

“Those weren’t bribes. They were donations and patronages to the—”

“Ah, patronages? I see now. It’s suddenly so clear.” Blair’s smile died, and he looked down at his wrist. “Take your hand off me, Marcellus.”

For a moment, Walden wasn’t so sure he would. He was so angry he was almost trembling, and when he finally released his grip on Blair’s wrist he actually glanced down at the knife. It was an unconscious thing, a caveman portion of his brain wanting to destroy that which stood in his way. Walden hadn’t ever been a real crook, he’d never accepted monetary bribes or changed his mind because it might up the stock of a company he owned part of. What he had done was remain silent on a single topic during his campaign run in order to satisfy those who offered to fund his campaign, but he saw that as petty, and actually quite necessary, something that every politician must go through so that they can get into office and make the changes needed. Walden had been a relative unknown to Gotham City’s public, despite being friends with Frederick Habersham, his wife’s father, but his one true talent had been making the right friends.

Seth Blair, and his employer Mulcoyisy Stewart-Paulson, had certainly been good for their donations, back before “Nate” was a name the GCPD were very serious about. In fact, they weren’t even sure he existed. And they still weren’t entirely sure. But he was real enough to command Walden’s attention for a brief period of his life, at a moment when he’d seen his one chance at mayoral candidacy about to come and go. All Blair had wanted, and all Stewart-Paulson had wanted, was for him to ignore Commissioner James Gordon and any pet projects he brought up that could benefit the Batman, that omnipresent wraith that the criminals of Gotham truly feared, and that had just so happened to align with Walden’s goals, as well. After all, Walden was no fan of the Batman, either, even though he hadn’t quite taken the strong public stance he wanted to yet because the bat still had some support amongst the people.

It was a strange time to live in Gotham City, when one couldn’t tell up from down or left from right, but Marcellus Walden believed in order, he believed he was capable of being a savior, and he had gone silent long enough to get himself the seat of mayor. He thought of it as using Blair and his friends, not collaborating with them, in order to eventually defeat them. Playing with the fiddle side-by-side with the devil, as his wife’s father had once referred to this kind of game. Long enough to get close to him and cut his strings.

Seth Blair took his pot of onions over to the stove, and then started sorting out his other ingredients. “Think about what I said, Marcellus. Think about the future of Gotham City if you renege on our deal, and all the good you could do with twelve years to do it in.” He opened a drawer and took out another night. “Now, you wanna stay for dinner? Anna’s always glad to play hostess, and I think I got this soup thing down this time.”

Walden cleared his throat. “No, thank you. My wife will have dinner for me.”

“You sure?” He smiled, as though he hadn’t just made veiled threats to an elected official.

“Yes, I’m sure. I’ll see you later, Seth.”

“See ya, Marcellus. And be careful out there. This city’s come alive recently.”

Walden turned away from him. He paused at the door. “Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. He reached into his pocket, and withdrew a copy of the tape Pam gave him. “If you should start to doubt my sincerity, have a listen to that.”

Seth looked intrigued. “What is it?”

“Make of it what you will.” He set it down on the countertop. “Use it how you will.”

Walden stepped back outside with his bodyguards and took in the open air. He hadn’t known it, but the smell of the onions had gotten to him, exacerbating his problems with Blair and fueling his ire. Once he was back in the car and they were pulling out of the driveway, the mayor thought back on his first meeting with Blair and his people. He thought about the difficult times he had been going through, when he had faced being ousted from his old job after Frederick’s death, and without a job on the horizon. He’d been faced with either nothing or being the mayor of Gotham City. It had been a no-brainer.

However, that sort of climb to power could have a slow, almost sluggish pace, and along the way it was easy to let your guard down during times like that. One small concession at a time; that was all it took to become lost in a tangled web.

Marcellus Walden was determined to get out of this particular web, though. But how? How, now that I’ve gotten so deep? As they drove back across Harvey Dent Highway, he was already working on that riddle.

* * *

ON THE WAY to Glen’s Bakery, Gordon got a text message from Lieutenant Carletta Mantegna-Rodriguez over at Precinct 17. The bat had caught another pair, at least, that’s the way it looked to him. Lieutenant Mantegna-Rodriguez had been on duty when the call came in—they had both Gaspare Calabria and Victor Hughes in custody right now, both of them beaten pretty badly and both demanding to see their lawyers. An anonymous call from a pay phone from someone using a voice scrambler had given GCPD the location where they could find the two thugs tied up.

Gordon sent a text back, saying that he wanted to be present for both interrogations, but at the moment he was busy. He was standing in the alley behind Glen’s Bakery once again, after having driven in circles for twenty minutes to make sure no one was following him, and he dropped the package off for the bat. It was a manila envelope packed with everything he could think to include for the bat to get started. If he got Calabria and Hughes so fast, maybe he’ll have luck with this, too.

It was way after midnight, and he had to get moving if he wanted to spend any time with Barbara and the kids, and hopefully smooth things over. He got in the car and did one more look around watchful eyes before leaving.

Almost at the house, he got another text message. I should’ve thrown this thing into Gotham Harbor, he thought, seeing who it was from. His heart sank a bit with dread. It was from Sarah. Gordon had been forbidden by Barbara from ever speaking to her again, and, in one respect, he could see why. He and Sarah had been partners on the force together for years, and they had gotten close. Things had almost gotten serious, but then Sarah had backed off for some reason. Years later, after he married Barbara, Sarah had come back into his life, being reassigned to work close to him after he became a lieutenant. They had gone out to drinks, just like two fellow cops on the force would do, when people started asking questions about their relationship.

Somehow, the gossip had gotten to Barbara, and Gordon had backed off immediately after their first argument over it, which had come on the heels of the Great Batman Argument. Barb had stuck with him through so much, and he wasn’t about to lose her over gossip but he could see her point. It didn’t look appropriate, no matter how innocent it was. These days, Sarah was gaining traction in the FBI, becoming somebody important. She had always been career-focused, so perhaps it was inevitable that they stopped hanging out.

Sarah’s text read: Just checking in. I heard things around the precinct. How’s the fam?

Gordon sighed, and decided not to answer. If he saw Sarah around, he would claim that he never received her texts. It was getting easier to avoid people these days, even old friends, and for various reasons. It was a useful skill, one that Gordon wasn’t so convinced he liked learning.