Gotham

by Jason Starr

  “The hell was that all about?” he bellowed. “I pay you good money every month to keep you and your pigs out of my bar, then you show up and start fighting with my customers?”

  “With all due respect,” Harvey said, “we didn’t start that fight.”

  “You still shouldn’t even be in here—ever.”

  “I’m sorry, Bobby,” Harvey said.

  “Wait, you’re taking kickbacks from this guy?” Amanda glared at Harvey.

  “Guess you and your partner don’t communicate too well, huh Harvey?” Bobby drawled. Then he said to Amanda, “Yeah, he gets kickbacks—two G’s a month to keep my bar a cop-free zone.”

  “Is this true?” she demanded.

  Harvey didn’t bother answering her.

  “Look, you’re right, and I’m sorry,” Harvey said to the club owner. “It won’t happen again. I just needed to ask you how I can find a guy named Roberto Colon.”

  “Never heard of him,” Bobby said. Harvey knew he was lying.

  “According to a reliable source he hangs out here.”

  “Reliable source, eh.” Bobby smirked. “You mean Fish Mooney?” The smirk morphed into a laugh. Then he added, “You cops’re so arrogant. You really think you’re the only ones with ears on the street?”

  Harvey remembered that weirdo who’d given him the business card. What was his name? Hobblepot? Something like that.

  “How many years we go back?” Harvey said to Bobby, keeping his expression serious.

  “Ten, maybe twelve,” Bobby said.

  “That’s a good stretch,” the detective said. “Hate to play hardball with you, I mean, given our long, amicable history and all. But if you don’t cooperate I’m gonna tell Don Maroni I found out you’ve been skimming off the top at this joint, ripping his ass off for years.”

  “Why would he believe you?”

  “Why would he believe you?” Harvey countered. “It would be a ‘he said, he said,’ and Maroni respects me, knows I’m a straight shooter. Maroni’s known to kill his own people who steal from him. So the question is, how much faith do you have in your relationship with the Don?”

  Bobby’s hesitation spoke volumes. “Me and Maroni are good friends,” he said, like he was trying to believe it himself.

  “Hope you’re right about that,” Harvey said, “because if you’re wrong, you’re gonna be fish food in the Gotham River before midnight.” Then he turned to leave, knowing what was gonna happen next. If they could just get there before Amanda said something stupid.

  “Wait, you bastard.”

  Man, Harvey thought, I love being right. It always gave him a rush.

  “Okay, Colon was here before,” Bobby said, “but he must’ve took off when you two came in.”

  “Where’d he go?” Amanda asked.

  “I dunno, but I know he’s staying in this SRO on Caldwell near Walker, above the liquor store. You better not tell him I tipped you off.” He gave them as close as he could to an angry glare, what with the glasses.

  “Give me a break, Bobby,” Harvey said. “Don’t act like you’re some kinda virgin. You’ve ratted out plenty of perps over the years, and nobody’s killed you. Well, yet.” When the club owner didn’t reply, Harvey led the way out of the bar, with Amanda close behind.

  This time nobody bothered them, or even looked at them, including the big guy, who was at the bar with a bag of ice against his wrist. After they left the bar, Harvey asked a question that was becoming far too familiar.

  “What was that about in there?” he demanded.

  “You tell me,” Amanda said. “You didn’t tell me you were protecting this place.”

  “I didn’t think that was… pertinent information.”

  “I’m your partner. Everything is pertinent information.”

  “You coulda got us killed,” he persisted. “What if that guy in there had a friend who got trigger happy? Did you even think about the danger you were putting me in, when you put that guy onto the floor with some fancy move you learned in a police self-defense class.”

  “Actually, I’m a third degree black belt,” she said.

  Harvey didn’t think she was lying.

  “Good for you,” Harvey said. “So you can chop and kick, but I’ll tell you one thing—I never saw karate win a gun fight.” She didn’t respond.

  They got into the car, Harvey driving. The stony silence persisted, and Harvey turned on the radio, tuning in his favorite oldies station.

  “Taking kickbacks is against the law,” Amanda said finally.

  “Really?” Harvey deadpanned. “I had no idea.” Then he added, “So, what’re you gonna do, report me, partner?”

  “Maybe I should.”

  Crap, that again.

  “Go ahead,” he growled, and he half meant it. “Rats have a long life expectancy at the GCPD, I’m sure.” He rolled his eyes for emphasis.

  “I don’t get it,” Amanda said. “I mean, I get why other cops get dirty, but why Harvey Bullock? I mean, I know you have a moral center in there somewhere. I’ve watched you do your job, and you’re pretty good at it, at least when you’re sober.”

  “It’s called earning a living,” Harvey said. “You think I can live on a cop’s salary? Nobody can. Kickbacks are like a performance bonus.”

  “How much do you get?” she asked.

  “Why? You want a piece of the action?”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way. Corruption in Gotham is part of the problem. I should report all of this. You’d go on desk duty or, better yet, you’ll get suspended. Either way, you’d be off the street, and part of the problem would go away.”

  “A suspension would be great right about now,” Harvey said. “I could use the beach time.”

  “Gotham could use it, too,” she said. “One less dirty cop.”

  Harvey yanked on the steering wheel, pulled over to the curb, and hit the brakes. Amanda, not wearing a seatbelt, had her hands on the dash to protect herself from putting her head through the windshield.

  “Are you crazy?” she said.

  “You have no idea who or what I am, lady,” Harvey said. “I dedicate my life to my job, I put scumbags in jail every day. Another priority of mine? Staying alive. It’s survival of the fittest in this town. So, yeah, I know how take care of A-Number-One. Me.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Amanda said.

  “It means if you wanna be a cop in Gotham, you gotta know how to play the game,” he said. “People who don’t play the game end up with worms in their brains. Now get out.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Amanda said.

  “You sure as hell aren’t—not with me,” he said. “I can handle the personality issues. I mean, I can deal with a pain in the ass and all, criticizing me all the time, acting like you’re holier than thou, but you want to talk about partners? You almost got into a fight by shooting your mouth off to Fish Mooney, then when you get into an actual fight—one we could’ve avoided—you threaten to turn rat on me. But then, worst of all, you have the balls to tell me how to do my job. There’s a solution for having a partner like you—it’s called a divorce.”

  “If I have a problem with the way you’re doing your job, I have the right to speak up,” she countered. “You can’t…” She searched for the words. “You can’t fire me.”

  “No, I can’t,” Harvey said, “but I can make you get out of my goddamn car.”

  She didn’t budge.

  He took out his gun and aimed at her face.

  “I said get out.”

  Maybe she didn’t believe Harvey would actually shoot her, but the threat worked because something made her get out. Harvey reached across the front seat and slammed the door shut.

  Amanda stepped back and stared through the open window.

  “Wow, and I thought you were one of the good guys.”

  “Wake up,” Harvey said. “This is Gotham. There are no good guys.”

  He sped away, leaving her on the curb. When he got a co
uple of blocks away, he looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that she was still standing there, hands on her hips, stubborn as all hell.

  SEVEN

  Traffic was heavy at times, and Thomas made it upstate in about two hours. He was eager to get to Karen’s retreat to make sure she was okay, but he stopped at a supermarket in the closest town to where she lived—about twenty miles away—and bought as many groceries as he could fit into his trunk and the back seat of his car. He also bought lots of toilet paper, paper towels, soap, shampoo and conditioner, light bulbs, and other necessities.

  If she was going to remain safe, then it would be best that he minimize his visits, and she would need enough supplies to keep her for an extended stretch.

  Leaving the main roads, Thomas drove along a winding, secluded stretch for about ten minutes, then turned on to another even more secluded lane. Finally he turned onto a nameless rocky dirt road that went through dense woods. Anyone who wasn’t looking for it would miss it.

  He continued along the road for about a mile, until he reached the cabin by a small lake. It was where Karen had lived for the past ten years. In the beginning Thomas had considered putting her up at an apartment in Gotham, where it would have been easier to watch her, but as other Pinewood victims went missing—some of them in the city—he knew he needed another option. He’d considered an armed guard, but was concerned that it would draw unwanted attention, and guards couldn’t necessarily be trusted.

  Anyone could turn, for the right price.

  Parking near the house, he got out of the car. He took a deep breath of the country air, which always felt invigorating after the smog in Gotham. He pulled a couple of bags of the groceries out of the trunk and went up the rickety steps which led to a screened-in porch, leaning in at an awkward angle and knocking a few times.

  She didn’t come to the door, and he didn’t hear any movement from inside. During the ride up, he’d tried to call her again, and had gotten her voicemail. There was no cell service out here and she didn’t even have a cell phone—just a landline.

  He’d managed to assuage his fears that something was wrong, that something had happened, telling himself that she was probably napping, hiking in the woods, or maybe she’d gone out on her row boat. She’d told him how much she enjoyed rowing alone on the lake, how the solitude made her feel safe.

  He banged on the screen door, which was hook-locked on the inside.

  “Karen? Are you home?” he said, nervous to speak so loudly. “Karen?”

  No answer. He shook the door and was able to jiggle the lock open. Once on the porch, he peered in through the window. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but he didn’t see her.

  He banged on the door a few times with the side of his fist.

  “Karen? Are you in there? Hello? Hello?”

  “Thomas.”

  The sound jarred him. He spun around and saw Karen standing there, outside the cabin. She was young—in her early thirties—with wavy brown hair. If she hadn’t been a victim of Pinewood, she could have been leading a simple, happy life—had a career, a husband, a couple of kids, a great future. Thomas had no idea what Strange had done to her, or what he’d been trying to achieve. He hadn’t been privy to the details of his experiments though he knew, in general, that the experiments had involved merging animal DNA with human DNA.

  Most likely Karen had been given materials taken from some reptile, which was how she’d received the huge, monstrous claw where her right arm should have been. Knowing Hugo Strange and his twisted ways, though, he might have introduced dinosaur DNA into her system.

  Nothing was off-limits for that madman.

  “You scared the hell out of me,” Thomas said.

  “Who else were you expecting?” Karen asked. She had cut off all ties with anyone she had known before Pinewood—friends and relatives alike. Many assumed she had died years ago. Thomas was the only human being she had encountered in years.

  “Good point,” Thomas said. “But I tried to call you before and, well, I was getting worried.”

  “I was just out walking,” she replied, “but thanks for worrying.”

  Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to relax. Thomas had gotten to know Karen well. She had become not only like a daughter to him, but also a friend. They talked about pretty much everything. Although she’d never met Bruce and Martha, he’d told her all about them. When Bruce had an issue with a teacher or a classmate at school, Karen offered good advice. When Thomas had to make a big decision about something going on at Wayne Industries, he talked things through with her, getting her input.

  She was smart and insightful. She told him about the trauma of her childhood, and he tried to help her, but not like a therapist—he was an ear for her, a sounding board. Having been involved in so much of her pain, he wanted to do whatever he could to make her life a little better. He’d brought her books to read, and they spent hours talking about them. She had never travelled, so he told her about his times in Europe, Asia, and other places.

  Although she was free to do whatever she wanted, with no car or money of her own, she was essentially a prisoner. While a cabin in a serene area wasn’t exactly like being in Blackgate or Arkham, solitude could seem like the worst punishment of all. She’d had mental health issues in her past—which was part of why she had been selected for the Pinewood experiments—and sometimes Thomas wondered how the aloneness out here didn’t drive her over the edge.

  Karen helped Thomas take the rest of the shopping bags out of the car. She could only use one hand, because her claw was so sharp it would slice right through the plastic and containers inside. Quite some time ago, in a fit of rage and despair, she had tried to cut the claw off with a saw. She’d almost bled to death, but then something worse had occurred—the claw had regenerated. It had returned a little longer and more pronounced than it had been before.

  Since then she had become resigned that there was no escape—the claw would remain a part of her for the rest of her life.

  When he was away, Thomas allowed denial to comfort him. As always, however, when he saw Karen, the pain pushed it aside, until it was replaced by shock, shame, and disgust at the gruesome memories of deformed victims and their horrific fates. He hated knowing that he was responsible for this poor woman’s misery. As monstrous as the claw appeared, he tried to remind himself that the situation could have been much worse.

  Many patients had died during the procedures, unable to withstand the lethal dosages of the concoctions that Strange injected into them. Others wound up with extra limbs, missing eyes, and brain disorders—yet they had survived! Despite occasional fits of rage, Karen was at least an intelligent, functional human being.

  At times like this one, it was hard for Thomas to believe that he’d become involved with Hugo Strange at all. They had been good friends once, played at the same polo club, celebrated holidays together, and enjoyed some good laughs. While there had always been a dark side to Strange, it had seemed to manifest in a fierce, sardonic wit—not in a willingness to hurt people. He enjoyed the witty insult, the occasional practical joke, but it was always under the guise of camaraderie. Sometimes people even commented, “Oh, Hugo, he’s harmless.”

  If only they had known.

  Although Hugo had seemed to have a thick skin, perhaps that had added to whatever drove him as he was dismissed, ridiculed by others. Because something in him changed. The dark side that he’d managed or concealed for years finally had taken over.

  Ultimately Strange was responsible for the horrors that had occurred. Thomas had been misinformed, deceived, a victim himself in some respect, yet this realization had never been enough. Although Thomas had become involved with Strange with good intentions—to cure disease, to prolong life—the onus was on him for trusting Strange without question, for not realizing sooner that something was amiss.

  That pain was his alone.

  To continue to function, Thomas tried to detach himself from all of the horrors of his past,
much as others detached themselves from the horrors of war. Compartmentalization was his coping mechanism. Sometimes his past didn’t even feel real. It seemed like a nightmare, and not even his own—someone else’s nightmare, one that he was watching unfold like a movie or television show.

  That wasn’t me, he wanted to tell himself. That was somebody else.

  Yet he knew better.

  He’d made attempts to redeem himself. He did good things for Gotham, supported initiatives in which he believed. He’d never be able to undo the mistakes of his past, or heal the wounds of the victims whose lives he’d ruined, but he could do some good. He could help the people of his city, enable them to lead happier and healthier lives, and help create a better world in which Bruce would grow up.

  At Wayne Enterprises, he had developed technology and health initiatives that improved people’s lives. On his own, he’d supported many of the Pinewood Farms victims, paid their housing and medical bills. Aside from Karen, none of the victims ever knew that Thomas had been involved in their horror. They’d assumed that his support was entirely humanitarian. He was discreet about his efforts—even Strange was unaware of what had occurred after the closing—and so the victims didn’t go public.

  Strange probably lived in fear that Thomas would, at some point, blow the whistle on him, and that likely had ensured his own silence. For years, as far as Thomas knew, Strange had dropped entirely out of sight. They encountered each other on random occasions, had awkward yet amicable conversations, but that was all. Neither of them discussed the past and, as far as Thomas was concerned, that dark period of his life had ended.

  What if that had all changed?

  What if Strange had come out of the shadows?

  If they were caught, Thomas could lose his entire company, his fortune, and perhaps spend the rest of his life in prison. While he couldn’t undo the mistakes he’d made, he could prevent future tragedies. He feared there might be new victims, new subjects for Strange’s hideous experiments. He couldn’t let anyone else experience what Karen and the others had gone through.

  * * *

  In the cabin, after they had brought all the bags inside, Karen and Thomas sat in the living room, sipping wine and nibbling on cheese and crackers.