Batman 1939: Swimming in the Styx
Chapter 9: Unorthodox Problem Solving
Falco Deliveries was the city's premier courier service for moving small items on short notice. Watching its young couriers race by on their bicycles, casually crossing private property and breaking traffic laws, was something of a local tradition. But Falco Deliveries also provided another service which wasn't known to the public: the firm kept items anonymously for future delivery-on-demand.
The service worked like this: a customer could go to his local FD office and drop off an package. The desk clerk (let's call him Adam) would slip the package into a standard box and take it to the back room where the shipping manager (let's call her Betty) would label it with a code and copy the code onto a note in a sealed envelope. Betty would give the envelope to Adam to pass to the customer. Adam would never know the code, and Betty would never see the customer or the contents of the package. It was called a double-blind system. These packages would then be randomly shipped to one of several warehouses for long-term storage. The customer would pay Falco Deliveries a hefty fee to hold the package for a given number of weeks. If at any point someone contacted an FD office with the right code - whether in person, over the phone, or by any other means - then the package was delivered, no questions asked.
Naturally, the service catered to people with something to hide. It certainly ferried every sort of contraband. Jewelers and other luxury retailers occasionally shipped their goods this way and sent their regular trucks as a decoy. Investigative reporters, gang snitches, and others who wished to pass along evidence in the event of their untimely demise signed up for a special plan that delivered their package if the code wasn't received in time. Falco Deliveries would have been crushed under warrants and subpoenas ages ago except that many cogs in the legal system used them as well.
As one might expect given the nature of the service, FD offices saw customers try all sorts of disguises. Still, no employee had ever received a delivery code by rat.
Clancy, as the rat was named, waited patiently behind a telephone pole outside their 9th Street office for two hours until the first employee arrived just before dawn. Clancy held back as the big human unlocked the front door and walked through it, then he slipped inside just before the door closed. There were many curious smells in the little room, but none were food or danger, so Clancy ignored them. It was Clancy's mission to be found and, as much as it went against his instincts, that meant waiting in plain sight. Humans were practically senseless, but their eyes weren't too bad, at least if there was plenty of light and you walked right in front of them.
After a few false starts, Clancy climbed onto the main counter. He stood on his hind legs, pawing the air and wiggling his whiskers. Predictably, the human took a long time to notice him. Predictably, when the human did notice him, it yelled and stumbled backward into the wall. This was the scary part. Humans were ogres; they could react rashly to the most civilized greeting. It was all a rat could do to stand still and act unthreatening. Fortunately, this human didn't reach for anything heavy. It peered at him and muttered some sounds in Human. Clancy returned to all four feet and turned so the human would see his flank. It worked! The human saw the bit of paper tied around his abdomen with a bit of string. Clancy shook his rump to get the point across. Finally, gingerly, the human untied the string and took the paper. Relief! The string had chaffed something fierce, and Clancy was pleased to have it off. He squeaked his appreciation and hopped off the counter. The human didn't need to open the door. He could find his own way out.
---
Marta Cruz, shift manager of the Falco Deliveries on 9th Street, had lived in Gotham too long to doubt her eyes, but it was still hard to process that she was holding a note delivered by a rat. The note was short, just four typical storage codes, each followed by a delivery address - some post office boxes downtown. Marta phoned the different warehouse foremen until she found the four packages with her codes. They would be sent out on the first run of the day.
---
Nancy Kingsolver worked at Wayne Enterprises and was pleased as a peach about it. Just saying so sounded awfully impressive to her kin back in Arkansas. She could even claim to report to Mr. Bruce Wayne, which was even more impressive, and Nancy was sure it made Ellie-Jean and all the other girls from town as jealous as old hens. Mostly, what she told folks back home was true. Nancy neglected to mention that she was technically the assistant to Mr. Wayne's assistant's assistant's assistant, and while her orders did come from Mr. Wayne, they traveled through a dozen intermediaries before they arrived at her desk in the executive secretarial pool. Half the company could say they reported to Mr. Wayne by that logic.
Mr. Wayne did nod at her once, so that was nice. At least she thought it was at her. And Nancy was responsible for a few tasks that she was assured Mr. Wayne used directly, though these were rare. For example, every morning she stopped by the post office on Wayne Avenue and checked fourteen PO boxes for mail. Bruce Wayne was an important man, she was told, and many people wanted his attention. He couldn't attend to everyone equally, so he gave different addresses to different groups to filter them based on a special system of priorities. Nancy had no idea what these priorities were, as the boxes were usually all empty. But on occasion she found one or more envelopes , whereupon she was to write down the box number, hail a cab, then take the letter directly to Mr. Wayne's home in the hills around the Bay.
The first occasion this happened, Nancy was only too excited. What would she say to Mr. Wayne? She knew he normally came to work late, so he must still be at home. Nancy was a little disappointed to be greeted at the door by an older British gentleman, but her feelings were eased when he graciously invited her in for tea and fruit, then paid her cab fare along with a healthy tip for her troubles.
This repeated every few months. She never saw Mr. Wayne, but at least she had breakfast with his butler to look forward to.
This morning was not much different. Nancy visited the post office and found four envelopes in her PO boxes. Traffic was better than usual, and it hardly took an hour to reach to the gates of stately Wayne Manor. The one difference she noticed was that kindly Mr. Pennyworth seemed troubled. Nancy had visited often enough to know the man's Victorian sense of propriety. His demeanor was so polished and reserved that it was practically its own British embassy. Seeing just a crease of his brow suggested more private distress than the sight of most men crying.
But Nancy didn't dare pry. She enjoyed her tea and ginger snaps then said her goodbyes. Mr. Pennyworth fidgeted as she ate, offering bland small talk without his usual charm and not touching a bite himself, and later she swore he seemed eager to usher her out the door. It was strange but no real concern to her, and as the cab pulled away, the thought quickly left her mind.
---
Nancy's intuition had been correct. Alfred was nervous. Bruce hadn't returned last night. This alone wasn't uncommon enough to ruffle Alfred's feathers, but Bruce also hadn't called. No matter how busy the mission, if Bruce was going to be out after dawn, he made an effort to phone. The rational part of Alfred knew the silence wasn't necessarily proof of tragedy. There were plenty of sensible reasons for Bruce to not call. Alfred was pleased to find one of these sensible reasons was indeed reality, but it was the last reason he would have guessed: blind notes.
Bruce had explained the idea once, but Alfred had forgotten most of the details. Bruce wanted a special way to contact him in the field while protecting their identities, lest some observer make a connection between Batman and the Wayne household. Bruce planned to do this with 'blind notes', messages passed through as many hands as possible to foil tracking or interception.
Alfred understood that part of the blind note system was Bruce writing out all conceivable messages he might want to share then storing them indefinitely with a neutral party. Alfred thought this was absurd for several reasons, but he knew it was folly to question at the depths of Master Bruce's caution, and he figured the boy might as well get some use out of all those cryptography books he purchased for him over the years.
Once Miss Kingsolver was safely away, Alfred descended into the Cave and opened her four envelopes. Each contained a printed card with a random string of letters and numbers.
4ki2
Fvj9e
gswBei
77dke12
"How articulate."
Alfred reached the Cave's Records, a natural alcove holding twenty filing cabinets in the driest corner of their little camp. He searched the index for the blind note key and found it in a less-used cabinet near the back. Alfred recalled the young lady saying the envelopes arrived in the second, fourth, ninth, and twelfth PO boxes. This was a critical fact; Bruce had written the code to mean something different depending on which PO box it arrived in. With fourteen boxes, he only had to store a few dozen notes to hold the hundreds of messages he might want to communicate. How Master Bruce was able to recall these hundreds of messages and their respective codes was beyond Alfred's comprehension.
The instructions were simple-enough. Alfred brought the binder with the key to a nearby desk, lit the lamp, and slipped on his spectacles. With a scrap paper and a pen, he deciphered them in a minute. The deciphered notes read:
Livingstone
Exodus Psi
Sorcerer
Charon Protocol
Alfred recognized the first two terms.
"Livingstone" meant Bruce was relatively well, but he would be out of contact for at least another day. It wasn't good news, per se, but it was better than many alternatives.
"Exodus Psi" made Alfred's heart skip a beat. Exodus was their emergency plan to scuttle their entire hidden life, erase evidence of Batman, and escape to some far corner of the Earth. It happened in successive stages. Exodus Omega was the final instruction to actually pull the plug and leave. Exodus Psi was the penultimate instruction to prepare for Omega and wait (Bruce naturally used the end of the Greek alphabet instead of the more familiar early letters, a choice even a Cambridge man like Alfred found a touch affected).
Half of Exodus Psi was buying plane tickets to several destinations and packing. The other half was carrying a bag of blasting caps up a ladder and attaching them to a small bomb permanently affixed to the Cave wall. Bruce, with his endless resourcefulness, had decided that the easiest way to destroy all culpable evidence of Batman was to redirect a nearby underground stream to bury all their hard work in a pool of water and silt. To this end, Bruce discovered that a certain part of the cavern wall was separated from this stream by only four feet of rock. Bruce had permanently anchored a box of dynamite against that part of the wall so either of them could blast the rock with a few minutes of work. Bruce claimed the flood would take days to fill the chamber, but the water and rubble would be deep enough to deter most investigators within a few hours.
Although Exodus Psi implied a degree of urgency, Alfred decided he would check the other two messages first.
"Sorcerer" was as plain as it was haunting. Found in tiny script at the back of the one of the least-used booklets, its entry simply stated:
I have encountered unnatural phenomena. Disregard existing reality framework. Expect every danger.
Alfred stared at the sentence for a long while. He wasn't sure how to react to it, but it made him shiver in his waistcoat. He couldn't fault Master Bruce for using a blind note if wizards might be spying on them. Alfred decided it was impossible to anticipate something as vague as 'literally anything', so he choose to ignore that message for the moment.
The entry for "Charon Protocol" was much longer, running several pages of instructions. Alfred read it though several times to ensure he understood the premise. It he was correct, it might have the most drastic consequences of the four.
Alfred returned the papers he didn't need to the Records and burned the notes in the furnace. He found some blasting caps in the Cave's explosives shed and carried them up to the bomb. Alfred was no expert on bombs, but Bruce had designed this model to be as simple as possible and had left a diagram for blasting cap installation which a child could follow. When he was finished, Alfred could flood the whole cavern with a two-switch detonator at the top of the staircase.
As he reached he base of the stairs, Alfred stopped with a sudden change of heart. He detoured to the disguise closet and picked up a concealed back holster. Then he entered the Cave's extensive workshop. In one corner of the workshop was a gunsmithing bench where Batman tested weapons or inspected them for evidence. Alfred opened a drawer and removed a 9 mm Browning Hi Power, a blocky, dull black pistol with a wood-finished grip. He loaded in a magazine, racked the slide, and fit the pistol into the back holster which he belted under his coattails. Expect every danger, indeed.
Returning to the manor, Alfred retired to his room and sat in front of the phone. He read the Charon Protocol again, trying to mold the details into a script. He hadn't played the part of Master Bruce in quite some time, but the role came easily enough. After he found his composure, Alred picked up the receiver and dialed.
A friendly man's voice answered. "Yello? Lucius Fox speaking."
Alfred lit up with a glib smile and fell into a tony American accent. "Lucius, it's Bruce."
"Oh, good morning, Mr. Wayne, what-"
"Lucius, Lucius, listen. I have to speak quickly. I'm going to give you some instructions, okay? They might surprise you, but I can't explain the reasons now."
There was a brief pause. "Alright, Mr. Wayne."
"Here's what I need. Schedule a meeting with the Director of Research, the Comptroller, and a recruiter who knows the academic scene. Do this quietly."
"Done."
"I want a report on every research proposal we have that might conceivably be weaponized.”
“Uh, weaponized?”
“Whatever we have on file. Demolition equipment, industrial solvents, rockets, coilguns, high-voltage capacitors. Really loud saxaphones. Use your imagination. If it breaks things, I want to know about it."
Another pause. "I can do that, Mr. Wayne, though I believe most of those papers are in, uh, locked storage."
Lucius was tactfully referring to Bruce's first act upon taking control of Wayne Enterprises several years ago. Two hours into his first day on the job, Bruce shut down the company's Armaments Division. All Wayne merchandise that launched a bomb or bullet was immediately discontinued. Dozens of patents were tucked away. Two factories closed and a hundred employees were moved or pensioned. Bruce didn't even allow the sale of existing inventory; everything was recalled and destroyed.
The decision – though a drop in a bucket to the company's bottom line - had been controversial to say the least. If nothing else, it cemented Bruce Wayne's reputation as a strict pacifist. The last thing anyone expected of him was to authorize a weapons program.
"I understand the challenges, Lucius. Do it. Then have the Director of Research solicit new proposals from his staff, no matter how unorthodox. Set a reward for promising ideas. I'll be the judge of what that means later."
"Sure. Understood."
"Good. Next, figure out the quickest way to get us a basic research lab: whether we buy one, sponsor one, build our own, I don't care"
"Excuse me, Mr. Wayne, we already run several distinguished laboratories."
"Those are for applied research, Lucius. Applied research is essentially a fancy term for new product development.”
“...Is that a problem?”
“Basic research is the pure pursuit of new knowledge. That's what I want. Get me a lab that does basic research in the material sciences. Something that can win us a few Nobels. Figure out a plan and quote a price. Have the recruiter draw up a list of the top researchers in each field , public or private, active or retired, who might work with us."
"This is no small project."
"Which brings me to my last point. Have the Comptroller look at our books and tell me how far we can dip into our savings without publicly rocking the company. We can't be taking loans for this, understand? No publicity. If we need extra funds to get started, find me projects we can afford to sell, then find me some buyers."
"Sell? I don't expect that's necessary, but, uh, what would our time horizon be for that?"
"Immediately. Liquidation rates."
Lucius said nothing for six seconds. "Mr. Wayne, that sounds like an awfully big sacrifice."
"That's because it is. Pretend the world is ending next month. Get on it."
Another pause. "You got it, Mr. Wayne."
"Oh, and Lucius?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you. This is going to mean a lot of long nights for both of us. Give yourself a raise. Something generous. Take it out of my salary."
"Uh, are you sure ab-"
"I have to go, take care of yourself. Bye."
---
Batman awoke contemplating the Woman.
His first conscious thought was the memory of her deflecting his salvo of batarangs with those long metal cuffs on her arms. While intercepting, she had moved with a speed that, in hindsight, was clearly unnatural. With such reflexes, she could probably catch an arrow. But if her arms could move so fast, why didn't she strike that way? She was a quick boxer, astonishingly quick, but still human. Compared to how she intercepted projectiles, she brawled like she was stuck in molasses. He shouldn't have been able to land a punch. Why the difference? That made no sense at all.
Then he recalled the words she cried when he burned her neck. His thoughts were foggy now, possibly concussed, and he couldn't remember all the details of last night. Fortunately, her voice was burned into his memory. He would still write it down when he had the chance. The words weren't familiar but he could spell them phonetically. He resolved to find recordings of native speakers in similar-sounding languages. Maybe he would get lucky and recognize a match. He knew a few academic libraries that had such recordings. If that failed to uncover her secrets, he would ask a linguist. He tried to avoid sharing cases beyond his regular collaborators, but he deemed this instance relatively safe. Batman doubted her words were incriminating or personal. They were likely some variation on “Ouch” or “Stop” or, more likely yet, profanities.
He was about to entertain a third thought, wondering where she had acquired an authentic bronze breastplate in her exact size, but he was interrupted by a wave of extraordinary pain.
Every inch of him was sore, and he felt a stiffness in his joints bordering on paralysis. He doubted he could outrun a toddler today. Worst was his neck. It had been injured somehow, and he couldn't turn it at all. He still wished to pry off the rest of the armor, but at least the gorget served as a sort of neck brace – a stiff, metal, ill-shaped neck brace, but better than nothing.
He felt the terrible burns on his right hand itch. The first delicate strands of new skin were just starting to form under its gauze wrap. He knew it would sting it he flexed his hand at all, and he knew the itching would only get worse.
He felt the crude splint around his middle finger. It was just badly sprained; she hadn't crushed the bone, a fact he now regarded as a minor miracle. Still, he had little faith in the skill of his field medicine given his condition last night, and if the splint was crooked, he would need to reset it later. Doing so would peel off the new skin, ruining a day's worth of healing.
The two gaps in his teeth should have been nicely infected by now, but he supposed his livestock-sized dose of antibiotics staved that off. That was still a stupid risk in hindsight. The penicillin had conducted a scotched earth campaign through in his intestines. If he had eaten more than soup in the last ten hours, he would have vomited it all in his sleep.
The swelling in Batman's bruised face had reduced a fair bit, but he would have to do something about the sight of it. He was still counting his other bruises when he smelled something appetizing and heard a squeaking in the distance. Confused, he opened his eyes and struggled to roll onto his side. He knew it was well past dawn, but his little camp in the tunnel was in perpetual darkness. With one good hand, he managed to light his lamp in short order. By then the squeaking had stopped and the appetizing, bready scent seemed close enough to taste.
The lamp flickered to life, and Batman saw a silver platter holding a plate of French toast, a glass of orange juice, and a note. The platter shifted. Batman peeked under it and saw it was being carried by six rats. The juice was starting to slosh, so Batman took the platter and placed it on the ground. The rats ran off into the darkness.
Batman looked around (a slow process that required him to turn his whole upper body). There was no one in sight, rodent or otherwise. He read the note. It was written in pencil on the back of a gas station receipt. The handwriting was atrocious.
Hey buddy Thansks again for th advice last night.
Its going too be a hole new ball game now! Consider food a tokeen of my admiration.
Come backe any ime!!
Batman dropped the note and stared ahead in grave concern. He hazily remembered speaking with the Ratcatcher for thirty minutes or so before they parted ways, but he couldn't recall for the life of him what advice he had offered. The possibilities were troubling.
He put that concern out of his mind and focused on the platter. There was no way he could swallow toast. He could probably drink the orange juice, but the acid would cause some sublime discomfort for the next few hours. He left the platter and enjoyed a swig of water from his camp kit instead. Then he remembered the note.
Consider food a tokeen of my admiration.
Batman frowned. “Hmm.”
He crouched and poured the orange juice down a small drain. No point in being rude. He was about to stuff the French toast down the same hole, but then he recalled that the Ratcatcher could evidently talk to rats. He remembered what rats were like. After a moment's hesitation, Batman solemnly balled up a slice of toast and fit it into a belt pouch, cramming it tight with his thumb before closing the flap.
---
The Marston-Peter Municipal Airport was little more than a grassy field and a few overgrown shacks six miles west of Gotham City limits. The site was popular with private pilots who flew for recreation, given a loose definition of 'popular' anyway. At its busiest, Marston-Peter might handle two flights a day. Unsurprisingly, there was only one car in the dirt parking lot when Batman arrived astride a motorcycle when the sun was low in the sky. He knew who owned the car, a semi-retired flight controller and part-owner of the airport named Jeb Dunn. He was almost certainly sleeping in the tower. A marching band passing under his window wouldn't wake him at this hour.
The regular customers who rented space in the hanger had a dingy locker room in the terminal. Batman went to a certain locker. It had the name Malone stenciled on it. It was also locked, but the metal was old and a strong tug yanked it open. Inside, he found several gym bags filled with assorted sets of clothes, cosmetics, and other props.
After a brief shower, “Matches” Malone woke his good pal Jeb Dunn. The old man helped Malone taxi his yellow Piper J-3 Cub onto the runway for a scenic run down the coast.
---
Maria Bertinelli leaned on the sea-worn handrail of the boardwalk and watched her three children chase each other across the beach. Children were tough. Mothers didn't like to admit that, but they saw it best of all, and thank God for it. Maria had taken her children in the middle of the night on a seven-hour car trip, booking the last dirty vacancy of an old hotel when they arrived at this mid-Atlantic no-name town. Her kids had been scared, but she didn't know what danger to comfort them against. They missed their father, but she wasn't sure he was ever coming. She couldn't even promise he was alive. Maria had faced that doubt, that specter of widow-hood countless times back in the vendettas. She knew the man she married. She had made her choice. But her bambinos didn't get to choose their father, and they were too young to remember the old days. This was all new to them.
Maria and Arturo had started a family late, even by American standards. Most of her sisters and friends had adult children by now, but her oldest was twelve. That had been Arturo's decision. Maria had begged him for years, even brought a priest to plead on her behalf, but Arturo had resolutely refused to bring a child into his bloody world. It wasn't until the final months of the vendettas that he gave in to her wish. By then she was worried it was too late for her, but her prayers were answered three times over.
Maria Bertinelli scratched her wrist. Her skin and gums felt dry. Arturo didn't like it when she smoked. He said it wasn't proper, and she tried to obey him. The children usually kept her busy enough to ignore the little itch. Maria bit her lip and patted her purse. About once a month, she sneaked into a corner shop and bought a pack of smokes. She would carry them around for a day or two, feeling all the furtive thrill of a dance hall floozy and a sinner. Then she threw them out, defeating temptation for another month.
Maria swallowed. Heaven help her, she had bought a pack yesterday.
Her children still chased each other along the surf, and there was no one else on the beach. Maria glanced around then discreetly dug a cigarette and a match out of her purse. Head bent, she bit the cigarette and tried to strike the match on the wooden rail. No luck. The sea breeze and the cloudy sky kept the rail as moist as driftwood. She frowned, shifting the cigarette to the corner of her mouth with more skill than she liked to admit. She struck the match again and again until the head broke off. Maria tossed the stick and cradled her face in her hands in frustration.
"Need a light?"
Maria lifted her head and turned. A distinguished old man hobbled towards her on a cane, flipping open a lighter. He was only four steps away, but she hadn't heard him approach.
"Uh, yes, please."
She leaned towards his hand, lips around the cigarette, and he smoothly lit the tip. She closed her eyes and took a long drag.
"Ahhhh. Thank you, signor."
"Non è niente, madonna."
She blinked at him, lines of smoke still trailing from her nose. "You're Italian?"
He smiled with his eyes. "È il Papa?"
She laughed in spite of herself, holding the cigarette languidly at her side. It was the first thing she had done languidly in a long time. The man slipped the lighter into a trouser pocket and stood beside her to watch the waves. Even stooped with age, he seemed tall and broad, though it was unclear how much of this was an effect of his big coat. He wore an old-fashioned hat any padrino might wear back in Sicily, and had a thick white beard. When he rested his hands on the rail, she could see his gloves were a fine leather. Maria knew the kind of bags under his eyes came only with age or a punishing bout of insomnia, and he seemed rested. Like most older men, he also smelled funny.
He gestured towards the beach where her children played. "Sono questi i vostri bambini?"
His accent was unfamiliar. It was heavy on the consonants and lacked the musical quality of conversational Italian. He certainly wasn't from southern Italia like most immigrants. Maybe that was how they spoke in the northern cities. Folks up there were practically German.
Maria nodded. "Sì, sono miei." She looked across at the stranger and tried to recognize him. "Ci conosciamo , signore?"
The man shook his head. "No." He clasped his hands meekly on his cane and didn't meet her eye. "No, we haven't. But I'm afraid our meeting isn't chance. I know your family well, Mrs. Bertinelli."
Maria froze. She rubbed out her cigarette out on the rail and dropped it in the sand. "Who are you?"
"A negotiator."
Her voice ran deathly cold. "For. Who?"
The stranger said nothing for a moment. He watched her children skip across the sand, an attention that now filled her with dread. "I regret sharing bad news, but your husband has been taken by men who wish to hurt him, Mrs. Bertinelli. I am here to stop them."
Maria's expression didn't change, but the lines on her face and neck deepened, and her pupils focused to hateful dots. The man didn't notice or didn't care. He briefly described how Arturo looked last night: the pajamas, the ceiling dust, the revolver he carried, the color of his socks. There was no question he had seen Arturo up close or spoke with someone who had.
"What do these men want with him?"
"Two months ago, your husband abducted a group Ukrainian immigrants to use as forced labor." He saw the smallest glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "The men holding your husband are … sympathetic to the plight of these immigrants. They feel a Slavic kinship. They are, in a sense, family." He knew this was laying it on thick, but subtlety was overrated. "These men only want to know where their family has been taken."
"And Arturo will not help them." It wasn't a question.
"He's quiet on the subject. But I'm afraid his captors' desire for an answer is becoming more and more … urgent."
"No. No."
"I represent certain authorities who have dealt with your husband in the past. We would like to see his safe return, but we need your help."
"Me?"
"It wasn't easy to find you, but you seem a wise woman, madonna. I suspect you have the answer that could free Mr. Bertinelli."
"The answer he would rather die than let the bastardi know."
The old man held out his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I won't insult your loyalty. As I said, I'm a negotiator. To cool their tempers, I discreetly suggested I had another source for what these men want, and they've delayed their interrogation. Your husband may have-" The man looked at a pocket watch. "Two hours to live. Maybe three. I'm not sure how much blood a man needs."
Maria bent over the rail and let out a rasping sob. She gradually regained her composure, but she didn't look at him again. Her voice was low and drowned in malice.
"And who says you are not with them, ah? Who says if I have your answer, I get Arturo back at all?"
"I suppose I can't prove that. But trust me, if I was one of your husband's captors, we wouldn't be talking here. You would be waking up in an abandoned house, and I would have a gun to Anita's head." He looked forlornly at her children on the beach. "Or Paulie. Or Lucia. That's who we're dealing with."
He could see the tendons in Maria's small fists, and he knew that if she had any weapon at all, even a splinter of wood, she would have stabbed him already.
"Or perhaps it would satisfy you to know that I've dined recently with Mr. Sal Maroni. We ate on green-patterned china. Agostina Maroni makes a lovely pasta with sea urchins, and she had this almond candy shaped like peaches and oranges, frutta martorana, I believe. Personally, I think these were too bitter, but she seemed so proud of them that we all ate at least four. Afterward, his granddaughter entertained us with her violin."
This stopped Maria in her tracks. The Four Families rarely ate together, especially lesser branches like Arturo's, but she once enjoyed dinner at Salvatore Maroni's house. The stranger's description was exactly as she remembered. It was a sign of supreme trust and affection to invite an outsider to dinner in your home, and Maria couldn't imagine any way a person could discover such private details of a mob boss' domestic life otherwise. This old stranger was, in the strongest possible sense, 'connected'.
"You have great kids, Mrs. Bertinelli. It is a miserable thing to lose a father. Believe me."
He slowly turned and hobbled away. Maria Bertinelli watched him leave down boardwalk. He seemed to blur, and she realized her eyes were wet.
She called out. "There's a bar on 85nd Street, Carlo's." The man stopped and looked back. She had to yell to reach him over the gulls and the breeze. "Behind the furnace in the basement is a hidden panel. He doesn't think anyone knows about it, but I-" She paused. "If he has something to keep from the world, he'd put it there."
The man considered this, then took off his hat and offered a gracious bow. Maria watched him climb the grassy hill over the boardwalk and out to the parking lot.
---
It was a bad stereotype that the wife always knows. Some men were truly as tight-lipped as they pretended, and some women were simply unobservant. Nevertheless, Batman found that in nine cases out of ten - whether a debt, a racket, an affair, a grudge, or a body – the wife knows. Batman didn't take advantage of this fact very often, but when an investigation went south, it was a priceless trump card.
---
Tommy "the Snake" Santini was a young soldier in the Bertinelli crime family. Like most of the organization, he wasn't actually family. Not even in that casually adopted sense the really old guys who knew Frankie from the beginning enjoyed. Like many kids who came of age after the Peace, Tommy never had the opportunity to make his bones the proper way. He was forced to forge a name for himself through the relatively sedate jobs available, usually messenger, doorman, or delivery boy plus the occasional scare-job. In the old days, the kids who hung around the bottom of the totem pole wouldn't have earned even a steady paycheck from this kind of work. Now, it was all there was to offer. After just a few years of hustling, such work was enough to earn Tommy a place in the Family proper. The lowest rung of the Family, true, but a position on the inside all the same. That was how bloodless the game had become. Now the problem was moving up. No one died or went to prison anymore, so he couldn't promote into a vacancy, and there was no war to win honors or new rackets left to prove his entrepreneurial savvy. No, Tommy was forced to run errands. Even so, he always gave it his all, trusting that one day his opportunity would come knocking.
Today his errand was picking up Mrs. Bertinelli and her kids at some hotel a ways south, and to do it quick. The circumstances were odd, but he didn't consider asking questions. Tommy received the call just before breakfast, which he skipped, and in no time he was racing down the interstate in a borrowed truck (his coupe didn't have enough seats). It was well past noon when arrived. When he parked, he noticed one of Mr. Arturo's cars nearby. Tommy walked briskly into the hotel, passing an old bearded man in a big coat using the payphone outside.
Tommy had been told that Mrs. Bertinelli was hiding under an unknown name, so he made up a simple lie for the receptionist about being an undercover cop investigating a report of a lady stealing hotel furniture. The reecptionst was more than happy to tell him that 'Mrs. Parker', who matched the description, had left in the direction of the boardwalk hours ago with three children.
Tommy jogged to the boardwalk and found Mrs. Bertinelli leaning on the railing and looking out to sea. "'Scuse me, Mrs. Bertinelli."
She spun in surprise. He held up his hands. "Mrs. Bertinelli, forgive me. It's me, Thomas Santini. I'm sorry. Good to see you. Didn't mean to scare you." He noticed she had been crying. "Whoa, what's wrong? What's the matter, Mrs. Bertinelli? Is something wrong here?"
She swallowed and asked him in a rough voice, "Why are you here?"
"Hey there, hey, your husband sent me, Mrs. Bertinelli. Mr. Arturo says you can come home. He wants to let you know he's alright now. Everything's good. He says leave your car here. I'm driving you and the kids home. You can relax, maybe take a nap or something. Whatever you want, okay?"
Maria Bertinelli looked like she hardly heard him. She was staring into space, and her stare grew heavier and darker. Her mouth was a tight line.
"Mrs. Bertinelli?"
Finally, she snapped out of it and addressed him with a cold clarity that belied the dry tears on her face. "Go back to the hotel, Tommy. Call Arturo. Tell him I told a man about Carlo's."
"What? What man?"
She shushed him and slapped his cheek lightly. "Carlo's. Run."
"I-"
Mrs. Bertielli huffed in disgust and rushed past him up the hill. She couldn't run with much speed, but not for lack of trying. Tommy caught up with her. "I'm sorry, madonna, you can't call Mr. Arturo."
She didn't stop but sharply asked, "Why?"
"I don't know, I don't know. But something's happening. They're hiding him. I'm only here because he passed the word along to Don Bertinelli who told me to come."
"Then call the Don! Now! Andava!" She slapped him again. "Tell him to ask Arturo about Carlo's Bar. It's an emergency."
Tommy ran ahead. Fortunately, the old man at the phone was gone. Tommy pulled a nickel from his pocket and dialed the trunk call.
---
85th Street had been well outside contested territory during the Vendettas, so its residents had largely been spectators to the city-wide battlefield. Still, they used to say a family had to pass Idaho to avoid the Vendettas altogether, and 85th Street eventually experienced a few drive-bys, an alleged poisoning, and a smattering of police raids. Nothing impressive, but enough to stick in the local memory. So, folks were edgy for a time, but the Peace of Falcone proved remarkably stable, and the thought that anything could upset the neighborhood a decade later seemed absurd.
So 85th Street reacted with disbelief when a wedge of three GCPD cruisers with their lights flashing sped through several stop signs and squealed to a stop in front of old Carlo's Bar on the corner. Two cops popped out of each car and rushed to the entrance. One pair went around the back while the other four flanked the door. It was closed, but they could hear voices and movement inside. Like many bars, they were sure it served as a private clubhouse for the owners and their friends in the off-hours. It was impossible to tell if the occupants heard them arrive or how many were inside. Today it didn't matter.
Detective Harvey Bullock rapped on the door, keeping his body well to the side of it. He sang out, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
The noise inside stopped. A man called back, "You better make tracks, buddy. We're closed."
Harvey nodded to his team. "Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll-"
A bullet shot through the door, missing his head by a foot. He heard it ricochet off his car. Harvey flinched and kicked open the door with his size 15 shoe. "Police! Drop the heaters, all's a' ya!"
He peaked inside, then waved the other officers in. His team entered with their weapons drawn. There were five people in the dim bar, two men and three women. One of the men was busy putting a cheap pistol on the ground. Harvey stomped up to him and shoved the punk against a table. "You think that was wise? Huh, buddy? Taking potshots at a cop? That funny?"
The man tried to keep his balance. "Hey now. You didn't say you were cops."
"Must'a slipped my mind." Harvey comically twirled a finger around his ear and rolled his eyes. "Oops."
One of his officers pocketed the weapon. Harvey pushed the lowlife aside and took in the scenery. The place was a real dive, and Harvey Bullock was a man who knew his dives. A woman, some blond dame that might have been pretty ten years ago asked him, "What's youse officers want? We done nothing wrong, honest!"
Harvey turned her way. "Is that right, honey? You done nothing wrong?" He pointed at her. "Save it for your pastor. We're looking for one thing, and it ain't to break up whatever game of patty-cake we stepped in on. So shut those lips and keep your head down."
Another woman, a perky lil' thing with glasses asked him, “Well, what's the one thing you want?”
She sounded earnest. Harvey had a soft spot for glasses. "I understand this place has a basement. I want to see it."
"Oh." The men and woman eyed each other in sincere puzzlement. The girl shrugged. "Sure. There's nothing down there though."
"I'll be the judge of that, toots. Let's get going."
"It's back here."
Harvey was about to follow her into a narrow hallway when he heard engines sputter outside. Harvey turned to another cop. "Gilford, keep an eye on this crew." The officer nodded and guided the bar's occupants into the back room. Harvey and his two other teammates went to the door and peered out.
A pair of shiny Cadillacs were parking outside Carlo's Bar, barely fitting around the trio of cop cars – the mass of vehicles easily blocked both lanes. The Cadillacs' doors opened and five men calmly stepped out. All tough customers, all in three-piece suits. Harvey gaped open-mouthed for a moment and gestured for his two teammates to hold position. He holstered his sidearm and walked outside.
"Marco Bertinelli."
The man in the middle of the new arrivals, a strong, fat guy looked back at Harvey with level contempt. Except for Marco's darker features and nicer suit, he and Harvey could have been twins.
Marco spoke plainly. "Bullock, this is Family business." He unbuttoned his suit and brushed it open, revealing a Hargrave .31 at his side. "Get going."
The sight of the Hargrave sent a bead of cold sweat down Harvey's back, but he held his ground. "No dice, Marco, this is Gotham business. I'm gonna have to ask you and your boys to drive away."
Marco shook his head. "Can't do that. If you defy me here, some important people are going to be disappointed with you."
"And normally I'd be shaking in my boots, honest. But yesterday I found something new."
"What?"
"A spine. You should try it sometime."
"One last warning, Bullock." His four colleagues slid open their jackets and palmed their own Hargraves.
Harvey's face went white. "Whoa! Whoa. Let's talk about this. No need to rush."
"I know you got another cop in there, Bullock. Bring 'em out. Can't let you paw around in there."
"Oh, he's not doing anything. Just getting a drink."
"Four seconds."
"Hey, now! You need us. You hurt me, the Families lose the GCPD."
"I don't think so, Bullock, you washed-up drunken slug. If I hurt you, all the world loses is you. Can't say that feels like a sacrifice."
The five Bertinelli men drew their weapons.