Chapter Text
When Barbara woke up that morning, Jim was gone. It didn't surprise her, really, to find his side of the bed empty. Lately, he preferred to spend the night in the hard looking couch of the living room than sleep in a warm bed beside her. She had pretended she didn't care, only because he had told her that it wasn't her fault. Ever since that horrible afternoon in Don Falcone's house, things between them had grown tense; Jim had become a nutshell for her ever since he joined the GCPD (or perhaps, she had become a nutshell for Jim; Barbara couldn't tell anymore) and in these last few weeks things had only gotten worse. They didn't fight, and they didn't scream at each other; the problem was, Barbara mused while she made her way to the kitchen still wearing her sleeping clothes, was that they never talked either. Jim wouldn’t speak to her, and out of spite, she would not speak to him either.
When she came out to the living room and realized that Jim had left the apartment altogether, not even leaving a note behind, Barbara tried not to react. She took a deep breath, feeling how a tight knot appeared in her throat, and let herself fall to the couch where Jim slept every night. It smelled funny, she thought; funny as the covers of her pillows when she didn't change them in a couple of weeks, or when she napped after going out for a run without taking a bath first. She didn't like it. It smelled like old wood and decay. As if something were dying behind the fabric of the couch; rotting away, slowly. The thought brought tears to her eyes, but she tried to contain them as best as she could.
“So, you think he's innocent?” Allen asked her, moving away from the wall to stand beside her. Montoya, who was looking through the one-way mirror of the interrogation room, took her eyes off Jim Gordon and Oswald Cobblepot, and turned to look at him. Her back was straight and her arms crossed; her thin red lips were pursed in distaste.
“…I'm not sure.” She said, absently chewing her lower lip. “He's a criminal and a liar, I know that; but Cobblepot had no reason to kill Falcone. And even if he did, he wouldn't have killed him in front of his house, in a party full of witnesses. He's smarter than that…” As she talked, Montoya's eyes were fixed in the interrogation room. Oswald was playing his pity act again, if those watery eyes and trembling lips were anything to go by, and Detective Gordon seemed to be falling for it. She almost felt sorry for him, but as soon as the feeling began to creep on her Montoya did her best to send it away. If you are stupid enough to fall for Oswald Cobblepot's fake tears, she thought, you don't deserve any pity.
Suddenly, Montoya was reminded of the night before, and how Oswald's sickly pale face had contorted with despair at the sight of the police patrol. He had been holding a gun, aiming it at Fish Mooney's face, when they found him; but they never saw him actually shooting it. Perhaps, if they looked inside the gun barrel, they would find out it had never been fired? If they compared the bullets of Cobblepot's gun and the ones extracted from Falcone's chest, would they match? But if he hadn't pulled the trigger, then who did it? Maroni? Mooney? Someone else? There were too many questions, and Montoya couldn't answer any of them.
“Perhaps Maroni sent him.” Allen said, derailing the young detective's train of thought. Montoya turned around to look at him, frowning, and Allen shrugged lazily. “Well, after Mario Pepper's fiasco, he joined Maroni's crew. That is no secret.” He said, not with the voice of man with a solid and strong belief, but with the one of a man making a suggestion. Montoya took a moment to consider the new theory.
“No, that makes no sense.” She said, rubbing her thumb against her dry lower lip. “If Maroni wanted Falcone dead, he would have sent a professional. Cobblepot might be clever, but he is no executioner material…” Montoya pointed at the one-way mirror, then, and they both saw how Cobblepot took hold of Detective Gordon's hand, begging for him to believe his version of the facts. Jim barely reacted, as if he was used to it.
Something in the scene (in Oswald's trembling lips and watery red eyes, and in Detective Gordon's stoic features) made Montoya's stomach stir unpleasantly. She was used to see the Penguin worming his way through life like this; using his doubtful eyes and cracking voice to inspire compassion in people, and later use that raw feeling of mercifulness to his advantage. But even after so long, she still found it disturbing.
When Detective Gordon entered the interrogation room, he had been relatively calm. Montoya could feel his silent reproach, and guessed that the young man hadn't been very pleased when he heard that Major Crimes had arrested his inside-man, but it was nothing that they couldn't handle. Jim had arrested a lot of people that were supposedly protected by the program, not caring how that could affect other detectives' cases, so she decided that this was a fair outcome.
At the beginning, he had listened silently to Oswald's version of the facts, ignoring the wailing, crying and incessant trembling of the man in question. He had been calm, stoic and professional, and for a while Montoya actually thought that nothing wrong would come out of the meeting. As time passed, however, he started to look exasperated, and then angry. When his patience began to run thin he snapped, standing up from his chair to turn his back on Cobblepot. For quite a while, he only stood there, ignoring the begging of his inside-man and sullenly facing the closed door. As she watched how the Penguin tried desperately to gain back the young detective's attention, Montoya wondered what could he possibly had said that pissed off Gordon so much.
In the end, she found an answer to her question when Jim began to scream, and the words found their way through the one-way mirror and into her ears. Don't lie to me, he said, approaching Cobblepot so fast and with so much fury that for a moment Montoya actually thought he would hit him. He didn't, but he kept screaming for a while, and always keeping up with his act, Cobblepot kept stammering and trembling. Things were only getting calmer now, and after a long discussion they had taken their seats at the table again.
“He'll try to take the case from us, you know?” Allen said, sounding none too pleased. At Montoya's questioning face, he continued, pointing at Jim Gordon's tense figure at the other side of the mirror. “Gordon. He'll want to solve it himself. You know how he is.”
Montoya made a 'tsk' sound, already regretting her decision of letting Jim enter the interrogation room to see Oswald. “… Yes, I know.” She muttered grimly. It had been the professional thing to do; Cobblepot had been working with Gordon for a while, and if all the cases the young detective had been so easily resolving during the past weeks were tipped off by him, he had at least gained immunity at court. That wasn't enough to absolve him from this particular crime, but by the laws of the program, he did had the right to speak with Jim. The problem here, Montoya reflected, was not Cobblepot and his need for help, but Gordon's unpredictable reaction to Carmine Falcone's death. Jim was an honest cop (Montoya knew that now) but he was also egocentric, and every time a big fish arrived at the Police Station, he wanted it for himself.
Suddenly reminded of the old Don's demise, Montoya felt how a spark of dread began to build in the button of her belly. The most powerful man of Gotham City was dead, and his followers were now surely tearing each other apart to take his place as boss. The little order that Carmine Falcone had established in this no one's land would soon crumble apart. A war was coming, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. People would die and get hurt, and she would not be able to protect them. It had been a while since Montoya had last felt so useless.
On the other side of the mirror, she saw how Jim clasped hands with Cobblepot. She couldn't hear what they were saying, because at Gordon's request, they had turned off the sound, but something in his expression told her that the detective was making another of those honest-cop-promises that he could rarely fulfill. Cobblepot seemed to be falling for it.
“There's a lot of bad blood in this city.” Carla said with a dry voice, massaging her temple with her thumb and index finger. Her glass of champagne was half-empty already, and after so much time sitting behind the old wooden desk of her study, her buttocks were starting to hurt. “Sal Maroni, Illya Vronsky, Mario Sollozo, Erik Goldshmith… anyone could have done it. Anyone.” She leaned against the back of her chair, feeling a chill run down her back when Johnny opened the window and the night air entered the room in a gust of cold wind.
“If the Goldshmith Family did it, you can forget about your vengeance, sweet Carla. They are way too powerful.” Paul Cicero responded, putting down his cigar and letting out a cloud of grey smoke through his nostrils. As soon as he did it, the air of the room became bitter and distasteful, and almost without realizing, Johnny began to cough. Equally displeased, his mother fought not to wrinkle her nose, for she knew that the old business man could take offense.
“Who said anything about Goldshmith?” Nikolai said from the other side of the room. Finally, he stopped the pacing he had started when he first set foot on Carla's study that morning, and turned to look sharply at Cicero. “Why do you only talk about the Heads, as if there was no one else? I'd put my money on Jimmy Saviano at any time!” He practically screamed, pointing an accusing finger at nothing in particular. Immediately sensing the danger that came with such statement, Johnny decided to speak up.
“I wouldn't point my finger towards a member of the Family so easily, Mr. Kozlov. Indiscretion is not good for the business.” He warned, leaning against the frame of the window and casually lighting a cigarette. Nikolai ignored him, as he always did, and continued to babble about treason, stabs in the back and lost values. Johnny new better than to start an argument with Nikolai Kozlov; the most stubborn of his uncle's associates and probably the most stupid. He had never liked much this chatterbox Russian who wanted to be Italian so much that he had even tried to copy the gestures and modulation proper of their country. He was amusing in the best times, and unnerving in the worst ones.
“Where is Victor? Has anyone spoken to him?” Somebody said suddenly, and both Carla and Johnny turned to look at Clyde Sorvino; a young lawyer who had made his way into the Family surprisingly fast thanks to his college degree. He wasn't drinking or smoking, unlike the other men who had arrived at the Falcone Mansion that morning, after hearing of their Don's demise. His ginger hair looked all messy and full of knots, as always, and his black business suit looked far more casual than it should have. No one had commented anything about it, thought; probably out of respect.
“No. Why?” Johnny asked, taking out a chair from the table and sitting beside him.
“Wasn't he supposed to protect Falcone? Where was he when our Don got killed?” Clyde questioned, not looking at Johnny but at the entire room. At hearing this, some of the presents exchanged looks, seeming surprised by the question; others nodded in approval, for they had been thinking the same, and others only shrugged, probably thinking that it was not truly important. Carla Vitti, on her part, shook her head and immediately dismissed such slander on Victor Zsasz's perfect performance. She knew better than to point fingers at this particular man.
“Mr. Zsasz is a hitman, not a bodyguard.” She said instead, standing from her chair and walking towards the table in the center of the room. There, she poured herself more champagne. “He only comes to us when we call.”
“Yeah, because that has proven to be so useful.” Mr. Cicero said, laughing derisively and turning off his cigar on an ashtray. In the dark of the room, the diamond rings that adorned both of his hands seemed to glow more than ever. This man was extremely paranoid when it came to people making fun of him or seeming displeased by his presence, but he had no trouble in messing around with other people or in criticizing things he didn't knew anything about. Johnny had always found him incredibly annoying.
“I'd be more careful with what I say about Victor if I were you, Paul. God help you if he hears you.” Carla said, starting to pace around the room, not unlike Nikolai had been doing moments ago, to try and get rid of the pain in her backside. Either the chair on her study had become incredibly uncomfortable, or she was getting old. Normally the prospect would enrage her, but right then she found the matter of aging surprisingly unimportant. If her death could really come as easily as her brother's had, she'd rather face it old and full of grey hairs than young and full of life. “Don't worry about him. He'll have to appear sooner or later.” She said to Clyde, putting a hand over his right shoulder.
“Are you sure, mother? Things don't look well.” Johnny spit a lonely cloud, letting it hang in the air for quite some time, and tried to relax a little. With everything that had happened the other night, just thinking about Victor Zsasz unsettled him. “He might run away, and offer his services to someone else.” He said, looking at Carla and then at Clyde Sorvino. Things weren't looking good, and as far as he was concerned, his mother and the young lawyer were the only two people he could trust in the Family. He would take advice from no one else.
“No, no.” Carla responded immediately, shaking her head again. She took a long sip from her glass of champagne and moved to stand closer to the window. “Victor Zsasz might be many things, Johnny… but never a traitor.” She said, feeling her voice strangely raw. Outside, the day was slowly transforming into night. The moon loomed over distant hills, illuminating the Mansion and the garden bellow.
When Jim arrived to the Police Station that night, everything looked different. The other day, the precinct had been vibrating with energy and movement; all the phones were ringing, everyone was reading or carrying tons of paperwork, and there was yelling and screaming everywhere. All the detectives were working hard and untiringly, and there was not a single soul resting or slacking off. Now, everything was silent. Still. There were no detectives, no phone calls and no paperwork. Jim was alone, and he couldn't figure out why.
The hallway that lead to the file room where Kristen Kringle worked was empty; no nosy cops and no Edward Nygma in sight. The cubicles of all the detectives were empty too, including those owned by Alvárez and Bullock. Captain Essen's office was empty as well. Jim climbed the stairs that lead to his own desk, and found that the small lamp that Harvey needed to read when it was dark and he didn't have his glasses on hadn't been turned off. Its dim yellow light was illuminating the bitten sandwich and the half empty coffee cup that the old detective had left behind. He had parted in a hurry, Jim realized.
Suddenly gripped by fear, the young detective turned around and ran down the stairs, heading towards the small interrogation room where Oswald Cobblepot had been locked up. He had been working enough time in the GCPD to know that an empty precinct in a time like this one was not a good signal. He ran down the hallway as fast as he could, his dark raining coat trailing quickly behind him. In the deep silence, the heavy sound of his footstep sounded like thunder.
It didn't take him long to reach the room. The chair where the policeman who was supposed to protect Cobblepot during the night usually sat was empty. For some reason, the sight made something sink unpleasantly in Jim's low stomach. As he moved closer, his running became increasingly slow, and by the time he reached the door he was only walking; slowly and with trepidation, as a man who knows exactly what awaits him just around the corner. Jim had dealt with dead partners before. Back in the day, when he was still serving in the army, he had seen many of his closest friends die in the trenches; some for heroism, some for fear, and others just for stupidity. Whatever was the reason, he had grieved all of them. Cobblepot wasn't his partner, let alone his friend, but as he slowly opened the door, hearing the unsettling cracking of old wood in the deep silence, Jim wondered if he would grieve for him too.
Johnny leaned against the back of his chair, entwining his hands together and placing them over his crossed legs. He was cleanly shaved and well dressed, despite the late hours, and his short brown hair was combed backwards with scented gel. Even in the most distressing times, he was the living image of neatness and professionalism. Tony Zucco, who was sitting in front of him with his legs widely spread, looked by all means like his frumpy antithesis.
“Are you sure you are not lying to me, Tony?” He asked, for he was a suspicious man by nature, and he had already decided that in light of the latest events his trust couldn't be granted easily. “You woud make me very angry, if I found out this is a lie.” He warned, in a deceptively calm voice. The caveat, however, seemed to pass inadvertently for the old business man.
“Come on, kid. Why would I lie about that?” He responded, shrugging lazily and taking a long sip from his glass of champagne. At hearing this, Johnny took a deep breath and placed his elbows on top of his legs, letting his head rest over his entwined hands. For a moment he stayed silent, looking pensive. He might have been considering his options, or many just processing the information he had just received. Either way, Tony knew better than to speak about an disturb him, so he stayed silent as well.
“Well, if I was going to be Don, that's off the table now.” He said, taking a long sip of his drink and frowning a little at the bittersweet flavor. “Everything is a chaos. I'm in no position to take over.” As soon as he heard this, Tony Zucco started to shake his head, as if that had been the stupidest thing he had ever heard. He took the bottle of champagne resting on the coffee table, and got closer to refill Johnny's glass, that was already half empty.
“What are you saying? Of course you can! Who's stopping you?” He said with enthusiasm, smiling widely at the young man. “Look, kid. This business is for men.” He placed a hand on Johnny's shoulder them, shaking him a little. “Strong Italian men, like you and me. What other option we have, but you? Your mommy Carla? Fish Mooney, that old harpy? No.” His upper lip raised in distaste while saying that, as if the mere idea of a women taking Falcone's place was disgusting for him. “You are the one, Johnny. I can feel it in my guts.” He said, replacing his frowning with a big and pleased smile. “And when the time comes, and you are Don, you better remember good old Tony; the first bastard to ever back you up.” He leaned back on his chair again, and raised his glass for a toast. Johnny meet it grudgingly.
“What about Cobblepot?” He asked, after gulping down the first sip and the bitter taste of champagne began to burn in his low stomach. Tony frowned at him, as if he hadn't understood him.
“The Umbrella Boy? What's up with him?” At hearing this Johnny tried not to frown. Surely, Tony had read the newspapers? There was not a single one of them that didn't talk about the scandalous murder in Don Falcone's house and the alleged perpetrators.
“You think he was the one who did it?” He asked, and to his surprise, the old business man actually began to laugh on his face. His plump cheeks became red and swollen, and one or two drops of saliva fell in the young man's hand. Johnny took a deep breath, and tried to let it go.
“Of course not, Johnny.” Tony said, once he had composed himself. An amused smile was still lingering on his face, thought. “Never believe what you read in the newspaper. Journalists know nothing about life.” He warned, pointing a finger at him as he always did whenever he was giving him an advice.
“How are you so sure?” Johnny asked further, because he needed to hear the opinion of someone about this; even if it came from a man that he didn't fully trust. It didn't matter whether he became Don or not. The head of his Family had been killed mercilessly, and giving the circumstances, the duty of avenging his childless uncle fell on his shoulders. He needed to know if this vengeance had to be carried against Cobblepot, or against someone else.
“Come on! An Umbrella Boy wouldn't kill a Don like that! It doesn't make sense!” Tony told him, as if it was a matter of fact. And maybe it was. The old business man got closer to him once again, putting a hand over his right shoulder and pointing a fat tanned finger in front of his face. This time, his voice came out raw and frightening, and completely forgetting the disheveled appearance of his companion, Johnny felt a shiver run down his back. “You listen to me, Johnny. Oswald Cobblepot is a scapegoat and nothing more. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a fucking traitor.”
In the end, Jim's suspicions proved to be wrong. Oswald Cobblepot was safe and sound, and in the moment he stepped into the room he greeted Jim with the same gut twisting candor of always. “Jim! What a wonderful surprise!” He said, standing up from his chair with clumsy enthusiasm. Jim released a breath he didn't knew he was holding, and as annoyed as he was by Oswald's bootlicker attitude, he found he felt strangely relieved. He owned this man quite a few favors, after all, and his sense of duty wouldn't have let him feel at peace with himself if he let him die so easily. Odd as it sounded, he was the closest thing to an ally he had, and Jim knew those were hard to find these days.
He didn't let any of these thoughts rise to the surface, thought. The empty precinct couldn't possibly be a mistake, let alone a coincidence, and Jim knew that if he wanted to keep Cobblepot alive he needed to get him out of the Police Station. “Stop that.” Jim said, cutting off the guy's lousy courtesies at once. He quickly approached the table, ignoring Oswald's confused frown, and taking him by the elbow, he forced him to stand upright. “When was the last time someone came in here?” He asked, trying to determine how long the building had been empty, and just how much time they had to escape.
“You were the last person who crossed that door. No one has come ever since.” Oswald answered, stammering only a little at the sudden closeness. He blinked rapidly, and before speaking again he nervously licked his lips. “I don't mean to be rude, Jim, but it is very late. May I ask what are you doing here?” He said, seeming displeased by the rude greeting; Jim fought not to roll his eyes. He knew Cobblepot to be an annoying little man, and in recent times he had learned to tolerante him.
“There's no one here, Cobblepot. The precinct is empty; there are no guards, no detectives. Even the Captain is gone!” Jim answered, taking him by the arms and raising his voice. Oswald's face twitched visibly, but he didn't do anything to get free of his grip. “Someone threatened them to make them leave. Care to guess who?” Fish Mooney was the name lingering at the tip of Jim's tongue. She had the power to make a move like that, even behind bars. If measures had been taken to avoid it, Butch Gilzean could have easily done it for her. In either case, Cobblepot's life was in danger, and maybe Jim's too. It wouldn't be the first time his job brought him to this point.
“Men are coming here to kill you.” Oswald's face contorted in fear, and Jim had a hard time deciding how much of it was real and how much was a pretense. “We have to leave. Now.” He said, finally letting go of the man's shoulders. Cobblepot took a couple of steps backwards, and indignantly rearranged his suit. He did something funny with his mouth, that might or might not have been a protest to Jim's rough treatment, but he didn't complain. The young detective turned around and started to walk towards the door, knowing that more sooner than later Cobblepot would be trailing behind.