The only way to truly know who you are, is to put on a mask.
Marco thought it was one hell of a pretentious sentence, not that he'd ever say it out loud.
That was the motto of the False Face Society, a criminal outfit unlike any other in Gotham, a higher class of outlaws, more worthy of this city than anyone else, at least according to Roman Sionis.
For everyone, including Marco, it was a band of freakshows who just happened to be more organized than the usual nutcases, and liked to pretend they were here to do business like Falcone and Marroni used to, despite being led by some rich heir who decided a cosmetics empire and passed down factories weren't good enough for him.
Unfortunately for Marco, it paid too well for him to get out now, maybe in a few months, when he's flush with cash.
'If the boss doesn't fuck us up,' He thought behind a sophisticated jet black mask, standing still, back straight, and doing his best to look like he knew what he was doing.
His boss had a fair shot at a real place with the big boys back in the day, but then he got humiliated by the Joker who impersonated him and killed his lady friend, then broken once more by Batman in his third year of crime fighting.
The only special thing about Sionis Crime Family, the old heads would say, was that their boss grew up with a silver spoon up his ass and bodyguards to keep him safe.
Black Mask knew that, and it infuriated him.
Most things did that, infuriating him, which was very unfortunate for those who had to spend extended periods of time around the crime lord with ever growing influence.
People who happened to be his henchmen.
He really should have considered another career path, maybe Wayne Enterprise needed janitors?
He'd take mopping floors over standing on the ninth floor of his boss' casino hotel, within a penthouse so opulent the floor alone could drown him in hookers and good food for a lifetime and then some, dozens of men in black suits and masks were doing their best to stand still and not attract their boss' ire, which meant not reacting to the beating taking place.
Much easier said than done.
"You fucking incompetent piece of shit!"
*Thud*
The sound of a gloved hand striking someone right in the liver, someone wearing the same suit, same mask, same pay and the same risks as each and every one of them.
Same as him.
Marco winced, and he once more grateful for that ugly ass pretentious fuckin' mask that made it hard for him to breath and smelled like wet car leather, at least it covered his face.
*cough*
The poor guy was bent down, spit falling from his mouth and pooling into his mask, an issue so common for Black Mask mooks that Marco recognized it with a glance, but that didn't stop the strikes from continuing, pummeling his ribs and pushing him up each time he was about to collapse.
Black Mask continued tormenting a subordinate who wouldn't even dare protect himself, because it would make the beating worse, because there were four men with more expansive suits, better training and bigger guns who never did get humiliated standing right behind the boss.
Men who got paid plenty, to do nothing but guard their boss and put down the dogs who bit their owners.
And they weren't afraid of reminding them.
'Fuckin' basterds,'
The other henchmen were just there to watch, and so were the boss' lieutenants, being forced to witness violence on one of their own for a mistake they were not informed of, and might never have happened in the first place.
It could be anything from lookin' at Black Mask a bit too long, or looking away from him too much, perhaps he stood a bit too tall when one of the boss' mistresses were around, or he slouched when the Boss wanted to look strong.
Or someone was just having a bad day, and decided to spread the misery 'round, classic Gotham bullshit.
Roman Sionis was cruel like that.
Until it was over, and with a simple gesture, he turned around and let his subordinates drag the battered victim out of the penthouse to be treated and put back to work if he's lucky.
If he's not, well, the boss would meet him again real soon.
But for now, Sionis sat on an expensive couch, another poor sod rushing in to light his cigar and risk getting it pressed into his eyes if he's too slow, there was blood on his white suit, and the man seemed to like it as he puffed his luxury cuban.
Some people would ask how he could do that with that ominous lookin' mask over his face, those people tended not to live long.
"Ah, enough delays, let's talk business," He said in a voice like sandpaper, which he was probably faking knowing the man, "did that disgusting little midget provide the weapons we asked for?"
And now Marco was definitely out of his depth, as the man's lieutenants approached and started talking shop, but he did spend enough time here to know they were buying guns from the Penguin.
Well, buying wasn't the right word, it was more like paying the man to facilitate a deal between them and the international smugglers, a direct buy from Oswald Cobblepot would be much more expansive, and a lot more embarrassing for his boss when done at scale.
A little bird told him that Sionis cared more about the second reason than the first one.
"Three of the shipments arrived in a timely manner, with one of them getting flagged on the port, but we had the bribes ready," A man in a white tusked mask said calmly, which wasn't the case for the guy standing next to him, Marco could already tell where all of this was going, "we sent them to the steel mill to be transported without issue,"
Black Mask didn't say anything, just took another puff of his cigar, that was the man's version of a congratulation for a job well done.
Then he looked at the next guy with the grey bulldog face, or maybe it was supposed to be some sort of hellhound? Who the fuck knows? What mattered was that he was doing his best not to shake in his boots, and that was bad news.
"We secured the shipments in the storage points without any complications," He said something that was so fundamentally meaningless Marco could already smell the 'but' coming, and Black Mask too from the way he leaned forward, "but two of the trucks transporting them got hit by the Bat and his brats,"
Ah, yes, Batman.
Also known as the boogeyman who some lucky fuckers still haven't seen despite being out there every night doing nothin' good, one of the main purveyor of broken bodies for the Wayne Foundation to bleed money fixing up on the hospital beds, or just one of the costs of doing business if you were higher up.
Because higher ups didn't touch drugs, didn't move guns, didn't guard safehouses and if they were real good, were usually so clean they could sue the bat for breaking and entering and aggravated assault if he ever removed his cowl.
Which wasn't all that clean, but this was Gotham.
The point was that they didn't have to fear the bat all that much, he wasn't going to kill them, and he couldn't really stop them from making dough in the long run.
Still, three trucks wasn't too bad, they probably carried the weapons into a dozen different rides to lower risks.
This was just common sense, after all.
Marco looked at the lieutenant, who still didn't seem that confident, nor did he continue talking to try and please the boss, and the professional henchman started to remember that common sense wasn't all that common.
"And how many trucks arrived safely?" The boss asked, but he really didn't need to, everyone with a brain knew where this was going…
"T-T-Two," Bulldog Face stammered, and he doomed himself to euthanisa.
If he was lucky
"Wrong answer," Black Mask said, but didn't pull out his gold encrusted magnum, instead looking at one of his bodyguard who struck the poor fuck on the head with the back of his gun, before dragging him to a seperate room.
A room that smelled like blood, and was filled with instruments of torture both ancient and modern.
But knowing the boss, he'll be going medieval on the bastard.
"That's very unfortunate," Sionis said, like he didn't just remove one of the bigger pieces from the board, "we'll have to make up for it, and I'm not giving one more dollar to that twisted little shit."
Marco thought Black Mask had no business calling anyone twisted, but he held his tongue, because common sense.
"Everyone is gearing up for war, that means there will be more than enough shipments around the city for a few to go missing," the first lieutenant said like he was waiting all night for this moment, "we could…aquiere some, boss, either with cash or with lead,"
It wasn't a bad idea, if the doggy said that instead of shitting himself, he might even have gotten away with just a beating.
The part of Marco's brain that remembered clearly what life was like on the streets of Gotham as a kid couldn't help but wonder if the man hadn't leaked the trucks locations himself just to get rid of a rival and make himself look good, but whether or not it was the case didn't change shit for him.
He just hoped he wouldn't be there if the boss chose to get those guns with lead, being far away from bullets was something Marco liked doing consistently.
Health was important, after all.
"Lead is always so much more reliable," Black Mask said one more pretentious line, smoking some more like he didn't essentially admit he was broke, "but there's no need to do it ourselves, call Andrei's crew, a few Romanian's getting caught stealing the italian's guns can only serve us well,"
Of course it was lead, and of fucking course he'd be happy even if a subordinate crew got caught by fuckin' Falcone or the Sicilians with their hands in the cookie jar.
Then Marco thought about it, beyond Sionis' sadism.
It made sense, in a fucked up way, either they get good guns for pennies on the dollar while depriving the competition for some of theirs, or whoever catches them ends up distracted with a conflict with some of the more slippery small groups in the city.
A group who worked with the Russians and Armenians mobs a lot more often than with Sionis, as far as the streets knew, or those old heads in fancy suits.
Racism was such a wonderful thing, after all.
"We can't go wrong with that, boss," another lieutenant opened his mouth eager to lick some ass, and after wondering how they lived with such a sore mouth, Marco froze.
Then he stopped paying too much attention to the details being discussed, or the next issues brought up to the boss, or even the new levels of separations being established to keep the higher ups clean during the war to come.
Because all of these things were much less important than one fact everyone else seemed to overlook.
'This bastard jinxed it!'
. . .
The very next night, a group of indomitable Romanians who were just drunk enough to outperform their sober selves rode out into the sunset after identifying one particular shipment of weapons being unloaded from Morrison Bay.
One small enough not to warrant a whole army, big enough to be worth taking a risk, and just isolated enough from the rest of the Panessa Family's operations that they couldn't immediately track them down and turn them into mince meat.
Those Panessa were big fans of tommy guns, after all.
Andrei led a tight ship, the amount of booze allowed before and during the mission was enforced strictly, the weapons they carried were well maintained, and the information was provided by some of the most reliable hobos in the eastern seaboard.
They were ready.
Three cars with bulletproof glass were rented from Cobblepot's that night, reliable vehicles tested before the big night and just pricey enough that they had no choice but to end the night in a success, or at least bring them back whole to get the bulk of their money back.
Inside them were six men teams wearing bulletproof vests under their favourite abibas tracksuits, wielding either shotguns or good old reliable AK's along with their revolvers.
Andrei himself favoured the Kalashnikov, a weapon so simple even a child could use, and do use it.
Perfect for his boys.
Their drivers arrived at the scene and caught a bunch of exceptionally pale guinea mobsters with nothing bigger than a revolver standing watch in front of a half a dozen truck drivers or hired hands to unload the mouth watering shipments of killing tools.
They fired into the lot, AK fire going pretty much unnoticed in Gotham City, and the screams of a dozen men being torn to shreds wasn't that big of a deal either.
After that, it was time for some good old stealing, moving the crates into the back of their cars, picking and choosing the best ones since they couldn't exactly take everything.
Andrei wasn't afraid of retaliation either, it was only one mid sized shipment, and those people were just goons hired off the streets of Little Italy, freelancers got no respect and no right for vengeance.
The five families only truly cared about their made men.
And there was no chance in hell an actual made man was standing around watching a shipment of guns get unloaded, those folks had better things to do, like eating good pasta or snorting coke off a whore's behind.
Cultured shit.
Other groups, smaller ones, would take this more seriously, more personally. But the Mafia didn't work like that.
None of them looked twice at the people bleeding out under them.
It was such a common sight.
Nobody noticed that so many of those 'italians' were gingers.
They left soon after, riding away with the spoils of war, and knowing Sionis might pay them a bit less than others for the same shit, and wouldn't even take the heat for the gig if it ever came to light, but his crew facilitated the hit and stable associates are better than better paying occasional gigs.
Basic business.
If they were really lucky though, some third party could also buy a few guns off them on short notice, not enough for Black Mask to notice, but enough to make even more dough selling'em at the sweet prices.
It literally couldn't go wrong.
Nobody voiced that thought, though.
Andrei ran a tight ship, made of drunks with AKs and knockoff tracksuits, but they all shut their mouths and didn't do anything.
They knew better than to jinx it.
. . .
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