Leaving Hugo Strange's cryptic ramblings aside, let's return to the night before the events in Gotham City.
Harvey Dent had been assigned to remain at the police station and prepare the materials needed for prosecution.
At that moment, he was discussing something with Constantine.
"So they left you here to keep watch?"
Constantine lazily smoked a cigarette while staring at the dazzling neon signs outside.
"These people really know how to scheme."
"You can't put it that way."
Harvey Dent answered seriously, never taking his eyes off the documents in front of him.
"The law has to come before everything else."
"If Karl and the others fail, I can still rely on these files to bring down Loeb and Falcone through legal means!"
A faint sneer appeared at the corner of Constantine's mouth.
He had seen plenty of sorcerers who confidently believed they could find loopholes in complicated demonic bargains and escape the consequences.
Without exception, they ultimately fell into traps worse than Hell.
It had been the same story for thousands of years.
To Constantine, Harvey Dent's absolute faith in justice and the law made him no different from those overconfident sorcerers.
"Why make things so difficult?"
Constantine suddenly lowered his voice mysteriously.
"If we look at this from another angle, we could deal with those criminals even without Karl."
"All we need is a shortcut."
"What do you mean?"
Harvey looked up curiously.
Seeing that he had caught Harvey's interest, Constantine immediately continued.
"There's a rumor inside the department."
"An incompetent bastard like Loeb has been sitting at the top of the GCPD for twenty years."
"Over all that time, he collected evidence of crimes committed by his subordinates and used it to blackmail them into obedience."
"That's how he became the true emperor of Gotham's police force."
"So if you want the simplest way to bring Loeb down, seize that secret leverage."
"Once you control those files, every compromised officer in Gotham will have no choice but to listen to you."
"I've heard the same rumor."
Harvey shook his head.
"But that doesn't make it right!"
"What difference is there between controlling people through blackmail and selling your soul to the Devil?"
"Look at Gordon and Karl. That doesn't mean you have to—"
Constantine interrupted him before he could finish.
"You can't look at it that way."
"I've heard that almost every official in Gotham reached their position through bribery or connections."
"Gordon is one of the few exceptions."
"But it took him almost thirty years of experience and accomplishments to climb as far as he did."
"So think about it."
"Karl became Chief Inspector while he was still so young."
"Are you telling me his accomplishments somehow outweigh everything Gordon achieved over thirty years?"
Harvey pursed his lips.
In truth, as one of the people behind Gotham's Prohibition campaign, he had heard plenty of rumors about Karl.
There were claims that Karl had exploited loopholes in liquor regulations to make a fortune selling alcohol.
Later, while the movement was still in full swing, he had even formed his own organization and pushed for the legalization of women's mutual-aid clubs.
It seemed as though every time Karl participated in some supposedly righteous campaign, he somehow discovered another way to make money from it.
And he made plenty.
Constantine's voice sounded again.
"Haven't you always wanted to restore order to Gotham's police force?"
"Think about it."
"If you possessed the criminal records of every corrupt officer in Gotham, you could deal with them properly."
"When necessary, you could charge them."
"When necessary, you could prosecute them."
"You could throw every rotten officer out of the department."
"Wouldn't that improve everything?"
"Wouldn't that bring you another step closer to actually cleaning up Gotham?"
Harvey Dent was tempted.
He had no interest in taking over Loeb's system and using blackmail to control police officers.
But he certainly didn't object to removing corrupt officers from the force.
A major reason Gotham had deteriorated this far was that the entire police department had become rotten.
Too many officers cared only about making money alongside the mob.
They couldn't care less about public safety.
During Harvey's time working with the police oversight system, he had increasingly come to believe that the department was rotten to its core.
If he wanted to save Gotham City, then he first had to save its police force.
"But…"
Harvey's voice weakened.
"What if Karl is involved?"
"What if Karl's name is in those files too?"
He didn't need much imagination to know that Karl couldn't possibly be completely clean.
Otherwise, Karl wouldn't be so close to Penguin.
Nor could he have assembled an underworld force numbering in the hundreds.
And yet, putting Karl in the same category as the department's corrupt officers didn't seem entirely fair either.
When Karl had been in charge of Arkham, he had never personally accepted dirty money.
Of course, he hadn't exactly forbidden his officers from doing so.
Karl also prohibited his men from directly extorting ordinary citizens.
Extorting gangsters, however, was apparently another matter entirely.
And whatever else could be said about him, Karl was exceptionally good at solving crimes.
He was far more effective than officers who did nothing at all.
There was something else Harvey couldn't forget.
During the trial involving three hundred criminals, Karl had stepped in front of him and blocked the acid attack meant for Harvey.
Admittedly, Karl had also thrown him several yards away in the process.
But Harvey had never forgotten what he had done.
"What's the problem?"
Constantine spoke with an almost righteous expression.
"If Karl is involved, then this is exactly when you should help him."
"If he keeps sinking deeper into the darkness, then pulling him out now is the best thing you could possibly do."
"You'd be helping him!"
"And compared with the greater goal of purifying Gotham, sacrificing Karl's current position is a small price to pay."
"Maybe afterward, you can arrange for him to do something genuinely useful for society instead of struggling deeper and deeper in the underworld."
Harvey Dent was caught off guard.
But the proposal was extremely tempting.
His hesitation only grew stronger.
As though trying to reinforce Harvey's resolve, Constantine continued quietly.
"Sometimes you have to think about the future."
"If Karl succeeds, he'll become a power broker on both sides of the law."
"With his personality, do you really think he'll destroy the corruption and darkness that helped build his influence?"
"Of course not."
"He'll use those things to accomplish whatever he wants."
"That's why you have to act."
"You need to get Loeb's secret cache before Karl does!"
"By the way, there's supposedly a hidden room inside Loeb's office."
"There may be plenty of things inside that ordinary people were never meant to see."
"You should take a look."
"I've already examined the police station's architectural plans."
"The Commissioner's office is clearly smaller now than it was in the original layout."
"That means Loeb must have altered the interior and concealed part of the room."
After hearing all of that, Harvey Dent finally made his decision.
He silently stood up and took three coins from his pocket.
"I haven't used these in a very long time."
Harvey looked at them with complicated emotions.
"I never thought I'd need them again."
"I'm ashamed to admit it, but in the past, whenever I couldn't make a decision…"
"I would toss a coin and let it make the final choice for me."
He looked down at the coins in his hand.
"It seems it's time to do that again."
(End of Chapter)
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