Gordon moved along the walls of the casino floor with care. Bullock walked straight through the center, stepped into a pool of congealed blood without looking down, and lit a cigar.
"Watch your step. Don't contaminate the scene."
"Come on, Gordon." Bullock took a long pull and showed his teeth. "The whole room is the scene. Whoever did this wasn't trying to hide a thing."
He crouched and worked a playing card off the floor. It came up slow, trailing a dark thread of blood that snapped back to the tiles with a wet sound.
"Ace of spades. I'd call that lucky." He glanced at the body beside his foot — split clean from shoulder to hip, casino chips scattered around it like a broken rack. "Lucky at cards, anyway."
He pinched something from the card's surface and held it to the light. A single hair, thick and stiff as a boar bristle. He bagged it and handed it off without looking at the tech.
"What've you got?" he called across to Gordon.
"Something worth seeing."
Gordon was at the wall, studying a row of claw marks. The spacing between tracks was roughly four inches. Shallow at the bottom of each stroke, deep and short at the top — classic primate pattern. He held his own hand up to the lowest mark.
If these were made by something roughly human in shape, the hands behind them were about the size of a car tire.
Whatever came out of the sewers tonight could tear a person apart. And it had thick hair on its hands.
Gordon decided not to say the word that was forming.
A young officer appeared from around the corner and waved them over.
The bathroom floor had been punched up from below. Tiles shattered inward, dirt and debris spread across the room from a hole at the center.
"That's where they came in," the officer said. "The sewers. Should we send someone down?"
Gordon and Bullock looked at each other.
"After you," Bullock said.
"I'll go if you go."
"Fine. But I'm telling you right now — if we find something down there, I'm running first."
Bullock blew a slow smoke ring toward the ceiling and wandered back toward the main floor.
"Before I forget," he said. "You hear about the new DA? Brought in from New York to replace Donahue after the hit last week. Young guy. Harvey Dent."
"Why are you telling me this."
Gordon moved to the next section of wall.
"Word is he's got a hard head. Put a dozen big names away in New York before he turned thirty. Businessmen, politicians."
Gordon said nothing.
"Loeb called me an hour ago. Wants this case closed before Dent gets a look at it. Said he doesn't want New York looking down at us."
"New York." Gordon allowed himself one short exhale. "New Jersey already uses us as a punchline. New York is the least of our problems."
He knew exactly what Loeb actually wanted. If Dent played along, he'd eat into Loeb's cut. If he didn't, he'd go after the people Loeb protected. Either way was a problem. Better to hand him a locked case on arrival and keep Maroni's name out of it.
Gordon kept that thought to himself. He'd been in this department long enough to know which things he said out loud and which ones he'd decided to live with.
He had Barbara to think about.
If Harvey Dent was even half as principled as the rumors said, Gotham was going to break him.
Oswald came around slowly, got upright against the wall, and was sick on the ground beside him.
"Will. Where are we. Where is that woman."
"Gone. You didn't expect me to chase her down alone?"
Will rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.
Technically Selina had still been there a minute ago, standing close and waiting for an answer, doing the thing she did. The moment Oswald started stirring she'd made a noise of displeasure and gone up and over the nearest rooftop without another word.
He wasn't going to explain any of that.
"I was just inside the casino." Oswald touched the side of his head, piecing it together. "How did I get out here. I remember the phone—"
"You followed me out. Don't you remember? Your color was off but I thought you were just winded. Didn't realize you'd actually lost consciousness."
Oswald stared at him.
The lie was bad and both of them knew it. But the truth was stranger than anything Oswald was likely to guess, so he let it go.
They exchanged a few words while Oswald got his bearings back. Will figured the worst of it inside was finished — Strange wouldn't linger — and suggested they head back to the casino entrance.
They didn't make it out of the alley.
Three large shapes appeared at the far end, blocking the way out. Oswald couldn't see their faces with the light behind them, but the feeling coming off them was information enough.
He stepped in front of Will and put the knife out.
"You've made a serious mistake touching the Romans. You ready to be hunted across every district in this city?"
"What are you talking about," one of them said flatly. "The boss sent us."
Oswald lowered the knife.
In Gotham, the boss without a name attached meant one person. And Maroni's people showing up within minutes of the massacre — out of position, away from his side — meant something had gone wrong above what Will was already tracking.
He stepped forward and got a look at their faces.
Maroni's personal security. Every one of them Blackgate alumni. They didn't leave the man's side. Not for anything routine.
"Right, well—" Will started edging backward.
The alley behind him had filled while he wasn't paying attention. A rifle barrel found the center of his forehead before he finished the step.
He put his hands up.
They went in hoods.
Sitting in the back of the vehicle with his wrists controlled and his vision gone, Will tried to think clearly about Maroni. In every version of Gotham he'd watched or read, Maroni was a mid-tier villain. A tool. Useful to other players, memorable mostly for the acid he'd eventually throw at Harvey Dent's face. The kind of character who existed to be swept aside when Batman decided to clean house.
But there was no Batman here.
In a Gotham without him, Maroni was the underboss of the most powerful crime family in the city, with a personal guard of Blackgate killers and a documented habit of resolving personnel problems through blunt objects. He ran two districts. He had judges in his pocket. He was not a mid-tier obstacle.
He was just a brutal, powerful man who had every reason in the world to be furious at the two survivors of a security job that ended with his entire crew dead.
Will and Oswald had been the guards. They'd come out alive. Maroni was going to want to know why.
The car stopped. They walked blind through several turns. Then a door, and the hood came off.
A dim private study. Empty.
Tall built-in bookshelves on the left, packed with books that had actually been read. One heavy wooden desk on the right, bare except for an ashtray with a half-burned cigar resting on the edge.
Oswald went very still.
"Will." His voice came out rough and low. "We're in serious trouble."
He knew this room. He'd been seventeen the last time he stood here, watching Maroni deal with someone through that ashtray, one deliberate strike at a time, until the room went quiet.
Will said nothing. The comic had updated the moment he cleared the casino — new pages, new information. He had it open under the desk lamp now, reading as fast as he could, looking for anything that might tell him how this meeting ended.