#22: Opening Salvo (Burchette / Swimer)

[capeandcowl]

Detective Comics
Issue #22: “Opening Salvo”
Written by: Brian Burchette
Cover by: Sylvain Swimer
Edited by: Grant LaFleche

[capeandcowl]

Fog crept over the entire City as Renee Montoya opened up the door of the murdered hooker, Karen Walker’s apartment and clicked on her flashlight. The caped figure swung around in surprise as the flashlight hit him square in the face.

A batarang appeared in his hand and he was about to throw it when she shouted out her name and rank.

He stopped, “You were just transferred here from Hub City, quite an impressive record, Detective.”

“You… you know about me?”

“This is my city; I make it my business to know every cop that comes through here. Now get that damn flashlight out of my face before I smash it.”

She immediately turned off the light, and then wondered for a fleeting moment why she took that order and obeyed it so quickly. Suddenly a flashlight was on her face, and his shadow was all but gone in the blinding light.

“I see, do as I say, not as I do,” she said sarcastically. Oh crap, why did she just say that? This was The Batman she was talking to. On the job less then twenty four hours and she was facing him!

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I think I’m the one who should be asking you that question,” she retorted, and then kicked herself mentally for her attitude. What the hell was she doing? Why was he irritating her so badly?

There was a pause and she swore she could actually feel daggers being thrown at her from his direction. “I’m doing my job.”

“You’re doing my job,” she snapped. It was the sound of his voice, that had to be it. There was an arrogance to it that automatically rubbed her the wrong way.

Another round of silence, and she knew he was trying to intimidate her with it, but the more he shined the light and kept silent, the angrier she got.

“Have you seen enough of me, or are you expecting me to do some kind of dance for you?”

“Why’d you come back here,” he said finally as he turned the flashlight from her face and brought it around to the walls of the apartment.

She turned hers back on and shined it on the floor, near where the picture was still lying. “My partner and I are the leads on this case. Why are you here? There’s no sign that any of your wacko’s were involved.”

“It’s a murder, which makes it my business. You still haven’t answered my question, why did you come back here at this hour of the night?”

“Couldn’t sleep, thought I’d take another look at the crime scene. What do you know about the victim?”

“She was a prostitute that didn’t pay her electric bill.”

“Why should she, she worked nights.” She responded as she casually scanned the floor of the apartment, trying to keep her eyes on the picture, but trying not to be too obvious about it.

When he spoke again, his voice was coming from the window, and she was amazed at how fast he had moved. “It was nice to meet you Detective Montoya. Oh, and the guy in the picture that you came back for? His name is Danny “the Trigger” Tate, if that helps you at all.”

So much for being casual, she thought. “Thanks,” she replied hesitantly, but she already knew that he had gone. “That is one creepy son of a bitch,” she muttered to herself as she put on her gloves and pulled out a baggie, stuffing the picture into it.

[capeandcowl]

Boss Maroni was being led to the Warden’s office, but the two guards wouldn’t tell him why. He was ticked off, too. Right in the middle of a card game and just about to win four packs of Salem’s. He didn’t smoke, but that didn’t matter, he just wanted the extra cash, and in a place like this, cigarettes were just as good as currency, if not better.

He was taking the back staircase down and lost in his own thoughts when he realized that they were not heading towards the Warden’s office at all.

“Hey! What the hell is going on here?” He exclaimed.

One of the guards pulled his gun and pointed at the back of the mob bosses head, “Just shut up, Maroni, and you might possibly live to see another day. An old friend of yours wants to see you.”

Maroni said nothing as he was led down into the basement of the jail. His face and palms were beginning to form little beads of sweat. Who was this “old friend” they were talking about? How did they get the person in and out without anyone seeing?

They got to an abandoned room that when the door opened Maroni could tell was once used as some kind of interrogation room. There was a long table with at least two inches of dust on it. One overhanging lamp was the only light in the room and it barely lit up the table, let alone the rest of the room.

It was a guy who had come to see him, he could tell that by the shadowed frame of the man as he stood in corner of the room, hidden from the light.

“Sit down!” One of the guards barked and forced him into a chair.

“Here you go boss,” the other said. “You want us to wait here or wait outside?”

“Outside,” the man growled.

Maroni watched the guard leave, sweat starting to roll down the sides of his face. This wasn’t good, not good at all. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?” he barked, hoping that fear could not be heard in his voice.

Out of the shadows he stepped, the scarred half of his face appearing first, the coin flipping in his hand casually. His eyes… his eyes like a steal trap. “Hello, pops! You don’t mind if I call you pops, do you… us being family and all?”

“Oh #$@!,” Maroni jumped out of his chair and began to back up. “How did you get in here? What the $#!% do you want?”

“Your head on a platter has been my first thought, but my second thought was a bit more rational. You owe me, old man, and I think if you want to keep on living, it’s time you paid up.”

“You killed my little girl,” Maroni snarled, “What the hell makes you think that I’d help you at all.”

“Your daughter, your wife, or your life… take your pick.”

The mob boss stood there staring, trying desperately to look into the one good eye, not the one that was bulging out at him like some kind of hideous monster. He couldn’t do it though, the monster side of the face kept drawing him in, kept reminding him of how dangerous and deranged the ex-assistant District Attorney had become, and he knew deep down inside, that it had been all his doing. He was, in fact, the Dr. Frankenstein to the man now known as Two-Face.

“What do you want,” he asked warily as he sat back down.

Whether it was purposely or not, Two-Face moved forward and leaned into Maroni with the good side of is face, and it made the mob boss a little more comfortable to see just Harvey Dent, for even a moment.

“Everything, pops. I want everything you have. The business is mine now, I earned it fair and square. Let’s face it, your going away for an awful long time, and I know you want to keep the business in the family, so here’s my offer. You put the word out that I’m in charge of everything, but you make sure it stays on the Q.T. For all intensive purposes, your name will still be the one stamped on everything, but I run the entire show.”

“… And me? What do I get out of it? The chance to live, right? That’s it in a nutshell, ain’t that right?”

Two-Face shrugged, “For now, yes, but it depends on if you stick to your word, and it also depends on how much help you are to us. We’re taking down Falcone, and really, you were always the closest mob boss to him. So you help us out with any information you can give us that will help, and we’ll see about getting you out of here.”

“Who the hell is this ‘us’?”

Dent turned his head so that the disfigured part was practically in Maroni’s face, “You figure it out.” He spat out.

“Deal! Deal!” Boss Maroni said quickly, wanting that face to just go away.

“Good choice pops! You’ll be hearing from us, soon.” He said as he flipped his coin one more time and walked out the door.

“What have I done?” whispered Maroni to himself as he put his head down on the dusty table.

[capeandcowl]

Bruce sat behind his computer console and stared at the pictures of Jack Drake, a handsome man in a rugged sort of way, nothing like a banker would look. His hands were rough and scraped up. His face was older looking then the thirty eight years that he was.

He flipped a switch and a picture of the late Mrs. Drake appeared on the screen. He looked down at a smaller view screen on his computer and read the police report of her murder a sixth time. She seemed to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, but the story seemed to have been conflicting in some areas.

She was at a convenience store when a man in his early thirties came barging in and demanded money from the cashier. Another witness said that he and Mrs. Drake had hid in the back of the store, hoping that the robber wouldn’t see them. The clerk gave the man all the cash he had, and then the man began to “hoot and holler” as the witness put it, and began firing his gun randomly. It was at this point that a stray bullet ricocheted and struck Drake in the back of the head. However, crime scene reports indicated that only two bullets were ever recovered, while the clerk said that there were at least five or six shots fired.

No, something didn’t add up at all. He picked up the phone and dialed a number, waiting for an answer on the other side of the phone. It finally picked up, “This is Bruce Wayne, I need my private jet fueled and ready for take off in thirty minutes. Destination… Hub City. Make sure there’s a car waiting for me when we get there. No, no driver is necessary, I’ll drive myself.”

He hung up and spoke without turning around, “I should be back within a few hours.”

Alfred stood behind him, nonplussed at the fact that his boss knew that he had been there the whole time. “What is it you expect to find?”

“Answers. There are too many holes in this case that the local police brushed under the carpet. I’ll be in Terrace Heights, a suburb just outside of Hub City.”

“May I ask, with Harvey Dent still out there somewhere, why you have chosen now to make this your number one priority?”

“Because so far Harvey hasn’t been seen since he murdered his wife, and his trail is cold. The only thing I can do is wait to see what he does next. In the meantime, if there is something funny about Tim’s mothers murder, I’m going to find out what it is.”

Translation, Alfred thought to himself, he’s not ready yet to face his former friend, and young Tim Drake has gotten under his skin. “Very good, Sir.”

“I need you to do a couple of things while I’m gone. First, set up surveillance at the Drake house. I want to know exactly where Jack Drake goes when he leaves his home. Second, give the police a few hours, then contact a Detective Montoya in the Major Crime Unit Division and let her know that Karen Walker’s clientèle's consisted of a few of Carmine Falcone’s men. Fish around to see if she has figured out who Danny Tate is, and what the connection between him and Walker was.”

“Yes, Sir; I’ll fit it in between the laundry and polishing the cars.”

If Bruce heard the comment he didn’t respond, he was already loading his extra suit into a stainless steal briefcase and heading up the steps.

[capeandcowl]

Carmine Falcone was considered by everyone in Gotham City’s underworld as being the top boss. He knew everything about everything that was going on in the city… his city. A sentiment he seemed to share with Batman.

He was getting out of the back of the limo, his mind set on only one thing, eating a nice juicy steak at his favorite restaurant, when the first shots were fired. He felt a sting in his shoulder as his two of his men pushed him back in the car. He watched as one of them jerked suddenly, several times, and then fell on top of him… bleeding from several bullet wounds in the back.

“What the hell!?”

“Stay down, boss!” Another of his men screamed. “Oh crap, it’s the False Face Gang,” he screamed as he fired his own weapon.

Carmine swore loudly as he pushed the dead bodyguard off of him and went out the other side of the car, using it as protection as he pulled his own weapon. “The False Face Gang?”

“Looks like it boss,” the driver shouted as he fired his own gun across the street at the men in the masks. The people on the sidewalks had already scattered.

Carmine looked carefully at all of them, and noticed that one man was missing two fingers. He cursed again.

“The one in the alley, that’s Buster Dunce. He doesn’t work for Black Mask, he works for Maroni! What the hell is going on here?”

Siren’s were beginning to be heard in the distance.

With the bullets ricocheting of the car and the street around them, they were trapped, pinned down. Before Falcone could even begin to formulate a plan, something fell in front of him. It was a grenade.

“Holy #$%&!” His driver screamed as he took off running and was instantly gunned down in a hail of bullets.

Carmine’s face became a creature of rage as he grabbed the grenade quickly, “Oh not you don’t, you sons of a bitches!” He screamed as he jumped up in the middle of the gun fight and threw the grenade back.

It blew up just before it reached the other side of the street, shattering windows with its blast. A couple of the False Face Gang members were tossed aside by the shock wave, but no serious harm came to anyone.

The sirens were almost on top of them now and when Carmine looked across the street again, he found the gang had disappeared. His face was growing read as he saw four out of his six men lying dead in the street. He grabbed Paulie, his Captain, by the suit coat and dragged him up into his face.

“I want you to take off and find out everything that you can. The rumors must be true, Black Mask is still alive, or someone else has taken over the False Face Gang. I also want to know what the $#@% Maroni is up too. He may be in jail, but he’s obviously still running things. If these two have made a pact, this means some major trouble for us.”

Paulie nodded, “You got it Boss. What about you? Where do you want me to take you?”

“No where. I’ll wait for the police and the news reporters. We didn’t do nothin’ wrong here. We was the one’s who were attacked. I want to make sure that Black Mask and Maroni knows that I survived. Mask screwed up too, by showing his hand. Once word gets out, the Batman will on him faster then flies on $%#@! Now go!”

As Gotham Cities largest crime boss watched his right hand man take off, he straightened his suit and watched the police cars pull up, remembering those famous words: “There’s no such thing as bad press.”

[capeandcowl]

Tim Drake was on his computer, looking up everything he could on Batman and on Bruce Wayne. It was all making sense to him now: the parent’s murder in the alley, the seclusion and playboy image when he grew up. The years in between when he, Mr. Wayne, had disappeared from Gotham; obviously to train.

As he was going through all the old newspaper articles he could find, he ran across another interesting item; the taking in of a young man by the name of Richard Grayson. Tim’s eyebrow shot up as he compared the dates of this to the time span before Robin, dubbed in the newspaper as The Boy Wonder, appeared on the scene. Well that doesn’t take a rocket scientist, Tim thought to himself. Soon after Robin appeared, another hero who called herself Batgirl showed up on the scene. Who she was, Tim couldn’t figure out at all.

He continued his research, taking only one break to grab a snack as he looked at the wall clock. His father was later then usual, and without a phone call. Not that it hadn’t happened before… lots… but it still made him nervous.

He waded through news clipping after news clipping, reading everything that he could on the dynamic duo. Then suddenly, everything seemed to stop for a while. Robin was gone, and even Batman wasn’t seen much for a while. Something happened; something big that shook them both to the core, Tim reasoned.

Then Batman was back again, but this time without Robin, who had seemed to have gone his own way for a time, becoming a member of a fledgling group called the Teen Titans, but not long after that, he vanished again, only to be replaced by a new hero who was calling himself Nightwing. Same hair cut… same jaw line… he would bet his allowance that Richard Grayson, a.k.a. Robin, was now the hero called Nightwing.

Finally he looked up to see that it was nearly eight o’ clock. He decided he had better finish his homework and get ready for school tomorrow, but he was having a hard time focusing on his Algebra… his mind going back to every second of his event in the cave… the infamous Batcave.

[capeandcowl]

“Alfred, where are you?” Bruce’s voice came through the phone after the butler had picked it up.

“I am stationed outside of the Drake residence, Sir. When I got here, Mr. Drake’s car was gone, so I chose to stay and see when he would arrive home, however, he hasn’t yet. Young Master Tim has been in the house the entire time.”

Bruce heard the use of the words “Young Master Tim” and although they echoed with memories, he chose to ignore it.

“Stay on it; I want to know exactly when that man gets back.”

“Did you acquire any pertinent information in your travels?”

“Yes, none of it good; the police were no help at all, but what do you expect from Hub City. Mr. Malone, however, discovered that our target was well known in the underworld, but by an alias name… Jeffery ‘Hanger’ Knox. I’ll fill you in more when I see you, this is an unsecured line.”

“So he’s a target now, Sir?”

“His wife wasn’t killed by the robber, she was shot in the back of the head by the other witness, and that makes me question a lot of things.”

“Understood, Sir. You should also know that earlier this evening there was an attempted hit on…”

“… Carmine Falcone, yes, I heard on the plane. I’m heading over to see my friend as soon as I can get back and change cars.”

“Of course.”

And with that, the line went dead.

[capeandcowl]

Detective Montoya and Detective Allen left the apartment of Karen Walker for the third time that day when they got the call about the shooting, down town. Before they could respond, however, Renee received another phone call.

“Montoya,” she answered her phone.

“Detective, it’s Officer Lindsey.”

“Yeah, I was hoping to hear from you. Anything on that picture?”

“Bunches. Between the anonymous tip that you got earlier and a little digging, we’ve positively ID the guy in the photo as one of Carmine Falcone’s Lieutenants, and his name is Danny Tate. Here’s where it gets real interesting though. Seems Tate had a sister who became the black sheep of the family. Ran away from home at seventeen and turned to a life of drugs and prostitution… even changed her name.”

Montoya took in a deep breath and saw out of the corner of her eye that her new partner was watching and listening closely. “Let me guess,” she said. “Her real name is Tate.”

“You win the prize Detective. Karen Walker was born Karen Tate and is the sister of Danny Tate, the mobster who works for Falcone.”

Crispus raised his eyebrows as he began stared right at her, already catching on with just the one side of the conversation. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

“Thanks, Lindsey, I owe you one…” Montoya said.

“You owe me two,” the officer replied. “I also did a bit of checking on the other woman in the pic and it’s their mom, just like you figured. Got you an address if you’re interested.”

“Hell yes,” she replied as she repeated the address given to her. She closed her phone and swung the car around suddenly, making a large U-turn in the middle of a busy intersection.

“And I thought my wife drove badly,” Crispus remarked. “You want to tell me where we’re going?”

Renee filled her partner in on all the information she had received.

Detective Allen sat there in silence for a few moments as they drove towards the mother’s apartment building. “This is getting a lot more complicated,” he murmured.

“Isn’t though,” Renee answered with a grin, her eyes gleaming mischievously.

Crispus Allen chuckled and realized that he liked his new partner; they were going to get along just fine.

[capeandcowl]

Penguin and Black Mask sat in an old broken down school at the south side of town that hadn’t been used in years. They were waiting for both their men to get back and for Dent to show back up. He had not been heard from since he had brought news that he was now in charge of Maroni’s day to day businesses and all of his men.

“I hate waiting, especially here,” Oswald grumbled as he looked at the dust covered table in disdain.

Black Mask chuckled, “You’re too finicky for your own good, Penguin.”

“The name is Oswald Cobblepot,” the short man bristled as their men came walking in, Harvey Dent behind them.

“Falcone is still alive,” Harvey said. “It’s all over the news, and he’s making sure we know that he’s still breathing. The False Face Gang has been identified, so the news is making a lot of noise about the possibility that The Black Mask is alive and well.”

“Alive, anyway,” Mask grumbled as he took a sip of coffee from the mouth hole in his mask. “Well then, we may not have finished off Falcone, but part of our plan worked. Now Batman will know I’m alive and will begin hunting me. That should take the heat off of you for a while Harvey, and we can continue with our plan.”

“Don’t call me Harvey,” the ex D.A.snarled. “My name is Two-Face.”

Black Mask stood up, “As you wish. I know you can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes, if you’re interested.” He walked over to his men who stood still, with their masks on.

“All of you came back alive, I’m impressed. You can all take a break, and rest. We won’t need you until tomorrow.”

As they all began to file out Black Mask put his arm on the last guys shoulder, “All but you. I have a special assignment for you before you turn in for the night. A small delivery I want you to make.”

“Of course,” came the henchman’s reply, instantly.

“Good, I knew I could count on you.”

The thug took off his mask and the grinning face of Jack Drake stared at the crime boss, “Til the very end boss… til the very end.”

[capeandcowl]

To Be Continued!!![/b]

[mockingbird]

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