1. Enara's demanding screen time. She's pushy, but hey, whatcha gonna do?
2. This particular story arc should be pretty short. (Probably only two parts total) I'm putting it here, though, because it -is- a Gotham Central piece. (Shrug)
3. Everyone's favorite Inquistor paladin... or rather, a less-likable (arguably) version of him makes his entrance.
4. Opening sequence (The parts with the cereal eating) are, yet again, bits modified from Neal Stephenson's book Cryptonomicon. I thought they were funny.
5. Korgan goes from dwarf to slightly pudgy Irish guy.
6. Language warning. That's become pretty standard for this series, though.
-----
Enara Kell and Anomen Delryn are on the Major Crimes Unit’s night shift, and Gotham is smack in the middle of a gang war. The two stumble into a firefight between members of the Burnley Town Massive, and the infamous assassin, the Black Spider, A.K.A. Johnny LaMonica. Caught in the crossfire, Kell is hit multiple times by the Black Spider, her bulletproof vest and her partner the only things that spare her life. Delryn unloads his weapon into LaMonica, and Gotham is less one costumed freak.
Inspector Keldorn Firecam of the Internal Affairs Division is brought in to investigate the shooting, and to clear Delryn of any wrongdoing. It should be an open and shut case, but a surviving gang member, Gary Watson, winged in the exchange of fire after he’d been handcuffed, sees a chance to take the City of Gotham for a few million dollars for “pain and suffering.” Under the guidance of attorney Isaea Roenall, a man infamous for his “dubious” clientele, Watson accuses Delryn of the injury.
It shouldn’t hold up; it wouldn’t hold up, if the evidence were known. But the lead technician who processed the scene is none other than James Korgan, who has a reputation for making evidence “disappear” – normally onto Internet auction sites.
The missing bullet, the one that could exonerate Delryn, is also the one Korgan lifted from the scene and put up for sale on iBid. Delryn is now on administrative leave until the case is resolved.
For Kell, who knows she owes her partner her life, there’s only one thing for it.
Find the bullet.
-----
Anomen pulled the red box off the shelf and sat down with it. He held it securely between his knees, making sure that the handy stay-closed tab was pointing away from him. Using both hands in unison, he carefully worked his fingertips underneath the flap, making sure to achieve equal pressure on each side, and paying special attention to places where too much glue was laid down by the gluing-machine. For a few, long and tense moments, nothing at all happened, and an ignorant or impatient observer might have supposed that Anomen was getting nowhere. But then the entire flap popped open in an instant as the entire glue-front gave way without further incident. Anomen hates it when the box-top gets bent, or, worst of all possible worlds, torn. The lower flap was merely tacked down with a couple of small glue-spots, easily removed, and he pulled it back to reveal a translucent, inflated sac.
The fluorescent light recessed into the ceiling of his apartment’s kitchenette shone through the cloudy material of the sac to reveal gold – everywhere the glint of gold. Anomen rotated the box ninety degrees, then gripped the top of the sac and gently parted its heat-sealed seam. It purred as it gave way. Removal of the somewhat milky plastic barrier caused the individual nuggets of Cap’n Crunch to resolve, under the fluorescent light, with a kind of preternatural crispness and definition that made the roof of his mouth throb in anticipation.
The gold nuggets of Cap’n Crunch pelted the bottom of the bowl with a sound like glass rods being snapped in half, as tiny fragments ricocheted around the porcelain surface.
World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally, one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in the mouth. Since the current state of human cereal-eating technology is not yet on par with such a challenge, the next best thing is to work in small increments, putting only a small amount of cereal in the bowl at a time, and eating it all up before it becomes a pit of loathsome slime, which, in the case of Cap’n Crunch, takes about thirty seconds.
He poured the milk in with one hand, while jamming the spoon in with the other, not wanting to waste a single moment of the magical, golden time when cold milk and Cap’n Crunch are together, but have not yet begun to pollute each other’s essential natures: two Platonic ideals separated by a boundary a molecule wide. Anomen, of course, uses whole milk, because otherwise, why bother? Anything less is indistinguishable from water, and as far as he knows, the fat in whole milk acts as some kind of a buffer that retards the dissolution-into-slime process.
A few drops of milk came off the bottom of his spoon, but were caught by the freshly washed beard he’d been growing underneath his chin for as long as he could remember. He set the container of milk down, grabbed a paper napkin from the holder on the table, and lifted it to his chin, using a pinching motion to sort of lift the drops of milk from his whiskers, as opposed to smashing and smearing them down into the beard. Most of his concentration, however, was fixed on the interior of his mouth, which, naturally, he couldn’t see, but could easily imagine in three dimensions. At this critical moment, a novice would likely lose his cool and simply chomp down. A few of the nuggets would explode between his molars, but then the jaw would snap shut and drive all of the unshattered nuggets straight up into the palate, where their armor of razor-sharp dextrose crystals would inflict massive collateral damage, turning the rest of the meal into a sort of pain-hazed death march and rendering said novice Novocain-mute for three days.
Anomen has, however, worked out a truly fiendish Cap’n Crunch eating strategy that revolves around playing the nuggets’ most deadly features against each other. The nuggets themselves are pillow-shaped and vaguely striated (in an effort to echo piratical treasure chests, he assumed). With a flake-type of cereal, his strategy would never work. Then again, Cap’n Crunch in a flake form would be suicidal madness; it would last about as long, when immersed in milk, as snowflakes sifting down into a deep fryer. No, the cereal engineers at General Mills had to find a shape that would minimize surface area, and as some sort of compromise between the shape that is dictated by Euclidean geometry, and whatever sunken-treasure-related shapes that the cereal-aestheticians were probably clamoring for, they came up with this hard-to-pin-down striated pillow formation. The important thing, for Anomen’s purposes, is that the individual pieces of Cap’n Crunch are, to a very rough approximation, shaped kind of like molars. The strategy, then, is to make the Cap’n Crunch chew itself by grinding the nuggets together in the center of the oral cavity, like stones in a lapidary tumbler. Like advanced ballroom dancing, verbal explanations only go so far and then your body just has to learn the moves…
The buzzing of the intercom system forced his attentions away from his contemplation of life, the universe, and cereal. He frowned down at his bowl, knowing deep in his hear of hearts that abandoning the Cap’n Crunch now would be the same as condemning it to a garbage disposal sentence. Still, the buzzing was insistent, and would not be denied. He sighed, taking one last spoonful before forlornly walking away from his breakfast.
“Yes?” he said, pushing the “Talk” button on the wall next to his door.
“Anomen. It’s Enara. Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
-----
“I figured you might be bored, so I brought you something to read.”
“What is it?”
“Just a book someone gave to me a couple of months ago. I know you’re big on military history, so I figured this would be right up your alley.”
“Oh. Well, thank you. The gesture is much appreciated.” He turned the book (which apparently dealt with the various island-hopping campaigns the United States Marine Corps undertook during the second World War) over in his hands. The book-jacket hadn’t yet lost its gloss, and the shiny finish bounced light all across the room, splashing it all over the walls. He flipped the book open, noting the author’s autograph inside. “There’s an inscription here… made out to you.”
She shrugged. “Yeah.”
Curious, he briefly skimmed the text of the handwritten message. His eyes went wide a few moments later. The inscription to Enara was clearly written by a man who was desperately in love with her. Reading it was like moisturizing with Tabasco. He coughed and cleared his throat.
She colored slightly. “Yeah. I uh… ran into the guy in Blüdhaven when I was working a case down in that area. You know, when I was doing that sting operation with ATF? Well, I had some downtime, went to a bar, and um… there ya go. I told him I wasn’t interested, but I don’t think he was listening.”
Anomen smirked. “Apparently not.”
“So, anyway,” she said, quickly changing the subject. “I talked to Firecam on Friday. He says Roenall’s all set to depose you this week. Bet you’re looking forward to it, huh?”
“He shouldn’t have told you that.” He emptied his bowl of loathsome slime into the garbage disposal. It hummed merrily. “Please, sit down,” he said, motioning towards one of the tall chairs near the kitchen counter. Would you like something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Little jealous, though.”
“Of what?”
“You don’t have a gay roommate I don’t know about, do you?”
He blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s just… your apartment… it’s so… clean. Have you ever seen my place? It’s a sty. I mean, it’s just disgusting.”
He chuckled. “And you feel I needed this information because-“
“Just making conversation. Anyway, this whole thing is total bullshit, Anomen. There’s no way in hell you could have even hit that punk, what’s his name?”
“Gary Watson.”
“The angle was totally wrong. It has to have been one of LaMonica’s rounds that nicked him.”
Anomen shrugged and sighed. “That’s what I said, as well. Unfortunately, that is not what either Gary Watson or his attorney, Isaea Roenall is claiming. And there seems to be no hard evidence to prove them wrong, or prove me right.”
Enara tapped a fingernail against the polished, white counter-top. “C.S.U. didn’t match all the rounds?”
He scoffed in response. “We’re lucky if they even manage to lift a clean fingerprint. Are you honestly surprised that they missed a couple of bullets?”
She frowned, but nodded, acknowledging his point. “Who was the lead tech?”
“Korgan.”
“Well, there’s your problem.”
“I’m quite aware. But while you and I, and maybe half of the M.C.U. know he is corrupt, no one has proof that it’s so. Until someone can prove he stole evidence-”
She sighed. “I know. I’ll look into it.”
“That won’t be-“
She cut him off. “Stow it. I want to.” She touched a hand to her cracked ribs – relatively light injuries given the four nine-millimeter rounds that had slammed into her torso. “I.A.D.’s looking into it, but those guys couldn’t find their own asses in the dark…”
-----
Locker Room
Gotham Central
“Screw you, Kell… you wanna accuse me of something, you do it in the Box. Otherwise, stay the hell out of my face.”
Enara ducked the towel flung at her head, but didn’t retaliate, instead letting the other detective have her dramatic exit. “Nice talking to you, too, Mazz…” she said to the empty locker room. She simply stared at the wall for a second or two before finally buttoning the last two buttons on her shirt. She hung her street clothes up in her locker, shut the door, and spun the combination dial. She walked out into the main squadroom area, but it was mostly empty – that weird time of day when most of the second shift hadn’t yet arrived, and most of the day shift had already gone home.
In the common room, just off to the side of the main squad bay, the M.C.U.’s one civilian employee, a desk clerk by the name of Stacy, was setting out a few boxes of doughnuts and a couple of fresh pots of coffee. It was a daily ritual she performed for the detectives on duty – her small but cherished contribution to the G.C.P.D.’s crime-fighting efforts. Well, aside from that other one… the one nobody was technically allowed to talk about. Enara waved, “Heya, Stacy…” then immediately found herself stifling a yawn. “Sorry about that… I really need to sleep more.”
Stacy grinned. “It’s ok. That’s what the coffee’s for. Fresh pot, too… and the doughnuts just came in. You might want to help yourself before the Sarge gets here.” She winked.
Enara couldn’t help but smile a little. “I plan on it. Last time I fought with him over a bearclaw, I nearly lost an arm.” She put one hand over her heart. “Never again.” She took a paper plate and loaded it up with a couple of the pastries, then poured herself a tall, steaming mug of coffee. Two of the little creamer containers and two paper packets of sugar got emptied into the cup, as well.
“So… um… it looks like someone pissed in Detective Fentan’s cornflakes.” The clerk motioned to one corner of the room where Detective Mazzy Fentan was trying to extricate herself from a mountain of accumulated paperwork. The top of her head, with its covering of short, straight, reddish hair was all that stuck out above the enormous pile of Manila folders.
Enara snorted. “Yeah. She took… umbrage… at an inquiry I made.”
The response managed to earn a snicker out of Stacy. “ ‘Umbrage.’ That’s a great word – umbrage. And what exactly caused her to… umber?”
The detective rolled her eyes, then shrugged. “I’d heard she and Korgan had a little thing going. Just wanted to know if it’s true. Turns out it isn’t.”
“Oh. Well, geez, Detective, I could have told you that. Jimmy Korgan’s got himself a little something-something over at Finnegan’s. You know, that bar over on the West side? Cop bar?”
There was no mistaking the sarcasm in Enara’s voice. “If by ‘cop’ you mean that chunk of the force that thinks carrying a badge is an excuse to line their own pockets?” She grit her teeth together, her face dropping into an irritated-looking scowl.
Stacy frowned. “That would be the one.”
Enara nodded her head and took a sip from her cup of coffee. She winced at it, then dumped in another packet of sugar, swirling it into the mix with a thin, plastic stirrer. “Huh. Sounds like something I should look into.” She reached into her pocket for a set of car keys. “I’ll be back later.”
“Sure thing, Detective.”
She left, taking her late-afternoon breakfast with her, and Stacy was alone with the coffee and doughnuts… or so she thought. “Good work,” said a voice from behind her.
Stacy shuddered. “Yeah. I guess.” She turned. Standing there, leaning casually against the soda machine was an older gentleman dressed in a sharp, well-tailored suit, the same color of gray as his hair and goatee. His I.D. badge, complete with the “I.A.D.” tag on the lower right corner, was clipped to the pocket of his shirt. “I don’t like this, Inspector,” Stacy said to him. “It just… it feels like you’re using her.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps I am. But securing the right information from Korgan is going to require a special… ‘touch.’ And Detective Kell is not only capable of that type of interrogation, but extremely motivated. I’m merely making the best possible use of available resources.”
-----
Finnigan’s Bar
Lower West Side – Gotham City
In retrospect, going in alone wasn’t the smartest thing Enara had ever done. But then again, as they said, hindsight was 20/20. It was just her foresight that seemed to be rather myopic. Still, that reckless streak of hers had gotten her out of many a jam in the past. True, it also tended to get her into more trouble than it got her out of, but that was dangerously close to a rational argument. Couldn’t have that.
Finnigan’s Bar was a dive bar out on Gotham’s Lower West Side, just between the Castor Place and 21st Street stops on the A-line, and it was a popular hangout for members of the 3rd Precinct. The Third’s squad roster read like the who’s who of Gotham City’s corrupt cops, and Finnigan’s was their turf. Moseying on in the way she was doing was about the same thing as walking in front of a mob of Odessa boys screaming “Hey, I’m with the Escabedo Cartel!” – i.e. not particularly good for one’s health.
She caught several bits of conversation as she stepped through the door.
“- sure I’m on duty, but my Sergeant knows I’m here.”
“- so she’s bitching about how I’m never home, so I show the stupid skank the back of my hand…”
“- bastard from I.A.D. was on my case. Told him if he wanted to hear more, to call my fuckin’ Union Rep!”
“- so’s I get called in on some stupid domestic, and the two of ‘em are yammerin’ at each other. Won’t stop. So I start using my stick on both of ‘em…”
“- and I says to her… well, I guess I could rip the ticket up… but tell me, why would I wanna do that?”
The room went completely quiet.
“Looks like somebody got a little lost.”
To be perfectly honest about it, she was more than a little scared. It was funny how that worked. It seemed like only yesterday she was staring down the Batman, and acting like a petulant child as she, in no uncertain terms, blamed him for her friend’s death. She’d managed to keep her cool then… mostly… kept her fear in check. This time, though… she had to admit, she was a little worried. There were times when she could believe that she and the costumed vigilante were actually on the same side. She wasn’t sure she could say the same about these “cops” in the bar with her.
“- M.C.U. bitch…” someone in the crowd said. She ignored him.
On a stool by the bar was the man she’d come to talk to. She’d taken the time to hunt up his personnel dossier and peek inside. Korgan was in his mid to late 30s, having been part of the force for going on ten years. In that time, he’d kept himself under the radar – not drawing any attention, either good or bad. There was practically nothing in his file, nothing she could use anyway. She could probably glean more information from just looking at him.
His dark hair was going gray around the temples. His face was heavily lined, rough and craggy. A poorly trimmed beard, graying like the hair on his head, sprouted on his chin and ran all the way around to just underneath his ears. He’d developed a significant-sized beer gut over the years, but underneath all of that, was still a fair amount of muscle. Rumor mill had it that he liked to bare-knuckle box in his spare time… when he wasn’t getting drunk, at least. She’d have to watch herself around him.
“Korgan.”
He turned in his seat, following a pull from his beer bottle with a drag from his cigarette. He blew smoke in her direction as she approached. “Detective. You get lost or somethin’?” He retained a small trace of his Irish accent, but only a trace. “Thought you MCU types were too good to drink with us working stiffs.”
She put a hand down on the stool next to him and leaned in. “This ain’t a social call, Jimmy. I got some questions on the LaMonica shooting.”
He downed the rest of his beer and tapped the bar for another round. The barkeep didn’t say a word as he popped open another and set it on the counter in front of Korgan. “I ain’t on duty,” the tech said. “You got questions, read my fuckin’ report.”
She glared at him. “I would, but it seems your report’s got some pretty big holes in it. Bullet-sized holes.”
“Oh, that’s real clever. ‘Bullet-sized’ holes.” He snorted something foul up into his mouth and spit it out into the ashtray. “Blow.”
She ignored the comment, not wanting to waste her time dealing with his taunts. She knew the entire bar was staring at her, but she chose not to acknowledge that, either. “Your report says you recovered thirty-three rounds from the scene,” she said, pressing him further. “Ballistics only has thirty-two of them.”
“I miscounted,” he said with a shrug.
“Right. So I guess that means you’re not only a crook, you’re a moron, too.”
He slammed the bottle down on the bar, some of the liquid spilling out and onto his hand. He finally turned to look her in the eye. “I’d watch what I say, Detective… what with you having cracked ribs and no backup.”
She grinned; it was all teeth. “You wanna take this outside, Jimmy? I’d be glad to take this outside.”
