I opened the door to my bedroom.
It was a rich, austere room, the kind of place I never would have imagined living in a thousand years. The walls were trimmed with white gold accents. Curtains of layered silk hung over the tall windows. Expensive wooden drawers and furniture lined the room, all polished and carved with unnecessary flourishes.
At the center sat the real prize. A glorious king-sized bed piled with fluffy pillows and some of the most comfortable sheets I had ever slept on.
It would have been a luxurious sight if not for one small issue.
"How the hell did you get here before me?" I asked, genuinely baffled.
The same faceless weirdo in the purple trench coat was sitting on the edge of my bed.
"I have some questions for you."
My eyes drifted around the room before settling on the corner. One of the vents had been unscrewed and hung crookedly from the wall.
"Did you really crawl all the way through the vents to get here first?"
"Detectives have their ways."
I gave him a sympathetic look. "There was a lot of rat poop in there, wasn't there?" I hadn't noticed it at first, but there were a few dark smudges on his coat. "Yeah… we kinda have a rat problem. Sorry about that."
Despite how luxurious the place looked, the internal structure was ironically a mess. A lot of my guys had already told me it was a miracle the building was even standing. Apparently, whoever owned this place before us had cut a ridiculous number of corners with repairs and basic maintenance.
Honestly, they should be thanking us for staying here. My crew had probably saved them thousands just by fixing the place up.
"The. Questions." The man spoke the words slowly, like he was forcing them through clenched teeth. I couldn't see his face, but I had the distinct feeling he was glaring at me under that mask.
You know what, though, I had to respect the effort. I had heard about this guy before through the grapevine. The Question was a known vigilante. Not as famous or terrifying as the Bat, sure, but the faceless man still had a reputation of his own in Gotham.
I dragged one of the wooden sitting chairs across the floor and dropped into it with a sigh.
"Shoot."
To my surprise, he didn't start asking anything.
Instead, his hand slipped into his trench coat and came out holding a cassette tape recorder.
I raised an eyebrow. Those were pretty retro.
He clicked it on.
"Trava. Delta. Omegalambda. Seven-flavored Sunday." His head tilted slightly toward me. "Please state your name for the record."
I almost asked what the hell those random words were supposed to mean, but the way he leaned forward made it feel like I could sense a very harsh glare hiding beneath that blank mask.
"Jean Valjean."
"What would you say is your relationship with the Religion of Crime?" Question leaned forward slightly.
"That cult?" I remembered the name from when I earned the ticket. Beyond dealing with their little muck-summoning mess, I hadn't really looked too deeply into them. "I guess… I'm their boss, sort of. Or their prophet. I don't know."
"You don't know?" Question immediately began scribbling furiously. I could hear the pen scratching across his notepad.
Why the hell was he both recording and taking notes?
I just shrugged. "They joined up with the rest of the gangs when I founded the Union. I didn't question the good fortune."
"Do the names Mother Superior or Sinclair ring any bells?"
"Nope. Never heard of them." I shot Question a look. "I imagine I'm supposed to, though."
"I would imagine so," he replied evenly, flipping through his notes. "Seeing as they are the supposed leaders of the Religion of Crime in Gotham. Considering your own admission that you have made no contact with them despite your rather… innovative takeover."
"These two wouldn't happen to be rational people, would they?"
He glanced back down at the notebook. "Dozens of criminal charges. Kidnapping, blackmail, assault, human trafficking—"
Well shit. The feat did say usurped.
I sighed, already feeling the future headache coming on. Still, that sounded like a problem for future me. I waved my hand to cut him off as he kept listing crimes.
"Look, I don't have anything to do with the Religion of Crime beyond accidentally recruiting some of their crazy cultists. So, can we wrap this up?"
"You are a criminal under investigation," he replied flatly.
"You're technically trespassing."
"You do not own this mansion. I checked."
"Squatter's rights," I shot back. "Gotham passed a civil reclamation law after the disasters in '07, when nobody wanted to buy the slum buildings Joker had booby-trapped. If a property was recently affected by a 'nonadhering societal element,' the squatter requirement gets lowered to only a week. So technically, I do."
"...Damn." Question put away his notepad. "For the sake of truth a little bit of violence–"
I snapped my fingers.
Stu appeared beside me.
The bedroom was barely large enough to fit the gargoyle. Although that might have made him even more intimidating. Stu's massive stone frame filled the room, and his beastial face loomed directly in front of Question.
The vigilante paused as he was face-to-face with the towering gargoyle.
A long moment passed before he slowly reached back into his coat.
"Ten questions?"
"Five." I rolled my eyes.
Stu growled softly, and lightning crackled in his jaw.
"…Fine." The man almost sounded like he was sulking. "What is your connection to the boy band mangine conspiracy that is running around fueling crop circle factories?"
"...What?"
"Don't act surprised. I have traced the threads. I know you have been drugging Girl Scout cookies since the start in the secret invisible crop circle factories."
I could only stare at Question as he asked that with a completely serious tone.
Could I please have normal crime boss problems? Things like backstabbing lieutenants or people skimming money from the books, not… whatever the hell this was supposed to be.
…Fucking Gotham.
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Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.
I have advanced chapters on Pa tre on/daisyberry if you wanna read ahead.