Call in sick

I was actually feeling sick, the next morning so it wasn’t a stretch. I texted Francine, as my supervisor and Frannie as my ‘friend.’ She didn’t give me any shit about it, just rescheduled for Friday. But something in the tone felt threatening…

I sat down to actually come up with a solution, ignoring the sirens in the background as I started brainstorming up solutions. Could I break into her apartment while she was at work? Her address was no secret, but she had to be prepared for that. Her own philosophy meant if I could defeat her, then she should be compliant…but how to do that.

As I thought, I heard my phone buzz. Kianna’s text, probably. I’d look in a moment, but for now. It buzzed again. Was someone calling me? I looked at the phone, it was Diamond’s number, I answered.

“Wh--”

“What the fuck did you get me into?”

“What happened?”

“They fucking shot him.”

“The investigator? He’s dead?”

“No. Like I said, I sent my best man. He turned down the bribe, they pulled their guns, they got him once, but he’s still alive, holding his own.”

“Shit, how can I help?”

Her tone softened. “Don’t be silly, SWAT just got there. He called them before he called me. It’s a gunfight in a residential neighborhood, it’s not getting ignored. But why the fuck would they do this?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a brothel, as far as I know--” had Kat lied to me? She couldn’t it was part of our deal and I’d got the SP for that. She must not have known.

“Turn on the news.”

I did, and Vikki Vale was standing outside a police cordon. “SWAT has just gone into the building. Details are still sparse, but shots were fired in the early morning in this the Happy Stays Apartment complex.” Shit, someone thought they were funny with that name. “At least two people are dead, and one police officer has been evacuated to the hospital. There are an unknown number of people inside. My sources indicate that there’s an insurance investigator from Gotham Insurance inside, who called in the report. His involvement and status are unknown. A handful of inhabitants have come out and the neighbors are being evacuate--” she paused and took cover as there were repeated burst of gunfire and resumed her news blather.

“What could be worth all this? They could have shut down for a few weeks, or moved. No one would have even gone to jail, now a bunch of people are going to die. The GCPD doesn’t let people get away with shooting its people, not without paying a price…”

“I don’t know, but--”

We both stopped talking as two SWAT officers came out, carrying people so small they had to be children. A few minutes later, and Diamond was no longer pissed at me. At all. Vikki’s a good reporter, she had the details moments after the police reported in. There’d been a secret basement which a search would reveal and which couldn’t be moved. Kenny had started the fight, trying to take out the inspector, then he’d buy himself time to move the stuff which even his own people didn’t know about.

That was my gloss/guess. But when news came in that Kenny, who’d made it to the hospital was found with with an umbrella shoved through him nailing him by the groin to the bed, I thought I was probably right. The Penguin could do subtle, but not when he was sending a message.

Diamond visited her man in the hospital, he would recover. She said, if she’d sent anyone else, they’d have died. The press was everywhere. I watched. She did good. Apparently the story was that Gotham Insurance was working on a new AI program to identify problems and it had flagged a particular inspector for never turning anything up. She’d assigned another to look into it and the rest was history. The corrupt inspector was fired and in police custody.

That…Jesus, none of this was how I expected this to go. I didn’t have enough information, I was stumbling around in the fucking dark, hoping no one stabbed me.

As I watched, I heard a knocking at the door, opening it, hoping it wasn't anyone about to stab me, I found...