Gotham

by Jason Starr

  He began to wonder if Colon had fed him a load of crap about Belladonna, the stolen art dealer. Frank had never heard of Belladonna before, and a criminal operating in Gotham, unbeknownst to Frank, was pretty unlikely to say the least. Under the circumstances, though, it also would have been unusual for Colon to come up with such a convincing lie. People with guns pointed at their heads tended to be at their most honest.

  Then he spotted it—the blue door with graffiti on it, adjacent to a defunct fishery. Like all the buildings on this block, it looked as if it had been abandoned, or taken over by squatters, junkies, and street kids.

  Pulling over, he parked the car and then walked briskly up to the door, filled with frenetic energy. He banged on the metal a few times with the side of his fist. No answer, nor any sign of life inside. He was wondering if Colon had steered him astray after all, when the door opened.

  A woman stood there, about sixty, with dyed bright red hair, in a black velvet dress. Behind her it was dark—he couldn’t see anything in the dimness.

  “Sorry, we’re closed.”

  She tried to shut the door, but Frank stuck his hand out to prevent her.

  “Are you Belladonna by any chance?”

  Suddenly she looked confused, maybe suspicious.

  “Who sent you?” she asked.

  “A friend said you might be able to help me out,” Frank said.

  “Are you a cop?” she asked.

  Frank had gotten that question before. He had that “cop” look to him. Like he’d often told people, “You can take the man out of the GCPD, but you can’t take the GCPD out of the man.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not.”

  He couldn’t tell if she believed him.

  “Well, I’m not open now, not officially,” she replied, “but if a friend referred you, I don’t want you to leave disappointed. If you’d like to do a reading, I can.”

  “A reading?” Frank was confused.

  “A reading, your fortune,” she answered, looking irritable all of a sudden. “I’m a fortune teller. That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “Oh, a reading,” Frank said. “Yeah, that’s right. Have a little hearing loss, sorry—getting old sucks.”

  “It’s fifty dollars for a half hour. Is that okay?”

  “That’s fine,” Frank said. He would have agreed to any price, since he was planning to kill her anyway.

  She looked him over again, sizing him up. If she was a fortune teller, she wasn’t a good one, because she seemed to reach the wrong conclusion.

  “Okay, come on in.”

  He had no idea what the deal was with this lady. Was she actually a fortune teller, and Colon had steered her wrong? Or was this whole fortune teller thing a front for her real gig as a crooked art dealer? He could have pulled his gun, tried to get her to talk, but he decided to hold off, and assess the situation first.

  He stepped inside, and it took a minute for his eyes to adjust. Well, it sure as hell looked like a fortune teller’s place—dim lighting, incense, a lot of red velvet. There seemed to be other rooms—she probably lived here, too. She led him to the area in the back where there were chairs.

  “Sit, please,” she said.

  Frank sat on the plush chair. She sat across from him on a comfortable cane back chair with pillows.

  For about a minute she sat in silence, with her eyes closed. Frank began to feel impatient, the frenetic energy making him antsy, and considered pulling his gun out, getting her to talk the old-fashioned way.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  “This has been a difficult period in your life. You’ve had to make difficult decisions. Money is very important to you.”

  Frank had never believed in psychics to begin with, but this seemed like a total load of crap. Difficult decisions? Money is important? There was nothing specific about it all—her comments could have applied to anybody who walked in the door. Did people really pay her to hear this crap? But he decided to play along, to see where it all was going.

  Why the hell not? I can kill her anytime.

  “Yes, it’s all true,” he said.

  “Money has caused trouble for you in your life lately. Do you have debts?”

  Frank thought about the bookies who wanted to kill him. But who didn’t have debt? Everybody in Gotham owed something to somebody.

  “Some,” Frank said.

  “You need to resolve this,” Belladonna said. “It’s causing stress for you. Also, you’re deceiving someone, someone who has trust in you. This is causing you great anxiety.”

  Frank’s thoughts went right to Tommy Wayne.

  Okay, this was getting a little freaky.

  “Who is it?” he said, deciding to test her.

  “Someone you’ve known a long time. You’re working on a project together. Are you a salesman?”

  “No,” Frank said.

  “You’re selling something for him, or selling yourself to him. I definitely see you selling, but you’re not being straightforward with him. You’re not giving him the best deal.”

  “What does this have to do with anything?”

  “This man is in danger,” she said, and her voice became agitated. “His wife is in danger, too. Do they have a child?”

  Frank thought of Tommy’s kid, Bruce.

  “Yes,” Frank said. The back of his neck started to itch.

  “He’s a strong boy. He’s a fighter… but I see a lot of blood, destruction.”

  Okay, that was getting way off base again. Bruce Wayne? The kid was a pampered loser. What did he have to do with anything?

  Finally, Frank had had enough.

  “Do you see anything in my future about winding up rich,” he asked, “and living on the proceeds of a stolen Picasso?” Abruptly he saw the fear in her eyes—the same fear he’d seen in the eyes of his other victims.

  He took out his gun and aimed it at her face.

  “Okay,” he said, “where is it?”

  “Where is what?” she asked.

  “I’m warning you, I’m not in a game-playing mood,” he said. “So there won’t be any counting to ten, or second and third chances. Tell me where it is now, or I kill you and find it myself.”

  She stared at him, but not the way she had when he was reading his mind.

  “It’s worthless to you,” she said. “Only I have the contacts needed to sell it.” She sounded pretty sure of herself, too.

  It was true, Frank had no idea how he’d sell a painting worth tens of millions of dollars, but he figured he’d worry about that later.

  “I’m sorry,” Frank said. “Well, not really.”

  “Wait!” she shouted, holding up one hand. Then she said, “Okay, I’ll give you the painting.”

  “Where is it?” Frank asked.

  “I’ll show you.” She stood, steady despite her age, gesturing for him to follow. He kept the gun aimed steadily at her, and followed her down a hallway into a dark room. Frank could barely see her, and didn’t like this.

  “Wait, hold on a minute,” he said tersely. “Where are we going?”

  “The painting’s in here.”

  “Where’s the light?”

  A gun fired, then Frank felt the pain, ripping through his left shoulder. He fired back a few times. He didn’t know if he hit her or not. Then she shot at him again, missing, and he saw her face in the flash.

  His eyes were adjusting to the dim light, and he saw her ready to shoot at him again. He fired twice—both times hitting her in the center of the chest. When she hit the floor, he went over, wincing in pain. She was still squirming, making gurgling noises as she tried to speak. So he put one in her head, just to make sure she was a goner.

  “Bet you didn’t predict that,” he said.

  Looking around, he found a light switch and flicked it on. The pain in his shoulder was bad, but it was nothing compared to what she’d got. The bullet had grazed him, and there wasn’t even much blood.

  He seemed to be in a storage area—bo
xes of stuff against the walls. It was musty, and didn’t seem like the place somebody would store anything valuable. He looked around anyway, and found a box of old books, then another one with dishes in it. It seemed like somebody had moved out of a house or an apartment and stored their stuff here.

  He checked the other rooms. There was a kitchen, with dishes piled up on the sink, a bathroom, a living room with at least ten floor lamps, and random appliances in the corners—a toaster oven, a couple of microwaves, three blenders. Belladonna seemed more like a hoarder than an art dealer, and he had no idea where she’d kept the painting. He regretted that last shot, finishing her off with the bullet to the head. He should have tortured her a little, gotten her to talk.

  Frank rechecked the rooms and found nada. Then, in the storage room, he moved the boxes around, to see if she’d hidden the painting there, but there was so much dust and cobwebs on the boxes, he quickly realized it was a dead end.

  Then he had a thought and returned to the area where Belladonna had done the psychic reading.

  Behind the chair where he’d been sitting there was a small alcove, hidden in the shadows. A ladder, like the kind on old bookcases, led to a loft-like area. Frank climbed up it and, sure enough, there was a painting in the corner, leaning up against the wall. Still in the frame, it had been covered with what looked like saran wrap, but didn’t have any other protection. These guys were amateurs, not professional art thieves. That was for damn sure.

  He moved it gingerly over next to the top of the ladder, wincing a little as his shoulder complained. As Frank climbed down the ladder, reaching up to bring the painting with him, the excitement kicked in.

  This was it. The beginning of the rest of his life. He had the painting—that had been the biggest obstacle. Now he just had to find a buyer, deposit the money in an offshore account, and he’d be able to get on with his life. What would it be like to have no worries?

  Maybe he didn’t want to be a hit man, or a mob boss. Why deal with all of the crap? During the day he’d just lie around in a hammock, with the waves crashing nearby, and he’d read books. He hadn’t read a book in years, but he’d start. At night he’d drink and gamble and have sex with beautiful women. And that would be it.

  No more pain in his life—just pleasure.

  Then, when he reached the bottom of the ladder, he heard a noise. Footsteps. Somebody, or maybe more than one person, had entered the apartment.

  Well, whatever. Frank had come this far, there was no way he would let anyone or anything prevent him from making his dream come true. He put down the Picasso and took out his gun. He stood with his back against the wall near the door, and waited.

  The footsteps came closer… then the noise stopped.

  “No… no…” It was a man’s voice. By the sound of it, Frank figured the guy was probably in the storage room, and had discovered Belladonna’s body.

  Okay, enough of his crap, he thought.

  He approached the room, gun aimed. Figured he’d blow this guy away, just like the others, then make some phone calls. He didn’t know any art buyers, per se, but he had a lot of friends in low places, and it couldn’t be that hard. Or maybe he could just head abroad, get the hell out of Dodge. Tommy Wayne had mentioned a big black market for art in Russia and North Africa.

  Yeah, he’d start in Russia, get a quick deal, and then it would be hello happily ever after. But first things first—he had to get rid of this guy.

  The storage room was dark again. Whoever had entered had turned off the light. As Frank’s eyes adjusted, he still couldn’t see much. Then, squinting, he saw a flash of what looked like polished metal, and then incredible pain hit.

  He screamed maybe louder than he had since he was a baby. The pain emanated from his right shoulder, or where his right shoulder used to be. His entire right arm was gone, blood gushing like from a faucet. He crumpled to his knees—in shock, too, trying to figure out what had happened. Then the light flicked on and he saw the burly, bearded man towering over him, holding a meat cleaver.

  Careless, he thought. I got goddamned careless.

  “You killed my aunt, you son of a bitch,” the man growled. “Who are you?” Frank tried to speak, but he was in so much agony he couldn’t focus on his thoughts, or get his mouth to move the right way to produce words.

  “Okay,” the man said. “I see how it is.”

  He came down with the cleaver again and severed through Frank’s left shoulder. More blood spattered and gushed. It seemed like the whole world had turned bright red.

  “Who are you?”

  Despite the pain and how dazed and weak he felt, he managed to gasp, “F-f-f-frank.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Frank tried to answer, but couldn’t. The man swung the cleaver again and off went Frank’s left leg. Though the pain was excruciating, Frank didn’t have the energy even to moan. He lay in a sticky puddle of red.

  “Did somebody hire you?” the man asked.

  Somehow Frank nodded.

  “Who?”

  Frank couldn’t focus, then he saw the flash of the cleaver.

  He was just a stump now, would be dead within seconds.

  “Tell me who sent you here, and I’ll let you live. Was it Thomas Wayne?”

  If Frank had been thinking clearly, not in a delirious state, he would have realized that his reason to live had expired, and he had no reason to give the man any information.

  But Frank nodded.

  “I don’t keep my promises,” the man said.

  Frank saw the cleaver coming down, right toward his neck.

  The last images he had—the beach, a hammock, a drink with an umbrella in it.

  The waves were crashing.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Harvey and Amanda arrived at Belladonna’s and saw that the blue door, with graffiti all over it, was partway open.

  “Looks like somebody might’ve beaten us to the punch,” Harvey said.

  With guns drawn, they entered the gloom, and instantly smelled something strange. They separated, checking out every part of the apartment or office or whatever the hell it was. Then Harvey entered a dark room and picked up on the stench of blood and feces. He took another step and boom—he slipped and fell right on his ass.

  “What the hell?” he said, though it didn’t take him long to figure out that he was in a puddle of blood. But whose? There didn’t seem to be a body here, just a bunch of lumps of something, so how could there be so much blood?

  Amanda rushed in. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.” Harvey was embarrassed as hell, trying not to show it. She fumbled around, then turned on the light. Suddenly Harvey was staring at a man’s head, on its side in the puddle. He saw limbs, too, and the rest of his body.

  Usually he had a thick skin when it came to gore, but everybody’s got a limit. Harvey swung to one side and heaved. Then, again, and again. When it was finally over he tried to stand. After slipping and falling back down once or twice, he managed to get to his feet and back away from the mess.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Amanda asked. She didn’t sound sarcastic. She sounded concerned.

  “Yeah, fine,” Harvey said. “Must have food poisoning. I knew something was wrong with that sausage I had for breakfast.”

  Okay, lame excuse, but he had to try to save face somehow. Looking around, he spotted a second body. An old broad with holes in her chest and a sizeable amount of her head blown away.

  Amanda pulled out her cell phone and called in the homicide. Then, standing at the edge of the blood puddle, she craned over, looking at the decapitated head.

  “Recognize him?” she asked.

  Harvey didn’t get how she was so unfazed about this. Maybe the most gruesome crime scene he had ever seen, and she was acting like it was another day at the office. Struggling not to throw up again, he took a closer look at the head.

  Oh, crap. Then he said, “Can’t be.”

  “Can’t be who?” Amanda asked.<
br />
  “Oh, man, it is him,” Harvey said. “Frank Collins. A GCPD Detective back in the day. Worked as a PI for the past I don’t know how many years.”

  “What would he have to do with a stolen painting?”

  “No idea,” he admitted. “I guess it’s possible somebody hired him to look for it.”

  “Thomas Wayne?” Amanda asked.

  “Possibly,” Harvey said.

  “And what about the other vic?” Amanda asked.

  Harvey had been so distracted by the dismembered body, that he hadn’t taken a good look at the body of the woman, lying further in the room. She was a mess, but at least she wasn’t in six pieces.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why does the killer chop up one vic, but not the other?”

  “Maybe he was angrier at one than he was at the other?” Amanda said.

  “Or maybe there were two killers,” Harvey said. “Or, I know—Frank killed the lady, I guess she must be Belladonna, and then another one killed Frank. Probably a guy, given the condition of the body.”

  Amanda shot him a look as if asking, How can you be so sexist? Harvey ignored it.

  “But why would Frank kill her?” Amanda asked. “You said he was ex GCPD, became a PI. Why would he go around killing people?”

  That had him stumped. Harvey didn’t know Frank all that well—at the GCPD Frank had been ahead of Harvey’s time, and they’d just crossed paths on a couple of cases after Frank became a PI. That Frank would murder somebody made no sense at all. He’d spent his life solving crimes, not committing them.

  “Maybe the killer was trying to set Frank up,” Harvey said.

  “Why would the killer think that would work?”

  “Most criminals are stupid,” Harvey said.

  “I think there are things going on here that we haven’t figured out yet,” Amanda said. “Like who was the guy in the zombie mask?”

  “Well, it wasn’t Frank Collins, I’ll tell you that much,” Harvey said.

  “I don’t think we can rule anything out.”

  “If you’re saying you think Collins was part of the crew that robbed Wayne Manor, you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Harvey said. “Those guys were… are, whatever… career criminals. Two of them knew each other from Blackgate. Why would Frank toss away his whole career to work with a bunch of losers?”