"Jude Sharp. Twenty-four years old. Restaurant waiter."
The interrogation room's fluorescent lights were calibrated for discomfort—too bright, angle wrong, no shadows for a face to hide in. Jude squinted across the table and tried to project the specific energy of someone who had absolutely nothing to feel nervous about.
"I was just driving by, officer. Is the full statement really necessary?"
The detective studying him from across the table had the patience of a man who had interviewed several thousand criminals and knew exactly which expressions were performances. Blond hair going grey at the sides, a mustache, eyes that had gone tired sometime around the previous decade and hadn't recovered.
"You don't look like a good person."
Several seconds of silence.
That was it. That was the whole answer.
Jude reached into his pocket. "Hold on. Where are my—here." He found the gold-rimmed glasses and put them on.
The effect was immediate and slightly absurd, like putting a tie on a Rottweiler. A thin layer of respectability, present at least in the technical sense.
The detective's expression remained exactly where it was.
"You can go after you've given your statement. Remember to collect your belongings on the way out."
How thoughtful.
"First time here, I'm guessing," the detective continued, "which is why you're uncomfortable. Don't worry about it. In this city, whatever family you work for, we'll see each other again eventually. Plenty of opportunities."
There it was—the pleasantry with teeth. Jude filed it away and kept his face neutral.
"I'm not with any family. I'm a waiter."
"You know what that restaurant is, though."
"I know." He aimed for casual and got mostly there. "I try to stay out of the operational side. I serve food, I collect tips. Strictly front-of-house."
The detective's eyes moved to his hands, his wrists, his collar. Looking for the calluses that came from years of gun work. Looking for ink, the kind the Falcone organization used to mark their people.
Finding neither.
"You're young," the detective said. "I'd suggest not making the Red Dragon a long-term career move."
"They pay well."
The words came out before Jude could catch them—honest in the defensive way of someone surprised into candor. He adjusted. Looked at the man across from him properly for the first time.
Blond hair. Mustache. That specific combination of exhaustion and principle that Gotham produced in its few good cops and then slowly ground down.
"I didn't catch your name," Jude said.
"You don't know me?" A brief, dry uptick at the corner of the mouth. "I'll take that as a good sign. Means your record's clean enough that we haven't been introduced yet."
He extended a hand across the table.
"Gordon. Jim Gordon."
Jude drove home in a state somewhere between daze and damage assessment.
James Gordon.
Absolutely wonderful. Exactly what he needed.
Combined with Harvey Dent from two weeks ago, he now had two-thirds of Gotham's Iron Triangle of justice in some form of direct awareness of his existence. Harvey Dent: first customer at the Red Dragon, left a generous tip and a room full of furious coworkers. Jim Gordon: interrogation room, two in the morning, probably had him tagged in the system now under suspicious unlucky waiter.
If Batman took an interest, the set would be complete.
He gripped the wheel and told himself the bat was busy with actual criminals and would have no reason to orbit the restaurant waiter who was bad at shooting. He mostly believed it.
The Death Car pulled up to Drake's building around 2 AM. Empty street—no one attempting anything with the car, which had become the reliable dividend of its cursed reputation. He climbed the stairs with legs that had gone leaden from three hours of interrogation room fluorescent light.
On the couch with his phone, he searched Gotham Bank.
The results came back fast. He found the first relevant article and read it.
"Since June, negotiations between Falcone Imports and Gotham Bank have been underway. After several months of discussion, bank president Richard Daniel expressed willingness to facilitate the partnership, citing the potential for millions in available capital..."
Jude frowned. "Who's bold enough to interfere with a Falcone deal? And why is the head of Gotham's biggest crime family running an import company?"
Obviously money laundering. He scrolled.
Next article, timestamped that morning:
"Richard Daniel Resigns as Gotham Bank President. Daniel declined to comment on his reasons, stating only that he was no longer able to continue in his role..."
Understanding came together in pieces, and then all at once.
Daniel had been the mechanism—the insider who would smooth the Falcone partnership through. He'd agreed. Then he'd backed out at the last moment, resigned before the deal could close, left the whole operation without its necessary component. The business fell through.
Jude remembered the snippet of conversation he'd caught on that Burnley street, the man in the good coat with the woman on his arm:
We should get out of Gotham for a while. Paris. A little apartment, autumn leaves...
"No wonder he wanted Paris," Jude said to the ceiling. "Resign in the morning, get shot by evening. The Roman doesn't take a day to think about it."
He kept scrolling. A follow-up article had been posted within hours of Daniel's death:
"Bruce Wayne Named New Gotham Bank President. Wayne, heir to Wayne Enterprises, has already indicated he has 'no interest whatsoever' in partnerships with Falcone Imports, and suggested the import company seek cooperation elsewhere."
Jude's eyebrows climbed.
Bruce Wayne. Of course.
A man who genuinely couldn't be bought or threatened into line—that was the problem, from Falcone's perspective. He scrolled through the corporate structure. Third result: Gotham Bank was a Wayne Enterprises subsidiary. Had been for years.
The whole picture snapped into focus.
Bruce had opposed the Falcone partnership. But the board had been cooperating with it anyway, probably with money changing hands under the table somewhere, because money was money and boards were boards. Daniel had been their mechanism. Daniel had gotten cold feet—maybe conscience, maybe fear of Bruce finding out, maybe both—and resigned. The deal collapsed. Bruce took direct control.
"Classic," Jude muttered. "Board thinks dirty money spends the same as clean money. Bruce thinks it doesn't. Board tries to go around him. Their man panics. And the Roman's reaction to having a deal fall through is to immediately remind everyone what happens to people who let his deals fall through."
He put the phone face-down on the table.
Falcone's laundering operation needed a legitimate institution. It had nearly had one. Now it had Bruce Wayne standing in the gap, personally. That wasn't a situation the Roman would accept as final—he'd probe, push, find another angle. Probably escalate.
Gotham was about to get less stable than its current baseline.
Which, given the baseline, was a genuinely unpleasant thought.
Jude closed his eyes.
Tomorrow: work, serve food, collect tips, convert tips to asset points, and file this entire evening under witnessed something and can't unknow it. Gordon's voice drifted back unprompted:
I'd suggest not making the Red Dragon a long-term career move.
Yeah. Probably sound advice. The kind of advice you gave someone when you already knew they weren't going to take it.
Too bad the Red Dragon was the only legal job in Gotham that paid enough to keep him alive.