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Mathilda disembarked the train from Wildwood, New Jersey, taking the steps in bounding, childlike hops. Her etiquette teacher would’ve said she wasn’t twelve anymore. Mathilda didn’t care. It felt good to be back in a city.
She had not expected Gotham to smell like home. It was a heady mix of car exhaust, old bricks, and ocean air, with an undertone of something rotting. It wasn’t the chain smokers or the trash-turned-to-slurry in the gutters. It was the smell of slums cozying up to high-end digs, hope and despair at odds on every city block. It was a place she and Léon could have made their own.
Mathilda took another deep breath and spied the guy with the sign.
She hadn’t expected Carmine Falcone to send a car either, but she’d seen enough movies to know how this went. She telescoped the handle on her over-night bag and threaded the crowd to the waiting chauffeur. That sounded so fancy.
He looked fancy too, dressed all black-on-black down to a pair of leather gloves and polished work boots that didn’t quite fit the look. A bit strange though, she realized, coming close enough to see he wasn’t just bald. He was completely hairless with not even an eyelash to frame his brown eyes. Huh. He looked down at her.
“Does anyone ever just pretend to be the person on the sign?” she asked.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Is that what you’re planning to do?”
Mathilda shook her head, changed her mind, and nodded.
“Okay,” she said.
It was weird pretending to be someone pretending to be her, but she liked the flutter it put in her stomach.
The man’s brow arched and with that simple movement his whole face came alive.
That put a flutter in her stomach too. She learned the lines of his face in the silence that stretched between them. He probably had an amazing smile.
“This way, then, Miss Mathilda,” he pronounced.
“Okay.”
He confiscated her luggage, collapsed the handle, and steered her towards the exit with the grace of an athlete or a dancer. Mathilda frowned. Not many people moved with that much body awareness, even fewer with that much precision.
Their eyes met as he ushered her into the waiting car. He cocked his head, as if waiting for a question. She declined the unspoken invitation by stepping past him and into the back seat. The man’s smile took over his face with the glory of a sunrise.
She was right. He did have an amazing smile.
Mathilda had learned not to trust men who smiled.
She savored every city block they passed to the electronic beat of 80s music. “Driver’s choice,” she’d been told, though she’d voiced no complaint. When they arrived at the residence, the man left her waiting in a wood-paneled study of sorts with no further word or explanation.
__________
Victor reveled in the ever-changing herd while he waited for his train to come in. His was a still point in that moving tide, and his eyes roamed endlessly. He analyzed the patterns and people that moved through the busy station.
The platform rumbled in announcement, and Victor was disappointed with the train that lurched into stillness across from him. The old iron beasts were staunch dignity. These modern tin cans, not so much.
He dutifully raised his sign.
A red-faced man was first off the train. He was winded just crossing the platform to the concourse. Victor would’ve play with him for days, letting him think the chase was what could save him before he destroyed that last illusion.
That pretty blond woman. He’d give her knife just below the sternum, alone in an alley with help sparkling close, out of sight but still within hearing. Then he glimpsed the ID slung on a lanyard half hidden by her blazer. Not today, but maybe they would still meet. Soon.
Today was business, not pleasure. They could meet up later. Get to know each other intimately over a well-honed blade.
He recognized the target on sight. She hopped down the train, stopping to gawp on each step like she’d discovered something profound. The line trapped behind her was growling by the second step. She hit the station platform and the bottleneck erupted around her.
She sidestepped the boarding passengers, eager to avoid them.
Interesting.
Once the crowd thinned to a handful of stragglers, the girl saw his sign. Victor contemplated three truths on her approach. One. No one ever pranced to meet him. Two. She was far too uncomfortable in blazer and skirt to be dressed in that price tag. Three. Signs have one job, and that did not include making statues of hitmen.
She stopped, looked up at him. Too close. Victor did not take the step her invasion of his personal space demanded. He resisted the challenge, just looked down at her.
A full head shorter than him, she peered up into his face, studying him. Like they all did. She didn’t do the eye slide. No fear of his reputation. No embarrassment in staring. At almost five foot nothing, bright, and ballsy, she was just his type. He squelched the itch to add Mathilda Lando to his kill count.
“Does anyone ever just pretend to be the person on the sign?” she asked. Her throat was slender enough to strangle with one hand.
“Is that what you’re planning to do?” Victor wondered.
Every thought was an exhibition. She was young to have impeccable performance, and Gotham was a poor stage to play the ingénue.
“Okay,” she said.
She was playing him. She was playing Victor Zsasz. Rich! Culled early from the herd, and look what you’ve become.
“This way, then, Miss Mathilda.”
“Okay,” she said, guileless, accepting.
He bit back a laugh and covered the reflex with a grab for her suitcase and a hand just above her elbow, light on the back of her arm. That simple touch, leather on flesh, and recognition from some they passed saw them unhindered through the train station and out into the early fall air.
He sensed the change. Little starts, shifts in tension. Heightened awareness, breathing faster, a flush in her cheeks, heels a driving rhythm on marble. By the time Victor opened the car, her playfulness had fled. Their eyes met. Victor expected some disquiet at least, but her brown eyes held no fear.
He waited for the reaction, but she simply ignored him, finding more to interest her in the view from the back seat. She was aware. It just wasn’t a priority for her.
Victor enjoyed a small revenge in testing her patience on the drive to Falcone’s. After her first excited question about Gotham, he thumbed the stereo volume. She wouldn’t have to shout to be heard, but it would require uncomfortable effort above easy conversation. He wasn’t disappointed. She rode cloaked in irritation.
He tapped the all-clear against his thigh, clearing the unseen security, and welcomed Mathilda Lando to the home of Carmine Falcone. He ensconced her in a room with a polite, “Carmine Falcone will see you soon,” and went to report to his boss.
Don Carmine Falcone was ruminating at his desk. He was rarely alone, but today he’d sent his bodyguards away and Arthur Penn lingered in the hall. Minutes passed before Falcone acknowledged Victor.
“Fish Mooney is working up the nerve to move against me,” he said at last.
Victor waited. Speculated. Some people got bored when they weren’t sufficiently challenged. Fish Mooney was like that, but it wouldn’t serve to tell Carmine Falcone he was wasting talent.
“A little bird tells me she’s in bed with the Russians. With the Waynes gone, she won’t have the time to think about it, but she might find her chance in the chaos.”
“Sir?” That was not what Victor expected.
“There is a war coming, Victor.”
“Yes, Sir.” Victor liked the sound of that. War meant work, the best kind of work. He’d be unleashed to dance among the corpses.
“Our people will die.”
Victor vanquished the smile.
“That would be unfortunate, Sir.” Victor tried for contrite.
Falcone didn’t like losing men. Loyalty was how he saw it. Victor worked for Falcone for months before he realized there was genuine loyalty there.
Carmine Falcone leaned back in his leather chair with a low chuckle.
Victor stilled. He owned whatever life threw at him, owned it and made it his, but he knew Falcone as well as the other man knew him. That laugh. He was up to something.
“Yes, Victor, that would be unfortunate,” Falcone said, then added seriously, “You’ll keep your women in line.”
Falcone’s disapproval of hit-women nettled Victor. A goad or a play?
“They do good work. Sir,” Victor said sharply.
“Not as good as yours.”
That Victor could not argue. None of Falcone’s men were as good as him either. It wasn’t about skill. It was that Mafioso sensibility: women weren’t in the family business.
Fish Mooney broke that rule, and now she wanted to displace his boss. The hesitation and prejudice clicked in Victor’s head.
“You don’t want me to visit Fish Mooney, Sir.” It was a statement, not a question.
Eyes met over a gulf of difference but found respect, acceptance.
“No, Victor,” Falcone said.
If not Fish Mooney, then… The third puzzle piece clicked.
“You didn’t want me to evaluate Lando’s skills for you,” he said, realization settling into place. Falcone wanted Victor to take her on himself.
Falcone had not so much as twitched an eyelid since commenting on his assassins. Victor scowled and, for the first time, considered putting a bullet in Don Carmine Falcone’s head. He counted bullets. He counted men on duty. Then he counted to ten.
“No.” There was no hesitation, no room for argument.
Both men left unspoken that Victor was as particular about working solely with women as the families were about their men. It didn’t matter, and it didn’t have to make sense.
“Tony said she’s been hounding him since she was a kid—”
“She’s still a kid, Sir,” Victor growled.
That wasn’t precisely true, but compared to the people Victor and Falcone worked with she was little better than a child.
“—and she was trained by his best man,” Falcone continued, as if Victor hadn’t spoken. “The cleaner’s dying wish was Tony take care of her. Now that Tony is dead, responsibility for her accounts and debts falls to me.”
That didn’t tally. People weren’t offered training over debts, which could only mean… Victor understood. This was an important debt for his boss.
If he allowed Falcone to cross this line, there would be other favors. Lines blurred both ways. Taking her on meant he couldn’t kill her. If she got killed… he circled that thought for now.
“I’ll think about it. Sir.” The respect came after a heartbeat of hesitation.