[b]| Identity |[/b]

Samuel "Slam" Bradley

[b]| Origin & Backstory |[/b]

Samuel "Slam" Bradley grew up in Gotham's East End. A tough neighborhood, Slam was a scrapper and boxed Golden Gloves as a teen. After a knee injury ended his boxing career, Slam went into the only profession that would take a lug like himself: a cop.

Starting out as a beat cop, Slam eventually made detective and worked his way through assignments until he became a sergeant with the GCPD's Homicide Bureau. Partnered with Detective James Gordon, Slam and Jim were among the few non-corrupt officers in the GCPD. Fighting against the corrupt department and the everyday bleakness of the job had Slam on the verge of burnout until the case that killed his career came along.

It started out simple enough, a dead hooker found in a back alley. The case began to spin out of control, implicating a state senator, a high-end call girl service, and half of the city's politicians. The brass tried to bump Slam off of the case, but he refused to leave. In the end, he was dismissed from the GCPD on trumped up charges, accused of fraud because of a mislabeled time sheet. Out of a job, Slam took his connections and investigation skills and branched out on his own as a private investigator. When he's not tipping back a bottle, he works as a PI for hire in and around the city.

[b]| Attributes |[/b]

No powers. Slam is an adept fighter with boxing and police firearm training. He is also a skilled detective with over twenty years experience in Homicide.

[b]| Character Notes [/b]

Instead of being the old square-jawed who is a crusader for truth and justice, I made Slam a more gray character. He's an alcoholic who got burnt out on the job. All his friends and family hate his guts. The thing that stops him from swallowing his gun are the cases and the few people he manages to help. Slam will mostly stay on the fringes of whatever shit is going down in Gotham just to keep from stepping on toes. Since the only real DC character associated with Slam is Catwoman I was going to invent just one or two NPCs as Slam's friends and contacts.

[b]| Character Goals |[/b]

I guess my main thing with Slam is I want to just write PI stories. I love the genre and I had fun with the character the last time I played him. I want to keep that going, and I want to continue to showcase the dark underbelly of Gotham that even Batman doesn't go to, or maybe he's not tough enough to go there...

[b]| Sample Post |[/b]


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[b]Parts Unknown[/b]


Slam saw darkness. His still head rang from the tune-up he'd been given, his legs cramped from the rope, the zip-ties gouged his wrists. The car bounced and rocked down a road. Slam recounted the journey and figured they were well out of town by now. Sweat rolled down his face, the black bag made him smell his own breath. It reeked of vomit, hooch, and Altoids. 

Feature: Slam left his apartment still hungover from the night before. Three men jump him, beat the shit out of him and black bag him. They tie him up and toss him into the trunk of a car. Slam struggles. Slam gets sapped. Slam becomes docile through threat of further sapping.

He tried to count turns and figure out where he was. He lost count and started counting up the number of people who wanted him dead. He lost count and started counting the minutes. At twenty-two the car stopped. Rough hands pulled him from the trunk and pushed him down a road. Slam felt dirt scraping his shoes. He heard nature. Call it: the countryside at least an hour out of Gotham. Hands guided him down the road, pushed him in the right direction. Smell that. Pig shit coming on stroooong. Hands on his head, the bag came off.

Dig that countryside. Dig that farmhouse and pig pen. There's a farmer in overalls, très Green Acres chic. Dig the man beside him. Black suit with no tie, goatee and looking as Slavic as the pierogi at Abramowicz's Deli in Bennett Beach. The Chechen they called him. Dig the rumors around town: The Chechen was former Russian Intelligence turned Russian Mafiya. No, he fought in Afghanistan in the 80's and gave Bin Laden a reach-around in the name of Mother Russia. No, he fought the Russians in Chechnya. No, Ruskies raped his mother and he slaughtered an entire battalion in the name of revenge. Putin had a six-figure bounty on his head. He had Gorbachev tattooed on his chest, fucked up birthmark and all.

"You owe me money."

He talked to Slam while looking in the pig pen. One of the Chechen's goons pushed Slam forward. His knees got weak, he nearly fell.

"You're right. I owe you a lot of money."

"You do not know when to say no when my bookies offer you another shot? You do not know when to walk away?"

"No... walking away and doing the sane thing. That ain't me."

The Chechen looked back at him. He sized him up. Slam sized him up. The Chechen was older, but Slam was hurt. Odds on beating the man to death if he had to: 50/50. Odds he would get that far: Too goddamn long to even figure out.

"I know about you. Boxer turned cop turned--" he said something in his gobbledygook language. "-- what is word? Fuck up. Yes, you are big time fuck up."

"That's me. Born fuck up."

The Chechen snapped his fingers. Slam was pushed up against the pig pen. Hogs swarmed, hogs squealed, hogs snapped. The Chechen laughed. He told jokes in Russian. His men whooped and laughed too hard. Slam got the gist. He was the punchline. How many hogs does it take to eat a deadbeat asshole? We're about to find out. Hands pulled him away from the pen. They forced him on his knees.

"This farm is where I get rid of problems. You are problem, but not for long. I wipe away your debt, but there is catch."

The Chechen pulled something from his coat. He tossed it at Slam's feet. Slam scoped a photo. Dig the big man with the two hookers on his arm. Faux fur and fake tits abound. 

"This son of a bitch steal from me. He run away with [i]my[/i] money. You find him and tell me where he is. I feed him to pigs."

"That's it?"

The Chechen smiled. Slam saw yellow teeth stained by a life of smoking Polish cigarettes.

"You not find him, my pigs still eat. Either they eat this son of a bitch, or you. Choice is yours."

"Well, how can I refuse?"

"You have two days, fuck-up. Tick-tock."


[b]Bennett Beach
Gotham[/b]


Slam cruised Bennett Beach in a loop. The Beach was all Chechen territory. Russian expats and gangsters mingled with the old Jews of the neighborhood. Yiddish and Cyrillic script cohabitated on walls and storefronts. Slam swilled gin from a flask and cruised slow. Past mixed with present. His conclusion: it was all the same thing.

THEN: He killed four men in the line of duty. All during a two-year stint in Robbery. Captain Branden gave him a necktie with 4's and the GCPD shield on it. Branden's idea of [i]esprit de corps[/i]. Branden had a tie with 10's on it. Charlie Fields had a bowtie with little 7's covering it. One man held up a grocery store with a shotgun. He took hostages. Branden and the others distracted him in the front. Slam slipped in the back. He walked up behind him and blew the man's brains out with his service piece. Fifteen years later, Slam could still smell brains. He couldn't remember the man's name or what he looked like, just the smell of his last thoughts before dying.

NOW: He's killing again, this time in an indirect way. The Chechen gave him two days to find a man marked for death. Slam owes the Chechen ten grand. The ten grand: a five hundred dollar football bet spun out of control when he thought he could bet his way out of debt. He finds the man and his debt is absolved in the name of the father, son, and holy ghost of gambling. Slam doesn't find him and he's pig food. The Chechen isn't like Sid the Yid or the mob bookies. They know dead men don't pay back debts. The Chechen doesn't care. He kills because he likes it. 

THE MAN: Boris Andropov. The Chechen's goons filled Slam in on details. Boris runs The Comrade Club, a stripper joint in Bennett Beach. Implications: Big Boris pushes dope for the Russians and pimps the girls out on the side. Slam inferred: Busy Boris launders money for the Chechen through the club. 

Boss Boris leaves the club one night and doesn't come back. Bandit Boris high-tailed it with the club's books and nearly sixty grand worth of cash. Slam cut odds on the cash being all drug money and gave up. Even he knew a sucker's bet when he saw one. Call the books insurance that the Chechen wouldn't neuter Big Boris and let him bleed to death. As long as Bright Boris stayed alive the books wouldn't fall into police hands. Slam had to get the books as well as what was left of the cash.

He polished off the last of his gin and got buzzed. His buzzed brain made clicks. A plan formulated. The booze simmered the plan and fermented it. The Chechen's men gave him Boris' address. An ex-wife and four kids by three different women, but nobody lived with Bachelor Boris. Slam cruised to the outskirts of Bennett Beach with 459 on his mind. Boris' apartment building reeked of deli meat and cat litter. Slam made the third floor, his tools tucked in his jacket. Boris' door had scratch marks on it already. Someone had scooped Slam, he'd be getting sloppy seconds. He went in anyway. The pick slid in the lock, he jiggled it, and the lock popped. He went inside. 

Slam walked the apartment in grids. He took his time tossing the place. He was trained to be thorough and he was. Slam found coke, speed, weed, condoms with holes deliberately poked in them, dildos, smut of every imaginable kind. He tossed the place gently. He tossed it so it left no trace of his tossing. It was all for naught. The place looked wiped down. Anything worth a damn had been taken before he got here. They tossed and covered their tracks like Slam. A pro had been in and out of here before him. He went into the kitchen and pulled a half drunk bottle of vodka from the fridge. It went down rough, not as smooth as gin. The booze fired him back up. He worked out his next steps. Canvass The Comrade Club, find out who Boris was fucking and try to get one step on whoever the hell he was racing.

Slam tossed the empty vodka bottle in the trash. He headed to the front door. The knob wiggled. Someone put a key in the lock. He stepped back and pulled his .38. He took off the safety and held it steady. The door swung open.
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