[b]The Juicy Fruit Gentlemen's Club 7:08 AM[/b] Montoya eyeballed the strip club from across the street. She sat in her unmarked and smoked. Strippers came out in street clothes. It was an easy make. Smeared makeup, that glitter paste still clinging to their faces. Hard as hell to get that stuff off. Montoya knew from experience. Her last hookup had been with a stripper. Sinful Cindy. Red hair and long legs. Montoya walked around for days with that glitter shit on her neck and around her mouth. She wore it like a badge of honor. She blew smoke out the cracked window and waited for Allen to show up. It was frowned upon to smoke in PD cars, but it was too cold outside and she needed the smoke to get the taste and smell of the morgue out of her mouth. The place smelled like death and antiseptic. She watched the ME do autopsies on their three DBs. Six years in the detective bureau, three in homicide before coming to the MCU, and the morgue still made her queasy. It was the way they popped the skulls open to look at the brains. They used a bone saw and a crowbar to snap the top of the heads off. If it caught her on the right day, that loud pop would make her retch. The ME's report revealed nothing hinky. He agreed with her and Allen's summations on the chain of events. Walter Perkins and his two friends are captured and bound, Walter and his muscle Kendrick Taylor are beaten and tortured until they and Perkins paramour Tasha Tatum are all shotgunned in the back of the head. Straight dullsville there. No new info, no new insight. The MCU moved to KAs and potential enemies. The strip club served as base for one of those potential enemies. She was leaving the morgue when Bullock texted her and Allen the details. Vinnie Lagotti ran the Juicy Fruit for the Gotham mob, or what was left of it after Batman hammered them. Lagotti and his men pushed dope and whores from inside the strip club. Once upon a time it was the prime spot east side to get whatever you needed. With the mob waning in Gotham, it was just one of many competitors in a steadily crowded marketplace. Allen's unmarked rolled up and parked behind her. He got out smoking his own cigarette. She got out and started walking to the club with him. "How'd it go at the morgue?" "They didn't tell me anything we didn't already know." Allen tossed out his cigarette and said, "How do you want to play it with Lagotti?" "Straight up as possible. You know how these mob guys are. If they know something they'll be as cagey as hell, popping off at the mouth." "They do call them wiseguys for a reason." They went in through the door. Six men sitting around a bar and drinking. Fat Italians, old Italians, young Italians, Italians all. They stopped shooting the shit and gave Montoya and Allen hard stares. They flashed their badges, got more hard stares. An old wop behind the bar smirked and said, "You want a job, honey, you're gonna have to come back tonight. Tell your little pal here we don't hire guys. This ain't that type of club." Titters from the rest of the guys. Montoya locked in on the old man as Lagotti. She said, "You don't want me stripping here. I'll end up bagging all your girls. Won't be too much money in a bunch of lesbian stripper-hookers." "Ah." The old man grabbed his crotch and waved it in Montoya's direction. "This has been known to turn quite a few girls." Montoya winked. "I know. And let me speak for the lesbian community as a whole when I thank you for all those women you turned gay." The mob men fought like hell to bust out laughing. Ligotti scowled. Ligotti's face went coronary red. He shot daggers at Montoya. Allen stepped forward to play good cop. "Where were you guys last night, six to midnight?" One of the men said, "Fucking your mother." Montoya started to move in. Allen held a hand out and stopped her. Allen smiled and said, "Charming. Montoya, got a joke for you. How does an Italian get into an honest business?" "He breaks in through the skyline." The two detectives yukked. Allen said, "Tell you what, though. If I don't get a valid alibi in a minute, I'll call downtown and all of you are going to take a ride with us to Gotham Central. Three people were murdered last night. So, where were you?" Ligotti said, "We were here all night. All of us. Plenty of people who work at the club can confirm that. We didn't kill no shvartz drug dealers." "So you heard," said Montoya. "Walter Perkins was one of your competitors here on the east side. Word was he was kicking your ass in drug sales. That would piss some people off." Ligotti shook his head. "Not us. We love plying our trade on the free market. God bless America. And that's all I gotta say about that." Allen said, "What about--" "No. Nix. Nein. Nyet. We got alibis and we ain't done nothing, so get the fuck outta here and don't come back til you got a warrant." [b] Eastern Gotham 7:23 AM[/b] "5-0!" Teenaged and prepubescent drug dealers scattered. The unmarked cop car jumped the curb. Bullock, Driver, and Fields came out of the unmarked booking towards the fleeing kids. Fields got his mitts on a six-year-old, Bullock pushed a thirteen-year-old into a brick wall and pinned him. Driver ran towards the oldest looking boy, all of sixteen, hauling ass down a side alley. The boy jumped a wooden fence. Driver crashed through the wood and tackled him. The kid squirmed and flailed. He hit Driver in the face. Driver slung him to the ground and kept him there. "Let go of me, you asshole!" He pulled the kid up by his pants and hauled him back to the corner. Driver pushed him into the car hood and gave him the third degree. "You run this corner?" Driver asked. "This drug crew running out here, it's your crew." "Fuck you!" "You work this corner for Lil Walter, right? Newsflash, kid, Lil Walter is downtown at the city morgue, half his goddamn face missing. He got murdered last night. Tell me what you know." "Fuck you, I ain't no snitch!" Driver smashed his fist into the car hood. It dented it. The kid squeaked out something. Driver smelled piss. A trickle ran down the kid's pant leg. "Tell me what you know, kid!" "I ain't... I ain't ending up like Kenny, man!" Bullock from behind Driver said, "Who is Kenny?" "Like you don't fucking know! Police snatched him up last night and we still ain't seen him." Bullock again, "What cops?" "That big tall cop with the blonde hair. The scary looking one." Driver and Bullock's eyes met. They said it at the same time. "Flass." "Shit," said Bullock. "Look, kid, we ain't like Flass and his boys. Talk to us and we'll let you go." The kid talked fast, almost too fast to catch. "Couple of guys been coming around here for the past few weeks now, trying to shake us down and claiming to be cops. They'd take our shit and leave, never arresting us and never showed a badge. We told Lil Walter and he said he'd put that blonde guy and his people on to, get payback for us. That was last week and we ain't seen them since." [b]The Juicy Fruit Gentlemen's Club 8:11 AM[/b] The strip club's window shattered. Vinny Ligotti crashed through it and on to the street. Lagotti spit glass and teeth and blood. Commotions from inside the bar. Fights and yelling and sounds of chaos. Someone inside screamed in pain. Vinnie groaned. He heard footsteps on broken glass. Rolled over and saw Arnold Flass upside down, looking down at him with a sap in his hands. "What did I say about that smart mouth of yours, Vinnie?" Flass yanked the old man on to his feet. Hit him in the belly with the sap and dropped him to his knees. "A key informant has supplied my squad with intelligence. Per the informant, a pair of men have been rolling through the eastside claiming to be cops and shaking down drug dealers. We think this is tangentially connected to a triple homicide from last night. These men are operating in my territory without my knowing of it. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." Flass sapped Lagotti in the stomach one more time. He retched blood. "I'm hoping you can supply me with that knowledge, Vinnie."