Gotham Noir! Chapter 9.

[icarus_chained]

Don't ask me why it picked now to come. Sorry, one and all.

Gotham Noir:  The Man With The Lonely Eyes
Chapter 9:  Diamonds Are Forever
Rating:  PG-13
Chapter summary:  Clark, Lois, John, a conference, a casefile, and at last the identity of the killer. The answer, there all along.
Wordcount:  4059

Chapter 9: Diamonds Are Forever

Weiss. All the time, it was Weiss. I should have known it. If I hadn't been so caught up in Selina, in Bruce, maybe I might have. But it was Weiss all along.

Death and diamonds, those were the links in the chain. And his was the first death, the biggest stone. The biggest grudge. The kind of hate it takes, to kill a man and pass up a stone like the Sehri-At, to shove it in the corpse's mouth ... and I should have noticed that one, too. Diamond tongue. And Selina's, resting over her heart. You can buy anything in Gotham, for the right price. A diamond, for a word, for a heart. That's what the killer thought, too.

Andre Weiss was a dirty business man. Everyone knew it, no-one could prove it. He slipped and slid his way in and out of trouble, leaving grubby fingerprints over everything he touched, but never in places they could get him caught. He'd had a hand in every back pocket in Gotham. The old Commissioner. The Mayor. Even, it was rumoured, that DA who'd gone insane a couple of years back and started killing people, though that was one rumour I didn't credit so much. Point was, Weiss was dirtier than last week's laundry.

But he'd never been caught. Never in any big way. Much as Gordon and the few right cops in the city had tried, over the years. Only once had he ever come close to going down. Only once. That was the casefile Lois brought us. That was the key, to the whole case, to Selina, to Bruce. To Weiss.

It was a brothel, down the Old Town, of all things. Gordon had said it, though, hadn't he? How Selina'd been a bit of a skirt. And Bruce, how she'd once worked for Weiss, one of his 'enterprises'. He should know. He'd bought her up out of it. Out of a brothel. How had I missed that? But it wouldn't fit in my head. Selina ... she'd been so much more than a whore. So much more. So I'd let it go, let it slide away in my head. And almost destroyed Bruce because of it.

There are times I wonder how I've managed to get so far in life.

"He was in that place up to his eyebrows," Lois stated, holding the sheets in her hands, lips pursed with disgust. It's a good look on her, you know. She does it real well. "He bought and paid for it. Ran it. Used it. The whole works. There's enough paper here to sink him fifty times over. They had him. They had everything they needed. Why the hell did they let him slide?" She looked up, eyes hot and angry, staring at John like it was his fault. Gotham. Stay too long, she has you looking at everyone that way.

"I don't know," he answered, calm as ever, shaking his head lightly. "Before my time, Ms Lane. I wasn't always a fixture of this city." He smiled, gently, while she winced in shame, and patted her hand to let her know he hadn't taken offense. Then, his face hardened. "But. I can guess. I was only sitting on the edges, back then, but I can guess."

"The old Commissioner," I said, quietly, remembering Bullock's bitter diatribe, remembering what being a cop had used to mean in Gotham. "Weiss bought him, had him keep him out, didn't he?"

John nodded, lips tight. "Probably."

"More than that," Lois said, looking back at the file. "He bought the Commissioner. But he sold them." She pointed to the mugshots, the women lined up against a wall in some copshop, the seedy pimps and managers. "Look at this. This is the entire business. The whole deal. All in one shot. You don't get that from a bust. You never get it all. Someone always slips through the cracks. But this ... they even got the sources of the girls, the pimps that sold them on to the house. They got the moneymen, the suppliers, even the bouncers for crying out loud! The whole deal. He sold them." She looked up at us, something dark in her eyes, vengeful. Lois hates injustice. She really does. "He bought his way out with them. Whatever else he sold with it, he betrayed them. All of them. He sold them out."

There was silence for a minute. I don't know quite why. Respect, maybe. For the gravity of it, of what he'd done. This was Gotham. Corruption waited around every corner, and the only defense, the only defense anyone had was the solidarity of their fellow crooks. To betray that ... Weiss had proved himself lowest of the low, in Gotham's eyes. And in mine. I looked at the mugshots again, looked in the bewildered, tired, angry eyes of Weiss' victims, the whores and the crooks, the lowest of the low, but still people. Still worth something, even in this crooked city. They had deserved better than to be sold out for one rich bastard's safety. Suddenly, I could see why Bruce was so hated down here, him and people like him, the old rich. Lives sold on a whim, and no way to hold them accountable. I could see why his name evoked such fear, such hate, such contempt, from people like Bullock, people ... like Selina.

Bruce was different. I knew that now. He wasn't what Weiss had been. He was so far from Weiss they couldn't have seen each other with a telescope. But he was in this. He was tied into this. Weiss had called down something on his head, called down vengeance, from one of these tired, wounded people he'd sold, or someone else, but he'd called something down on Bruce, too. On Selina.

Selina.

I started riffling through the file again, hunting for a mention, for a name. What had Lois said? They'd got them all, all in one go. Every last whore, every manager. Even the bouncers. Except one. Where was Selina?

"He bought her out," John said behind me, soft and almost awed. It took me a second to realise what he meant. And then I got it.

Bruce. Bruce bought her out. Selina. He'd known, watched the whole bust go down, and he'd bought Selina out of the mess, even as Weiss sold her into it. He'd known her. He'd loved her. Everyone knew it.

Everyone knew it. They knew it. Even Gordon. He'd all but told me, hadn't he? While they carried Selina away. He'd told me. How Wayne had fallen for her, bought her way up out of the slums. Bought her way out of more than that. Bought her out of a prison, out a web of treachery reaching right into the heart of Gotham. Old rich, Bruce Wayne. No-one would argue with him, any more than they would with Weiss. More. Andre was slime. Bruce ... was power. No way the old Commissioner would have said no. What was one woman, in the middle of this triumph? So Bruce had used the power he had over the police, used Gotham's corruption to his own ends, and bought Selina her freedom.

No wonder Bullock was afraid of him. No wonder he was afraid to see Gordon go up against him. It wasn't just the inherent fear every cop seemed to have of the rich and powerful in this city. They already knew Bruce would use the power he had. He'd done it before. He'd done it before.

I sat down, leaned my head back against the wall as John met my gaze, tired and sad and knowing. Bruce. Everything he'd done, everything he still did to help bring justice back to this town, and in that one moment of weakness he'd sold it all away, all credibility Bruce Wayne had, for her. For Selina. He'd given her so much more than just a damn diamond. He'd given her freedom, and his own reputation. He'd given her everything he'd worked for. His goals. His hopes. He'd sold it all away in one moment, to save her.

He really had loved her. All the hurt they'd done to each other, all the pain of his leaving, of her spitting in his face ... despite all that, he had loved her. The thought hurt. It hurt so damn much. He'd given her everything, except the one thing she'd wanted. What had she said to me? 'He'll buy you any dream you wish, but he won't keep you, and he won't give you his heart in return.' That's what I had walked into. Love, lies, betrayal and loss, anger, pain, bitterness. Sacrifice. And at it's heart, a woman who'd deserved everything she'd never been given, and a man with the loneliest eyes I'd ever seen.

"He didn't kill her," I whispered, at last, so soft even I could barely hear it, feeling Lois' hand on my shoulder, John's quite gaze meeting mine. "He really didn't kill her." The last doubt in my mind fell away, lost forever. He hadn't killed her. No matter where he had been that night, no matter what he'd done to me to get me out of the way, I knew it then, once and for all. Bruce Wayne had not killed Selina.

Now all we had to do was find who had. And then, Lois spoke up.

"He didn't kill her," she said, gently for my sake, but firm. "But Clark ... he's the reason she was killed. She was killed because of him." I stared at her.

"What?" I asked, stammered, almost angry at her for saying it, in that moment when I was just getting my faith in him back. But then I thought about it. And I saw what she'd seen. My Lois. Sharp as tacks.

"He bought her out, Clark," she said, intently, fiercely. "All these people, they had a reason to kill Weiss, any one of them. A reason to kill him, and stick his diamond in his betraying mouth. The price for their lives, that he sold with a word? Have it, then! Have it, you bastard, and choke on it!" She drew up, an angel of vengeance, and we heard the killer's voice behind her. It made sense. It made such sense. Then she slumped down again, and shook her head sadly. "But he wasn't the only one to betray them in that bust. She did, too. She took her rich lover's hand, and left them to rot. Left them all behind, for a rich playboy and a diamond necklace. Sold her heart and her loyalty, all in one."

I nodded numbly. I could see it. I could see Selina, lying there, the wound so dark and leering in her chest, over her heart, and the gleam of white fire inside the red. The diamond. Bruce's diamond. Laid into the wound, like the Sehri-At in Weiss. A diamond for a heart. For this, you would betray me? Have it, then. Have it in death. It made sense. It made such sense. Lois looked at me, such sad and terrible understanding in her eyes. For me, what this did to me, to know what had been done to Selina and why. But more. For them, whoever they were. For the killer, who'd been betrayed and abandoned. Even with what they'd done, even with everything they'd done ... there wasn't a one of us in that room who couldn't understand, just a little, why.

"It's justice," John said, finally, infinite sorrow in his voice. "The killer. She thinks it's justice, what she does. Retribution, but justice too." All the justice a victim can have, maybe, in this black-hearted city, but that part went unsaid. We knew. Only three days in Gotham, and we knew. For all the efforts, people like Bruce, Gordon, John ... Gotham was still that city, in so many ways. I nodded, solemn, then frowned, catching something else in that statement.

"She?" I asked, suddenly suspicious. "Why did you say 'she', John?" Surely he didn't ... how did he know ...? But he shook his head, with a sudden faint smile, and nodded ruefully at Lois. I blinked, turning to her, and she sighed heavily.

"It's a woman, Clark," she said with weary patience, the kind she got when she was trying to explain to me how I'd managed to get my heart broken this time. "It has to be a woman."

"What? Why?" On purely physical evidence, I would have thought exactly the opposite. Not for Selina, but for Weiss. It took more than a little muscle to remove a man's head from his shoulders, to have strangled him first. But Lois was shaking her head at me, wry and almost ... protective? I frowned at her.

"Because of Selina," she explained, gently. "Because of the way she was killed, Clark. A man doesn't do that. Not to a woman who betrayed him. He does ... other things." For a second, her face darkened, the tigress rising inside her once more, and I shuddered, nodding. I'd seen the aftermath of enough crimes of passion to know what she meant. "But the diamond ... that's different, Clark. That makes it different. It's a woman. A woman passed over, a woman betrayed. A woman ... who hasn't finished yet."

I closed my eyes, feeling the chill seep over me. She was right. She was right. Because there was one more player in this game, wasn't there? One more betrayer, one more rich and evil man to punish in this quest for vengeance. The man who'd bought Selina while Weiss sold the killer. The man who'd let Selina betray them, tempted her away. The man who had saved Selina, and passed over the woman who'd killed her.

Bruce Wayne. The man who, even now, was alone and hunting in this black jungle of a city. The man who knew his enemy. The man who was rushing headlong to meet her. The man I might, just, love.

Damn him! Damn him anyway! Why couldn't he have just told me? Why couldn't he have let me help, let me in? I promised. I promised I wouldn't hurt him, promised I'd take the pain away, stand by him. I'd promised him! And he'd let me. He'd let me promise, acted like he believed me, and then ... then in the morning he'd left, he'd betrayed me, he'd done his level best to make me leave in anger, make me hate him so I'd be safe, make me leave him like Selina had left him when he couldn't find it in him to lower that one last barrier behind his lonely eyes, and let her know his heart. He'd done his best to drive me away.

'And look,' whispered a little voice in the back of my mind, 'look how very close he came to succeeding. Because you promised him, and you love him, but trust him? Did you ever trust him? Did she? How can he ever trust you, trust any of you, when you won't do the same for him?' And it was true. It was the truth, and suddenly I was grateful, desperately grateful for John, for his help, his words and his faith, for the example of his trust. I looked at him, reached out towards him, trying to let him see, to let him understand ... and he met my eyes, caught my reaching hand, and though for the life of me I couldn't tell you how, all at once I knew that he knew. That he saw, understood. John Jones. Whatever he was, alien, monster or man, he knew me. And he trusted me. I don't know if I've ever felt anything more weighty, or precious, than the trust I saw in him then.

Except one thing, maybe. One thing as heavy in my heart, as precious to me. Bruce's love. The love I'd seen, just for a moment, in a filthy motel room, in the lonely eyes of a man planning to betray me. In a man planning to hunt a killer, a man ready to fight and die for a woman he'd failed, and a innocent farmboy who didn't understand.

I had to find him. I knew it in that instant, the way you know left from right, and right from wrong. I had to find him, and show him. Show him I meant that damn promise, and another one. One I made, right then and there, in the silence of my mind. The promise to protect him, whether he damn well liked it or not. The promise to show him how much more than a farmboy I was. How much stronger, how much deeper. So he could know. So he could know that someone in the world, with all the strength of a god, would use that strength for his sake.

I had to find him, but I didn't know how. Bruce Wayne or Matches Malone, there was no-one in this city who could track him down if he didn't want to be found. Not Bruce. If it was possible, John would have done it already. That, I knew as surely as the other. John didn't leave friends to die. So. I couldn't find Bruce, not in time. But ... maybe there was another way. Maybe ... I could find the killer.

That instant, almost right on cue, Lois spoke up from my side, not looking at myself or John, having left us to our moment of silent communion. Instead, she was looking at the photos from the file, spread out before her. Looking at one photo in particular, that of a slim, hard-edged woman with blonde hair, glaring out at the camera. I frowned, following her gaze, the tap of her finger as she studied the image curiously, wondering what it was she saw.

"Clark," she mused. "Does this woman look familiar to you?"

I blinked at her, then looked back down. The face did ring a bell, touching something in my mind, the tickle of memory, and I frowned, searching back over the past few days, trying to get a grasp on what it was ...

"I know her," John rumbled suddenly, leaning over my shoulder to look, frowning as deeply as I was. He reached out, feathered one hand lightly over the image, tracing the line of the jaw. "I know her. She ... Does she not live in Ms Kyle's building? I brought her home, one night, after ... after Bruce, and I am sure I saw this woman."

I blinked once more, and froze, catching Lois' eye as her head came up in the same moment, both of us remembering at once. When Gordon called me in to see Selina's body. The woman in white, being bundled into a car as I passed. Selina's landlady, Gordon had said. It was her. It was her. And before ... I frowned, pulled up the memory, of that first night in Gotham, at the ball ... yes! The woman in white, who'd caught the serving girl who'd found Weiss, who'd carried her away to comfort her while the rest of us raced to find the cause of the fuss! I remembered her. I remembered. And it made sense. No need to run and see. She knew what we'd find. And Selina. She'd had Selina in her grasp the whole time, waiting for the right moment. Only twenty four hours between murders, because she'd known right where Selina was, the whole time ...

"It's her," Lois whispered, the thrill of a huntress closing in humming in her voice. "Damn it. Why didn't we see? Why didn't anyone see? She was right there. She was on the scene, both times. Why did no-one see?"

"Because of Bruce," I whispered, understanding suddenly. What had blinded me, the whole time? Bruce. Bruce, with his riches and his old love for Selina, and the fear he commanded in the police, in people like Bullock. And me. For the cops, there was always me. I'd been at both scenes too, and for far less reason than a rich woman who'd just happened to live in the same building as the second victim. The billionaire and the outsider, both of us looming large over the investigation, getting in the way, casting our shadows over the truth. Drawing all eyes our way, and letting the real killer slip by, in the guise of a harmless woman.

In the guise of Elena Dornez. Once a hooker, Weiss' old brothel mistress, then a convict, and now one of the richest women in Gotham. Diamonds, I remembered suddenly. She'd made her business in diamonds, on winning her freedom. That's why she'd been at the Opening of the Sehri-At, supposedly. Half the jewel community of Gotham had been there. Such a perfect excuse ... And Selina. Jewel-thief, Gordon had said. Suspected. I wonder where Dornez got her original stash?

"It's her," I repeated, looking at Lois, at John, as the pieces slotted into place in my mind, hearing the echo of the click in theirs. We knew. We had her. This was our killer, the woman who'd dragged us all unwitting into this decade-old tangle of crime, betrayal and vengeance. This was the woman who'd killed Weiss, murdered Selina.

This was the woman who meant to kill Bruce. And there was not a person in that room who planned to let her.

"I'll find her," John said, suddenly, the chill in his voice sending shivers up my spine. John was one man I was sure no-one wanted to mess with. "She's not Bruce. I have friends. They will find her." We nodded. We didn't doubt it.

"I'll bring this to Gordon," Lois said, softly, gathering up the file and meeting my look of surprise with eyes full of steel. "Whatever happens," she went on, calm and deadly, "the GCPD are going to know who the real killer is. I'll get them off your back, Clark." A promise, and she meant it. But there was more there. More than one justice being sought, and I knew what the other was. Lois was going after Bullock. For what he'd done to her, to me, to John. For using her, using me. Lois didn't take kindly to being used. Even understanding why, even with what we'd heard earlier, someone had to pay for what had been done. I knew that, and understood it. And nodded my gratitude.

So they had their missions. John, and Lois. My friends. Bruce's, too. They knew what to do, and could do it. What about me? What could I do? I couldn't go with Lois, not with a warrant for my arrest hanging over my head. And I couldn't help John. The kind of friends he was talking about ... I had a suspicion they wouldn't take kindly to a stranger asking them to hunt for him. So I couldn't help them. But I had to do something. With all Bruce had done for me, with all I'd been through for him, I couldn't just sit back and let events rush towards his death without me.

And then I remembered. Maybe I couldn't find Bruce, maybe John couldn't, but there was one person I'd seen in this city who might be able to. A silver-haired gentleman who scared cabbies, cops and criminals alike, who'd driven Bruce into the Old Town that night, who'd watched as I walked away with him outside the station. A man Bruce might just have trusted enough to say where he was going.

I stood up, watching as Lois and John stood with me, watching as they noted my sudden sense of purpose. I nodded to them, to both of them. "We'll find them," I said, a promise as real as the one I'd given Bruce. "We will find them."

And we would. I would. If I had to tear Gotham apart to manage it, and I knew they felt the same as they left, as they went out to start the hunt. We'd find him. Find Bruce, alive and well, and beat some sense into his stubborn, lonely, self-sacrificing skull. That was the strength and entirity of my purpose, and I wasn't going to be swayed for anything.

And to that end, I went out, caught a cab, and set out for the outskirts of the city once more. I had an appointment, this time, whether the old man knew it or not. And I wasn't going to be scared away.