(Note: Do not judge Matty’s… explanation too harshly (you will know what I mean in the second half of the chapter).
He tried his best)
“I need you to look at something.”
Mattheus straightened.
Tony unfolded the paper and slid it across the counter.
The entire page was covered in names and medical conditions.
Some entries were written neatly.
Others had been added between lines or squeezed into the margins as though Tony had kept remembering more people after running out of space.
Mattheus picked up the paper and began reading.
Leukemia, lymphoma, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, a brain tumor, kidney failure, Parkinson’s disease, a congenital heart defect, several different cancers…
and the list continued onto the back of the page.
He recognized some of the conditions, but other names meant nothing to him.
Mattheus looked up.
“You need cures for all of these?”
“All of them.”
Mattheus counted the names and stopped after reaching thirty.
“Tony, there are more than thirty people on this list.”
“Fifty-seven.”
“Tony…”
“I can pay.”
Mattheus looked down at the list again.
The Store most certainly had cures for every disease written on the paper.
It had potions, pills, spells, advanced medical technology, nanomachines,…
But it would be expensive.
“I’ll need to look up every illness,” Mattheus said.
“Some cures might be cheap, and I am saying cheap compared to Chiara’s case, but others could cost a lot more.”
“Find out.”
“I will.”
Tony reached for his beer again.
Mattheus kept staring at the list with a frown and tapped one finger against the bar counter.
“This is a lot of cases.”
“I know how many names are on the paper, kid.”
“That isn’t what I mean.
Fifty-seven people suddenly recovering from serious diseases won’t go unnoticed.”
Tony’s hand tightened around the bottle.
“Several of them are terminal,” Mattheus continued.
“If one person with terminal cancer makes a miraculous recovery, people call it an unexplained medical event—it happened before so no problem there but if fifty-seven people with incurable or terminal diseases recover at around the same time, someone is going to start asking questions.”
The newspapers might dismiss one impossible recovery as a miracle or a mistaken diagnosis, but dozens of cases would attract doctors, pharmaceutical companies, government agencies, and probably at least a few supervillains.
And Batman, but Batman was not who Mattheus feared.
Scary as he could be, the Bat was a hero, but the others…
Tony nodded.
“I thought about that.”
“And?”
“No one’s gonna know you had anything to do with it.”
“That doesn’t solve the problem.”
“It solves your part.”
Mattheus folded the paper and placed it on the counter.
“What about your part?”
Tony drank from the bottle.
“Once I deliver the cures, I disappear for a while.”
“You’re leaving?”
The question left Mattheus before he could stop it.
Tony stared at him, and Mattheus looked down at the list again, pretending that one of the disease names had suddenly become fascinating.
He had known Tony for about two weeks, and they had not spent that much time together, but still, Tony was the first person in Gotham Mattheus could honestly consider a friend.
Tim did not count.
Tim was a kid, and most of their conversations consisted of him asking Mattheus increasingly invasive questions while Mattheus lied, dodged them, or danced around the truth until the kid became frustrated.
Tony, on the other hand, would spend hours talking with Mattheus about anything and everything—illegal activities excluded—and Mattheus genuinely enjoyed those conversations.
“These people promised to keep quiet.
They know what happens if word gets out but—”
“But people promise many things when they’re desperate.”
“Exactly.” Tony pointed the neck of the bottle toward him.
“Most of them are good people.
Friends, family, friends of friends.
But even good people talk.
They tell their priest, their doctor, their mother, their cousin.
Before you know it, half the neighborhood knows some Italian guy came around handing out miracle medicine.
Which is why I’ll be gone before anyone starts looking.”
“Yeah…”
That was for the best, or else Tony would be putting himself and his daughter in danger.
Tony grunted.
“Don’t look like somebody kicked your dog.
I’m not leaving forever.”
Mattheus gave him an unimpressed look, and Tony sighed and leaned against the counter.
“I already put my little girl somewhere safe this morning.
Everything else is ready.
Once we finish this, I’ll leave Gotham for a few months.”
“A few months?”
“Maybe half a year.”
“Where will you go?”
“The less you know, the better.”
“Hm.” Probably true, but who would Mattheus tell anyway?
The walls?
“Gotham’s got a short memory,” Tony added.
“By next month, a few dozen kids getting miraculously cured will be old news.”
Mattheus gave him a disbelieving look, and Tony waved one hand dismissively.
“Any day now, some new freak will get powers, put on a ridiculous costume, and try to blow up the city.
Maybe destroy a building or two before Batman punches him in the face and puts him in Arkham.
Everybody’ll forget about the kids and start staring at that.”
Mattheus stared at him.
Tony said it as casually as someone looking at the cloudy sky and saying it’s going to rain.
A bead of imaginary sweat rolled down the back of Mattheus’s head.
That is Gotham for ya.
The door opened before Mattheus could respond, and both of them turned towards it.
A bald, middle-aged man wearing dusty work clothes stepped into the pub.
Mattheus recognized him as one of the construction workers who had visited several times during the previous weeks.
The man stopped after crossing the threshold and stared around with a frown, stepped back, opened the door, and checked outside.
Tony took another sip of beer, doing a terrible job of hiding his amusement.
“What the hell happened to this place?” He asked after spotting Mattheus behind the counter.
Mattheus opened his mouth.
“I renovated” had not convinced Tony, and while “having a wizard friend” did the trick, Mattheus could not tell every customer that he had a magically gifted friend capable of expanding buildings—not that such a thing would be unbelievable in this world, but it would attract the attention of precisely the sort of very dangerous people Mattheus wanted nowhere near his pub.
He needed something more believable.
Unfortunately, what came out of his mouth was—
“The bank froze my money.”
Tony turned his head and stared at him in disbelief.
The customer frowned.
“What?”
“The bank,” Mattheus repeated, shaking his head as though merely remembering the experience filled him with rage.
“They froze the money I needed to finish paying the construction company.”
“What construction company?”
“The one that built the pub.”
Tony lowered his bottle and continued staring at him with his mouth half open.
Mattheus continued before either man could interrupt.
“The work was already mostly finished, but the bank froze my account before I could make the final payment.
So the construction company refused to let me use the place until I paid them.”
The man looked around.
“But you were open yesterday.”
Mattheus picked up speed as the lie formed.
“They couldn’t legally keep me from opening the business entirely because I still owned the pub, so after negotiating with their boss, they agreed to let me use a small part of it until the bank released my money.”
He held his hands close together to demonstrate how small that part had been.
“They built temporary walls around the area they allowed me to use—you know, the fake ones they use in movie sets.
That was the tiny room you saw.”
Silence filled the room.
Mattheus slapped one hand against the counter to emphasize his imaginary outrage.
“Fucking banks.”
Tony stared at Mattheus, Mattheus stared at the customer, and the customer looked around the pub.
For a moment, Mattheus thought he had gone too far, then Tony slammed his bottle against the counter.
“Fucking banks.”
Mattheus nearly turned to look at him but stopped himself.
“Fucking banks,” he agreed solemnly.
“They’ll hold onto your money for weeks,” Tony continued.
“But you owe them ten dollars?
They’ll call you six times before breakfast.”
“Exactly!”
“And the fees,” Tony added.
“They charge you money for not having enough money.”
“It’s robbery.”
“Bastards.”
“Yeah,” Mattheus said.
“The whole thing was a nightmare.
I spent days calling them, filling out forms, proving my identity, and listening to the same awful music every time they put me on hold.”
“They always do that,” Tony said.
“Freeze your money first, ask questions later.”
“Tell me about it.”
Mattheus was beginning to enjoy himself.
“Every time I called, I got someone new and had to explain everything again from the beginning.
One woman told me the problem would be resolved within forty-eight hours.
Three days later, another man told me there was no record of the first call.”
The customer groaned in sympathy and his suspicion disappeared beneath the shared hatred all working men had for financial institutions.
“That happened to my brother.”
“See?” Tony gestured toward him.
“Happens all the time.”
“I finally got the money released yesterday,” Mattheus continued.
“Paid the construction company, they came in last night, removed the temporary walls, brought back the remaining furniture, and now I can finally use my own damn pub.”
The man looked around once more.
“So all of this was already here?”
“The entire time.”
“Behind the fake walls?”
“Exactly.”
Mattheus maintained a perfectly straight face, and Tony did the same, though the corners of his mouth trembled.
The man approached the counter and took an appreciative look around.
“Place looks good, though.”
“Thank you.
It only cost me all my savings, selling my grandparents’ house, and half my sanity.”
The customer snorted and climbed onto a stool.
“Give me a beer.”
“What kind?”
He looked at the taps.
“Moretti.”
Mattheus took a clean glass and began pouring.
Tony watched him from the other side of the counter, his eyes filled with amusement.
Mattheus placed the beer and a small plate with chips in front of the customer.
“Enjoy.”
The man took a drink before turning on his stool to examine the pub again.
Mattheus picked up the folded list of diseases and slipped it beneath the counter.
Tony waited until the customer was no longer looking before leaning closer.
“Temporary walls?”
Mattheus kept his expression perfectly serious.
“Fucking banks.”
Tony coughed to cover his laugh, and Mattheus grinned.