Harvey Dent slid into the driver’s seat, turned the radio until he found a song he liked, and gently pressed the accelerator to the rhythm.
He rarely listened to music while driving.
It was obvious that he was in a good mood.
On his first day in office, he’d already made some promising progress.
He had drawn up a detailed plan for dealing with the mob and successfully recruited an informant.
Well, “recruited” wasn’t quite the right word.
It was more like a partnership.
He knew that the man named Will was helping him for reasons that had nothing to do with “justice.”
But Harvey didn’t care.
He was the district attorney.
Upholding justice was the court’s job.
Preventing crime was the police’s responsibility.
His job was to gather enough evidence to put the criminals in the dock.
As for the process?
That wasn’t important.
Yes.
Harvey was different from those rigid old men.
What he pursued was justice and glory, not blindly adhering to procedure.
To achieve his goals, he often walked along the edge of the law, and sometimes, when no one was watching, quietly stepped across that red line.
Coercion, intimidation, fabricated evidence, bribery, even joining forces with other criminals—these were all methods he frequently employed.
Otherwise, how could a rookie prosecutor possibly have turned New York upside down?
Many people believed Harvey had been sent down to Gotham because he had offended some powerful figures in New York.
The truth, however, was that Harvey had volunteered for the transfer.
There was something he rarely told anyone.
Gotham was his hometown.
And his nightmare.
A cramped basement that reeked of mildew.
His drunken, gambling-addicted father.
A coin tossed high into the air.
Fists and kicks raining down upon him.
These fragmented memories wove in and out of Harvey’s dreams, creating one sleepless night after another.
He had returned this time to put an end to it all.
Nirvana’s Something in the Way came on the radio, and he hummed along softly.
Underneath the bridge
Tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I’ve trapped
Have all become my pets
And I’m living off of grass
And the drippin’s from the ceiling
It’s okay to eat fish
‘Cause they don’t have any feelings
Something in the way~
Something in the way~
…
When Harvey entered the old building through the back door, Will Quentin was stuffing a naked corpse into a black plastic bag while the short young man beside him scrubbed the blood from the floor.
“Do you believe he fell down the stairs?” Will tied the bag shut.
“I do.
This city breeds misfortune and death every day.
Harvey glanced at the bloodstained baseball bat lying in the corner.
“Then I suppose we can talk about the next phase of our cooperation.”
Will briefly described everything that had happened.
Harvey’s expression shifted several times as he listened, from surprise to shock, before finally settling into a meaningful smile.
“I think I understand what you mean.
This plan really is insane.”
Although he called it insane, Harvey took off his coat and put on the dead man’s clothes.
The long, lightweight trench coat was the sort of thing he usually wore himself.
It even fit better than he had expected.
With an odd expression, he pursed his lips and nodded, then pulled the dead man’s phone from the inner pocket.
The phone was full of juicy messages.
Aside from the indecent texts he had sent to his lovers, almost every other recipient was Maroni.
Charlie had already visited more than a dozen lieutenants.
Every time he finished with one, he reported back to Maroni via text message.
Harvey skimmed through the earlier messages.
Three people had been classified as potential liabilities.
Two had been labeled disloyal.
Four were considered suspicious.
The rest were loyal.
“What kind of assessment do you want?
Or rather, how do you think Maroni sees the two of you?” Harvey asked.
“Potential liabilities or suspicious.
Oswald and I have already had contact with Falcone, so Maroni should be suspicious of us.
We might as well choose an assessment that fits what he’d expect.”
“You’re trying to use a flaw to conceal the truth, but that will expose you to even greater danger.
If Maroni has gone to the trouble of doing this, then his paranoia must be at its peak.
Do you really think he’ll spare anyone he suspects?”
“That isn’t something you need to worry about.”
Will bit down on his thumbnail.
It was how he relieved stress.
Oswald was right.
One wrong move while playing both sides between two crime lords, and they could easily become collateral damage in their struggle.
Will was sick of living with his heart in his throat every waking moment.
If he had the chance, he really wanted to put a bullet in both Maroni and Falcone and be done with it.
Harvey sent the message.
A short while later, Maroni replied.
—What did Little Penguin say?
—He told me that Mr.
Falcone had tried to recruit them, but he’s currently undecided about which side to take.
Following Will’s instructions, Harvey imitated the impostor’s wording and replied to the message.
It was a dangerous move.
They were essentially exposing their status as double agents to Maroni.
Will’s only advantage was that he was betting on Maroni’s arrogance—that the proud, self-important crime lord wouldn’t eliminate pieces that were still openly on the board.
Oswald stood to the side, staring at them in utter bewilderment.
He couldn’t understand a word these two riddlers were saying.
All he knew was that Will had just voluntarily exposed their identity as spies.
In the past, he would certainly have shouted that Will was insane.
But throughout everything they had been through, Will had repeatedly proven that his judgment was accurate.
He knew he couldn’t keep up with the thinking of these two men, so he didn’t interrupt.
Instead, he simply continued spraying cleaning solution over the floor again and again.
After dividing up their tasks, the three men left together.
Harvey, wearing the dead man’s coat, went to meet the next lieutenant.
Oswald stuffed the corpse into the trunk.
Now all they could do was wait.
Wait for Harvey to finish his assignment and return the clothes.
Then they could finally deal with the enormous problem sitting in their trunk.
“Do you think we’re actually going to survive this?” Oswald asked worriedly.
“Hard to say.”
Will picked up the cold hot dog beside him and took a bite, then washed it down with a long gulp of beer.
Every move they had made contained countless dangers.
One mistake, and they would be doomed.
With Harvey’s arrival, the situation in Gotham had become increasingly turbulent and unpredictable.
Will understood that calculation alone wasn’t enough to survive.
What he desperately needed now was to build a force of his own, something capable of withstanding the storm that could arrive at any moment.
“Once we get through this alive, I’ll go recruit people with you.”
…
After leaving the old building, Harvey’s brows gradually knitted together.
The clarity in his eyes faded, replaced by a vicious and ruthless glint.
He knew that Maroni had hired someone to impersonate him.
On one hand, it was a test of his subordinates’ loyalty.
On the other, it meant Maroni hadn’t taken him seriously at all.
Compared with the corpse hanging upside down from the eaves, this was the true insult.
“You son of a bitch.
I’ll make you pay for looking down on me!”
According to Will’s original plan, Harvey was supposed to visit a man named Royce.
Like Oswald, Royce was little more than a small-time figure who ran a territory on behalf of the gang, a peripheral member of Maroni’s organization.
Pinning the impostor’s death on him would arouse no suspicion whatsoever.
But Harvey wanted to visit someone else.
Dodge Bourbon.
He was one of Maroni’s trusted men, responsible for meeting Mexican drug dealers and distributing narcotics throughout New Jersey.
He could be considered a core link in Maroni’s criminal empire and one of his most loyal men.
But that also meant the visit carried enormous risks.
That fiercely loyal dog might very well attack him on sight.
Maroni knew that, of course.
But he didn’t care.
Fake Harvey was nothing more than a tool.
Even if he died, he would have fulfilled his purpose.
Harvey knew that too.
But he couldn’t afford not to care.
“Then let’s let God decide.
If it’s heads, we’ll take the risk.”
He pulled an ancient Roman silver coin from his pocket.
The face of Octavian was engraved on one side, while the Pantheon of Olympus was carved on the other.
The coin spun high into the air before Harvey slapped it onto the back of his hand.
“So that’s how it is?
What a fascinating choice.”