Jude hadn't been lying about the study habits.
He'd perfected the art of cramming in college: absorb everything in the three days before the exam, retain it exactly long enough to pass, release it cleanly afterward. The training manual was thick and nobody had flagged the important sections, but he'd gotten through it. For insurance, he'd spent one asset point to copy the whole thing into the system's notepad—a digital backup that would last longer than his actual memory.
Philip quizzed him on a few more sections, confirmed he wasn't bluffing, and walked him to the changing room.
"Suit. Your size."
Jude had never worn one before. He came out tugging at the sleeves.
Philip circled him slowly, assessing. "Not bad. The fit's decent."
The suit did fit. Jude's build was lean but proportioned, and the cut sat well on his shoulders. His face had a sharpness to it—good bone structure, defined edges—that worked for some contexts and apparently not for others.
Philip squinted. "You have a problem."
"The sleeves?"
"Your face." He gestured vaguely in the direction of Jude's eyes. "There's something cold in it. Hard. It works fine for the nightclub floor—up there, predatory is an asset. But you're on day shift. Customers want approachable, not threatening."
Jude tried a smile.
Philip's expression suggested this had made things worse. "Now you look like a gangster pretending not to be one. Put you in an Italian suit, people are going to start asking which family you represent."
He left and came back with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
"Try these. And don't drop them in anyone's food."
Jude slipped them on.
Philip's face cleared. "There. The glasses soften it. You go from dangerous to educated. Completely different read."
He spent the next twenty minutes running Jude through the mechanics of the job: greeting protocols, order procedures, service etiquette, the choreography of clearing a table. Jude made a few errors—wrong fork placement, slightly off on the wine presentation—but his composure masked most of them. Philip was either too tired to push harder or was logging them for later.
"You learn fast." Philip yawned. "You start at ten."
He shuffled away—the nightclub shift upstairs had evidently run late.
Jude had already eaten, so he pocketed the glasses, went outside, and found the corner newsstand.
GOTHAM GAZETTE — TUESDAY EDITION
Two Robberies End in Shootouts — Suspects Hospitalized
Road Rage Escalation: Biker Gang vs. Dump Truck Driver — Bikers Lose
Pharmaceutical Employees Found Frozen — Mr. Freeze Suspected
Maroni Gang Members Hospitalized with Severe Injuries — Evidence Submitted to GCPD
Jude stopped at the last one.
Multiple broken bones. Fractured ribs. Severe blunt-force trauma, uniformly distributed. No gunshots, no blades, no conventional weapons. All the same night. All the same signature.
The same suspects were also named in the two robberies from the top of the page.
Well done, he thought. Psychopath in a cape, but at least you're a productive one.
He noted the family name. Maroni—one of Gotham's two dominant crime operations, semi-affiliated with the Falcones. Having your people beaten badly enough to land in GCPD custody was more than embarrassing; it was a statement, made publicly, in the newspaper. That explained why Philip had looked like he hadn't slept.
Not his problem. He was a waiter.
He kept reading. A dozen muggers with broken jaws across two precincts. Drug dealers delivered to GCPD headquarters, already restrained. Setting aside what hadn't made the papers, yesterday's Gotham had apparently been relatively quiet.
"Hey."
He looked up.
Three waiters stood in a loose group behind him, all suited, all looking at the newspaper.
"Mind if we see that?" The speaker was mid-twenties, easy posture, a smile that seemed like his default setting. He extended a hand. "Santos. Claude Santos."
"Lloyd Rick." The second one, stockier.
"Bridget Castro." The third, a woman with the specific kind of attentiveness that missed nothing.
"Jude Sharp." He handed over the paper. "Go ahead."
Santos took it and flipped directly to the Maroni article. The three of them read.
They didn't say anything immediately, but their expressions moved through the text together.
Jude stood back and watched them. Drake had mentioned Donald's connections. The phone call answered mid-shootout, the tone of Donald's voice, the high-end clientele and what it implied. Of course the Red Dragon ran Falcone. He'd registered that. He just hadn't expected the waitstaff to be family as well.
"Maroni," Santos said finally, his tone carrying the particular contempt reserved for a rival's embarrassment. "How humiliating."
Rick shook his head. "Thrown into GCPD. In front of everyone."
Castro frowned. "We're just going to let this reflect on the Godfather's name?"
"Maroni's embarrassment isn't the Godfather's." Santos folded the paper with the unhurried patience of someone who'd made his peace with certain things. "Besides—you can fight a man with a gun. You can fight a lion. You might even win. But how do you fight a shadow? A nightmare? Something that exists mostly in the space between what's real and what scares you?" He set the paper on the bench. "That's not our fight today. We're waiters. Fairly entertaining news, though."
He turned to Jude, the easy smile returning. "You look like you're connected. Falcone family?"
Jude raised his hands. "Not affiliated. Just have an unfortunate face." He put the gold-rimmed glasses back on. "Better?"
The three of them relaxed, visibly but slightly. Santos' smile shifted into something more genuine.
He and Rick and Castro were checking Jude's wrists and neck. Looking for tattoo marks. Finding none.
What they didn't know was that Philip and Donald had been occupied with the Maroni situation all night, and mentioning the new hire had simply not happened. The briefing had fallen through the gap.
"Almost time to open," Santos said. "Walk in together?"
"I could use the guidance."
They didn't wait long.
A man in a sharp suit came through the front door. Well-groomed, unhurried, with the kind of confidence that came from knowing where he stood in the room and deciding that was fine. The kind of customer this restaurant existed for.
Jude hung back, planning to watch how Santos handled the greeting.
All three of them took a small, nearly invisible step backward.
Then pushed him forward.
Jude stumbled half a step, caught himself, and turned to look at them.
They had all become very interested in their cuffs.
He turned back to the customer, straightened his glasses, and crossed the floor.
"Good morning, sir. Welcome to the Red Dragon. Do you have a reservation with us?"
The man smiled—warm, easy, the kind of smile that worked well on a poster. "No reservation. Is that a problem?"
"Not at all. May I have a name for the table?"
The smile widened slightly.
"Dent," he said. "Harvey Dent."