The light rail ran northeast out of the lower East Side, its wheels grinding rust-brown along tracks that hadn't been maintained since the previous decade. The bridge carried it over the Gotham River — grey water moving slow beneath grey sky — and into the city proper.
Car Five was nearly empty. Will and seven other Romans had taken an entire row, their black suits a uniform bloc against the cracked plastic seats. Oswald worked his way down the aisle with a paper bag, distributing food with the efficiency of someone who'd done it often. He dropped into the seat beside Will last, extending the final hot dog.
Will took it. Didn't eat it.
"You've been somewhere else all morning," Oswald said.
Will shook his head.
Oswald leaned back, undeterred. "First few months I was the same way. Lost. But then I got my first look at Maroni — the way the man carries himself, the cane, the suit — and something just clicked." He stared at the middle distance, clearly enjoying the memory. "Like watching Michael Corleone walk into a room."
"Sure."
"When I take his seat one day, I'm getting a cane exactly like his. Already decided."
Will glanced at him.
There was nothing absurd about it, coming from Oswald. It was the conviction in the delivery — the total absence of doubt. Whatever Oswald said about his future, his face made it sound like history that hadn't happened yet.
The train slowed for the next stop.
The doors opened. Three passengers boarded, scanned the car — eight suited men occupying one row — and immediately reversed into the adjoining carriage. A fourth followed without breaking stride.
One didn't.
An old man shuffled in and sat down across the aisle. His hair was white and thin, combed over a scalp that had given up. His coat was several washes past saving. He held a paper bag against his chest with both hands, and his eyes — small, sunken — kept drifting to the half-eaten hot dog in Will's hand.
Will held it out. "You want it?"
The old man nodded, mumbling something indistinct, and accepted it. He ate fast, hunched over it, working through it in large bites.
"Satisfied?" Oswald's voice had gone flat. He reached into his breast pocket and produced a set of brass knuckles, letting them catch the light just long enough. "Good. Then move along."
The old man startled back against the window.
Oswald watched him go, then turned to Will. "The Romans aren't a charity. You project softness out here and everyone takes it as an invitation." He tucked the knuckles away. "I don't want to see that again."
Will nodded.
Then, from the far end of the car, a hand shot out and grabbed at the old man's paper bag.
Three of them — young, mid-twenties, carrying the stale smell of a night that hadn't ended yet. The old man pulled the bag back by instinct. One of the three hit him across the face for it. He went down onto the floor of the aisle, still holding the bag, and they started in on him.
The Romans glanced over. Nobody moved.
Will's hand closed into a fist.
He started to stand. Oswald's hand came down on his shoulder and pressed him back into the seat.
"You already forgot?"
Oswald's brow was set, his eyes sharp in their deep sockets.
The old man's voice echoed in the car — not quite a scream, something thinner than that.
"They're being loud," Will said. "I want to ask them to keep it down."
Oswald studied him for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth moved.
"That's a new one." He lifted his hand. "If that's genuinely how you feel, go ahead. The Romans stand behind you."
The man in the seat to Will's left leaned over. "Boss, you sure? Those guys are drunk."
"First job outside the lower East Side." Oswald straightened his cuffs. "Let him experience some Gotham hospitality."
The three of them were too busy to hear him coming.
Will grabbed the nearest one by the collar and walked him into the window. The glass shuddered. The other two spun around, and knives came out — the reflex of people who'd had practice at this.
"You Roman?" one of them said. "We didn't touch your people."
"You're being loud." Will cocked his head, looking them over with an expression he'd borrowed from three months of watching Oswald work. Mild. Dismissive. The face of someone who hasn't decided if this situation is worth his full attention yet. "It's bothering me."
The name Falcone didn't need to be said. The suits said it. Both of them shifted their weight backward, shoulders rounding.
"Fine. We'll keep it down. Let him go."
Will read the compliance on their faces and eased his grip.
The blade came up from the hip — the one he was holding had worked a hand free and palmed a knife from his pocket. The train was decelerating into the next station. The kid swung an elbow into Will's face, staggered him, then reversed the knife and drove it downward.
Will was already off-balance. The floor came up. He saw the blade dropping toward his stomach—
A shape came through his peripheral vision like something thrown.
One kick. One scream.
The knife left the kid's hand and spun in a clean arc through the air. Oswald caught it by the handle without looking, wrist turning to receive it, casual as a man catching his keys.
"Let's have a conversation." He turned the blade over in his fingers, examining it. "About how many lines I should put across that pretty face of yours before you develop some manners."
The row of Romans stood.
Not dramatically — no one reached for anything, no one raised their voice. They simply rose from their seats together, and the combined weight of what they were filled the car.
These were men with histories. The drunk bravado drained out of the three in seconds. They looked for an exit. The far door was blocked by onlookers who'd pressed in from the adjoining car — faces in the window, watching.
No one intervened. No one called out.
"Morrie." Oswald didn't raise his voice. "Door."
A stocky Roman named Morrie drew the confiscated knife and worked the blade into the seam of the emergency door. An alarm cut through the car — sharp, then swallowed by the sudden rush of air as the door opened onto the tracks.
The bridge was still beneath them. The river, far below.
The three of them went out the door one after another, punctuated by sounds that the accelerating train left behind quickly — impact, brakes, then nothing.
The door was closed. The alarm stopped.
Car Five settled back into quiet. The onlookers in the corridor window dispersed.
The old man was on his knees in the aisle, gathering what was left of his cake.
The bag had split open somewhere in the middle of it all. Frosting and crumbled sponge were spread across the floor in a rough circle. He moved through it slowly, cupping pieces with his palms, trying to consolidate them. A message had been written in the icing — For my dear Jenny — but the letters had collapsed into each other, dragged sideways by the impact. They still readable, barely. Like something half-erased.
A cut on the old man's lip had dripped onto the floor beside the frosting.
Will stood there and looked at it.
"You had a good excuse," Oswald said, appearing at his shoulder. "But you need to put that down. Sympathy doesn't do anything useful here."
Will didn't answer.
The train pulled into the city center station and they stepped out onto the platform.
The difference hit Will before he'd fully cleared the turnstile — glass towers reflecting hard morning light, the street below full of cars that cost more than the entire block he'd been sleeping on. The pedestrians here moved differently. Chins up, steps certain, dressed like they'd never had cause to question where they belonged. One river separated the two halves of Gotham. It might as well have been a geological feature.
Oswald stepped up beside him and adjusted his collar without being asked.
"Chest up." He gave Will a single pat on the shoulder. "We represent the Romans. Don't let this city make you small."
He winked once, and started walking.
That evening, a rental in Gotham's North Harbor.
The old man pushed open the unlocked door.
"Jenny, I'm home."
The apartment was quiet.
He set what was left of the bag down on the kitchen counter. "Bad news — I destroyed your cake. Good news — I met someone interesting." He cleared his throat. The rough, dragging quality was already leaving his voice. "He helped me. Half a hot dog and a beating for three strangers." He moved toward the bathroom, shaking his head slowly. "You know, I almost thought Gotham had run out of people like that. Funny."
The bathroom door swung behind him.
Sounds of movement — fabric, something peeling.
His silhouette in the frosted glass showed hands moving near his face. Near his scalp.
He emerged with a latex mask hanging from two fingers.
The face beneath it was pale and sharp, the eyes very still, the mouth arranged in a configuration that didn't quite match any particular emotion.
Polished shoes crossed the dusty floorboards. He stepped into the sitting room.
"Jenny — there you are. Why didn't you answer?"
He sat on the edge of the sofa and reached over, taking the hand of the figure seated beside him. She was upright in the cushions, her face tilted slightly toward the window, eye sockets hollow, skin the color and texture of old parchment.
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he reached out and placed two fingers gently in her mouth. He worked her lips carefully, patiently, into the shape he wanted.
"Come on, darling." His voice was soft. Earnest. "Just one smile. You've been so serious today."