Sell you a Bridge chapter 45

Arkham Asylum July 17th 2010 11:00 AM EDT

In  the papers and on TV they make Arkham out to be this terrible creepy  place where all hope goes to die. They paint pictures of madness and  despair and the breaking of the human spirit and talk about the place  like the devil spends his summers there. I always thought those stories  were exaggerations and hyperbole, it was just an asylum after all. It  couldn't possible be as miserable as everyone made it out to be. As I  stepped out of the cab and took in the drab grey building on the hilltop  I reflected that I had been right. It wasn't as bad as people said. It  was worse.

There was an almost  toxic miasma of evil and misery roiling off the place, and I didn't even  have my aura sight active. I could just tell in the same way that I can  tell it's going to rain before it does that this was a place where  terrible things took place, and would continue to take place until  someone burned it down and salted the ashes. This impression further  reinforced my absolute lack of any desire to be in the same zip code as  this dumpster fire of a building, but unfortunately I didn't have much  choice.

I was  responsible for Madame Xanadu's current condition, and if I could fix  her by talking to my Uncle then I would do it. I'd been curious why  Circe hadn't asked Kitrina, but Kitrina herself had answered that one.  Uncle Alberto hated the Family and everyone associated with it. He saw  them as his tormenters, his persecutors, and though he hadn't actually  murdered any Falcones even his own daughter wasn't spared his disdain. I  on the other hand was a black sheep who turned down the family name,  not only was I like him, an outcast, but I had chosen to be that way. He  would be intrigued.

I  didn't ask how he would know anything about me from inside an asylum,  everyone seemed sure he would and I was pretty sure I didn't want to  know any more. The giant intimidating black iron gate in front of the  asylum was of course as the top of the hill, so after the cabbie dropped  me off I had to climb up the hill on foot to get to it. When I arrived I  saw the cleverly disguised gatehouse, and a portly yet gaunt guard came  out to greet me. "No visitors without an appointment. Do you have an  appointment?"

His  voice was flat and bored, with almost no interest or any sign of  enthusiasm at all. To be fair I would probably sound that way too if I  had to spend all day in this toxic cesspit. I handed over the envelope  of papers Grandpa had dropped off this morning after I called him last  night. The guard rifled through them, reading the papers and subtly  pocketing a few hundreds before nodding dully and heading back into the  gatehouse. He picked up a phone and called up the asylum before hitting a  buzzer and waving me through.

The  path to the asylum from the gate was just as long as the one up to the  gate from the bottom of the hill and by the time I got to the entrance,  another guard was waiting there for me to escort me in. This one was  tall and thin with a balding head and a hooked nose. His eyes were beady  and his skin was sallow and as he saw me he waved me inside. He didn't  speak as we walked into the building, and the only sound I could hear  was his footsteps, since mine were soundless. The silence was oppressive  to the point of being suffocating.

The  inside of the asylum was, if anything, creepier than the outside. The  hallways were thin and cramped, with absurdly high vaulted ceilings so  far up that they faded into shadow. The darkness gave the unnerving  impression that I was a rat in a maze being looked down on by a giant  unknowable figure. I wasn't actually sure how big this place was but it  must be huge. The building had seemed smaller than this from the  outside, but I suspected it was built along the slope of the hill in  such a way as to hide the dimensions.

There  was a small lobby area followed by a complex of branching hallways the  guard led me down one of the halls and finally spoke, his voice was high  and reedy and deeply unpleasant, like I was listening to the bad guy  from an old seventies cartoon. "We will bring you to the visiting room  and you will sit in the chair and wait. You will be searched before you  enter and upon leaving, and you will remain seated on the opposite end  of the table for the entire duration of the visit starting before entry  and ending after exit. Is that understood?"

I  gulped audibly but nodded. I could imagine the kinds of things people  had tried to make them adopt procedures that strict, and I had the  terrifying suspicion that my Uncle could kill me with the slightest  opening. You don't become the most terrifying killer in the history of a  place as awful as Gotham City and rain terror down on the town that  made even the Joker seem like a chump without having some serious  capabilities.

The  guard led me into a bare concrete room with a steel table set into the  floor perpendicular to the door. The table had steel chairs bolted into  the ground at the thin ends of the table and one of the chairs had  restraints built in. I naturally picked the other chair, and upon seeing  me sit the guard nodded and left the room. There was fluorescent  lighting set in recessed alcoves in the high ceiling and walls were bare  concrete like the floors. The only color in the room was a red line  painted around the chairs which I assumed denoted a normal persons  reach.

After about ten minutes the  door opened, and the guard came back in escorting a mild looking man  with sharp eyes and a pair of rimless glasses. Alberto Falcone was a  scholarly looking man, with a thin mustache and a receding hairline. He  looked at ease with his environment as he walked in, as if he was out  for a morning stroll instead of in an insane asylum. I'd expected the  guard to be rough or insistent but he seemed to shy away from my Uncle,  proving that even here, people feared Holiday.

Alberto  smiled urbanely at me as the guard strapped him into the chair tightly.  "Well, hello nephew. It's good to finally meet you. I've been hoping  for a visit since I heard you turned down the old man's offer to take  the family name. I have a lot of respect for the desire to build your  own legacy." He chucked his head at the room around us "Clearly. But it  has been quite some time, so somehow I doubt your visit is in regards to  our shared desire to blaze our own trail. What can I do for a fellow  black sheep of the Falcone family."

I  cleared my throat, unsettled by the intensity of the mans gaze. I got  the unnerving feeling everything I did was something he'd already been  expecting and I didn't like it one bit. Being in a room with him was  like eating lunch with a tiger in a suit. It might be dressed like a  person, but there was a wild animal across the table from me. "I've run  into some trouble with a rather...intimidating group of people." I  looked at the guard but figured they wanted to kill me already so what  the hell. "Have you heard of the...Court of Owls?"

Alberto  burst out laughing. It took him almost a full minute to get himself  under control "Heard of them? Dear boy, I was auditioning for them. The  Long Halloween was my screen test so to speak." He clicked his tongue, a  dissatisfied expression on his face. "Not a good enough one though, it  would seem. Pretentious twats, skulking in the shadows like jackals,  sneering at real visionaries. They're fossils, stuck in their glory  days, desperate to stay relevant." He grinned at me "You do me proud,  nephew, challenging such a lofty foe at such an age. Come, tell Uncle  Alberto about your problems."

I  debated lying or holding back but honestly, it seemed like he actually  wanted to help. Maybe for crazy reasons, but what was he going to do,  tell the Court about all the stuff I didn't actually do? They already  knew the deal. I filled him in on the bare bones stuff, our interactions  with the Court, and my run in with the Talon. He snorted when I  mentioned the man "Alexander Staunton. Odious man. They woke him up to  take a shot at me too. They don't like to use him. He's a bit of a mad  dog and relies more on brute force than they would like, but even rabid  animals have their uses I suppose."

I  filled him in on the very basic information about Madame Xanadu, saying  I'd gotten someone hurt and that I found someone who could fix my  mistake in exchange for something he'd taken from Luigi Maroni. "So I  was hoping you might tell me where the book is, then I could get it and  trade it to...the interested party so they can help the person I got  hurt." I realized halfway through my little speech that he had no reason  to help me and I had zero leverage over him, but to my surprise he  smiled genially.

He  seemed thrilled to have a chance to help me out "Of course! I'm happy  to help my favorite nephew. I remember the book well. You see I took a  trophy from each of my victims, I just made sure to take things that  were important and secret so the police never found out. The things I  stole were all hidden, account books and stolen art and such. Nothing  impressive. But I kept a...museum of sorts in the city to go back to and  tour when time permitted. I'd be happy to share the location, but I'd  like you to do me a favor."

That  sounded really ominous, but I figured I might as well ask what he  wanted. I'd come to this shit hole already how much worse could it be.  "I might be open to that depending on what it is. I'm not going to break  you out or help you kill someone or anything, but I could passage a  message to Kitrina or someone else if you'd like." I honestly hoped he'd  accept that. Kit could use a bit of good news in her life and a message  from her serial killer dad may not be on her list of things she most  wanted but I thought it would be good for her.

His  eyes darkened a bit at the mention of his daughter, but they resumed  their sharp gleam almost immediately after. I wasn't sure what that  meant exactly. Despite the minor slip in his demeanor his smile never  faltered "Nothing like that. you see, when I was out and about I had a  personal armament. A custom weapon designed just for me that I  treasured. When not pursuing my prey I left it in that museum I  mentioned. I'll tell you where the museum is, if you promise to retrieve  my weapon and carry it with you at all times."

I  hadn't been expecting that. It was a bit weird, but I wouldn't be using  it to shoot anyone so I just shrugged and agreed. If that was the price  for helping Madame Xanadu I would pay it gladly. My Uncle's smile  bloomed into a full on grin "Excellent. Then we have an accord. Listen  closely now because reaching my hidden cache won't be easy. Your journey  begins in Gotham Cemetary, in the Falcone mausoleum." I already didn't  like where this was headed.