Law Abiding Criminals

[Mario Falcone]

It was surprising how often Mario Falcone found himself at Gotham City Police Department despite that so many people could easily recognize him as the son of one the most prolific mob families to ever exist in Gotham. One would think he avoided it like the plague or that upon seeing him the police would arrest (or kill him) him and come up with an excuse later. That wasn't the case. Long ago crime bosses had learned that one had to take the city as it came and it was better, and more amusing in Mario's case, to work with the police department than to fight them every step of the way. Gone were the days of cops and robbers shooting it out in the streets. Now, they shook hands and smiled and waited until the other slipped.

Such was the case on that mid week morning when Mario found himself making his way downtown to police headquarters. He had been asked to come in to give a deposition about where he was on such and such a night when so and so was murdered, blah blah blah. As if they could tie him to the murder. He wasn't there. But the point was that they knew he was involved and wanted to say so, without saying so. Ahhh, politics. If it wasn't a chance to toy with the police, he might have told them to go screw themselves. For most crime bosses, this might have been one of the trickiest, most annoying parts of their job. For Mario, he loved this shit.

"Afternoon, Maria," he greeted the receptionist at the entrance by name, flashing her a broad smile. Looking more than a little weirded out that the psychopath actually knew her name, Maria faked her way through a greeting and punched a call down to Homicide to let them know their guy was arrived. Mario smiled again, more subdued this time, and winked. "Thanks, beautiful." Leaning against the counter there, he glanced around at the other law abiding criminals coming and going and waited.

[Mary-Lou White]

The past two weeks had been a blur for Mary-Lou, and it was only the cool change in the weather that had managed to stop her head from spinning. So much had happened that she’d needed the remainder of the weekend to compartmentalise it all; her weird run-in with the corrupt cops in her unit , the stranger who called himself Nightwing and the consequential grilling by the Commissioner, having found a room-mate (who was also the Commissioner’s daughter), the system crash at the Department and Susie’s suspension – to say nothing of her cousin’s new situation with Gotham’s most eligible bachelor and the horrific events of his birthday party. Then there was the haunting matter of Edward, the nice guy she had met in the park who had definitely saved her tragic afternoon.

All in all, she had done her best to get back to business as usual which wasn’t an easy feat for a Monday morning which she would much rather have spent daydreaming for once. The buzzer on her desk would have none of it, Jackson’s voice breaking across the airwaves with a smile in it. Mary-Lou didn’t like Jackson for many reasons, but the main one was that he just didn’t take her seriously. Him and his buddies were constantly making fun of her and putting her in situations where she was bound to look bad, and she had a feeling that this was going to be another one of those situations.

“White? There’s a guy for you at reception,” he announced, not giving her a chance to respond. “He’s come to give evidence about a car jacking. Some clown stole an ice-cream truck on 54th.”

She sighed, knowing Jackson wouldn’t be able to hear her. If there was one thing she hated more than Jackson And The Boneheads playing around with her it was when they gave her the dregs. Without responding she got up and wound her way through the bullpen with her usual accompaniments when she was on the job; a clipboard, a pen, her utility belt and her shoulder holster. These days one never knew when they would be dispatched, and it was better to be safe than holding up your crew in Mary-Lou’s experience.

Her baby-blue eyes scanned the reception area, noting the tall, dark-haired man standing next to the reception desk and knowing by the look on Maria’s face that this was her guy. Raising her eyebrows at her luck (it didn’t hurt to have to interview good-looking people once in a while, that was for sure!) she made her way over to the desk. Her facial expression was open, even friendly, and she was too caught up in getting the interview process over and done with so she – and the witness – could move on with their mornings that she didn’t notice the apprehensive glances thrown her way by the security guards that hovered in each doorway.

“Hi!” she greeted the man with her usual bright smile, holding out a hand in order to introduce herself. “I’m Detective White. Are you the guy here about the jacked ice-cream truck?”

[Mario Falcone]

Mario had this past time of trying to guess which of several police officers Gordon would dispatch to undertake his 'interview' or 'interrogation' (depending on who you asked). Charlie Holden was always a good bet. The guy had it out for Mario. He had probably taken out one of the guy's fantasy girlfriends, he supposed, because surely no one was really that dedicated to cleaning up Gotham. Then there was Tameem Nasri, a very serious cop who actually worried him a little more than Holden but who was decidedly less fun to banter with. Gordon himself could always be counted on to make things brief and to the point, which he appreciated, but the guy was unflappable so he was glad he probably wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.

Let's just say, he wasn't expecting Mary-Lou.

At the bright greeting, he turned towards the miss, standing up straighter and casually dipping his hands into his pockets. A smile cracked his handsome face at the ridiculous scenario she posed. His eyes lowered to take her in casually and quickly, and he shook his head slowly, is if in disbelief, as his eyes returned to her face. "No, I'm not," he admitted as his head shake sped up to usual nay-saying speed, "but I really wish I was," he told her with an appreciative grin and a shrug as if to say 'sorry'.

"Aren't ice cream trucks a little under your radar, Detective?" he asked. "I thought that stuff was for beat cops and police force rookies." He wasn't paying attention anymore, but Maria looked shocked by the conversation taking place and, just to be sure she had dialed correctly, she called back to Homicide to see why they didn't send someone up?

[Mary-Lou White]

As much as she liked to hate guys like Jackson and tell them that they were chauvinistic jerk-offs (well, think it anyway – Mary-Lou hadn’t graduated to actually telling people off yet) she really was more than a little naive. She was charmed by the man’s easy manner, the way he stood a little straighter when she came into his presence. From a town where manners meant everything and when men treated their woman like ladies instead of ‘freaks in a bed’, Mary-Lou’s expectations of Gotham were more than a tad skewed. She smirked for a moment at the man’s grin before she forced the expression from her face, self-consciously hugging her clipboard to her chest and fiddling with the clicker on her pen.

“Thanks,” she smiled at his compliment, her home-grown ‘manners’ not taking offense to his comment at all. “And usually, they would be, yes,” she admitted, groping for a way to say that her ‘senior’ officers were morons. “But we’re kind’ve under-staffed at the moment, so we’re all doing what we can. You know,” she laughed lightly, “Protect and serve!” It was only then that Maria managed to catch her eye from behind the solid-looking (yum!) mystery man who she (sadly) wouldn’t be interviewing. “Yes, Maria?”

Maria looked decidedly uncomfortable, torn between amusement at Mary-Lou’s faux pas and being horrified at Jackson’s awful sense of humour. “Detective? This is Mr. Mario Falcone,” she said slowly, hoping to God that Mary-Lou had at least heard of the notorious mobster and the atrocities he had committed – or had others commit on his behalf. “Jackson said that he sent you down here to interview him. The brief file is in the booking system.” She threw the blonde an apologetic look, not wanting to look back at Falcone at all.

Mary-Lou felt that a cold, wet and slimy egg had been cracked on top of her head and was now trickling creepily down her spine. She looked up into the charming face of the man in front of her, then back at Maria and then back at the Mario Falcone. Mad Mario. She had heard of him, alright, and had even reviewed a few of the many case files with his name attached but she hadn’t actually put two and two together until she realised the mortified look on Maria’s face was actually for real. Jackson, it seemed, had sunk to a new low. It took a lot to get Mary-Lou angry, but sure enough she felt a steady rage boiling up inside of her. It was one thing for Jackson and Co. to make her look like an idiot. But now they were making the whole of Gotham PD look ridiculous.

But she would deal with Jackson later. For right now, she needed to save as much face as possible. Her mother had always said that you would catch more flies with honey that you did with vinegar, and even though Falcone was a repulsive specimen of humanity (Hrm, biceps...) she was sure she could turn this situation to her advantage somehow. Allowing herself the opportunity to blush slightly, she pursed her lips to show her embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Falcone,” she replied urbanely. “It seems as though the boys upstairs were a little worried about interviewing you.” She threw the mobster a smile that made her face hurt, and lifted an arm to indicate they should move down the hall to one of the interview rooms. “Good news is, you get your wish!”

[Mario Falcone]

He was disappointed the gig was up so quickly, but watched on with amusement as Maria let the cat out of the bag and Detective White's face turned several different shades of shocked, humiliated, and even a subtle hue of angry. His amusement simmered into a badly muffled smile. When she turned and apologized to him he lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders casually, clearly not miffed, and followed docilely as she moved off towards the interrogation rooms he knew so well. It always felt a bit weird being without his body guards - he was almost never alone anymore - but in Gotham City Police Department, ironically, he was probably at his safest.

“Good news is, you get your wish!”

"Lucky me," he told her as he cracked a grin, looking sideways at her curiously. Honestly, if she hadn't looked so horrified to find out who she was, and if she hadn't reacted so quickly on her feet, he might think he had a chance with the pretty young blonde. Whether he did or not, he still planned to have some fun at her expense. It was the only way he knew how to treat women, after all.

"You know," he said, leaning slightly towards her as he walked and lowering his voice an octave so that it sounded secretive and intimate, and might not be picked up by anyone passing by (or a wire, if she was wearing one). "I could have them killed." It was cruel and a little crude, but, he couldn't help himself. He would have paid money to see her reaction, and if it ended up in the affirmative he might even back up his promise. That's how friends in the department were made, after all; find what other people want that you can provide, and give it to them. From the looks of her, he thought Miss White needed a lot of what he had to offer.

[Mary-Lou White]

She knew that Mario Falcone was the scum of the Earth. She knew the horrific crimes that could be tagged on him if only he wasn’t so impossibly clever and didn’t have quite so many fall-guys lining up for him and she knew that it was going to take something a lot more intimidating that a series of regular interrogations to get anything useful out of someone as unremorseful as the mob boss was. In the realm of probably, Mary-Lou probably shouldn’t have smirked when his ‘Lucky me,” had reached her ears. She probably shouldn’t have thought about the fact that he was charming and attractive for a heartless killer and she probably shouldn’t have jumped when he leaned in and whispered to her in the way he did.

The fact of the matter was that the first thing to shock her was the intimacy in which she was addressed. The second thing was what he had said to her and the third thing was that she had been shocked by the first thing first and not the second. A slight frown glossed over her usually sunny features and she stopped in her tracks, looking up into his all-too-serious features and wondering just for one moment if that was really as easy as it was, falling into the trap of working for the mob. If it was, well, then it was no wonder that so many of her fellow officers had taken the bait. It didn’t make it any less deplorable, though.

For a second – just one and possibly two at the absolute most – Mary-Lou really focused on the almost black eyes of the man she was about to interview. In her experience that was all she ever needed to make an opinion of someone, but she had to admit that even she hadn’t expected what she actually found. There was no real soul there, or at least none she could feel. There was nothing. Just two black pools that washed over the walnut colored rocks; flecks in his irises that threatened to shipwreck any who got too close to their treacherous shores. Her own blue eyes widened slightly in response and she looked away quickly, not quite knowing how to respond or even if she had the nerve to.

Then, as if by telepathic communication or something equally as ridiculous that the blonde was often apt to believe in, she thought of her cousin and of what Susie would do in a situation like this. The stronger of the two women would more likely have said something like ‘What makes you think I need you to do it for me?’ and had done with it, asserting her authority and confidence in the one shot. Mary-Lou wasn’t as brave as Susie, though, but the thought of her cousin and what could be said in such a situation was oddly enough to comfort the blonde.

“I don’t doubt that one teensy bit,” she replied, the small smile at her cousin hovering on her lips and remaining there for the mobster to interpret as he wished as they approached the door of the room they would be employing. She opened the door and stepped to one side, holding it open as was the habit of people who were used to taking control in situations like this. Unfortunately for Mary-Lou, it was like a shirt on her that was three sizes too big. “In here, please, Mr Falcone.”

[Mario Falcone]

A small smirk echoed Mary-Lou's smile and Mario thought for a moment that he had little miss White pegged. It wasn't the first time a cop had looked into his eyes hoping to find clues to some inner workings of his mind. He had long ago learned to simply stare back at them, and in his own way learned more from their reactions than they ever learned by studying him. For instance, he learned that Detective White was just a little bit afraid of him, though whether she was afraid of his power over the city or his power over her was yet to be determined. The specifics didn't matter much. It was enough to know that he could get to her in any way at all. Stony faced cops were far less fun to mess with.

"Please," he corrected her as he moved through the doorway, turning sideways towards her as he slipped through. Midway through the door he paused, which brought him into her comfort space as he told her, "Call me Mario." And then he moved the rest of the way into the room, hands held casually in his pockets as if he owned the joint. He looked himself over in the mirror, running his fingers through his dark hair to show those on the other side of that mirror, if there were any, that he wasn't afraid of their influence either.

And then he took a seat, knowing instinctively after many other similar conversations that he had to sit on the side where the two-way mirror could see his face. He did so, and rested his arms on top of the table, rubbing his hands together idly. He looked up at Mary-Lou as she joined him in the room.

"So, Detective White," he said to her, gesturing comfortably with his hands. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

[Mary-Lou White]

She waited for him to pass her by, feeling distinctly uncomfortable when he paused next to her in the too-snug-for-two-people doorway. His insistence that she should call him Mario at once amused and horrified the young woman, and she resolved instantly that she wouldn’t be taking him up on the offer any time soon. She looked down at her feet shyly as he moved into the room properly, a faint trace of his aftershave left behind him. Mary-Lou reluctantly followed it like a trail of bread-crumbs, sitting herself in the seat across from him and opening the case file that had been left on the table – probably by Jackson, who was just as probably behind the two-way. She pointedly didn’t offer for him to call her Mary-Lou.

“Well Mr. Falcone,” she began, quickly skim-reading the brief. “It seems as though I need to question you about a possible instance of defacing private property.” She read through the case file a little more, noticing several factors and another rather prominent mob name. “Do you have an alibi for between 3 and 4 on the afternoon of May 10th?” She looked up from the file, her blue eyes enquiring and her face set in a stoic but still innocent-seeming expression. If Jackson thought she was going to back down for any reason then he was going to be sorely disappointed.

[Mario Falcone]

He couldn't help himself. His handsome features split into a grin of disbelief when she mentioned that he was here for, how did she put it? Defacing property. He knew immediately what she was referring to, since it concerned the only person with brass enough to report anything he did to the police, but he was nevertheless surprised that the police had the brass to actually call him in on it. Normally he was in here being interrogated about money laundering, murders, bribes, and any other number of more important crimes. Destruction of property? A small laugh escaped him but he quickly tried to wipe the expression off his face, unsuccessfully, so that he could answer the cute detective's questions thoughtfully.

"Uhhhh," he said, trying to think back to any other day he might not have been shooting holes in gravestones. Nope, he couldn't remember a damn thing about any of them, but if he had to guess he would say he was still in bed nursing a hooker or a hangover for more than a few of them. He lifted a hand in a helpless gesture. "I honestly have no idea. You'd have to talk to my assistant." He thumbed over his shoulder at the door. "He's right outside, if you want to go grab him. He'll tell you everything."

He smiled a ruthlessly innocent smile, much the gormless, too-busy businessman who couldn't distinguish one day from the next. It helped matters that Johnny would keep his alibis straight better than he would anyway, and then they could say they had the same story all along. He lifted his dark eyebrows in a curious expression, and another disbelieving laugh escaped his lips. "I can't really picture myself doing, uhhh," he shrugged his shoulders, "graffiti or whatever it is I'm accused of. Can you?"

[Mary-Lou White]

Mary-Lou felt a little bit flushed at his reaction, and she had to admit to herself that it was such a stupid, trivial thing to be questioning one of Gotham’s most ruthless crime family bosses’ over. She really wished that dimwit Jackson hadn’t pushed her into this, wondering how she could pull through without looking like a complete idiot. Fortunately for Mary-Lou, paperwork and research had never been her colleagues’ strong point. He tended to gloss over facts and evidence in favour of sitting around in the bull pen in his coffee-stained shirt stuffing donuts into his maw. The young Detective’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as she flipped through the file, holding it slightly upright so the contents would be out of her interviewee’s sight.

Right there, tucked in the back flap of the file, was what she had been hoping for. A small clear plastic sleeve containing a cd. The blue printed label held the Gotham PD coat of arms and a very simple title: Gotham Heights Cemetary. Her expression was triumphant for a split-second before she looked up at the man sitting across from her, his incredulous exclamation and smile coaxing an embarrassed-seeming smile from the young blonde. Looking for all the world like was trying to imagine Mario in a situation (just possibly not the one he was posing) Mary-Lou shrugged in an off-hand, cutesy kind of way.

“No,” she agreed, “I can’t, really. But the camera does seems to love you, Mr Falcone,” she raised both her brows matter-of-factly as she pulled the cd out of the file and primly put it on the table in front of her. She watched him intently now, wondering whether he would simply laugh it off or be annoyed that she wasn’t actually affected by him enough to be distracted from her job. After all, they got Capone on tax evasion, right?

[Mario Falcone]

To Mary-Lou's credit, Mad Mario couldn't tell for a second that she was bluffing. The problem was, he was so used to cops using any and every trick in the book that he took it as a given that they would, at some point, bluff him. Whether or not it was a bluff he wanted to see what he was working against before he called in his ridiculously overpaid lawyer. So his reaction was not particularly good for her, except perhaps as instruction. For small time criminals bluffing worked; for Mario Falcone nothing short of the best police work ever done could bring the well-banked, well-practiced mobster to justice.

"Really?" he asked, playing up his surprise, and a smile crawled across his slimy features as if he was genuinely flattered by the young woman's compliment. If anything changed about his expression, it was the way he seemed to suddenly stop eying her like a prize ham. He certainly did still think she was a prize to be had; he only thought her a little too pricy to purchase now. "Well, thank you," he told her, the gratitude he feigned contrasting sharply with the glint of his hard eyes.

"Is that it?" he then asked, pointing at the disc. And then he nodded when it seemed that it was. "Can we see it?" he then asked, turning to pretend to look around the room as if he didn't already know it inside and out. "Is there a DVD player in here?" he asked, before finally turning back around to face his interrogator. "No? Man, that's too bad." He gestured with his hands, crossing one leg over the other. "I love to see myself on the T.V. screen. Makes me feel like a movie star, you know?" He smiled coldly, and then licked his lips.

"You know," he suggested, pointing at the CD, "if you send that to my lawyer, he can make us a copy, and then we can just," he pointed around the table as if to demonstrate a gathering of many people, "we can all just watch it together. Get some popcorn, some gummy bears, it'll be like the movies." He shrugged his shoulders. "Just like the movies," he reiterated, folding his hands in front of him. "What do you think?"

[Mary-Lou White]

That was it. Right there, when his eyes lost all sense of swagger and his facial expressions kept up with his mouth, Mary-Lou was convinced that he was who his name suggested. Right up until that moment she had been flattered and a little interested in the bad-boy attitude; and a little intimidated by his reputation. Now, when his antics were kicked up a notch and his attitude began to turn she could totally see how he could turn like a tame tiger who was smelling fresh meat for the first time since he’d been brought into captivity. She wasn’t scared, which surprised her. More than anything, now, she wanted to nail his ass. And if it was going to be for something this petty, then so be it.

“I’m sure you don’t need to see yourself on the T.V to feel like a celebrity, Mr. Falcone,” she replied, her tone tainted with the small amount of bitterness she had begun to accumulate after moving to Gotham. “And from the notes on the file, it doesn’t really seem like the kind of movie I’d be interested in.” She peered at him from beneath her silken blonde bangs, her blue eyes trained on his darker pair as she seemingly sized him up. He wasn’t going to back down. This was about to get very interesting, and from the look in his eyes she wasn’t entirely sure she shouldn’t hand over to someone with a little more experience.

But then... this could be her chance. If she could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to Jackson and all the other morons upstairs that she was worth her uniform, then surely they’d have to give her some respect? It was an interesting idea and if she presented the case to the DA’s office with the footage (that she hadn’t seen) and enough support to back it up (ballistics, perhaps?) then she just might be in with a chance, depending on which Judge tried the case. Interesting.

“Miss... Ryder?” she questioned herself, looking at the file to see if she had the name right. “Miss Ryder is pressing charges. Now,” she tilted her head, wanting to put a new spin on things. “We both have better things to do with our time than to sit around here discussing occurrences like this,” she waved her hand between them emphatically. Mary-Lou then seemed to find her courage, speaking with more conviction. “So unless you have a watertight alibi for the 10th, it looks like this is pretty cut-and-dried.”

[Mario Falcone]

Mario's look of falsified cordiality completely dissolved as he eyed the little blonde, half-impressed. She was delusional if she thought that any amount of evidence could book him, or so he believed, and he didn't so much as falter when she told him it was 'cut-and-dried'. "Clearly, Miss White," he replied, silently revoking the title he had previously lauded - detective - in lieu of the diminutive 'miss', "You've never met my lawyer." He pulled his cell phone from the inside of his blazer and flipped it open. "But you will," he reassured her as he hit speed dial number one and waited.

"Moretti," he finally greeted, sounding far more friendly than he ought to considering who he was talking to, and then continued in sloppy Italian. He asked how the golfing was, laughed at the response, and then explained the situation. He seemed to question his response, and then smiled, looking up at the ceiling. Thereafter, he said something the other man found amusing and laughter followed from the other end. "Grazie," he finally finished, "Ciao." He replaced his phone in his coat and then looked across the table at his captor.

"He's on his way, and advises me not to say anything until he gets here, but he did remind me of my whereabouts that day," he offered, once again pretending to be friendly. "I was in litigation over a property sale all day." He shrugged, and then because he couldn't help himself he added, "Pretty cut and dry," with an arrogant nod. "He'll be here soon with the paperwork to prove it," he offered. "Then we can all get back to our better things to do." He paused then and added, "except for Miss Ryder, who doesn't appear to have any." His smirk this time was downright devilish, and he didn't care what cameras caught it.

[Mary-Lou White]

It usually took Mary-Lou a lot to get to the point where she was actually annoyed at someone. Most of the time she was able to brush aside silly comments about her being Detective Barbie or ignore jokes like the guys replacing her gun holster with a joke plastic one fashioned to hold a credit card. So she liked to shop, it wasn’t a crime! Unlike some of her supposed colleagues who were in league with gentlemen like the one currently sitting across from her. Falcone’s false charm (or perhaps it was real and just whoring itself out willy-nilly, who knew?) had taken hold of her until now and she was ashamed that it had. But, better to realise later rather than never and take steps to preserve her dignity!

This was exactly what she had been avoiding as a young single woman in this city, and if it weren’t for the fact that she had just met a nice, wholesome and totally gentleman-like young man, she might very well have given Mario Falcone a piece of her mind. She was, however, unable to keep the slight scowl from her usually naive face and she sat back in her interrogator’s chair as she watched the charade with his attourney-slash-cell. Needless to say, she wasn’t impressed by his (what she thought to be) fluent Italian nor the almost brotherly relationship he seemed to have with a man that should have been a bare acquaintance at best.

“That’s great,” she offered in relation to the sketchy alibi, genuinely nice rather than simply playing at it like her counterpart. “Although if it turns out that supporting evidence corroborates with the video footage, he’ll find it hard to get any more clients in this city. In fact, he might even join you in your cell. So I hope that he’s really as good a friend to you as you think he is, Mr. Falcone.” She made a show of shuffling some papers on the desk before looking at her watch and huffing in a girlish manner. “Well, I don’t suppose he’ll get here within the next ten minutes, the downtown traffic being as it is. Would you like a cup of coffee?” She threw him a bright, unflappable smile.

[Mario Falcone]

Mary-Lou's warnings about his lawyer would have shaken a man of greater morals or lesser wealth, but he was neither. He didn't have friends. He had employees. And those employees were well paid to be loyal, and harshly punished if they weren't. Moretti was no different. He had no qualms about risking the man's license to practice law just like Moretti had no qualms about defending a criminal. So long as everyone played their part and the money kept rolling in everything was in order, and nothing short of Mary-Lou endangering that order could get the experienced son of Falcone in a flap.

"No thanks," he declined the coffee. "I don't drink instant."