A Deal with the Devil

written by Thomas Fritzinger

Bat MAn, accustomed as he was to the sights and sounds of the night, could appreciate a good sunset, or sunrise in this case, as much as anyone else. It seemed that the city truly came to life when the sun was rising and falling. In the evening, commuters were travelling home and the young were migrating to the bars and pubs. In the morning, workers were well on their way to another day of toil in the sun while the youth were sometimes just then getting home.

He closed his eyes and tried to make peace with himself. Had he done the right thing?

Two days ago…

Tony Pazzini wasn’t a newbie to the art of interrogation. He had been working over a young punk by the street name of “Gum” for about two hours with nothing more than his fists and a towel. Gum was now spilling his guts to Tony, proving to be a valuable source of information on the organizational structure of the local Bloods based out of San Francisco and providing some useful information on drug shipments.

Tony, to tell the truth, was still a low level operative for the local Italian mob. Although their influence in the area had diminished since the 70s, the mob had survived in several forms. Today, aggressive interrogations were saved for special situations and the mob was now facing one of those times. Recently they had lost influence in Blood controlled neighborhoods and were losing customers. In other words, they had begun facing stiff competition in an area in which they weren’t used to competition at all.

The reason Tony was still a low level operative was clear in the joy he was taking in hammering on Gum. The act was overshadowing the results. Even when he was getting answers, the hits kept coming and Gum was down by 3 teeth and a rib so far. Spitting a line of blood from between his lips, he begged for mercy, but Tony would have little of that. The next blow shattered Gum’s jaw. Tony was now convinced that Gum had no idea who the new supplier was.

Tony reached into a bag and pulled out a .45. “I think,” he loaded his gun with an evil smirk on his face, “that I’ve gotten about all out of you that you have to offer.” Pointing the revolver at Gum’s head, he grinned once more before pulling the trigger.

The gun went off, but didn’t hit Gum who was mere inches from it. From the dark a batarang hit Tony’s arm and forced the gun downwards towards the floor. The gun discharged, hitting the leg of the chair Gum was sitting on and shattering it. Gum was sent face first on the floor of the dimly lit warehouse.

“What the…” Tony looked up just in time to see the demonic visage of a giant bat descending upon him. The bat’s eyes glowed a pale yellow. The Bat MAn had found him. In wide-eyed terror, he turned the .45 around and emptied the other 5 shots into the form but the Bat MAn kept coming.

Ramming Tony in the chest feet first, Bat MAn took him to the floor. Moments later he had him in a choker hold and Tony was out like a light.

The Bat MAn turned to Gum, who was now oblivious to the pain he had endured. His eyes were as big as saucers. Bending over, he leaned in and said in a raspy voice, “I think you have much more to offer, Gum.”

Bat MAn never laid a finger on Gum, but Gum was all too eager to tell him what he could. Bat MAn had seen the signs. If something wasn’t done soon, all out war would break out between the Bloods and the mafia. Such a war would have cost too many innocent lives and he had to stop it.

Five minutes later, Bat MAn drove away in the Bat Mobile towards South Central as distant police sirens could be heard approaching the darkened warehouse. Gum was very cooperative and he now knew the location of the new supplier. It was time to pay “El Guapo” a visit.

Last Night…

The window shattered into a million pieces as Bat MAn dove through it. Wrapped in his cape as he was, not only were the shards of glass forced away from his body, but the rain of gunfire from the gang members inside the drug house simply bounced off him. Thank goodness he had designed the armored cape out of the same chain mesh used for divers wanting to fend off shark attacks.

Coming swiftly to his feet, a fast backhand took out the first thug while his other arm tossed a small orb to the floor. The room was filled with noxious gas in just moments and Bat MAn, wearing a mask feeding him a continuous stream of fresh air, tore into the thugs. One by one they fell, but something wasn’t right. Although the Bloods were generally afro-american, he was supposed to find some Hispanic men working for “El Guapo” here. A quick search through the small house revealed no trace of them or the drugs that were supposed to be here.

As he turned to leave, the front door flew open, a bright light filled the house and a loud voice could be heard, obviously being filtered through a megaphone or speaker of some kind. “Beunos noches, Bat MAn. Los Blood tell me you come to mi casa esta noche. Me llame esta Steel Storm. Ahora, se muerte...”

With that, an armored figure entered the front door and barreled into Bat MAn. Raising one of his fists, his arm lit up and the blow that followed contained a good jolt of electricity with it. Bat MAn flew back into the bedroom and hit the bed. Feathers went flying. Steel Storm charged after him, only to be blinded by the feathers from the feather bed wafting up into the air. A flash of white told him in no uncertain terms that Bat MAn had just landed a round house on his forehead.

Steel Storm went down for just a moment before jumping back up and into the fray. The two, hero and villain, went hurtling through the bedroom window and into the back yard. Bat MAn landed on his feet and Steel Storm went head first into a dog house.

The battle between the two raged on for a good 5 more minutes, until Bat MAn pulled out a set of brass knuckles charged with some juice of their own and slammed it into Steel Storm’s jaw. With him out like a light. Bat MAn went back into the house to look for clues.

Although there wasn’t much there, he did find a cell phone on one of the gang members. Looking up the last numbers called, he found one he knew. It was to the Spanish embassy located on the ritzy North side of town.

He was long gone by the time the police arrived.

Very early this morning…

Ambassador Sanchez, whose family officially grew wealthy mining gold in Madrid, had been stationed in America two years ago. His predecessor had, shall we say, experienced an unfortunate accident that took nearly 5 months to arrange.

It was actually much easier convincing the local punks to back his drug running efforts. Lacing marijuana with some hashish was commonly done in Spain and France, but hadn’t been done consistently in America. It was much more addictive than the normal pot and promoted a dependency that let directly into the harder drugs, furthering business.

He sat up this evening looking out his window at the starry night sky. His operatives had told him that the Bat MAn had been seen entering the warehouse Gum was in before his associates could retrieve himi from the local branch of the American mafia. He knew that Gum wouldn’t tell the mafia anything, but he wasn’t sure about this Bat MAn. Rumors about this nut job made had the local Bloods terrified and he needed to take a precaution. Although Gomez was still new to the family, his work in Madrid as Steel Storm was impressive and it was high time this Bat MAn character was shown how real Spaniards do business.

He didn’t expect the Bloods in their crack house to be a match for Bat MAn, but had warned them that he might be coming anyway. He was now waiting on word from Steel Storm when a glint of something reflected off the window. He turned around slowly.

Before Sanchez could even turn around all the way, strong arms were picking him up off his feet. He pulled a revolver from his robes only to have it torn from his hands. In his signature raspy tone, Bat MAn closed in, face to face, “So, you’re El Guapo?”

“Who are you?” Sanchez’ voice was quivering. He hadn’t expected this.

“ More important seems to be, who are you? You are Antonio Eduardo Sanchez, of a very wealthy Madrid family. You’ve been ambassador of the American embassy for 2 months and have put a lot of effort into building up a drug empire very quickly. Why the rush?”

“You seem to know everything, you tell me!” Sanchez was mustering his courage to respond, but a quiver was still in his voice and he was still suspended off the floor.

Bat MAn simply smiled, an action that sent a chill down Sanchez’ spine. “Ok, you were placating your family’s pride. They happen to be the biggest hashish and opium dealers in Madrid and you saw an untapped market here. To build it, you decided to use a gateway drug. You used a local gang to further your ends, providing them cash in exchange for their services. What you didn’t anticipate was me.”

He set Sanchez down, he turned to leave. Sanchez sat down in a chair by the window holding his heart and stuttered, “what are you going to do?”

“Nothing, but I won’t say the same for your friends…”

With that, Bat MAn disappeared down the hallway. To Sanchez’ left, a door opened and two broad shouldered, well dressed me stepped into the room.

The first spoke in a decidedly Italian voice, “Bats was right Spaniard. Diplomatic immunity or no, you’re answering to the Godfather tonight.”

As the sun rose, Bat MAn attempted to make peace with himself. Making the deal with the mob mere hours ago to cut off shipments of pot for an entire year in exchange for the dealer feeding the Bloods money and drugs got dangerous drugs off the streets and prevented a war. He didn't expect them to live up to their end of the bargain, but he knew he could shut them down pretty quickly when they did start up, keeping the streets clean for a while longer and giving Gordon’s special narcotics unit time to clean up the area.

Of course, he hadn't left Sanchez with the Mob thug which would have been a certain death sentence for sure. Gordon was waiting outside the gates of the embassy and stopped the "kidnapping" in progress. Sanchez was remanded in custody and would be shipped back to Madrid in the morning to face charges. He probably wouldn't ever see a courtroom, but he was at least no longer a player in this city.

He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he had once again made a deal with the devil.

If hero work were easy, the city would not need him. He would have to live with that.