Party and Umbrella (V)

Schiller heard from Cobblepot the entire story of how he had climbed his way up to become a minor boss in the North District.

It had to be said that Cobblepot was a genius, especially when it came to power plays. His plans were meticulous, his thinking clear, his execution strong, and he was an excellent actor. He always knew how to adopt the right persona at the right time and fool everyone.

Back when he was with Fish, he acted as though he could not coexist with the invading gang bosses, like a native fiercely defending his own territory.

But after switching to Kevin’s side, he began describing Fish’s cruelty, claiming that these gang bosses’ land-grabbing was utterly righteous and would save the citizens of Living Hell from misery.

Fish was naturally furious when she learned of his betrayal, but Cobblepot had provided these gang bosses with an excuse for righteous plunder. They had to protect him and hold him up as a model, the higher the better, to show that under their rule, even a cigarette peddler too weak to lift a load could gain status and power. It proved that Fish’s rule over Living Hell had left people with no way out.

Cobblepot had turned himself into the exemplary figure these gang bosses wanted to promote. Not only did it give him his chance to rise, but it also drove the relationship between Fish and those bosses into ever-greater tension, until they were nearly at each other’s throats.

"And then? What did you do to make Kevin start fearing you?" Schiller asked Cobblepot. Before Cobblepot could answer, Schiller added, "In your previous version of the story, you said Kevin worried you would take his position. But there’s a flaw there…"

"These single-minded gang bosses rarely fear an office worker. Most of them think only someone with a gun is a threat. And you? You weren’t strong enough physically, and you had no armed force. A traditional gang boss like Kevin, one who only respected the size of someone’s fists, wouldn’t fear you for no reason."

Cobblepot opened his mouth, but instead of directly answering Schiller’s question, he asked, "More importantly, why do you know them so well?"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you…" Schiller turned around, picked up a notebook from the table behind him, and flipped through it as he spoke. "Let me see…"

"Among the current gang bosses in Living Hell, only one has no record of being admitted here. The other five were all patients here at some point, including Kevin. I saw him in the hallway…"

"Isn’t this a psychiatric hospital?" Cobblepot asked, staring wide-eyed.

"Do you think they aren’t mentally ill?"

Cobblepot took a breath and found himself unable to argue. Schiller had a point. In Gotham, how could anyone become a gang boss without at least a little insanity?

"All right, I’ll continue…"

"From the beginning, my goal was to accumulate capital. Even if I escaped the Godfather’s control, I couldn’t exactly go back to wandering the streets, could I? I couldn’t build a gang from scratch, so I could only steal an existing one…"

"I began winning people over within Kevin’s gang. Using my talent for calculation, I always collected more water fees than elsewhere without anyone noticing. I bought off the lower ranks with small benefits, gained conveniences, made more money, and then used larger sums to buy off quite a few middle and upper-level members…"

"I hadn’t intended to act so soon, but one idiot was careless. When he reported to Kevin, he let something slip and Kevin learned that I had skimmed off quite a bit of the extra water fees."

"Just as you said, these gang bosses didn’t care about people without guns. But they cared about money."

"Once Kevin found out I had embezzled the water fees, he was furious. He threatened to kill me. Only because several higher-ups I had bought off mediated did he not explode immediately."

"But I knew I had to act ahead of schedule. Kevin wouldn’t tolerate me for much longer."

"It seems your experience was still lacking," Schiller concluded. "In Gotham, don’t count on anyone else. They can’t get a single thing done and only bring trouble."

"I understand that now," Cobblepot said with a cold snort.

"But even so, there was no need for you to return to Fish’s side. Couldn’t you kill Kevin yourself? You should have had plenty of opportunities."

"But that wouldn’t solve the problem."

Cobblepot’s tone became somewhat helpless. He said, "That place was a mud pit. Once I killed Kevin and took his place, such a major change in leadership would make the gang extremely unstable."

"There were several wolves watching from nearby. The moment anything went wrong inside the gang, they would swarm in and carve up its territory."

"I could kill one Kevin with strategy, but I couldn’t kill everyone. If I wanted to take power while stabilizing the gang and intimidating them, I needed outside help."

"So you went back to Fish?"

"That’s right. Fish was still someone I could reason with then. She wasn’t that insane yet. I confessed to her and proposed that I could help her coordinate from within and without."

"Fish was still volatile at the time, but her mind was relatively clear. She was moved by the potential profit, and so we began working together."

In this scene, the initial light came from a mirror. In the mirror, Cobblepot put on a brand-new suit and tied a tie, looking more like one of Gotham’s gang bosses.

His figure moved among the Muni gang and the other gangs. One moment, he was endlessly offering Fish all kinds of suggestions and plans; the next, he was exchanging false pleasantries with Kevin.

Above Living Hell appeared Penguin’s still somewhat youthful face. He stretched out a hand, fine threads dangling several puppets from his fingers. The active fingers of his soul made those puppets dance through the strange, eerie buildings, like a horror party.

"After that, I found an excuse to lure Kevin out of Living Hell, and Fish killed him in an alley not far from it," Cobblepot’s voice rang out again.

"As we had agreed, Fish made a scene and held up the bosses of the other gangs, while I used that gap to take over Kevin’s territory."

"And then?" Schiller adjusted his glasses and said to Cobblepot, "Kevin died, you took over the territory, and everything went smoothly…"

Cobblepot shook his head. "Nothing of the sort happened."

"I couldn’t withstand the recoil of any high-powered firearm. I could only use handguns, and I had no talent for fighting. I couldn’t make a living through force."

"But Gotham’s gangs lived by force in the first place, especially these low-level gangs. Too many people refused to accept my position. I had to put up with Fish. I needed her help to get rid of those troublemakers."

"But she became more and more insane. She went mad, do you understand?" Cobblepot looked at Schiller. "That woman completely lost her mind and became a monster that only knew how to abuse and beat people!"

"And you just endured her abuse?"

"Of course not…" The muscles in Cobblepot’s face trembled, making his expression look especially vicious. He said, "It was better that she was insane. Without a brain, she could only be controlled by me."

"She kept beating me, but it didn’t matter. After she had one of her episodes, she would fall into terror that everyone wanted to harm her. I was the only one who could communicate with her."

"I could make her kill anyone. All I had to do was quietly tell her that person had betrayed her." Cobblepot let out a string of furtive chuckles.

At the center of the stage, Fish sat on a wooden crate. Her eyes were bloodshot, her lips cracked, and her entire body looked like a stiff puppet.

Cobblepot’s face was covered in wounds, but he showed no fear. Instead, he approached Fish’s ear with a cold smile and whispered one name after another. Fish’s arms began to tremble uncontrollably. The madwoman had been driven insane by paranoid fantasies of persecution, and she swore to kill everyone who had betrayed her.

Gunshots rang out one after another. Shadow after shadow fell at Cobblepot’s feet, blood flowing around his shoes. He reached up to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, raised his head, and his eyes brimmed with crazed triumph.

"But why did you change your strategy afterward?"

"I wasn’t lying." Cobblepot looked into Schiller’s eyes. "Maroney came to me, though I didn’t know who he was at the time."

"He told me that he had previously struck at several of the Godfather’s businesses and had already become mortal enemies with the Falcone family. He didn’t want to watch the Falcone family reform Gotham, so he wanted to sabotage the first step of those reforms."

"He knew I controlled the water system in the North District, so he came to me hoping I would poison Living Hell’s water supply."

Cobblepot’s tone grew colder and colder. "By then, Fish had already begun to go mad. She was almost useless."

"We made a plan together: kill Fish and frame Little Falcone."

"That doesn’t make sense." Schiller asked Cobblepot, "Your goal was to escape the Godfather’s control, not offend him. Don’t tell me you thought you could defeat the Godfather this way and gain freedom."

"Of course not. How could I be that stupid?"

"Maroney?" Cobblepot snorted through his nose and continued, "Did he think I would truly cooperate with him? Of course not. I could tell he was a shameless hyena."

"We made a plan, but beyond that, I had a plan of my own."

"I suppose now we come to the matter of you and your mother?"

"That’s right."

The curtain opened again, and as Cobblepot spoke, the viewpoint returned to the old Cobblepot house.

The frail Cobblepot was panting heavily, slumped in the center of the living room amid the mess.

Mrs. Cobblepot held a chair and smashed it wildly against the floor, muttering incoherently.

Cobblepot held a rope, trying to tie up his mother after her sudden episode. But Mrs. Cobblepot knocked him to the floor with one shove. Cobblepot slammed into the table and cried out in pain. Then Mrs. Cobblepot swung the chair and struck his right arm.

Cobblepot rolled across the floor, knocking over a cabinet as items scattered everywhere.

Yet he still struggled to his feet. He knelt on one knee and thought for a moment, then staggered into a room, brought out sleeping pills, slipped around Mrs. Cobblepot as she continued smashing things, went to the coffee table in the living room, tossed the medication into the water, and hid in the corner to wait.

About an entire night passed before Mrs. Cobblepot finally emerged from that manic state. As her excitement faded, exhaustion and thirst overtook her. Following instinct, she looked for water and drank the entire large jug laced with sleeping pills in one gulp.

Several dozen more minutes passed. Only when the medication took effect and Mrs. Cobblepot collapsed asleep on the sofa did Cobblepot approach and drag her away.

Schiller covered his forehead and interrupted Cobblepot’s account. "Obviously, your mother has paranoid schizophrenia just like you… Forget it. I can’t expect you to know anything about this."

"All I can say is that you did next to nothing. Even if you hadn’t used sleeping pills, a patient coming down from a manic state would fall into a deep sleep from sheer exhaustion."

Cobblepot suddenly seemed almost nervous as he struggled to lift his upper body, leaned against the pillow, met Schiller’s gaze, and asked, "Can this illness really be cured?"

"I said it could." Schiller paused, then added, "But that applies to you, because you’re relatively young. As for your mother…"

He shook his head and continued, "A complete cure is unlikely. At best, she can live normally most of the time. When she has an episode, she will still need hospitalization."

Cobblepot seemed to let out a breath of relief. Before Schiller could continue questioning him, he said, "Just as you expected, that wasn’t actually a kidnapping scene. Or rather, I kidnapped my own mother."

"It was part of my plan. I intended to send my mother away myself, then frame Maroney."

"I had saved quite a bit of money and rented a new apartment. There was no need to bring anything from that old house, but my mother simply refused to leave…"

"We argued, she became more and more agitated, and then she started going mad. I had no choice…"

Cobblepot gritted his teeth. "I had no idea what was wrong with her. She had occasionally been confused before, but never anything as severe as this."

"She completely lost her mind and became uncontrollable. She even picked up a fruit knife and stabbed herself. I was afraid she would hurt herself, so I could only put her to sleep and forcibly take her to the new apartment."

"Why didn’t you send her to the hospital?"

"I ran out of time." Cobblepot’s face darkened. "My mother and I argued for an entire day, and she spent the whole night in a frenzy. That was time I was supposed to use to arrange the scene."

"The time I agreed upon with Maroney arrived. I had to carry out the plan. I didn’t have time to clean up the house, and I didn’t have time to treat my arm either. I could only rush over…"

"All right, then why exactly did you fabricate the lie that Maroney had kidnapped your mother?"

"That was my plan. I was never going to truly cooperate with that hyena. Don’t forget my ultimate goal—I wanted freedom."

"So what exactly was your plan?"

Suddenly, Cobblepot changed the subject. "Just a few days ago, I discovered that a strange man was operating in Living Hell. Of course, I had heard his name before. He was called Batman…"