On Patrol in East Gotham [Open]

[Evangelina Bradley]

Another day, another routine patrol. A few traffic tickets, a lot more warnings, and a lot of looking the other way because the sheer number of people on her east Gotham patrol area that she could arrest and convict of something is huge but she has reasons to not to want to. In some cases it's because she doesn't consider the crime they're committing to be that important. The hookers who are walking the streets more or less by choice, for example - she could arrest them for making a living doing something that doesn't hurt anyone, but she's not strongly inclined to. In some cases it's because she's getting paid to look the other way, and she honors such things - as long as the money keeps coming. And then there's the things that would get her killed if she stuck her nose into it - and she simply knows better than to touch anything like that.

As for things that are none of those three, she's on the lookout for them but the pickings are slim today. The radio has been pretty quiet as well, at least for anything that concerns her - she'd had to break up a domestic disturbance, but that was the most exciting thing that's happened all day, and it didn't really turn out to be anything but a man and a woman having a major verbal spat.

So by this time, now into the last third of her shift, Evangelina is actually finding herself getting bored. Which is annoying - she definitely didn't become a cop so that she could spend all day doing all this tedious work. In fact she half hopes that a call will come out for something major, though on second thought perhaps not - that would fix her boredom, but she's not very into serious risks to her life either. But it one mid-level crime in east Gotham too much to ask? She doubts that. Though of course, to maintain her job she has to take what she gets instead of picking and choosing what she responds to, unfortunately, whether she spots it as she's driving along or whether a call comes over the radio.

[Deleted]

Gotham City East, on the corner of Gotham Ave and Electric Street there is an old theater style club. Once it was known as the Ventriloquist Club, where many amateur and veteran ventriloquism artists would practice their craft.  The crowd that frequented the club where usually weirdo's, odd balls, or individuals who appreciate any type of art of performance. Sadly, ventriloquism is a dying art, and thus the club was forced to close down a few years ago.

In one of the back alleys of the Ventriloquist club, two women found themselves late at night. One an asian, the other black in ethnicity.  They were joy girls, thrills seekers, professional escorts who had been working the streets of Gotham City East, providing services from one of the oldest occupations.  The week had been a busy one for the both of them, thanks in large part to a mysterious contact who was setting them up with former criminals and thugs.  Men who were some of the most desperate in the city.

It was a cold night, but that is not what made the women feel a light chill, that came in the form of a voice coming from the darkness.

"Hello.  Hello. Heee." 

Emerging from behind a dumpster was a short creature with bottle rimmed glasses and a light suede colored suit.  In It's hand was a pale faced mannequin with a jagged scar running down the left side of his cheek.  The mannequin was also adorned in a purple suit with matching fedora and slacks.  It was the mannequin who spoke.

"Greetings ladies.  Da name is Scarface, and I thank ye for coming this evening.  As ye already know, I was da one who sent the mooks yer way looking for a good time."

The girls nodded in appreciation.

"Heh. Good good.  As we discussed, yer gonna have to offer tri'gute and a slice of da pie if ye catch our drift."

The black woman approached, holding a small brief case.  "35% of our take this month, as agreed upon Mister Scarface."

"Heeee.  Jack Be Nimble, Jack be Quick!"

Scarface shook his head, while the Ventriloquist chimed with excitement.  

"Ah'm afraid dat won't do.  Ye see, inflation is the name of the game, and 'gusiness was good for ye the last two weeks.  The amount for the tri'gute is 50%!"

The woman stared in disbelief.  "That was not the agreed amount!  There is no way we are paying that, not after we were the one's who put on bodies up for sale." 

RAT-TAT-TAT! RAT-TAT!!

There wasn't even a warning as Scarface took a series of shots from a tommy gun, hitting the black woman in the stomach, killing her instantly.  The Asian woman tried to run, making it to the edge of the alley before a spray of bullets cut her down.  Her lifeless body fell face first onto Electric Street, right under a spotlight formed by a street lamppost.   

The Ventriloquist ran up, grabbing the suitcase while pointing Scarface towards the alleyway, Ventriloquist smiled, like stealing candy from a couple of dead professional escorts.

"Get da loot dummy, Ah' have the alley covered!"

[Evangelina Bradley]

When the radio suddenly crackles to life, Evangelina regrets not knocking on wood after thinking about what she wishes she was doing instead. Yes, she was bored, but responding to someone calling in about hearing gunfire was not what she had in mind to fix that. She'd be quite happy to face all kinds of weaponry, but she draws the line at guns. Not that she has a problem with guns themselves - hell, the gun currently on her hip was a part of the reason why she wanted to become a cop in the first place - but she's not too thrilled about guns in the hands of people who might want to point them at her. And the fact that it's been fired already indicates that it's in the hands of someone who has the nerve to pull the trigger.

Unfortunately for her, the address given is extremely close and she doesn't have an excuse not to respond. So she sighs and responds to the dispatch that she's on her way to check it out. Gunfire is nothing new in this part of town, and normally it wouldn't bother her so much, but the caller had apparently said it sounded like a machine gun. Which she's instantly in disbelief about - she's patrolled this particular neighborhood for a year and while it's a hotbed for all kinds of crime she's not known it to attract people with enough money for that kind of a weapon. This is handgun and knife territory, normally. More likely the caller heard several people firing at each other - probably a street gang fight - freaked and thought it was an automatic.

With those thoughts running through her head, she doesn't really bother to think much on how to approach this situation. Given the fact that there's so many possible ways, that might seem foolish, but it really doesn't take her more than a moment to know exactly what she wants to do. If she was more cowardly, she'd wait for backup, but she's no coward. But she also isn't the kind of officer who is daring and determined, who would quickly and silently speed over there and try to get whoever it is before they have a chance to get away.

In fact, she does exactly the opposite of that. Flicking on her lights and siren, she drives over to the address where the shots were heard - pausing to carefully look over her gun before she kills the siren and gets out of the car. Because she's the kind of cop who would rather deliberately warn whoever it is that she's coming so that they can clear out before she gets there. That way she doesn't have to deal with a dangerous person holding a gun, and can legitimately say that the suspect had run off by the time that she got there.

And she expects that any sane person would leave when they saw a cop coming, or at least get themselves into the proper state to pretend that they're innocent bystanders. Not that her profession has the reputation to make experienced criminals tremble in fear most of the time, but nobody wants to get into a gun battle with a cop - if you kill a cop that tends to end nearly as badly as killing someone from one of the major crime families. If the wrong cop tracks you down first, your corpse ends up in the same river as the mafia hits, if not worse - Evangelina herself is one of the cops who would see to it that it was worse. If the right cop tracks you down first, instead you end up the subject of a mandatory hearing, during which the cop explains that killing you was self-defense and the judge agrees. Either way, not good.

Still, this is Gotham, so Evangelina doesn't completely count on whoever it is to be sane, so she has her gun in her hand as she exits her vehicle. But she doesn't take more than two steps before she spots an Asian woman on the ground. A very dead Asian woman, by the looks of bullet wounds. Okay, so maybe that report of a machine gun was accurate after all... "Damn..." she says quietly to herself. Forcing herself to not be too unnerved by that, she takes a breath and calls into the alleyway, "This is the police! Anyone down there, come out with your hands up!" Machine gun or not, she's still hoping that whoever it was left when they heard her siren coming. And it's actually extremely easy for her to banish even the slightest hint of worry from her voice and instead assume a supremely authoritative tone - she uses that tone for both or her jobs, after all.

[Deleted]

It was the Arnold Wesker who first heard the police sirens approaching them in the distance. The short man perked up, like a mole coming out of a hole, looking around with fear.

"T---th--the cops!" It stuttered. "Oh no!"

"Gra'g da money ye dummy!"

The siren was close. Very close. The dead body of the black woman was still warm, and Wesker didn't mind touching dead bodies. It palmed the woman and was able to find a extra hundred dollar bill underneath her bra. Pocketing the money greedily, the Wesker looked at the surrounding area.

There was a large steel gate with barbed wire at the top of it. To high for the un-athletic Wesker to climb. There was a pair of dumpsters which stood at least 8 feet high. It was the tall kind, rather then that wide kind. It couldn't get up there, not with the money and not with Scarface in tow. And at last there was the emergency door to the Wesker club, a club the creature knew all to well.  

They heard the voice of a female.  She appeared to be the first officer to arrive on scene whomever she was, for Wesker did not have a good history with female's in this city.

"Gack! Ah' got a plan! Heh."

Arnold Wesker once again became the Ventriloquist.  With It's interest perked, Scarface leaned into Ventriloquist's ear and whispered. 

"HEEEE!" 

Together, the pair shambled over to the entrance to the club, taking out a large silver key, they were able to open the door just a crack. 

"DO IT!"

Scarface pointed the tommy gun at all of the lights in the alley, shooting them out as the machine gun made the "Rat-A-Tat-Tat sound once again.  All of the lights suddenly went out, leaving the alley in addition to the street right in front of the alley pitch dark.  At one moment, Eva was able to see the dead body of the Asian Woman, then suddenly she was unable to.

Perched next to the door, Scarface and the Ventriloquist waited to see who or what would come into the alley first, all the while the Ventriloquist chanted a simple nursery rhyme over and over again like a broken record, and every single time It reached the end of bill..bill....bill it would let out a high pitched giggle.  Heeeee.

"Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick.
So she phoned for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and his hat,
And knocked at the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.

He looked at the dolly and shook his head,
And said "Miss Polly put her straight to bed.
He wrote a paper for a pill, pill, pill.
I'll be back in the morning with the bill, bill, bill."

[Evangelina Bradley]

When her demand is greeted with the sound of a machine-gun and a loss of the lighting, Evangelina curses severely as she backs a few steps away from the alleyway. Well, so much for plan of letting them escape. What kind of an idiot doesn't run when the cops arrive, anyway? A part of her wants to charge down that alleyway, tackle the man, and choke him to death with her bare hands for being stupid.

Another much larger and far more sensible part of her knows better than to do any such thing. Is she going to go into a dark alley where someone's waiting with a machine gun? Absolutely not! She may be bold and arrogant, but that's her limit! Instead she talks into her radio. "Arrived on scene, one woman DOA, suspect with an auto in the alley behind the Ventriloquist Club. Requesting immediate backup - shots fired by suspect, took out the lights in the alley," she reports, and immediately gets told that backup is en-route. Good, that means that she just needs to hold the fort here for a few minutes, and then someone else can risk their lives in going after the guy.

In the mean time, she decides to sit tight where she is - with the building to her back nobody can sneak up behind her, and she has a clean view of both the alleyway and the front entrance to the club. But really what she's hoping is that there's another exit that she's not watching and that the suspect will get away - that would be the safest thing for everyone. Not that she wouldn't catch him if she has the chance - it's always good to be able to show her superiors that she does, occasionally, bring someone in. But she's clearly outgunned here, and she rather doubts that anyone would argue that she should have charged in alone against a machine gun. If she had any sort of tactical advantage, this all would be completely different.

[Deleted]

A form of ADHD took over the Ventriloquist and Scarface.

"They ain't coming."

Wesker responded with a nod.

"Plan G."

Wesker nodded again. Together they burst through the side door of the Ventriloquist club.  They then proceeded to the front of the club.  About a year ago the club had fallen on tough times, much to the anger of Arnold Wesker.  Ventriloquism was an art dying with the times.  It was also mostly creepy.  As a result the tables of the club were covered with dirt stained table cloths, chairs were placed against the walls, and the windows were boarded up with wood.  The Ventriloquist lurched over to the one of the boarded windows at the front of the club so that It could look at onto the street.  It also flipped over one of the round tables nearby so that it was laying on the side.

People had scattered like ants when they heard the gunfire, so what It saw was an mostly empty street devoid of human life...except for one figure.  A woman.  A physically attractive woman at that who filled out the police uniform very nicely.   Her patrol car was also on the street, with the siren still flashing.  

Wesker let out a sadistic smile as It used it's elbow to break a few of the wooden planks from the window.  It then stuck Scarface out the window with tommy gun at hand and began to fire upon the patrol car.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT! RAT-A-TAT-TAT!!

Windows shattered, paint was ruined, bullet holes formed on the side, tired became deflated as the Ventriloquist sprayed the vehicle with bullets.  Just before the clip emptied a few of the last remaining bullets had managed to clip the hood of the car, causing the engine to begin smoking.

It fired until the clip was empty, then ducked behind one of the turned over table.  It quickly popped in a fresh magazine, ready for another spray of fully automatic chaos if needed. 

"Heeeee."  

[Evangelina Bradley]

When one of the boards on the window gets knocked down, Evangelina is very quick to figure out why that would have happened and take cover around the corner - because, again, she's not going to face down a machine gun. No way. But that still means that she gets a front row seat for what he does to her patrol car.

Which is something that at first she find shocking, but that feeling very quickly shifts into a certain very cold fury. Oh, the police department will surely replace it with a new one - she needs it to do her job, after all - but that's her car the bastard is shooting up! It's not enough to cause her to do anything rash, but she mentally pencils in 'beat the ever-loving shit out of this guy' into her bucket list. Because she's sure that she'll find the right opportunity - she just needs to figure out who he is and give it some time.

Even as she's pondering this, she can hear the sound of more sirens approaching. Good, that means that she won't have to be alone her for much longer. Picking up her radio again, she says, "Be advised, the suspect is now hiding in the club, shooting out of the front. Doesn't seem to be short on ammo." Wouldn't do for her brothers in blue to show up, only to get shot if they pulled up out front.

As a result, when the other vehicles approach, they stop a ways back, their occupants proceeding the rest of the way more carefully on foot, trying to choose angles of approach that will keep them from becoming targets. One of them, a sergeant, spots Evangelina and joins her behind the corner. Which is an immediate relief to her - now that someone who outranks her is present, she can let someone else make all the dangerous decisions. She rapidly updates him on everything that's happened so far in more detail than she gave on the radio, happy to let him figure out what to do about it.

And he's quickly on the radio, barking out instructions - the responding officers are ordered to secure the area, especially making sure that anyone who hasn't fled already gets evacuated. The building is to be surrounded and secured, and then they just need to wait for the SWAT team that's already been summoned to arrive.

Evangelina herself simply has to hold her position, now only having to make sure that their suspect doesn't manage to sneak away before the team is ready to go in there and get him. Which she does hope goes smoothly - she owes the man a beating now, after all.

[Deleted]

Proud of Itself that the car was destroyed, The Ventriloquist began to hear the other sirens approaching, multiple ones.  Understanding that It was not at the power level to fend off an entire squadron from the GCPD, It quickly plotted a route of escape. 

Littering the ground were the bullet shells from the Tommy Gun.  Back in the golden days of Scarface's reign, the pair were able to afford exotic bullets, made with tips of white gold painted a tannish brown color, but since falling on hard times, the bullets they mostly used were your run of the mill old casings.  However, there happened to be a few remnants of the old white gold bullets, that Scarface + Ventriloquist had just finished using to destroy the police car.  Those 2 bullets made from the white gold lay littered with the others on the ground right now. 

 

Ventriloquist slowly backed away, heading into one of the private offices of the club.  It was an old office, used by a former manager, a man by the name of Mugsy, who also happened to be one of the main staples of Scarface's old gang (Along with Rhino and Ratso).  Underneath one of the floorboards, which had been removed by the Ventriloquist and Scarface, was an ladder which lead down to the sewers. 

The Ventriloquist threw the suitcase down the chute, before slowly climbing down Itself with Scarface in tow.  The money in the suitcase only counted up to be around $1,500, not much, but something to get started on.  However, while climbing down, a part of Scarface's custom Armani suit got caught on a sharp nail that had been sticking out the wall. 

"GACK!  Ye stupid idiot!"  Scarface screamed, slapping the Ventriloquist in the face. 

"Ouch...soo---soo sorry Mister Scarface."

Ventriloquist strapped the tommy gun on It's back before descending into the sewers below.  It stuck, smelling like acidic waste, rancid water, and bile. 

"Damn sewers. Dat way."  Scarface said pointing towards the East.  "Ah' paid Croc a fortune to show me a way through da sewers around da clu'g. Heh.  If ye follow me, we should be taken by the junkyard."

"Whatever you s--say Mister Scarface.  Right away," Wesker replied.  So with that, Scarface and the Ventriloquist ran off through the complex sewer system towards the entrance to the junkyard.  It would be difficult for anyone to follow them, given the head start they had and the knowledge Scarface had regarding the passage way from Killer Croc years ago. 

With the money in tow, a tommy gun strapped to their back, and Scarface holding a cheap flashlight, They were able to make stumble their way to freedom.

Low and behold, the scrap of Scarface's Armani suit that had torn off just before entering the sewer was still stuck on the nail up above.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Sgt in question who approached Eva was a Asian-Man by the name of Jonathan Yee.  A three year veteran of the force, who had transferred from Emerald City.  He had been a police officer for roughly 5 years now, making him 27.  Yee quickly orders for the team other officers to slowly take up positions to prevent a escape from the alleyway, front entrance of the club, and anything that existed in the rear.

A few minutes later the blue SWAT "Tank" arrives, followed by an entire SWAT team consisting of the lucky number 7 of officers.  Yee sends the SWAT team in, and straps on a bullet proof vest himself.

Yee turns to Evangelina. 

"Strap up Bradley.  You're coming in with us.  It would be good to have your eyes and ears inside with us as well.  Take up the rear, and only go inside after SWAT finisher their sweep.  If you're very curious to see what investigative works feels like, now is your opportunity." 

[Evangelina Bradley]

"Me?" Evangelina immediately protests, "Hey, I was the first responder for this, and look what he did to my car!" The implication that she's already been through a lot today and she hardly wants to be among those who go in there. However, it only takes an unsympathetic look from the sergeant for her to give an annoyed sigh and say, "Fine."

As she puts on the vest she mentally gripes about the sergeant - thinks that he's such a big shot because of the title and such. She's been an officer for five years too, so it's not like she's a novice at this either. Of course, she has enough questionable marks on her record, general signs of unreliability, and some gaps in her detective skills that would make her superiors hesitate to promote her, so pretty much anyone else would say that the fact that she's still a patrol officer is perfectly fair. And the fact that she transferred from Blüdhaven a year ago was a poor career move, timing-wise. But she'd made that decision for personal reasons.

Entering into the building shortly after the SWAT boys, who quickly pronounce the building empty, she proves that the gaps in her detective skills definitely exist by not finding much of anything. Fortunately, the department doesn't depend on her alone, and the others are able to quickly determine that the suspect was highly unlikely to be anyone but one Arnold Wesker - it was a dead giveaway, really, given the location and the type of weapon even without the casings and the scrap of Armani. The whole process leaves Evangelina feeling quite useless, but at least she knows who trashed her car: Arnold Wesker. She'll remember that.