the first client

The burner phone rang twice before it was answered.

"What the hell is this?" the voice on the other end growled. He was breathless, panicked. Sirens howled in the distance, closer than Quentin would've liked.

Quentin leaned against a rusted lamppost, one hand in his coat pocket, the other holding the phone. He grinned.

"You don't know who I am," he said, voice calm, deliberate, smooth as silk. "But I know who you are."

A pause. "Yeah? And who's that?"

"You're one of the three morons who hit First Gotham Bank this morning. You've got one man down with a bullet in his side. You're limping through alleyways thinking the cops won't find you. They will. And when they do, you're going away for life, if you're lucky. You might die tonight. But I can change that."

"Who the hell are you?" the man spat. "You with the cops? Huh?"

Quentin chuckled lightly, leaning off the post. "Do I sound like a cop?"

No answer.

"I can get you someplace safe," he continued. "A place not even the Bat can sniff out. You and your friends? You'll disappear. But you need to trust me. And you need to move now."

The man was silent, clearly thinking, or bleeding too much to argue. Then, a voice in the background: "We need help! We're not gonna make it!"

"Why should I trust you?" the robber finally demanded. "You think I'm just gonna listen to some creep calling me outta nowhere?"

Quentin's voice dropped, low and dangerous. "Do you want to live free and rich… or die in cuffs while your buddy bleeds out on the pavement?"

The silence that followed was thick.

"…Alright," the man finally said. "What do I do?"

Quentin's grin returned. "Good choice. Keep your head down. Someone will find you in five. Follow them. Do not question them. If you do, you're on your own."

He hung up without waiting for a reply.

**

The streets of Gotham didn't slow down just because three criminals were dying in its cracks. It was just another weekday afternoon, with garbage trucks rumbling past and steam leaking from sewer grates. No one noticed the old woman pushing a squeaky shopping cart with a mound of blankets inside.

Underneath those blankets? A bloodied, semi-conscious man groaning softly into a dirty rag tied around his mouth. His arm was pressed tightly to his side to stem the bleeding. A second homeless man walked beside her, keeping pace, acting as a lookout.

Around the corner, the other two robbers, now dressed in layered rags, hooded coats, and with dirt smeared across their faces shuffled along behind a third vagrant, a wiry guy with yellowing teeth and a knowing grin. They turned off into a narrow alley, then descended into a forgotten maintenance hatch beneath a condemned building. No one saw them.

The "safehouse" was nothing more than an old basement beneath a shuttered pawn shop. But it was warm, stocked with canned goods, a few mattresses, and a med kit. The walls were tagged with graffiti and lit by battery-powered lanterns.

The cart woman and her escort rolled in the injured man, already prepping the supplies. The other two robbers arrived moments later, eyes wide.

"We've got you," the woman whispered, brushing back the man's sweat-drenched hair.

****

The basement was dim, but quiet. Just the soft hum of an old generator in the corner and the rustling of the blankets as the old woman leaned over the injured man, peeling back the makeshift tourniquet.

Her fingers were stained red, but they moved with practiced precision.

"Bullet went clean through," she muttered, squinting through her cracked bifocals. "Didn't hit bone, but he's still bleeding like hell. Might've nicked something important."

She reached into a dented first-aid box and pulled out a curved needle and fishing line. Not suture thread. Fishing line.

The leader of the robbers tall, wiry, and still shaking from the adrenaline crash was pacing in the background, hands pulling at the roots of his hair.

"What do you mean he's still bleeding? I thought you were fixing him!"

"I'm starting to fix him," she snapped back, not even looking up. "But unless you've got a trauma kit in your back pocket, there's only so much I can do with duct tape and hope."

He cursed and kicked an empty can across the room. The other robber sat hunched in a corner, cradling a pistol with trembling hands, watching as the old woman a former combat medic, turned ghost of Gotham's underbelly began stitching flesh with unsteady but experienced fingers.

"This isn't gonna hold forever," she said, more to herself than anyone. "He needs antibiotics. Painkillers. Fluids. And a real damn doctor."

The leader stopped pacing. "So what? You're saying he's gonna die?"

"I'm saying," she said slowly, wiping sweat from her brow, "you need to call him back, I used to be a combat medic not some professional doctor."

The old woman finishes tying the last knot of her crude stitching, her hands trembling slightly. The injured man groans, pale and sweating.

The burner phone buzzes on the dusty floor.

The leader picks it up, hesitates—then answers.

"Yeah?" He said trying to keep his voice calm

"Still breathing?" Quintin asked

"Barely. Your medic says he's bleeding out."

Quentin hummed, "Then you're running out of time. Listen closely."

Quentin, standing tall in front of a broken window, phone pressed to his ear, Gotham's lights flickering in the distance.

"There's a clinic in the East End. Run by a woman named Dr. Leslie Thompkins. She doesn't ask questions—but she's not going to come to you. We'll take your man to her."

"You mean we move now?"

"You don't move an inch. You leave that safehouse, you void the deal. The cops are still sniffing, and I'm not in the habit of protecting liabilities." The robber could practically hear Quentin's smirk

There's a pause on the other end.

"You expect us to just sit here while you run off with him?"

"No, I expect you to pay."

Silence.

"You want your friend to live? He gets the doc. But my people aren't a charity. Ten large. Half now. Half when you're clear and out of Gotham."

The robber's veins bulged "That wasn't the—"

"It is now. You said you needed out. That's the price."

A long pause.

"Fine."

"Wise choice."

He hangs up.

The old woman, joined by two younger homeless men, gently lifts the injured robber onto a battered cart. They cover him with dirty blankets, a few crushed cans stacked on top to sell the illusion.

The cart rattles through shadowy alleyways, weaving through back streets, skirting patrols and street cams.

The city's unseen routes — the real Gotham.

Dr. Leslie Thompkins looks up from her work as the old woman rolls in the cart, pulling back the blanket to reveal the bloody mess underneath.

Leslie sighs, "I don't want to know his name. But he's going to need blood and a miracle."

The old women smirked, "Then it's a good thing you've got both."

Leslie got to work.