#18:The Two Faces of Harvey Dent,Pt 2 (Burchette/Hodges)

It was a dark and dank place. A cinder block basement, of an apartment building in one of Gotham’s seediest parts of town. His pain had subsided some, but his anger was still building. He gazed at the coin in the palm of his hand. Good luck, he was told. It’ll bring him good luck.

He looked around wildly and saw a small paper cutter lying on the dirt floor. He grabbed it and began to scratch the one side of the coin.

“Here you go Harvey,” he mumbled to himself. “It’ll bring you good luck.”

He continued to carve an X into the one side of it. “All there is luck, Brucie my boy. Luck and chance, that’s all life is about. Blind doodah luck.”

“You burned me, you freakin’ hood. You burned me bad, Maroni, and you’re going to be the last person to do it. Good ol’ Harvey Dent ain’t gonna bee so good anymore. He’s taking what’s his.”

“However, should I really abandon all that I’ve strived for? Yes, it is true that I was manipulated and used, and eventually scarred beyond belief, but I still have a duty to the law that I have sworn to uphold. If I allow my basic instincts to overwhelm me, then I have become no better then those that I fought against my entire life.”

“Oh to hell with it,” he growled as his voice became a bit gruffer, again. “Let’s leave it up to chance.” He stated as he flipped the coin high into the air. He made a perfect catch in his fist and then opened it up, to find the scratched off head facing him. “Well there, Maroni, looks like your time is up. I’m going to take care of you myself.”

It wasn’t really a laugh that came from his throat, more of a guttural chuckle. It was so animalistic in nature that even the rats in the basement began to scurry away.

Boss Maroni sat in his cell, watching as two guards and a young woman came up to it and walked through. He eyed them suspiciously. The guard he didn’t recognize, it wasn’t one of his. The woman, the woman he knew. She had been in the news, not to long ago. Her name was Sarah Essen and she was the new Deputy Commissioner.

“What da you want,” The Boss growled.

“Just to talk to you, Maroni, about your daughter.”

“I ain’t got no daughter.”

“Then I guess the fact that Gilda Dent was murdered last night, won’t interest you at all.”

Sarah watched as the color drained from Maroni’s face.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. It’s over, Maroni. All your plans and plotting, it all went up in a ball of acid. You’re not going to get out of this one. You tried to assault a member of the court in front of three dozen witnesses. And here’s the worse part, for you, Harvey Dent is out there, and no doubt ticked off at the way you’ve screwed up his life. So how about you and I have a talk.”

Maroni put his head into his hands and began to sob.

Boss Maroni’s men sat in their chairs, throwing out the poker chips and waiting for some kind of word from their employer. He had his ways of contacting them, but so far they had heard nothing.

The door to the back room of the pizza joint opened and they looked up, all of them unsure at exactly what they were looking at. He wore a suit that seemed to be of two designs, Armani on the right, and some kind of hideous checkered suit that seemed to belong to another time and place, on the left.

However, it was the face of this man that made them sit there in stunned silence. The left side of his face seemed to have been melted away; some of the tendons were even showing. His hair was burned off in spots, and in other places, its color was altered. The right side of the face was perfectly untouched.

“Is… is that… Harvey Dent,” one of the henchmen whispered in both awe and disgust.

Dent grinned, “It was, boys. But you can call me Two Face, and I’m here to take over for Sal, since he won’t be getting out anytime soon.”

“But… but… you’re one of the good guys,” another thug said, confused. “In fact, how we know this isn’t some kind of setup?’

Two-Face seemed to consider that for a moment as he absently tossed a coin up into the air. It landed in the palm of his hand. He shrugged, whipped out his gun, and shot the man who had just questioned him, square in the chest.

“Cause if I was one of the good guys, would I have done that?”

The others jumped up and backed away. They didn’t dare draw their guns, since Dent’s was waving ominously in their direction.

“How… how come you’re taking over?” One of them whispered with curiosity.

Two-Face chuckled, “Cause Sal isn’t getting out anytime soon, and with his bitch of a daughter dead, that leaves me next in line. Boss Maroni just got everything he wanted.”

The crooks looked at each other uneasily, “I’m, ah, guessing the boss doesn’t know this, yet?”

Dent grinned, “He’s about to, pal. He’s about too. In the mean time, it’s up to us to let the crime bosses of Gotham know that there’s a new player in town.”

“How?” One of them asked.

“Well, I’m of two minds about that…”

Lights went out at ten o’ clock in the jail, with no exceptions. Sal “Boss” Maroni lay on his cot, his mind going a mile a minute. His beloved daughter was dead. All evidence pointed to Dent. There would be hell to pay, he swore that on his life.

The mob boss had just fallen into an uncomfortable sleep when he was suddenly grabbed and a piece of cloth was shoved into his mouth, blocking any attempt at calling out. Then some kind of cloth bag was draped over his head and before he could do anything else, his body was lifted, arms roughly tied behind his back, and he was carried out of his cell.

His heart was racing, this was it, and he knew it. The question was who was doing the deed? Was it Falcone, or Black Mask? Rumors were swirling all around that the lunatic had survived and was still around. Whomever it was, it was a given that they had him where they wanted him. As much as he was a fighter, part of him couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved. Maybe it was time to join his dearly departed wife and daughter.

After being carried for what felt like an eternity, he was finally tossed to the ground like a wet sack of potatoes and the bag was ripped off his head. The light was blinding and he shielded himself from it the best he could, until his eyes adjusted.

When he was finally able to see, what stood in front of him repulsed him at first. The side of the face that seemed to be melted away, the puffed up lip on the right side that seemed to give a constant sneer. It was almost enough to make him lose what passed as supper in the joint.

It wasn’t until he saw the other half of the face, that he realized who he was dealing with: Harvey Dent. The man who murdered his daughter. His revulsion became anger in an instant.

“I’m going to kill you!” Maroni screamed as the cloth was removed from his mouth.

“You know, from where I’m standing, I don’t see that happening,” Two-Face said with a small chuckle. “In fact, the question is, am I going to kill you? Cause to be honest with ya, there ain’t nothing I’d rather do right now then bash your head in.”

“You killed my daughter!”

“Yeah, right after she threw acid all over my face and scarred me for life! She’s lucky I made it quick, for her.”

Maroni stared at the gruesome face and then, even through his boiling hatred, he watched as the other side of Dent’s face seemed to soften, and for a split second he could have sworn he saw the left eye begin to water.

“I loved her so much,” Dent whispered. “Why did you do this too me?”

The crime boss sneered, “You were the perfect pansy. We would have had you in our pocket before you even knew what hit you. Then I could have gained power that would have rivaled Falcone, himself.”

“You used your own daughter? What kind of monster are you?”

“Gilda wasn’t being used, you idiot. She was in on it from the beginning. She wanted to see her old man rise to power in this city. In fact, she was the one who chose you, to begin with.” He almost cackled at the last statement.

Dent’s face tightened up, “Then she deserved everything she got.”

“So what now, you going to kill me or not?”

“I should, I want too,” Two-Faces voice had become gruff again, but that’s not the way I operate. You know, in a way, you’re getting exactly what you wanted, Maroni. I mean, let’s face it, you’re time has come to an end. Ain’t no way you’re getting out of prison anytime in the next twenty to thirty years, so it looks like your son-in-law’s about to take over the family business for you. You really lucked out.”

“You’ll run my business over my dead body,” Maroni growled.

Two-Face stared at him intently, shrugged, and then took a coin from out of his pocket and flipped it up in the air. It came down into the palm of his hand. He glanced at it, grinned, and pulled out his gun.

“You got that right,” he said as he squeezed the trigger.

The batarang hit the gun in the split second before it went off. The gun flew from Dent’s hand. Harvey looked around, not anxiously, like the four men with him did, but almost with a disinterest.

“Don’t do this, Harvey,” the deep voice said from the shadows of the basement. “Let him go and we can get you help.”

“Well this doesn’t come as a surprise at all. In fact, I pretty much expected you to show up. Sorry, Bats, but it’s out of my hands now. The coin has chosen, and Maroni will die.”

“The… the coin?” Batman’s voice came back, slightly startled.

“A gift from an old friend,” Harvey said with more then a hint of sadness in his voice.

“However,” Two-Face continued. “Since you’ve crashed the party, I’ll have to wait.” He pulled from his jacket a small device, and quickly pressed down on it. “I was prepared for you, Batman. I know you too well. I’ve just started the clock ticking on two bombs; in two separate areas of the jail. You’ve got two minutes, think you can do it?”

Harvey turned to leave as Batman leapt from the darkness to block his escape. The four thugs pounced on him, but the dark knight was quick. Giving two of them swift kicks in the gut that sent them reeling back. He slammed his fist into the third one and barely dodged a gunshot from the forth. He came down on the gun hand, knocking it away, and grabbed the man’s arm, flipping him over and slamming him to the ground. He turned to where Harvey was, only to find him gone.

Alfred had warmed up a plate of beef stroganoff for Bruce as soon as he had heard that he was coming back in. He walked it down into the cave, not surprised to find his employer studying several books at once. All of them were of the psychology variety, two in particular that seemed to deal with multiple personality disorders.

“Nourishment, Master Bruce?”

“Thank you Alfred,” he replied absently as he continued to poor over the books.

“Do you truly believe that Mr. Dent’s psyche has broken in two?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The upstairs phone interrupted anymore conversation, and Alfred picked it up with his usual greeting. After informing the other party that the master of the house was indisposed at the moment, he listened and then told them to wait one moment while he got Bruce Wayne.

Bruce made his way into the Dent’s home, well after dark. He had chosen not to come in the suit. In case the house was being watched, or the remote possibility that Harvey might still be there.

He turned on his flashlight and wandered the hall, looking from room to room. It was apparent from the beginning that even though he had made the call from here, he was long gone.

When he entered into Harvey’s office, where he assumed the call had been made, he found a perfectly cleaned off desk, except for one item. It was a recent picture of Harvey and Gilda with him and Vicki Vale, at a dinner they had had not too long ago. All four of them were smiling, oblivious to the tragedy that was only days away.

To the left of the picture was a name scrawled on a white sheet of paper. A letter opener had been driven through the middle of that name. It had said: Apollo.

Bruce leaned back in the chair and stared at the picture for almost half an hour. Finally he got up and left, his heart as dark and depressed as the empty room he was leaving.

He had lost his friend. He had lost…


The End[/b]