Captain Boomerang did the math on his fingers. Based on Adam's offer, just the base pay came to over thirty grand a year—before tips and commissions. Compared to his "cheap old man" back in Central City who couldn't be bothered to pay him a single cent, this was practically winning the lottery.
"If you're out working for gangs, you'd be lucky enough to make a few dozen bucks a day. And for that, you risk getting beaten, locked up, or shot. No future in it." Adam lit a cigarette, his voice calm but edging on a sales pitch. "You work for me? Gotham's a city where every inch of space is worth its weight in gold. Someone with skills can climb here. You'll do a lot better than going back to herding kangaroos. Do the math."
Boomerang stopped pretending to think. He stood up, gripped Adam's hand with both of his, and shook it hard.
"Done. You need me, you call me. So… we start now, yeah? I can walk out of here?"
Adam just chuckled and waved him away, sending him off to the bar for Norton to deal with. Then he sent for Mr. Sleep.
Mr. Sleep was even easier—when Adam told him he was wanted, he agreed without hesitation. Years in Gotham had left him sidelined, mocked for dozing off anywhere, any time. He'd take any decent offer. Adam, of course, knew the truth—this guy, when awake, could flatten a dozen men without breaking a sweat. His problem wasn't skill—it was availability.
In Gotham, that made him a solid mid-tier enforcer at best, but Adam could use men like that. This was a town where third-string muscle still had value.
With his two new "recruits" on their way to the bar under Deadshot's eye—along with some quick ground rules—Adam moved to his next problem.
It hadn't gotten any smaller.
The bar was still a money pit.
Last night's crowd had looked great, but the profits had been eaten whole by the cost of booze. Harvey Dent's shiny new Prohibition law had sent alcohol prices through the roof—and now each bar had to meet a monthly "performance quota" or risk losing its liquor license entirely.
Two more men on payroll meant the burn rate was climbing fast. Pirated discs were bringing in cash, sure, but not fast enough to keep up.
"In the end, the drinks are killing me," Adam muttered. "What the hell's Dent thinking? Somebody's making a fortune off this."
He didn't like the idea of buying from Penguin. Oswald controlled most of Gotham's black-market alcohol, but working with him meant bending to his prices—and his terms. That path ended with someone else pulling your strings.
Which meant only one real alternative: build his own smuggling route.
Which was easier said than done.
In Gotham, only a handful of bosses had bridges to foreign supply chains, and getting one from scratch was an uphill climb. But Adam suddenly remembered—Penguin wasn't theo nly one with a pipeline.
Roman Sionis—Black Mask—had run a smuggling operation far riskier, and far more discreet, than Penguin's.
And Adam happened to know one of the men who'd worked those runs personally.
When he'd been in South America, Adam had crossed paths with one of Black Mask's trusted middlemen—"Number One," as the crew called him. They'd made a deal together in the rainforest that paid off for both sides. Enough of one that the man might remember him.
The question was: was he still alive? The last Adam had heard, Bane had cut in on one of his jobs. If he'd survived Roman's temper after that, it would be a miracle.
Only one way to find out.
Adam dug out his old sat-phone—the same one he'd used in jungle backwaters. Using the code channel Black Mask's people had left for emergencies, he dialed.
Static and distortion filled his ear for almost a minute… and then a wary voice cut in.
"Who is this? How do you have this number?"
Adam didn't waste time. "Fucker, you forget me already? South American jungle, tribal deal—you took your cut, I took mine, everyone walked away happy. And now you're pretending you don't know me?"
There was a pause. Then shock.
"Adam…? Detective Adam?" Number One's tone changed immediately. "Hell, I didn't expect you to reach out. And you're lucky you called now—if this had been a few days ago, I'd never have picked up."
Adam read between the lines. Back then, Bane had hijacked a shipment meant for Black Mask—turning it into war funds for his mercenaries. The man on the other end of the line had likely been left holding the bag as the escort chief. Roman's wrath would've been a death sentence. Hiding his phone was survival.
But now, Black Mask was dead which meant his former crew were free agents.
After a few pleasantries—avoiding any mention of Bane—Adam got him talking.
Number One's sigh was heavy. "Since the boss went down, nobody's been giving orders here. My guys—hundreds of them—are sitting on their hands. The rest of the gang are too busy stabbing each other in the back over turf. I've sent requests for cash three times and gotten nothing. Honestly, if it weren't for the piece we split last time, I'd be screwed."
Adam shook his head.
Classic. Black Mask's lieutenants were too busy playing at being warlords to notice the engine that'd made Roman powerful in the first place: his overseas supply chain.
Without those foreign shipments, turf wars were just thugs fighting over empty street corners. Territory didn't pay bills—product did.
Number One and his men were in the perfect stage of desperation—old watchdogs suddenly turned loose, no food in the bowl, no master giving orders. They just hadn't looked for a new hand to feed them yet.