JLA Watchtower (Archive)

Bastard.

He'd gone in good faith, discharging his responsibility to Dent, to help get him out of Arkham. He'd ended up being accessory to the breakouts of at least one, if not two others. Which wasn't that much of a problem, Nygma was smart enough to keep his distance from Floyd, lest he wind up with a new and unplanned hole in his forehead. No, the real problem was that while he was planning a vast distraction by blowing up the Arkham motor pool, Dent scampered off into the night and left him.

No, not Dent. Two-Face. He was pretty sure Harvey wasn't driving the bus this time. After all, Harvey had to know that leaving him would get him shot.

Still, it was a damn miracle that he'd made it off the Arkham grounds not lashed to the front of the Batmobile like a goddamned war trophy. He knew staying in Gotham was pressing his luck. Plus, Zoe was back in Metropolis, but he'd made arrangements to have the old neighbor couple keep an eye on her. The real problem was, if he let Dent Two-Face get away with leaving him behind, what it would do to his rep. Everyone would think that they could get away with taking Deadshot off on a job. That's the kind of thing that winds you up dead at the hands of a third-rater like the Spook or Magpie.

On the other side of it, he was presumed dead. And Floyd Lawton's face was pretty well known in Gotham. So was Deadshot's. This little caper had to be handled delicately, and delicate work was never his strong suit. So, he'd holed up in a little no-tell motel off of Crime Alley for now, to figure out his next move.

He was really strongly considering kidnapping someone close to Dent and putting the word out that he'd send them back to Harvey's alter ego with more lead in them than your average tacklebox. That was just the anger talking. Enough cheap beer and that would move out of the way and give him about two hours of clear thinking before he passed out. Where the hell were Rick Flag or the Wall when he needed someone to draw up a plan, anyway?

Arkham Asylum
Ten minutes until midnight.

Floyd left the car at the access road. Pulled it behind some scrub brush that the grounds crew still hadn't cleared out. Typical. The laziness of the Arkham employees was one of the main reasons that the place had a revolving door on it. Inmates danced in and out, seemingly at will.

One was going to tonight.

Floyd crept from the car to a point between the rear loading gate and the wall outside of what, if his memory was correct, was the cell of Dumfree Tweed. The severe threat block was deeper inside the monolithic building, containing all sorts of walking nightmares, when they were at home, that was. Joker. Killer Croc. Mr. Zsasz. John Dee, the human skeleton called Dr. Destiny. He was one of the only ones in Arkham who actually spooked Floyd, deep down, with his ability to reach one spidery hand into your head and claw out your nightmares.

He didn't have the current duty rosters. Didn't have the current floorplan. So, if they'd changed things substantially since the last time he'd been inside, there could be trouble. Best to have a distraction, and a plan. Because the moment the shooting started, he'd have about 7 minutes at best before the Bat, or one of his people, showed up to respond.

Whoever he sent, Floyd just hoped it wasn't the Huntress, or that kid. He couldn't shoot a kid. Wouldn't shoot Huntress.

Anyone else? Fair game. They walked into his sights, they'd better know a good orthopedic surgeon. Maybe that chick at S.T.A.R. who always rebuilt Vic Stone.

He checked the loads in the wrist magnums, left, then right. Right hand contained a clip of ezpolsive-tipped shells. Left hand contained rubber bullets. No kill shots with the left, unless they were point blank. Right hand was to blow a way out when everything shook loose.

Time to party.

Twenty steps to the loading gate. Duck beneath the camera, wait for it to swivel left. He crossed the twenty steps in time to miss the revolution of the camera and pressed the buzzer twice, the signal for a prisoner drop-off, counting on the guard shift to simply pop the door.

They didn't disappoint.

He aimed low, coming in rolling, and shot twice, one rubber bullet into each kneecap, the new silencers working like a charm. A buzz like a particularly quick flying mosquito, and another, and the two guards were clutching their knees, rolling on the concrete.

"Shh," was all he said, pulling the mask into place, and slipping a blackjack from his belt. Two swings and the guards on back-door duty were out like a busted Crime Alley streetlight. He had about ten minutes before the roaming guard made his way back to the door on his usual rounds. Just enough time to lug these lumps into a supply closet.

He had to fire three more times before making his way to the block containing Harvey Dent. Nothing lethal. If he got popped again, he had enough murders on his jacket to make sure that Zoe wouldn't ever see him again, unless it was through plate glass before they popped a needle into his arm. He wasn't going to be taken alive. Noah had instructions, and the keys to his Cayman accounts, to make sure Zoe was set up for life should anything happen.

He wasn't going to be looking out of the inside of one of these cells again, that much was certain.

He reached Harvey's cell without incident, sliding the prepped security card he'd recieved in one of his mail drops from the Calculator.

"Counselor," he said. "Your ride's here. I figure we're about two minutes from an appearance by somebody we don't want to see. Clock's ticking."

This has bad idea written all over it.

Floyd stands in a public phone kiosk, halfway across Metropolis from the apartment he shares with his daughter, a roll of quarters sitting on top of the phone, two in his hand, being juggled.

Let them know where you are, that you're alive, and you're back inside. Back in government service. If anything happens to you, who takes care of Zoe?

He's turned this question over and over in his head. Backed into a wall once more. There's not many options at his fingertips. His main contact with the world's back inside Arkham once more.

"System got him again," he muttered to himself for the fifteenth time today. "Dammit, Harv, you should know better than anybody."

Who to call...?

There's always Noah. Even if I did use his info to screw over Roulette. He's a businessman. Professional enough not to hold a grudge. But can I trust him to drop Zoe into protective custody and find somebody to watch over her...?

Can I trust The Wall?

Nah.

Floyd drops the coins into the phone's coinslot, and dials the contact number he has for the Calculator. Mid-dial, he thanks whatever diety watches over people like him that he'd had the foresight to take himself across town first.

Floyd's never been a praying man. Not when he was a kid, and the folks would drag him to the occasional church fundraiser dinner, and not now, after having fought guys who claimed to be Gods. Kneeling at the side of his bed wasn't for praying. It was for digging out the vocal scrambler in the shoebox under there.

The hospitals had been too full. There was a 2 and a half hour wait for an ambulance, and even then, no guarantee that it would get Zoe any bedspace, or a look from a doctor. He could always go out, find a doc, and bring him back at gunpoint, but if he put the guns on now, while his kid was coughing up half of Lake Michigan into her lungs, he wasn't sure that the guns would ever come off again.

Only one place left to turn, really.

He screwed the vocal scrambled into the mouthpeice of the phone, and dialed the relay number. The clicks came as the line bounced off satellites and through relays.

It always took too long for Noah to answer him phone.

"C'mon, Calculator," he grumbled under his breath, "You're all I got left."

Well, this could be the stupidest thing I've ever done, Floyd thought to himself, idly toying with the saltshaker on the diner table in front of him. A small greasy spoon on the outskirts of Suicide Slum was where he'd made the agreement to meet Clark Kent. Kent wasn't late; Floyd was early. It always made more sense to show up at a meeting with enough time to get the lay of the land.

Just because he spent years not giving a damn whether or not he died, it didn't mean he was a fan of taking unnecessary risks.

There was still something a little sour in the back of his throat about turning rat on the Gotham underworld. You just don't do that kind of thing, after all. There'd been a lot of people in the past who had done horrible things, had screwed up jobs, but you don't turn on your fraternity brothers and drive a knife between their ribs.

That's what he was doing now, offering up the inside scoop on the Gotham criminal scene. He didn't particularly care if they came to square up with him. What's one more dead lunatic in a costume? If there was anything right in the world, Batman would be thanking him for putting down mad dogs like the Riddler or that loser Black Spider.

Floyd checked his watch, for what had to have been the third time in the last ten minutes. Another fifteen before Kent would show up. Time for a slice of pie, maybe. Maybe some baked apple would get the bad taste out of his mouth.