Chapter 210: The Three of Us Going Wild

Arnold had been feeling uneasy all evening.

"There won't be any problems, there won't be any problems, Woody, we're perfectly safe here, right?"

He muttered to the wooden puppet in his hands — it had a ghastly white painted face, crimson lipstick, and bulging round eyes, and there was a deep gouge on the right side of its face, as if a scar had been carved into a human cheek.

Though it was only a puppet, in the dim lamplight it looked savage and terrifying, with an uncanny, half-human quality.

"Arnold, my Arnold, my useless old friend." The puppet's head twisted a full one hundred and eighty degrees, aiming itself at the bald, Mediterranean-haired man holding it; its jaw worked open and shut, and a contemptuous voice came from its mouth — yet the man's own lips never moved. If this scene had been on a stage, the audience would probably have applauded his ventriloquism.

But in fact, the man known as the "Ventriloquist" was not making any sound at all right now, and the puppet's voice was not coming from his belly either — it was coming from the puppet's wooden mouth.

"From the moment I saw you in prison, I already knew you were a useless lump of mud that couldn't climb the wall. I just didn't expect you'd stay rotten until today — Arnold, listen to me, lift that useless bald head of yours and look at me."

Arnold took the scolding dejectedly. Though he was a little old man with fully white hair, right now he was like a child, sulkily enduring the puppet's cursing. Clearly, in this room with no one else around, he didn't need to put on a ventriloquist-and-puppeteer act for anyone — which meant he genuinely, from the bottom of his heart, believed this puppet was alive.

Or perhaps it really was alive?

"I said, look at me!"

The puppet's shrill voice suddenly shrieked right by his ear. Arnold gave a violent shudder; the timid, cowardly little old man was so startled he lost all composure, and he immediately raised his head, fixing a panicked gaze on the puppet in his hands.

"You're the goddamn Ventriloquist, and I'm the goddamn Scarface — you got that, Arnold? Ventriloquist! You and I are now riding high in Gotham, and in the future even that crazy lunatic Joker will be trampled under our feet — we are the underworld bosses of Gotham! With me, Scarface, around, we're destined to become the king of criminals in this city!"

The puppet raised both hands above its head, and along with it Arnold's hands lifted it even higher. Only now was the puppet's full body revealed under the lamplight. Its feet wore specially made miniature black leather shoes; its whole body was clad in a pinstriped suit, with a tie, white gloves, a red rose pinned to its chest, and a felt hat on its head — it actually did look somewhat like a mafioso.

Each of its hands now held a miniature submachine gun, and it was cackling wildly. The whole scene looked exactly like a deranged mental patient waving his own puppet around in a psychotic fit.

Yet in reality, the situation was precisely the opposite: Arnold in daily life completely obeyed the wooden puppet Woody in his hands, following every one of its orders, and had thereby become one of the super-criminals of Gotham City.

Though he really was crazy.

"Woody, don't scold me," he whimpered, starting to cry.

"Shut your mouth!" Woody shrieked. "Idiot, someone's broken in! Are those snipers outside just there to eat for free?!"

He aimed the submachine gun's muzzle at the door and pulled the trigger; a rapid staccato of gunfire rang out, and the thin sheet-iron door was instantly riddled with holes, and moments later completely wrecked.

At the same moment, footsteps sounded from both sides of the room — the Falcone family's hired guns had heard the gunshots and rushed out immediately; this was the warning signal Scarface had told them about in advance.

Boom—

Just as the visitors outside the door were about to be caught in a pincer, the room's wall collapsed with a roar. Out of the flying dust and crumbling bricks burst a terrifying monster hunched over; the beast's golden slit-pupil eyes gleamed in the dark, its arms — thick as an adult man's waist — bulged with powerful, taut muscle, its dark-green scales glittered in the moonlight, not to mention its thick long tail, and its sharp teeth and claws.

"Killkillkillkill"

"Killer Croc!" Woody picked up the thread where Arnold's fear had made him stammer, and shouted viciously at the top of his lungs: "You looking to die?! Everyone concentrate fire, I'm going to make him into a pair of shoes!"

"Wait, wait." From Killer Croc's chest, a voice suddenly rang out. Two-Face stepped out from behind the arm Croc had raised protectively in front of him, and calmly straightened his two-tone suit.

"Woody, we came here today to negotiate terms with you; there's no need to be so hostile — who knows, we might even become teammates in the future."

"What, the great and famous Two-Face is afraid of dying too?"

"Aren't you? If you're not afraid of dying, why bother joining the Joker?"

"We're not the same, idiot."

Woody's shrill laughter rang out across the night sky: "I'm a man with great ambitions, not like you. I won't submit to anyone just to save my own skin. Once the Joker takes Gotham, I'll replace him and become the lord of Gotham!"

"Not good."

Harvey's expression changed. The fact that Woody had spoken such words so brazenly meant that the men on both sides had all already become his people — otherwise, if even one of them tipped off the Joker, the Ventriloquist and Scarface would be the first to die.

The original plan had been a decapitation strike — capture the ringleader first. But if the men on both flanks weren't clock-punching day-laborers but Scarface's sworn soldiers, then the moment they put a bullet into the puppet, the three of them would immediately face the others' suicidal fire attack.

Fight or not?

In the span of a lightning flash, his mind had already made its decision.

"In that case, we have a basis for cooperation. You want the Joker done for — no problem." He went along with it smoothly: "I don't care who becomes the boss, I just don't want to follow the Riddler anymore — he's so hypocritical he makes me sick, and he's planning to send people to recruit Batman, and I'm Batman's mortal enemy. Since that's the case, let's use this to decide."

He took out a black-and-white two-sided coin and said to Woody: "Heads, we come in and finish what needs finishing; tails, I join under the Joker's banner and work for you."

The puppet's eyeballs swivelled, its jaw working: "It's a deal."

So Harvey immediately tossed the coin in his hand.

Ting—

Everyone's gaze followed the coin, which gleamed with a strange sheen, as it rose higher and higher.

"Now!"

Harvey flung himself sideways; right behind him stood Ma Ma Zhaodi, his pitch-black cloak melting into the night, his ghastly white ghost-mask filling the view — truly as hideous and terrifying as a demon from a horror film.

Bang!

(End of chapter)