God Bless Gotham

"...Sal was like his partners—he had a little cunning. I remembered the first time I met him. He was just a green kid who'd arrived in Gotham, leading a few men in extorting cargo ship owners at the docks. Before long, Lauren from the Red Light District took a liking to him. That redhead led him through that neighborhood, and soon he bought his first bar. That was more than twenty years ago..."

Falcone sat in his chair, smoking a cigar as he reminisced. "Sal won't let that police commissioner go. Even if he gets some information out of him, he'll die in the end. You could ask for something else—for example, is there anyone else you want dead? Or any other trouble you need resolved?"

"My trouble comes from Metropolis. I won't trouble the Godfather with it."

Falcone's eyes shifted slightly as he glanced at him. "The people I dealt with for you seemed to have quite the background. Just who have you offended?"

Schiller looked up. "Godfather, I think I may become your son's longest-lived tutor."

Falcone tapped the end of his cigar against the table. "If you work for me, of course I won't let trouble come looking for you. But you involved yourself in those strange affairs, and now you've hidden yourself here..."

"Aren't you afraid I'll drag the Falcone family into the water?"

Falcone turned his chair back around. He said:

"When has the Falcone family ever been ashore? From the day I came to Gotham, I knew that we were all rotten corpses in a shipwreck. We should never dream of reaching land."

Then he sighed softly.

"...But my son thinks differently."

Little Falcone, Evans Falcone, differed from the Old Godfather. He was full of passion and believed he could restore Gotham's order through his own efforts.

Yes, although he was the future heir to the Mafia families, he truly did want to restore Gotham's order. It was just that his version of order would be built upon violence, not the creation of a genuine utopia.

To be honest, his thinking might even have been more sensible than Batman's. Absolute violence brought absolute authority, and absolute authority controlled everyone. The question was whether Little Falcone truly had that ability.

After a while, the butler knocked at the door. Evans stood behind him, and when he entered and saw Schiller, he visibly froze. Then he turned back to the butler and asked quietly, "Do you remember whether I recently mentioned forgetting to bring my homework or forgetting to hand it in?"

The butler shook his head. Evans visibly breathed a sigh of relief, while Schiller stood and said, "Evans?"

"You know each other?" Falcone asked.

"Father, this is my university professor. I believe I mentioned that I had psychology assignments to write."

Before Falcone could say anything, Evans said, "I'm sorry, Professor. If there's any problem with my recent assignments, it may be because I've been busy lately and neglected them. If you're dissatisfied, I can rewrite them immediately."

Then he moved his lips and turned to Falcone. "Father, matters in the eastern district have kept me busy lately. Perhaps I neglected my studies. Professor Schiller has come to visit you—I'm truly sorry."

Schiller understood. Evans had misunderstood; he thought Schiller had come for a home visit. In truth, Evans was nearly scared to death.

He had long heard of Schiller's fearsome reputation—wherever he went, people died; he was supposedly some serial-killer collector; he berated Bruce Wayne in class for not turning in homework and even sent him an expulsion notice...

Schiller, the homework-chasing demon, was famous throughout Gotham University. No professor had ever demanded homework from students so strictly. No matter who it was, anyone daring not to submit their work would definitely receive a humiliating barrage of mockery in his class—even if they were Bruce Wayne, chairman of Gotham University's board.

But Evans had never imagined that Schiller would come to the Godfather of Gotham's largest Mafia family to demand his homework!

Evans lamented inwardly. Was this professor insane? No wonder he'd cursed Bruce Wayne into a drowned rat. Even Sheldon, the new president, walked around him.

As the heir to a Mafia family, Evans had originally dismissed all those absurd rumors. But now he believed them. If someone didn't have a few screws loose, why would he come to the Godfather's home for a visit?

It was not entirely Schiller's fault for caring so much about homework. His mindset had not yet adjusted from the teaching style of his previous life. Many students could not memorize those massive psychology textbooks and therefore often failed to achieve high grades on their final exams. If they wanted to pass, they could only raise their scores through coursework—but if they did not even do their homework, they would have no coursework grades at all. The passing rate would be terrifyingly low.

If the passing rate was too low, it would certainly affect his evaluation. Although Gotham University had no reliable faculty evaluation system, and nobody cared whether students passed or failed, Schiller had grown accustomed to it in his previous life. He felt that before he had even used thirty percent of his strength, these students who had grown up under happy education had already suffered Armor Break.

If they were thrown into the university where Schiller had taught in his previous life, a single in-class essay would be enough to crush them. Those students wrote short papers of twenty thousand words, while their major theses had to meet publication standards.

So he especially could not understand how anyone could fail to meet the word count for a short paper requiring fewer than 3,000 words. And English papers naturally had fewer words than Chinese ones; a standard 3,000-character Chinese paper only came to around 2,000 English words. How could they possibly fail to turn that in?

Thus, after Schiller used every possible method to relentlessly pursue homework, three-quarters of his students finally began submitting their assignments. This naturally included Evans. In fact, Evans was one of the better ones: he submitted nearly every paper, always met the word count, and his content was fairly good. He had even taken first place two or three times.

Schiller felt that such a good student deserved praise. They were both first-years, so just look at that ignorant Bruce. In a two-thousand-word paper, transitions accounted for one-third, meaningless modifiers and descriptions took another third, and aside from that, all that remained was "the" and "a." Other people's em dashes were only two characters long, but Bruce could write an entire row of them. Even so, he had the nerve to ask Schiller to pull him through.

Falcone frowned slightly. "In that case, how is Evans performing at school? Does he have any problems with his assignments? What about his exam scores?"

Evans drew in a deep breath. Schiller said, "Actually... quite well. Anna, who teaches advanced mathematics, has spoken to me about him as well. Evans is quite good at the sciences. At the very least, I would be willing to offer him a graduate placement. He has some talent in psychology too."

Evans let out a breath, and seeing his son perform so well, Falcone said directly:

"From now on, Professor Schiller will be your tutor."

Evans shuddered, his back turning cold, but he did not dare question his father's decision. He could only say, "Yes, Father."

Falcone braced himself on the chair's armrests and rose. "It seems I'll have to handle those troubles you brought from Metropolis."

Schiller shook his head. "This is a great deal of trouble. I don't think what I've given is worth you doing this."

Falcone said, "Becoming my son's tutor is indeed not enough. But if you become a friend of the Falcone family, we will settle every problem for our friends."

"Behind Metropolis lies a vast, dark vortex beyond anyone's imagination. I escaped from there, but I lost many things. Gotham's people have no need to involve themselves in Metropolis's affairs, do they?"

Falcone shook his head and took another draw on his cigar. "You do not know me well enough, sir. Forty years ago, I came to Gotham alone. Back then, no one had ever heard the name Falcone. Thirty years ago, I became the master of three streets. There was no Falcone family then..."

"I do not wish to boast of my achievements, but I ruled Gotham for forty years. I ruled this city once called Hell."

Falcone pressed the end of his cigar against the table, smoke rising between his fingers. "So all you need to do is answer 'yes,' and every trouble you have ever suffered will bid you farewell."

Schiller looked at him. Falcone's expression was calmer than Schiller had expected.

Schiller thought that this Falcone was clearly not some petty villain from Batman's early comic-book days. He was the undisputed Gotham Godfather, the uncrowned king of Gotham City.

Even before Batman existed, Gotham City had never been peaceful. This Godfather had ruled here for forty years. A man like that could not possibly be as foolish and shortsighted as the comics portrayed him.

In the end, Schiller stepped forward and kissed Falcone's right hand. "...God bless Gotham, Godfather."

Schiller rolled the stress of that final word around in his mouth. Falcone heard that subtle difference, but he did not mind.

No matter how glorious he had been over the past forty years, the Godfather truly was old. The Falcone family's heir was still far from mature enough.

Falcone thought that perhaps Gotham's age without a king was about to arrive.