The room was so thick with smoke it looked as though it were on fire.
Sofia Falcone sat at the far end of the long table, her scarlet nails tapping lightly against its surface. Two cold flames of fury burned in her eyes. Had Cobblepot been there, she probably would have torn his head off, consequences be damned.
"So," she said, her voice still carrying the distinctive rolled consonants of her Sicilian accent, "that runt wants us to line up for dog tags?"
Across from her, Rupert Thorne, a veteran smuggler and the man who really controlled Gotham's dockworkers' union, stubbed out his cigar with thick fingers. A prison number was tattooed across his knuckles.
"Not just dog tags, Sofia. Gold-plated dog tags, and only one dog gets to wear them."
The third person in the room was Sully "Shark" Hardwick, a middleman for the East Coast's wholesale heroin network. He peeled an apple with a folding knife, the peel trailing to the floor in one long strip.
"This is a fucking trap."
Shark spoke without looking up. "Either put on the collar or get shot like a rabid dog. The runt and the police are in bed together. You both know that."
"What we know," Sofia said, "is that last month, my people were moving product on Cherry Street when the Community Service Team broke their legs. Not cops. Those thugs in vests. Then they called an ambulance and handed over a receipt for the medical bills, making my people pay for it themselves."
She stood and walked to the window. Below lay the back alley of her club, where several bodyguards smoked in the shadows. Farther away, the lights of the East End were as orderly as a checkerboard.
"In my father's day," she said, "the name Falcone