DC: I am Bruce Wayne

Chapter 94: After The Falcon's Fall

---

"If You Can't Beat The Game, If You Can't Solve The Puzzle, You're Nothing But A Loser."

- Near, (Death Note)

---

<(Omniscient POV)>

After Carmine Falcon's mysterious death, the entire city of Gotham went through a series of massive changes. Gotham's entire political and criminal landscape transformed in a fortnight as dozens of government officials previously aligned with the Falcon gang resigned from their posts and went into hiding in fear of attacks from other gangs.

The official press announcement was that Falcon had died of a heart attack while in prison but truthfully it was an open secret that his death was anything but natural or ordinary. Almost every well-connected man in Gotham knew that Falcon died a very terrible and awful death. The higher-ups in GCPD, FBI, and DEA who had become involved with the investigation into Falcon gang's illegal drug cartel empire suspected that he was killed by one of his own partners in an attempt to silence him permanently. Still, a very few intelligent men in Gotham knew better.

One of them was Commissioner James Gordon. Even before arresting Falcon, Gordon knew that there was quite a significant chance that someone would try to silence Falcon and he was in fact quite ready for it as well. From constant monitoring through multiple CCTV cameras to 24/7 guard by his most loyal officers, he had done everything to make sure that there was no way the Joe Chill situation would be repeated again. But alas, lady luck was again not with him. However, even though Gordon still had no idea about how Falcon died in his cell without anyone even going near his cell, he was still able to figure out something else.

He was able to deduce that Falcon's death was most probably not caused by his allies but instead by something else... or someone else because he had seen this type of death before. He had seen this method of killing in his younger days when he had to investigate the sudden death of most of the Bertinelli family. He remembered the strange case of criminals dying with their bodies shriveled up exactly like Falcon died.

So, it either indicated that Falcon's death had some sort of connection with the massacre of the Bertinelli family or it simply meant that someone out there was targeting and killing criminals for some reason. But the question was why? Was it revenge, a rival gang trying to eliminate competition, or maybe just some guy out there who finally cracked and started killing gangsters to satiate his anger?

Whatever it was, Gordon had been saved by a stroke of luck because despite Falcon dying in his custody, the Commissioner still wasn't fired. Turns out that all the hard evidence James Gordon had gotten from Batman or recovered from the Iceberg Lounge pointed to Falcon being the biggest ringmaster of the Gotham criminal underworld but it could just as easily be slightly twisted to implicate others as well. And that was exactly what his superiors did.

The public and the government wanted someone to blame, to direct their anger and hatred at. They could not get Falcon since he was dead before they could prove anything in court, so they instead turned their attention to someone else. It was unanimously decided that Penguin who was one of Falcon's major partners and was one of the few who was caught red-handed with his hands completely and permanently stuck in the metaphorical cookie jar, would be the one to be sacrificed.

He would be the sacrificial lamb who would take the fall as the biggest Kingpin of Gotham. Of course, Penguin himself had no idea of what was happening or why he was suddenly being called the biggest criminal in Gotham City. He always wanted to be the most famous gang leader in Gotham but he never thought that he would become one so easily without even being able to enjoy any of the benefits.