Dangers in the Dark

The Show Must Go On 17.1

Third Person POV

Gotham Bank

There was never a day's rest when living in a city like Gotham and Jim, though he tried not to admit it, was glad. He didn't like being sat at home just watching the tv or flicking through a newspaper, it made him restless. Out here on the job was where he really felt alive. The only negative thing about that was how he barely got to spend time with his daughter. But Jim wasn't worried that she was alone, not today at least.

Holly had already informed him that she would be spending the weekend at Bruce's cause it had been a while since they'd spent time together. At first, Jim was hesitant in his agreeance but when Holly had reassured him that she would take her schoolwork with her and do it there, he relented and allowed her to go.

So while Holly was busy at Wayne Manor, Jim found himself in the middle of the aftermath of an armed bank robbery at Gotham Bank. There were tears coming all around him from terrified witnesses and he had a feeling that it was going to be close to impossible to get anything useful out of any of them until they'd all had a chance to calm themselves down.

Not to worry, though. For Jim's attention had landed on something that would be far more useful to him at the present moment. The bank's CCTV camera.

After requesting to see the footage from one of the employees he was led into the back office of the bank and was quickly shown the footage. There appeared to be a group of five men who had committed the robbery and one of them stood out to Jim the most. He wore a red mask that was even visible through the screen was in black and white. It was darker than the other men's balaclavas that they had worn.

In silence, Jim watched as the red hood man jumped up onto the counters and started waving his gun around in a threatening manner. There must have been at least a dozen or more customers in at the time as Jim observed them all laid on the floor, some with their arms covering their heads, others watching the men. He'd have to remember to talk to those witnesses later, see if they noticed any distinctive facial features behind the masks. It'd be unlikely but they could still describe their voice and what-not so not a complete loss.

"Well, we'll never know how much cash was lost but I just saw a bum eating oysters at Madeline's," Harvey Bullock announced as he entered the room, only to receive a couple of confused stares from the manager and his assistant while Jim briefly looked away from the CCTV footage. Harvey looked over to the screen and just a few seconds of the video was enough to make him want to retire early. "Another freak in the mask. Awesome." Watching a bit more of the footage, he furrowed his eyebrows when he saw the security guard shoot six bullets at the hooded thief only to miss each and every one of the shots. "Is that guard blind or wasted?"

"Clyde refused to wear his glasses, said they made him look old," the assistant answered, glancing over at the footage.

She stood behind the left shoulder of the manager her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Harvey looked over at her and saw that she appeared quite young but he couldn't help but think that her own glasses made her look several years older. Not that he was going to say that. He had manners, of course.

"Missing a man standing 20 feet in front of you with six shots makes you look old," Harvey countered, pointing over to the small tv set.

"Who tripped the alarm?" Jim asked, hoping to get something useful.

"I did," the manager answered, finally looking up from the paperwork he had been filling out for the last few minutes. "Why aren't you out there, detective? This brazen audacity cannot be tolerated."

"They didn't go for the vault. Just the cash in the registers," Jim told them. "And the crew was in and out in under two minutes."

"The red-hooded man seemed nice," the assistant admitted.