Chapter 7 : The Broker's Birth
The stitches came out on day five.
Terry did it with a razor blade and steady hands, while I bit down on a leather strap and tried not to think about infection. The wound on my forearm had closed into an angry red line—my first real scar in this body. The shoulder was healing slower, a tight pull whenever I raised my left arm too high.
A week since Marco. Seven days of consolidation, of learning names and faces, of walking streets that were suddenly mine to protect. The protection money came in steadily—not much, maybe two hundred a week from the small businesses on our block—but it was reliable. Predictable.
I was sitting in the warehouse office, reviewing Julio's numbers on a notepad, when Terry knocked on the doorframe.
"Got someone downstairs. Says he needs to talk to whoever's in charge."
"Who is he?"
"Ricky something. Runs messages for the Eastside Boys." Terry's expression was carefully neutral. "He's nervous."
The Eastside Boys ran territory three blocks over—small operation, maybe a dozen guys. We'd had no contact with them. Until now.
I followed Terry down to the main floor.
Ricky was young, maybe twenty-two, with the jittery energy of someone who'd been awake too long on chemicals he couldn't afford. He stood in the middle of the warehouse floor, flanked by Big Pat's silent bulk, his eyes darting to every shadow.
"You're him?" Ricky asked. "The guy who took Marco's territory?"
"Depends who's asking."
"Look, I ain't here for trouble." His hands came up, palms out. "I just need information. My boss wants to know about a shipment coming through the docks tomorrow night. Pharmaceuticals. He wants to hit it, but he don't know whose it is. Step on the wrong toes, you know?"
I knew. Gotham's criminal ecosystem was a minefield of overlapping territories and hidden alliances. Hit the wrong truck and you might find yourself at war with Penguin's operation, or worse.
"What's he offering?"
Ricky blinked. "Offering?"
"For the information. Nothing's free."
"Uh." He fumbled in his pocket, produced a wad of crumpled bills. "Three hundred? That's what I got on me."
Three hundred dollars for five minutes of phone calls. Not bad.
"Wait here."
I went upstairs to the office. The flip phone Terry had charged sat on the desk—my lifeline to a network I'd been building all week. I dialed a number.
"Yeah?" The voice on the other end belonged to a dock worker named Sal, one of the old Falcone loyalists who'd drifted after the empire fell. I'd bought him drinks three days ago. We'd talked.
"The pharmaceutical shipment tomorrow night. Who owns it?"
A pause. "Why you asking?"
"Someone wants to know if it's safe to touch."
"It ain't." Sal's voice dropped. "That's Penguin's merchandise. Anyone hits that truck, they're fish food by morning."
"Thanks, Sal."
I hung up and went back downstairs.
"The shipment belongs to Penguin," I told Ricky. "Tell your boss to stay away from it. Far away."
Relief washed over Ricky's face. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure."
He pressed the three hundred into my hand and practically ran for the door. I watched him go, then looked at the money.
"Five minutes. Three hundred dollars. No violence, no risk, no blood."
Terry was watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
"What?" I asked.
"You just made more in five minutes than we make in a day of protection."
"I noticed."
"Information," Terry said slowly. "That's the play, isn't it? Everyone in this city is paranoid. Everyone needs to know what everyone else is doing. And you just become the guy who knows."
The system pulsed in my peripheral vision.
[OPPORTUNITY DETECTED: INFORMATION BROKERING]
[COMPATIBLE FUNCTION: HIGH]
[CUNNING: +3]
[RECOMMENDATION: Develop information network infrastructure]
I dismissed the notification, but Terry was right. In Gotham's chaos, knowing things was worth more than controlling things. And I had an advantage nobody else did—meta-knowledge of the major players, their operations, their weaknesses.
"I can't use it directly. Can't act on information I shouldn't have. But I can use it to ask the right questions, to know which contacts are worth cultivating."
The next three days proved the theory.
A mid-level Maroni associate came asking about police patrol schedules in the Narrows. Fifty dollars for information Julio had gathered just by watching the streets.
A fence wanted to know if anyone was looking for a specific stolen painting. Two hundred to connect him with a buyer Terry knew.
A worried mother—not a criminal, just desperate—wanted to know if her son was running with any of the gangs. I found out for free, told her the truth: the kid was clean, just working a late shift at a warehouse across town. She cried. I didn't charge her anything.
"Every answer I give, every connection I make, adds another strand to the web. People talk. People remember who helped them."
By the end of the week, I had a name.
"They're calling you the Broker," Terry reported. "The guy who knows things. Who plays it straight."
The Broker.
I rolled the name around in my mind. It fit better than I'd expected.
[TITLE EARNED: THE BROKER]
[REPUTATION: Information dealer, fair dealing]
[FEAR INDEX: +30]
[NETWORK: +3]
I was in the office, staring at the notification, when a knock came at the door. One of the ex-Marco guys—I still hadn't learned his name, which was a problem I needed to fix.
"Boss? Someone downstairs. Got a proposition."
The visitor was a woman this time. Mid-thirties, professional clothes that didn't quite fit the Narrows. She introduced herself as Lisa, no last name, and asked a question that changed everything:
"You got anyone who can handle a collection problem? Debt that needs recovering. Discreetly."
I quoted a price. She accepted.
That night, I sent Big Pat and one of the ex-Marco men to have a conversation with a deadbeat who owed Lisa's employer money. No violence—just presence, intimidation, and a clear explanation of consequences.
The debt was paid by morning.
[SERVICE EXPANSION DETECTED]
[CURRENT OFFERINGS: Information, Mediation, Debt Collection]
[RESOURCES: +15]
[CUNNING: +5]
I sat in the warehouse office, drinking coffee from a machine I'd pulled out of a dumpster that morning. The first cup had tasted like burnt rubber and old socks. The second cup was better. The third cup tasted like progress.
"A week ago, I was dying in an alley. Now I'm running an operation. Small, fragile, barely surviving—but real."
The coffee maker gurgled on my desk, a monument to salvaged victory. Outside, Gotham sprawled under winter clouds. Inside, my phone was ringing with another request.
The Broker was open for business.
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